The industrial revolution and its signs. Industrial revolution in Europe

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

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Topic of the article:	INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
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The uniqueness of the industrial revolution in Western Europe. The stages of the industrial revolution. Industrial Revolution in England. Agrarian revolution. Demographic rise. Financial capital growth. Technology is extremely important for the industrial revolution. Trade revolution. Industrial revolution on the European continent. Agrarian revolution. Population growth. A revolution in communications. Industrial revolution in France, Germany and Russia. Formation of an industrial civilization.

We know of many industrial revolutions throughout the history of Western civilization, and there will undoubtedly be many in the future. Periods of rapid technological change are often called revolutions, a qualification of this kind is quite fair. “At the same time, historically,” write R. Lerner, S. Micham and E. Berne in their book “Western Civilizations”, there is only one industrial revolution. This is the transition over a century from an agrarian, handicraft economy to the dominance of an urban, machine civilization. The fact that this is a European revolution is far from accidental; and although in the middle of the 18th century Europe was a continent with a still dominant agrarian culture, although its population remained illiterate and had a low standard of living, it was in it that the industrial revolution took place (sometimes in the scientific literature the term "industrial revolution" is used).

ʼʼIndustrial coup, ᴛ.ᴇ. the transition from the instrumental to the machine stage of production (in the centers of the world economy - the end of the 18th - the middle of the 20th century), represents, emphasizes V.A. Milyantsev, the third, apparently successful attempt by Western countries to embark on the path of relatively fast, long-term, relatively stable, self-sustaining economic growth. (The first attempt was in the XI XIII centuries, the second at the end of the XV-XVI centuries; each of them ended in a deep Malthusian crisisʼʼ.

As in the first two cases, the economic recovery was accompanied and was partly, as studies show, due to climate warming (in Western and North-Western Europe from about 1700ᴦ.). This led to an increase in agricultural production, which, in turn, led to an increase in population, increased demand, creating an overall positive psychological atmosphere that promoted technological progress and increased investment levels, as it reduced business risks.

In contrast to the past centuries, by the middle of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. As a result of a long evolutionary protoindustrial development in a number of regions of Western Europe, a considerable economic, socio-institutional, scientific and cultural potential was generally accumulated, a certain critical mass necessary and, possibly, sufficient to launch the mechanism of self-sustaining growth. The Industrial Revolution was facilitated not only by population growth and increased demand, but also by the activities of a large class of merchants, contributing to the prosperity of European states (R. Lerner, S. Micham, E. Berne).

In the course of the industrial revolution, there was a change from manufacturing to the machine industry, and this process had several stages. According to the classification technique adopted in Russian history (it is described in the works of A.A.Zvorykin and S.V. Shukhardin), the industrial revolution went through three stages.

The first stage of the industrial revolution was associated with the appearance of working machines in the textile industry. The invention and distribution of working machines created unlimited possibilities for expanding production and its technical improvement. ʼʼThe industrial revolution in the 18th century, wrote Karl Marx, comes from just this part of the machines from the working machine. And now, every time a handicraft or manufactory is transformed into a machine, the starting point is the working machineʼʼ.

The second phase of the industrial revolution began with the invention of the universal heat engine, ᴛ.ᴇ. steam engine. The latter became the engine of large-scale industry, for it not only satisfied the needs of the developing factory system, but itself served as a strong incentive for the introduction of working machines in all branches of production, and above all in mechanical engineering.

The third stage of the industrial revolution was associated with the creation of working machines in mechanical engineering, that is, with the invention of the caliper or tool holder. Mechanical engineering, equipped with a powerful energy base and equipped with working machines, made it possible to establish uninterrupted mass production of a wide variety of machines and supply them to all branches of production. Only when machines began to be produced by machines, large-scale industry, in the words of K. Marx, "created an adequate technical basis for it and stood on its own feet." The use of machines in production has led to the emergence of a large number of industrial enterprises, the formation of industrial centers and the accumulation of population in them. The era of the industrial revolution is, therefore, the time of the emergence and development of factory production. Due to a number of circumstances, not all Western countries were equally prepared for an "industrial breakthrough". Historically, it so happened that England became the homeland of the industrial revolution, although Holland had the most prerequisites, in which the bourgeoisie was in power and had advanced agriculture, various manufactures, a huge marine fleet, an extensive network of canals, a significant energy base (numerous mills, peat), an impressive financial sector, relatively high level urbanization and education of the population.

