This study deals with the capacity of the tsarist regime to survive a challenge to its authority at home and to maintain its prestige abroad. The prerogatives of the imperial government to decide foreign and defence policy, as well as economic and fiscal policy, were called into question by the forces unleashed during war and revolution in 1904–5. After 1905, a struggle took place between state and society for control over fundamental issues of policy. This book concentrates upon one aspect of that struggle, by examining the organization, administration, finance and performance of the armaments industry in Russia from the turn of the nineteenth century to the outbreak of the First World War.

The first two chapters address the political, economic and defence imperatives before and during the years of upheaval in 1904–6. The final decade of the nineteenth century witnessed a series of important initiatives that had profound repercussions for the defence sector: Russia signed a military agreement with France, the tsarist government embarked on a programme of rapid industrialization, and significant reforms in the armed forces came to fruition. But none of these developments prepared Russia for what was to come as the new century dawned. The first crisis appeared in the industrial sector, where the basic industries that had flourished for a decade experienced instead a severe recession. Next, the war against Japan humiliated the Russian empire and exposed serious weaknesses in the system of military procurement.