Without WWI, when would Russia's economy and military have surpassed Germany's?

CaliGuy

Banned
Had WWI--for whatever reason--been completely butterflied away, when would Russia's economy and military have surpassed Germany's?

In our TL, Germany appears to have been the dominant economic and military power in Europe in 1914 (with only a coalition of France, Britain, and the U.S. managing to defeat it in WWI). However, how long would this have lasted in a TL where WWI never broke out?

Any thoughts on this?
 
No, The End.

Germany was far more advances at the time! Just because WWI doesn't happen doesn't solve the Issues in Russia who (At the time) Wasn't Industrialized like Germany.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
No, The End.

Germany was far more advances at the time! Just because WWI doesn't happen doesn't solve the Issues in Russia who (At the time) Wasn't Industrialized like Germany.
Russia was industrializing in the pre-WWI years and had a much larger population than Germany had, though.
 
It's hard to find reliable statistics on the subject. The dataset I have, compiled by the late Angus Maddison, puts Germany and the former Soviet Union territory (a close analog to the Russian Empire) a very comparable gross domestic product in 1913: $237 billion and $232 billion (1990 Geary-Khamis dollars, so adjusted for purchasing power parity and inflation). But GDP can be misleading, and since Russia had a larger population and lower productivity levels, more of that GDP represents subsitence level production and not more advanced forms.

The GDP per capita comparison helps give a more complete picture. Germany's per capita was $3,648, while Russia was only at $1,488. So Germany was over twice as wealthy per person. Unfortunately, the data set doesn't have GDP for Russia in previous years so I can't even do a quick and dirty extrapolation of future growth trends.
 
Russia was industrializing in the pre-WWI years and had a much larger population than Germany had, though.
"Russia who (At the time) Wasn't Industrialized like Germany." I said wasn't like Germany I know they were! But Germany was far better!
 
If everything go right for Russia, I would say "eventually", but by 1914 the discrepancies were pretty high, Germany had like thrice the industrial output of Russia, not something you can overcome without some Stalinistic programs.

Also I really don't buy the "by 1917 Russia would take Berlin in two months!" meme, even without the Great War Russia still suffers from high corruption, ineffective government, low literacy and a mostly agrarian society, I don't have the hard statistic, but I did say that 1917 Russia would be more like Italy than Germany or the UK.
 
In terms of overall GDP, the Russian Empire would have likely surpassed Germany around the 1930s due to its larger population, resources, foreign investment, and not-too-awful government. By that same token though, without a liberal revolution or at least liberal reforms it's likely to be caught in a middle-income trap and won't ever reach Germany's GDP per capita.

"Russia who (At the time) Wasn't Industrialized like Germany." I said wasn't like Germany I know they were! But Germany was far better!

You could say the same about China vs USA circa 1996, and look at where they are now.
 

Deleted member 1487

According to "The Economics of WW1" edited by Mark Harrison and Stephen Broadberry the Russian Empire minus Finland had already surpassed Germany in GDP as of 1913 (pp. 7 and 10), $257.7 Billion to $244.3 Billion. I think that probably happened first in 1912 or 1911. In terms of army size they had already surpassed Germany, but technologically and organizationally I doubt they would ever have. Russia largely was what they were now: a cheap manufacturer for internal needs and minor exports, while mostly being a raw material/energy exporter (they additionally exported food in 1913, but not so much now without Ukraine). Likely they were headed for a major political upheaval sooner rather than later and were wracked with major protests and riots over conditions every year. In fact in 1914 they experienced major unrest that was put down by Cossack units in several major cities.

Militarily Germany probably could take the Russian Empire 1 on 1 for several more decades depending on technological developments, but it is very clear that Russia has been badly set back by Communism, both World Wars, the Stalinist years of governance, the Russian Civil War, and Putin plus the transition away from Communism. Even without the Empire Russia should be much more advanced economically if not for the 20th century upheavals and losses. It really should have been a modern China in about the 1950s without any of the war and communism.

Its the USA that really benefited from Europe mass murdering itself and shouldn't be anywhere near as rich and powerful as it is today were it not for the World Wars.
 
Had WWI--for whatever reason--been completely butterflied away, when would Russia's economy and military have surpassed Germany's?

In our TL, Germany appears to have been the dominant economic and military power in Europe in 1914 (with only a coalition of France, Britain, and the U.S. managing to defeat it in WWI). However, how long would this have lasted in a TL where WWI never broke out?

Any thoughts on this?

