Finding a way out of the impasse: metallurgy of the Urals in the last third of the XIX century

In the article the authors analyze the fundamental changes that occurred in the metallurgical complex of the Urals after the abolition of serfdom and caused its large-scale crisis. We study the modernization processes in the industry, which later caused the capitalist modernization, which continued at the beginning of the next century. Both technical and technological and social issues are considered. The authors focus on the actions of the government and industrialists in the last decades of the 19 century aimed at speeding up the work of the metallurgical complex. As a result of these measures, a powerful process of capitalist restructuring has begun. Its result was the completion of the industrial revolution, the active formation of the working class, the transition from the factory to industrial production. However, the pace of capitalist industrialization of the Ural mining economy did not correspond to the all-Russian indicators of heavy industry. The reasons for the significant backlog of the Urals was in the preservation of survivable phenomena in the socio-economic structure of the Ural industry. Reform of 1861 was the basis of these phenomena - a large mining and metallurgical land ownership, which was a specific form of land ownership. The authors note that a significant part of the mining economy was the state sector. Its economic development was determined by state financing, which was not regulated by market conditions, but was determined mainly by the military needs of the state. However, loans and funds for the development of production were strictly regulated by the government, which also hampered its development. In the second half of 19 century in the Urals, as a result of modernization processes, there were four main production specializations: blast furnace, iron, steel and copper. Due to the increased production of metallurgical plants and depletion of forests in a number of factory districts in the 19 century the transfer of the conversion processes to new enterprises, located in the parts of the factory cottages that were not exhausted on forest land, was observed. At the end of the 19 century. The authors consider, that the authorities’ policy toward the Urals was inconsistent and controversial. Having retained the monopoly right to land for the mine producers, the government proceeded from the general principles of protecting the interests of the landlord stratum. But the same position forced him in the 1860s to remove prohibitive tariff restrictions on the import of foreign metal into Russia, as a result of which the monopoly of the Ural mining companies in the metal market has been violated. Again, prohibitive tariffs were introduced in the mid-1880s. Such measure was caused by the country’s need for metal in connection with the unfolding railway construction.

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