Why Did Peter The Great Not Develop Russia's Commercial Economy

Why Russia did not develop a more Vigorous Commercial Economy as a Part of its Imitation of Western Patterns. According to the “Russia, A Short History” by Abraham Ascher, Peter the Great in 1697 visited Europe in order to find allies against Ottoman Empire (2009. p59. pp2). However, another purpose was to have knowledge on European industrial techniques especially on shipbuilding and navy. After returning to Russia, Peter the Great started to make reforms in order to improve status of Russia and made Russia the same as Europe in economic field. Although, there were many reforms made, Peter the Great did not develop Russia’s commercial economy as a part of Westernization because of his interests and obstacles that he met on that way.

Peter the Great first purpose to improve industry and economical welfare of Russia was to provide the expenditure of army especially during the period of war with Sweden. Stephen Lee in his book “Peter the Great” states that in Peter the Great’s writing to senate was “money is the artery of war” (2013. p54. pp1). It is precisely demonstrated in “Peter the Great” (2013) that Russian seventy five percent of expenditures were spent to army and navy in 1701, in 1710 this number was reached to eighty percent, and at the end when wars ended it was sixty five percent (p54.pp1). According to “Russia: A Short Story” Russian’s expenditure in between1705-1707 exceeds twenty percent which had consequences in future years as well (2013.p63.pp1). Even some of the historians divided Peter the Great’s reforms in two parts: Before and after Paltava battle. This all demonstrated that in the first part of Peter the Great’s reforms he did not pay attention to any commercial economy at all and his focus was on only improving its army in order to win the war by developing

However, he met two obstacles in his purpose. First of all, according to the book “Peter the Great” (2013) most of commodities were low quality such as woolen, linen, silks which were prepared for exportation (p59.pp3). As a result of this, Russian commodities were not compatible in the market of neither in Russia nor in the Europe. The main reason for law quality was lack of entrepreneurial industrial skills of Russian merchants and entrepreneurs. Evgenii Anisimov in his book “The Reforms of Peter the Great” wrote that most of companies were established with the help of foreign experts (1993.p140.pp5). As a consequence, Russian domestic industrial economy was backward from other European countries. This reason burdened Peter to improve its commercial economy at the period of