Keywords
seigneurial manufacture Central Europe
factors retarding industrial revolution
autarchic protectionist policy
socialist industrialization model
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Abstract
Historical research on the industrialization of European countries has focused mainly on the Western model, with considerably less attention to the conditions of development in backward territories. Around 1900 these territories constituted at least 70 per cent of the European continent, and their retarded industrialization remains insufficiently analyzed in a comparative perspective.
This article analyzes the historical conditions of industrialization in the backward territories of Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It examines the factors retarding the industrial revolution before 1850, the factors accelerating industrialization after 1850, and the relations of interdependence between backward and developed territories in the 20th century.
The study draws on comparative syntheses of European economic history (Cambridge Economic History of Europe), on studies of industrialization in the Polish territories (Kula, Jedlicki, Łukasiewicz), and on international statistical data from the League of Nations and the United Nations.
The analysis identifies the characteristics of retarded industrialization in Central Europe: dominance of the seigneurial manufacture based on semi-corvee labor, long coexistence of natural economy in the countryside and petty artisan capitalism in towns hampering the domestic market, isolation of the state sector in heavy industry, and protectionist policy of the autarchic type. After 1850 industrialization was accelerated by railway construction and the abolition of feudal rights over mineral deposits. The disproportion between demographic growth and industrialization caused massive emigration of productive labor to the West in the early 20th century. After 1945 the model of socialist industrialization prevailed in the Central European zone, enabling centralized accumulation of capital and a significant reduction of backwardness in the basic branches of industry.
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