In his book "East and West in the Second Millennium: Economy, History and Modernity" V.A. Milyantsev, on the basis of a generalization of the works of many researchers, identifies the following reasons for the rise of England, which later (XIX century) allowed it to become a "workshop of the world". First of all, starting from the era of the Norman conquest, England in terms of the level of institutional maturity (a lesser degree of feudal fragmentation, earlier creation of a national state) was ahead of a number of other Western European societies. In the XVI - XVIII centuries. the country gradually moved to another round of self-organization, the most important principle of which was no longer medieval regulations, but the laws of competition with all the ensuing consequences.

Second, the English state was not only a "night watchman" as it is sometimes portrayed in popular textbooks; it played a very significant role in the creation of stable and flexible institutions, in the establishment and implementation of clear laws rooted in Roman law, in the formation of various elements of infrastructure (transport, communications, etc.), in improving the tariff system. The British state, up to the end of primary industrialization (30-40s of the XIX century), pursued a tough policy of protectionism: it stimulated the export and limited the import of finished goods, prohibited export the latest technologies, regulated the level of wages, prices and working conditions. In the industrial revolution, an important role was played not only by merchants and artisans, but also by bureaucrats, military men and politicians, who, using the figurative expression of W. Rostow, “advanced the possibilities of merchants and artisans”.

Thirdly, the insular nature of the British state contributed to limiting the scale of military, non-productive spending and destruction on the territory of the kingdom, and also favored greater openness to the world, the development of external relations and maritime, ᴛ.ᴇ. the most effective communications, which England firmly mastered as a result of a series of wars of the XVI XVIII centuries.

Fourthly, one should not forget about the corresponding `` help '' of the continental powers - about a considerable transfer of capital, technology, qualified specialists and entrepreneurs from Holland, France, Germany and Italy, many of whom were non-conformists in their homeland (to for example, the Huguenots). Among immigrants and British nonconformists, there were many talented craftsmen who made a significant contribution to national fund inventions.

In addition to these reasons, which operated mainly on the `` supply side '', the industrial revolution in England was also due to an increase in productivity Agriculture in the course of the agrarian revolution, the demographic rise and increase in the level of urbanization, the trade revolution, technical inventions, etc., to a brief consideration of which we will proceed.

First of all, as shown in fundamental research F. Braudel ʼʼMaterial civilization, economy and capitalism, XV-XVIII centuries, the genesis of the industrial revolution in England would have been impossible without the beginning in the XVII century. agrarian revolution. It turns out that the successes of English agriculture before the Industrial Revolution, the indisputable successes, stemmed not so much from the use of machines or wonderful crops, but from new forms of soil use, re-plowing, crop rotation, which were aimed at both eliminating fallow and improving animal husbandry. a useful source of fertilizer and therefore a means to avoid soil depletion; stemmed from a focus on breeding sheep and cattle seeds and breeds from specialized agriculture that increased productivity - with results that varied from region to region based on natural conditions and exchange commitments that were never the same. The system that they will come to is that in the 19th century. will be called high agriculture, ʼʼ ... this art is extremely difficult, wrote S. Baer-Duoland, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ has only a long chain of observations as a solid basis. Lands fenced in and heavily loosened by frequent plowing, fertilized with abundant manure good quality and alternately sown with plants that deplete and restore fertility, without fumes ... with a change of cereal plants with taproots, which deplete the soil, extracting their substances from great depths and without returning anything to the earth, herbaceous plants with creeping roots that improve the soil and draw their substance from the surface layersʼʼ.