I honestly don't think this ever would have happened. Russia has all the ingredients, but there has always been something lacking that would pull it all together and allow the economy to really thrive. Whether this is a failure of governance, culture, something else or some combination I don't know, but Germany is a stellar economic performer and has been for quite awhile going back into the 18th and 19th Centuries. To get this to happen would require everything to go right for Russia and everything to go wrong for Germany -- beyond being utterly devastated in a World War in which Russia was one of the victors. Today, German GDP is about twice that of Russia and GDP per capita is about triple. Germany has been defeated, conquered, occupied, economically devastated at several points in the 20th Century and is still the 4th largest economy in the world today. Perhaps the question one should be asking is not how big the Russian economy would be without WWI but how much bigger Germany's would have been, factoring into account some sizable losses of territory that took place even after WWI and the economic dislocations of the 1920s/30s.
 
Here are Addisons' numbers for these two, 1913 and 1928 to give some perspective just before the Depression changes everything:

Germany: 65,058,00 population; $237 billion / $3,648 (1913) and USSR: 156,192,000 population ; $232 billion / $1,488 (1913)

Germany: 64,393,000 population; $262 billion / $4,090 (1928) and USSR: 169,269,000 population; $231 billion / $1,370 (1928)

So in total the Russians start off about half on per capita GDP and the Soviets do worse. The Soviets never out perform Germany per capita outside of Depression or post-war when the German economy was devastated and effectively turned off. You need the Czar to pursue social as well as economic reforms otherwise you get revolution or emigration. Assuming you get genuine evolution in line with Europe then the country has vast potential, one can see just how much by how well the Soviets did with gross mismanagement. Frankly I see no reason they could not track some percentage of German or French per capita GDP as a constitutional monarchy so you can argue a doubling, tripling or quadrupling of the GDP over time.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
According to "The Economics of WW1" edited by Mark Harrison and Stephen Broadberry the Russian Empire minus Finland had already surpassed Germany in GDP as of 1913 (pp. 7 and 10), $257.7 Billion to $244.3 Billion. I think that probably happened first in 1912 or 1911.

Very interesting! :)

Also, it is worth noting that, in spite of their approximately equal GDPs, Germany still had almost two times (138 to 77) more industrial potential than Russia had in 1913:

http://www.beaconschool.org/~bfaithfu/greatdivergencecharts.pdf

In turn, does this mean that a large part of Russia's GDP in 1913 consisted of exporting things such as food, raw materials, and natural resources?

In terms of army size they had already surpassed Germany, but technologically and organizationally I doubt they would ever have.

Out of curiosity--did the Soviet Union's military in 1945 in our TL have a less efficient organization and less efficient technology (minus Lend-Lease) than Nazi Germany had?

Russia largely was what they were now: a cheap manufacturer for internal needs and minor exports, while mostly being a raw material/energy exporter (they additionally exported food in 1913, but not so much now without Ukraine). Likely they were headed for a major political upheaval sooner rather than later and were wracked with major protests and riots over conditions every year. In fact in 1914 they experienced major unrest that was put down by Cossack units in several major cities.

Couldn't the risk of political upheaval have been dealt with if Russia would have had sufficiently capable leadership during this time, though?

Militarily Germany probably could take the Russian Empire 1 on 1 for several more decades depending on technological developments,

That's very interesting; indeed, this is due to Germany's huge industrial advantage (138 to 77, in 1913) over Russia which I mentioned earlier in this thread, correct? After all, more industry = more potential to develop advanced and modern military technology, no?

but it is very clear that Russia has been badly set back by Communism, both World Wars, the Stalinist years of governance, the Russian Civil War, and Putin plus the transition away from Communism. Even without the Empire Russia should be much more advanced economically if not for the 20th century upheavals and losses. It really should have been a modern China in about the 1950s without any of the war and communism.

To clarify--without all of the 20th century upheavals and territorial losses, you believe that Russia's economy would have surpassed the U.S.'s economy in either the 1950s or 1960s, correct?

Its the USA that really benefited from Europe mass murdering itself and shouldn't be anywhere near as rich and powerful as it is today were it not for the World Wars.

Wasn't the U.S. already very prosperous (outside of the Southern U.S., that is) even before the start of World War I, though?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
I honestly don't think this ever would have happened. Russia has all the ingredients, but there has always been something lacking that would pull it all together and allow the economy to really thrive. Whether this is a failure of governance, culture, something else or some combination I don't know, but Germany is a stellar economic performer and has been for quite awhile going back into the 18th and 19th Centuries. To get this to happen would require everything to go right for Russia and everything to go wrong for Germany -- beyond being utterly devastated in a World War in which Russia was one of the victors. Today, German GDP is about twice that of Russia and GDP per capita is about triple. Germany has been defeated, conquered, occupied, economically devastated at several points in the 20th Century and is still the 4th largest economy in the world today. Perhaps the question one should be asking is not how big the Russian economy would be without WWI but how much bigger Germany's would have been, factoring into account some sizable losses of territory that took place even after WWI and the economic dislocations of the 1920s/30s.
In terms of industrial development, you might have a point; indeed, in regards to total industrial potential, Germany appears to have consistently outperformed Russia between 1860 and 1913:

