Russian Empire

It was shit.

>Was it prosperous?
no

>Was it a superpower?
no

>Was it prosperous?

Not really, though some people argue it was trending upwards by the time of the revolution.

>Was it a superpower?

It was arguably a "great power", one of several. That is, it played a large role in European alliance systems.

>>1892484
Why was it so shit? Why did they enter a war if it was so shit at the time?

A fucking joke. Famines happened every week, the army was so disorganised they could barely beat Japan, the Duma was a joke, and it was essentially a caste system.

>>1892490
>Not really, though some people argue it was trending upwards by the time of the revolution.


Why wasn't it prosperous if it was considered a great power? What makes people think it trended upward?

>>1892496
Was it the enviornment that caused the famines and disorganization or was it the leadership?

>>1892498
>why wasn't it prosperous

take your pick:
>the tsar blocking any social reform
>terrible land for agriculture and bad weather
>the navy being unequipped
>the lack of the country ever really industrializing (though it was beginning to in 1914)
>the terrible social system

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>>1892516
Fuck, that really sucks ass

Now I can really understand why people flocked to leninism so quickly

>>1892481
Giant ass country with extremely diverse population and weakish leadership

>>1892512
>>1892516
>bad weather
>bad environment
Russia is not a frozen wasteland, guys, stop imagining the world as if it's from a shitty fantasy novel.
They had and have lots of good land for farming, but they're incompetent. The whole government and the people as a whole are not that (this might sound a little /pol/ish) white.

It was backwater shithole that was only considered a great power due to its size.

>>1892524
They didn't! Bolsheivists were a minority.

>>1892535
U rite i ain gon lie

>>1892546
Really?

>>1892544
Sounds about right

>>1892535
You can't unironically say the Russian winter of 1915 was not fucking ripped from a fantasy novel.

>>1892556
Winter is bad everywhere.

>>1892481
In the decades before the revolution it was far from their peak, but still a Great Power and what many thought the second land power after Germany. WW I was initially thought as russian-german war with the western front as side show.

Historically it was their most powerful probably after the Napoleonic Wars, when it was the strongest (land)power on earth for a while; but it was never that prosperous. Their by far richest and most valuable lands was the conquered polish clay.

>>1892562
Yet people literally froze to death in Russia.

>>1892496
They couldn't beat Japan pre-WWI. They lost to Japan. Hard.

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>tfw Poland couldn't hang on as the dominant Eastern European power and we got Russia instead

Tbh I actually like Russians and Russian culture quite a bit but being ruled by them in any era sounds like a nightmare

>>1892481
They were one of _the_ great powers of the world in that period, after Britain. Read up on the Great Game. Basically the two empires competing for influence in Central Asia, because Russia was Britain's prime rival.

>>1892577
The great game was a fucking myth m8. It was just British propaganda to justify seizing more shit

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>>1892481
LOL

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>>1892481
It was a great power but it wasn't really all that prosperous compared to the other great powers, though it was industrializing rapidly. The reason why the October revolution happened is because millions of peasants were moving from the countryside and farming to the cities and into factories. The brutal working class life radicalized the population.

But it wasn't as bad as the brainwashed low IQ retards ITT will have you believe, great contributions to science, literature and music came out of industrial era Russia. Tchaikovsky, Mendeleev, Dostoyevsky, etc. are from this era.

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>>1892481
No to both of those, it was comfy though

It wasn't great but it was improving. Certainly better than what came after (USSR).

>>1892554
The Bolsheviks were a minority even among the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. A party dispute over party organization in 1904, lead to a split. On one side was Lenin and the other was Martov. Lenin called his faction Bolshevik, majority, even though he he did not hold the majority in the party. But claiming to be the majority helped Lenin's cause. Martov's faction naturally got the name Menshevik, minority. Oddly enough, during the Russian Civil War, the Mensheviks gained control of Georgia.