The high productivity of agriculture in England was achieved at the cost of landlessness of the mass of peasants, which became a reserve of labor for the industrial revolution. It also provided the country with an abundance of food, which contributed to population growth. Finally, let us not forget, F. Braudel further emphasizes, weighing the role of agriculture in the industrial revolution, that the English villages very early became associated with the national market of the island; covered by his network, they are up to the beginning of the XIX century. successfully fed cities and industrial settlements (rare exceptions only confirm the rule); they formed the main part of the domestic market, being the first and a natural place of sale for the English industry that had come into motion. This advanced agriculture was primarily a client of the ironwork industry. Rural implements - horseshoes, rogue plowshares, scythes, sickles, threshers, harrows, boulder-crushing rollers - represented significant amounts of iron. Agriculture also provided England with an abundance of food, which contributed to population growth.

In the XVIII century. the population in England increased, as it increased throughout Europe and around the world: 5835 thousand inhabitants in 1700., slightly more than 6 million in 1730 ᴦ., 6665 thousand in 1760 ᴦ. Further, the movement accelerates: 8216 thousand people in 1790 ᴦ., 12 million in 1820 ᴦ., Almost 18 million in 1850 ᴦ. The death rate dropped from 33.37 to 27.1 at 1800 ᴦ. and up to 21 for the decade 1811-1821, while the birth rate reached a record level of 37 and even surpassed it. These figures, which are only estimates, vary from author to author, but without excessive discrepancies.

Historians-demographers have shown how black England, with its factory cities and workers' houses, progressed, asserted itself. Alexis de Tocunele, following many others, described it in his travel notes: in July 1835 ᴦ. he stopped in Birmingham, then reached Manchester. These were then huge cities, unfinished, built up quickly and poorly, without a preliminary plan, but lively; this chain of large, cramped urban centers — Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool — was the soul of the English takeoff. If Birmingham still had a human appearance, then Manchester was already hell. Its population increased tenfold from 1760 to 1830 ᴦ., Growing from 17 thousand to 180 thousand inhabitants. Due to the lack of space, the factories on the hills were 5, 6 and even 12 stories high. Palaces and workers' houses were scattered throughout the city as needed. There are puddles and slush everywhere; on one paved street - ten drowning in mud. Dirty houses were packed with men, women, children; in the basements huddled 15-16 people at once. 50,000 Irish were part of the terrifying, typical sub-proletariat. It was the same in Liverpool, where Tocqueville notes the presence of "sixty thousand Irish Catholics". And he adds: "Poverty is almost as great as in Manchester, but it hides." And so in all these cities, a product of industry; the growth of the English population will never be enough to provide the mass of workers needed. Immigration came to the rescue - from Wales, Scotland, and even more from Ireland. And because mechanization multiplied the demand for non-specialized labor, all these industrial hot spots resorted to female and child labor, a submissive and poorly paid labor force, and an immigrant labor force.

Consequently, the industrial revolution united all the personnel it needed, and after 1750ᴦ. England quickly filled with people who “were the necessary human dimension of the industrial revolution” (F. Braudel). Without these thousands, these millions of people, there simply would not have been the English Industrial Revolution itself and everything connected with it. The demographic movement and the movement of industry were two huge processes, they went together. "It is reasonable to assume," writes F. Dean, "that without an increase in production since 1740 I. the accompanying population growth would have been blocked by an increase in the mortality rate," would have been a consequence of a decrease in the standard of living. " The data on fertility and mortality rates cited by him indicate that the demographic revolution followed industrial development, or at least in large part it was "induced" by it.