http://www.beaconschool.org/~bfaithfu/greatdivergencecharts.pdf

However, what this data also shows is that, after 1928, Russia consistently outperformed Germany in regards to this. True, Germany got its butt kicked in both World Wars, but Russia/the Soviet Union also heavily suffered from the World Wars (especially from World War II) as well as from both its civil war and the forced collectivization of the 1930s. In turn, this raises the question of whether Russia merely needed a good pinch in the arm along with sufficiently strong leadership in order for it to catch up to Germany in terms of total industrial potential.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Here are Addisons' numbers for these two, 1913 and 1928 to give some perspective just before the Depression changes everything:

Germany: 65,058,00 population; $237 billion / $3,648 (1913) and USSR: 156,192,000 population ; $232 billion / $1,488 (1913)

Germany: 64,393,000 population; $262 billion / $4,090 (1928) and USSR: 169,269,000 population; $231 billion / $1,370 (1928)

So in total the Russians start off about half on per capita GDP and the Soviets do worse. The Soviets never out perform Germany per capita outside of Depression or post-war when the German economy was devastated and effectively turned off. You need the Czar to pursue social as well as economic reforms otherwise you get revolution or emigration. Assuming you get genuine evolution in line with Europe then the country has vast potential, one can see just how much by how well the Soviets did with gross mismanagement. Frankly I see no reason they could not track some percentage of German or French per capita GDP as a constitutional monarchy so you can argue a doubling, tripling or quadrupling of the GDP over time.
What does the data look for, say, Italy and Spain, though? Indeed, I wonder if the economic trajectory of a surviving Tsarist Russia should be compared to the economic trajectory of these countries.
 

Deleted member 1487

Very interesting! :)

Also, it is worth noting that, in spite of their approximately equal GDPs, Germany still had almost two times (138 to 77) more industrial potential than Russia had in 1913:

http://www.beaconschool.org/~bfaithfu/greatdivergencecharts.pdf

In turn, does this mean that a large part of Russia's GDP in 1913 consisted of exporting things such as food, raw materials, and natural resources?
Yes, same with 1941 even and a big part of the fall in GDP under communism was the drop off in food production.

Out of curiosity--did the Soviet Union's military in 1945 in our TL have a less efficient organization and less efficient technology (minus Lend-Lease) than Nazi Germany had?
In terms of industry? Yes. They had imported a lot of US technology pre-war (and German too) plus got a LOT via LL, especially machine tools, which were very labor saving. A huge chunk of Soviet GDP in 1941 was agriculture and raw material production, so industry, despite their mass production, was well behind. There was a reason Stalin was keen on the Commercial Agreement in 1940:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Soviet_Commercial_Agreement_(1940)
They wanted the industrial equipment they couldn't source internally and weren't being sold by the Brits and US at the time. They did the same thing as part of the Reichswehr-Soviet military cooperation; IG Farben built the Soviet chemical weapons industry from near scratch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany–Soviet_Union_relations_before_1941#The_.22Third_Period.22

Stalin actually crippled Soviet exports during the 1920s-30s with his efforts at collectivizing the farming peasants.

Couldn't the risk of political upheaval have been dealt with if Russia would have had sufficiently capable leadership during this time, though?
That's your problem right there. Nicky did not want any reforms, he was an old school autocrat that would rather die than have to deal with a Duma.

That's very interesting; indeed, this is due to Germany's huge industrial advantage (138 to 77, in 1913) over Russia which I mentioned earlier in this thread, correct? After all, more industry = more potential to develop advanced and modern military technology, no?
Yup. German industry was substantially more advanced AND they were actually outsourcing a lot of factories to Russia, which the Russians nationalized in WW1. A big part of the reason the Germans punched above their weight in WW1 and 2 was their heavy industry based economy, but also part of the reason they didn't have a large automotive industry to draw on to make AFVs in WW1 (consumer goods like that were more British and French style industrial economies).

To clarify--without all of the 20th century upheavals and territorial losses, you believe that Russia's economy would have surpassed the U.S.'s economy in either the 1950s or 1960s, correct?
No. I just think things would have been more balanced, perhaps with the Russians keeping up with perhaps half of US GDP rather than a tiny fraction.

