“At the beginning of the 20th century Russia was economically and socially backward” How accurate is this view?

... "At the beginning of the 20th century Russia was economically and socially backward" How accurate is this view? The population of 1900 Russia was about 120 million people, 80% were peasants. Tsar Nicholas 2nd was still very much in power of an autocratic Russia. Conditions for the peasants had worsened ever since the 1891 famine starved Southern Russia in particular and forced a great amount of peasants to leave their families and village communities to go and search for work in the towns and cities. 80% of the population were made up of Serfs in the early 1800's. The Serfs also had dreadful conditions to put up with and were so very often treated like common muck, bound to land by their oppressive landlords. In the 1820's Tsar Alexander I was considering giving the Serfs freedom but he then died in 1825 without making any reform, however the idea was still a

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