A comparison between the character of the economy ofTsarist Russia and that ofother parts ofEurope made in the middle ofthe eighteenth century would not have revealed striking differences with any but the most advanced areas of the West. A century later a profound contrast was beginning to emerge between those countries which had undergone some industrialization and whose institutions had been remodelled in accordance with the aspirations of the liberal middle class and those whose social and economic development had been virtually standing still. It was, then, during this period that 'backwardness' became a notable characteristic of the Russian economy, a product, in comparative terms, of the spread of industry and awakening to consciousness ofthe middle class in the more advanced parts ofEurope.