Wasn't the U.S. already very prosperous (outside of the Southern U.S., that is) even before the start of World War I, though?
Relative to other nations yes, it was the largest economy in the world, but was still a debtor. It would have remained the largest economy in the world, but wouldn't have become anywhere near as domineering as it is today if not for the world wars. In fact without them the US economy grows much more slowly relative to the rest of the world and Europe's combined GDP would be at least 50% higher if not even double.
 
Didn't the German military leadership believe that this was inevitably be the case? I think this factored in their decision to have war now rather than later
 
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"Russia who (At the time) Wasn't Industrialized like Germany." I said wasn't like Germany I know they were! But Germany was far better!

That's the point, Germany was better at the time but Russia was industrializing and would eventually surpass Germany thanks to a bigger population, strategic depth and access to resources. It was only a matter of time, Russia was already shifting away from what was effectively serfdom towards a fully modernized industry.

Germany had predicated going to war with Russia before this happened because they knew that a fully industrialized Russia would eventually overtake Germany economically and militarily. The Germans were genuinely concerned of the potential that Russia had and in hindsight they were completely correct, look at the USSR, they became a global giant. Without two world wars to devastate it, Russia would be even better off.
 
Overtaking Germany would merely require the average Russian be about 1/3 as productive as the average German, given population disparity. A generation extra of peace from 1914 would do this handily. There are however a few factors to consider in the long term. The biggest is whether or not places like Poland remain part of Russia - highly productive and with fairly large populations, if they are able to break free the total "Russian" output would drop considerably. The other big factor is reform to governance. IMO it times of peace evolution not revolution is to be expected, and if the premise is that Europe remains at peace then Russia should slowly evolve into first a Kaiserreich style government and then eventually into a British style one. How long this takes could be very variable though, and if the question is 'how long until Russia can match/overtake Germany per capita' then that could vary dramatically. All things being reasonably successful though by the 1980's a Russia that experienced no war and successfully reformed into a moderate liberal-democracy would be able to take advantage of its massive natural resources to close any remaining gap between it and the older rich nations.
 
Overtaking Germany would merely require the average Russian be about 1/3 as productive as the average German, given population disparity. A generation extra of peace from 1914 would do this handily. There are however a few factors to consider in the long term. The biggest is whether or not places like Poland remain part of Russia - highly productive and with fairly large populations, if they are able to break free the total "Russian" output would drop considerably. The other big factor is reform to governance. IMO it times of peace evolution not revolution is to be expected, and if the premise is that Europe remains at peace then Russia should slowly evolve into first a Kaiserreich style government and then eventually into a British style one. How long this takes could be very variable though, and if the question is 'how long until Russia can match/overtake Germany per capita' then that could vary dramatically. All things being reasonably successful though by the 1980's a Russia that experienced no war and successfully reformed into a moderate liberal-democracy would be able to take advantage of its massive natural resources to close any remaining gap between it and the older rich nations.

For me it is not enough to simply look at GDP, the per capita is a valuable indicator of real economic strength, it also gives an indication of societal health. As you observe the ability to surpass Germany is not the problem given disparate population, but to even match Germany in economic capability is a tougher nut to crack. As many point out the regime is the root problem, albeit many totalitarian states can generate wealth, it is not their strong suit. I would guess that Nicholas lives about as long as his cousins so no real reform even possible until mid-Thirties or early Forties? Given the pace of change increases as technology advances I would opine that the Czar was running out of time compared to those states that had already begun to transition to more democracy, the growing middle class and a liberal economy gaining socialist influences, but that sets us up for more drastic changes in the Forties I think. You hit the nail on resources, Russia has similar natural wealth to the USA to leverage itself to the tier above Great Power status, something Empire was supposed to deliver. If the successors to Nicholas can leap into a society more like the rest of Europe then it likely gets to be on par with the USA but then I am not certain that Russia will be less than a partner in Europe, just as the USA has sought to build trade bridges with cultural exchange following. We are conjecturing a Germany at say 1/3 the economic strength of Russia, no lightweight, a USA equal or near or just ahead, the British Empire might be on par and China is coming up with Japan somewhere in the mix, these are not states to simply get bullied which I think is the lingering implications from such queries. If anything you have a lot more seriopus powers all armed with both nuclear and conventional forces who can make any war a global mess. Just a different bear to have by the tail.
 
Russia a lot of low hanging fruits to hit, and if left alone will greatly out grow Germany demographically. Russia should realistically have 400+ million in its empire by 1950 to Germany having 100+ million.

I'd also note that there is a huge difference between being developed like Germany and Middle Income. Even OTL Russia reached high income status before sanction following the Ukraine escapade. Greece, the only Orthodox European country who managed to avoid Communism, made high income status while being much poorer than Germany.

Russia should be stronger than Germany eventually, but due to demographics primarily.
 
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