The Industrial Revolution in England was stimulated by financial capital whose history overlaps it, precedes it, passes through it, spills out beyond it. ʼʼIn my opinion, F. Braudel notes, capitalism is an old adventure; when the industrial revolution began, he had a vast past behind him, consisting of experiences that were not always purely commercial. So much so that in England in the early years of the XIX century. capital appeared in its various classical forms, which were still alive: agricultural capital, which as early as 1830ᴦ. one alone accounted for half of the English national treasure; industrial capital, which grew very slowly and then very rapidly; commercial capital, very old, relatively less important, but spread throughout the world and created colonialism, which will soon have to look for a name and justification; and finally (if you combine banking and finance), financial capital, which did not wait for the world championship of the City of London to existʼʼ. The technologies of using money, therefore, are no less important than the technologies of spinning and weaving, dyeing and sewing, for understanding the processes taking place in society.

Without the rise of "money capitalism", the birth of an industrial revolution in England is impossible, for in the stream of revolutions permeating the country's rapid growth, there was even a financial revolution, which was mixed with the industrialization of the country and supported it. The latest research proves that the Bank of England, founded in 1694 ᴦ. and acting as the core of the whole system of banks, provided credit, long-term and short-term, supported entrepreneurial activity in the 18th and even 19th centuries.

Significant role in the genesis and course of the industrial revolution in England, technology played - various kinds of machines. The high degree of development of manufactories, with their far-reaching process of division of the heap, paved the way for a technical revolution in the replacement of manual labor by machine labor. The first machines, the mechanical loom, followed by the mechanical spinning wheel "Jenny", appeared in the 18th century. in the cotton industry, with sufficient supply of raw materials (cotton from India and America) and driven by competition. The introduction of machines into production meant a huge leap forward; no the most perfect manual labor could compete with the machine. Naturally, the rapid development of the cotton industry immediately revealed the lagging behind other industries. To overcome it, and here it was necessary to introduce machines without delay.

Technical thought prompted many solutions, and, gradually improving, machines penetrated all the most important branches of production - coal mining, iron ore production, etc. In 1784 ᴦ. J. Watt, a scientist and designer, invented the first universal engine, a steam engine that sets various working mechanisms in motion. This invention was very important, paving the way for further tremendous acceleration and improvement of machine production. It also paved the way for a technical revolution in the field of transport. In 1807 ᴦ. on the Hudson River, in America, the still very slow steamer invented by Fulton made its maiden voyage. In 1814ᴦ. J. Stephenson (the priority here belongs to the Cherepanovs) created the design of a steam locomotive, which five years later received practical use on the track and laid the foundation for the rapid development of railway transport, which in turn had a powerful impact on the development of industry. Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, industrial revolution that began in the 18th century. in England, had a huge impact on the subsequent development of the whole world. With these or those changes, sometimes very significant, the industrial revolution took place in the 19th century. in almost all countries in Europe and North America.

Some Western researchers ignore the importance of technology in the formation of the industrial revolution, proceeding from the understanding of it as the main spring of the industrialization process. According to F. Braudel, historiography recent years has solid arguments to stop seeing a prime mover or even a seed in technology. In doing so, he acknowledges that invention is generally ahead of the capabilities of industry; nevertheless, by this very fact, it often falls into emptiness. The point is that technical innovations depended on the action of the market: they only responded to the persistent demand of the consumer. Such a dependence does exist, however, the point is that the technique is necessary condition industrial revolution, while the economy is a sufficient condition. One should not forget the essential fact͵ that technical innovations are changing the social world.

One of the factors that influenced the Industrial Revolution in England was the commercial revolution. It is no coincidence that F. Braudel considers it legitimate to speak as applied to England in the 18th century. about the trade revolution, about the real trade explosion. During this century, the index of production growth in those industries that worked solely for the domestic market increased from 100 to 150; for those who worked for export, the index rose from 100 to 550. It is clear that foreign trade far outstripped other "runners", and it is obvious that such a "revolution" itself should be explained, and this explanation implies nothing less than the world in its integrity. As for its connection with the industrial revolution, these ties were close and mutual: both revolutions provided powerful support to each otherʼʼ (F. Braudel).

English success outside the island consisted in the formation of a very large trading empire, ᴛ.ᴇ. in opening the British economy towards the largest exchange zone in the world - from the sea around the Antilles to India, China and African shores. This trading empire brought in significant incomes, but they still would not have been enough for the industrialization of England. The main source of enrichment for the ruling classes of England, which gave them untold wealth, was the plunder of the colonies.

