Russia and the International Wheat Trade, 1861-1914

Throughout the years from the Emancipation of the serfs in 1861 until the outbreak of the First World War Russia provided a significant share of the total quantity of wheat entering into international commerce. Even after the 1870s, when new sources of wheat supply were opened to world trade, Russia rarely accounted for less than one quarter of the total, and usually provided nearer one third. The continuing importance of Russian wheat in international markets raises a number of questions, yet little attention has been paid to the effect of intensified competition on the older exporting countries in the second half of the nineteenth century. How were Russian farmers able to withstand competition sufficiently to maintain and increase their sales? Why did not falling world prices lead to diversification as was the case in several western countries? In what countries was Russia able to find markets? Was there a connection between world prices and Russia's export levels? Figure 1 illustrates the violent year to year fluctuations which characterized Russia's exports throughout this period, but the trend shows a clear upward movement.2 The rate of growth, however, was not uniform. Decennial average exports, expressed as a percentage increase over the preceding decade's exports, were: 1871-80, 60 per cent.; 1881-90, 37 * 5 per cent.; 1891-1900, 18 * 5 per cent.; and 1900-10, 39 per cent. Export levels can therefore be considered as falling broadly into three stages; two phases of fairly rapid increase separated by a period when the growth rate was much lower.3 This article examines the course of Russia's wheat exports and suggests that the slower growth during the 1880s and 1890s marked a turning point when, under the impact of foreign competition and changes in demand for particular qualities of wheat, a new pattern of trade emerged. In this period Russian exporters developed new markets, and it was the further growth of these markets after 1900 which accounted for most of the rapid increase of exports thereafter. It is also suggested that the poverty of the Russian market and the agrarian system within which the farmer was producing prevented any widespread diversification despite the acute distress caused by the low world prices, and that