Thanks to its insular position, proximity to world routes and a strong navy, England in her irrepressible colonial expansion was able to overtake many of her competitors. In 1607ᴦ. on the coast of the North American continent, the British created their first colony - Virginia. From this began the conquest of new vast lands: after a short time, 13 colonies were created on the territory of the present United States of America. As a result of two wars - the so-called War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) and the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) England took France's vast possessions in Canada from France and reclaimed vast territories in India. Bengal, Madras, the principalities of Benares, Hyderabad, Aud and others fell prey to the British colonialists.

The English colonialists plundered the seized lands: they imposed exorbitant and ruinous taxes on the population, sold their goods at a monstrous mark-up, many times higher than the actual value of the goods. The colonialists sowed death, ruin, poverty, exported gold and jewelry from the conquered lands. Having concentrated huge capital in its hands, having driven the British peasants from the land and thereby creating a market for cheap labor, the British bourgeoisie now had every opportunity to sharply advance industrial production, to which it was pushed by the demand of the growing domestic and foreign markets. Indeed, in the period prior to 1760 ᴦ. and after him, while British and world trade, practically both, grew incessantly, the exchanges that fueled England diminished relatively in the direction of nearby Europe and increased at the level of overseas trade.

The Industrial Revolution from England spread to the European continent (and North America), where certain conditions were ripe for this too. The experience of the now developed countries shows that their industrial growth was more balanced and had a broader basis than is commonly believed. It was in no small measure interconnected with the development of agriculture and infrastructure industries. According to V.A. Mel'yantsev, in the countries of the West and Japan at the stage of their “industrial breakthrough” there was a fairly close correlation (coefficient equal to 0.78) between the dynamics of agricultural and industrial production.

This means that the agrarian revolution (started in England in 1690-1700, in France and the USA in 1750-1770, in Germany in 1790-1800), in many respects - at least until the middle of the 19th century. had a significant impact on the origin and development of the industrial revolution. Moreover, on the European continent (and in North America) it took place on a traditional and semi-traditional basis, ᴛ.ᴇ. without machines and chemical fertilizers, but on the basis of improved crop rotation systems, the use of selection seeds, more productive breeds of livestock, the widespread use of organic fertilizers, improved tools (similar to the way it was in England). At the same time, it caused, in general, a significant increase in the efficiency of agricultural production, which largely determined its overall dynamics.

Summarizing the calculations of the efficiency of the dynamics of growth in agricultural production, V.A. Mel'yantsev emphasizes that the rise of agriculture and its intensification (first on a semi-traditional, and then on a more or less modern basis) contributed not only to the growth of the population in the present developed countries but also an increase (in a trend) in its standard of living, a relative decrease in production costs in non-agricultural sectors of the economy, an expansion of the capacity of the domestic market, and ultimately led to the development of pro-industrial development into industrialization.

The most important prerequisite, factor and part of industrial revolution on the European continent (and in England) there was a revolution in the means of communications (railways, steam ships, etc.), which caused a sharp reduction in the cost of transportation with an increase in their speed, reliability and quality. This reduced entrepreneurial risks, strengthened intra-economic cooperation of economies and the international division of labor, and stimulated the intensification of flows of finished products, raw materials, labor and capital. The basis of the communication revolution at the end of the 18th and first half of the 19th century. The rapid, but largely underestimated by researchers, development of traditional transport systems (active construction in Western European states, the United States and Japan of sea and river sailing fleets of ports, canals, bridges and roads) served. According to calculations and estimates given by V.A. Mel'yantsev, in the 1860-1870s. more than half of the sea, river and land cargo turnover of the now developed countries accounted for traditional species transportation.

Few innovations have had as far-reaching implications as passenger steam railway transport (railway track without steam locomotives has a much earlier origin). In Germany, at the end of the 15th century, rail tracks were used in mine workings. The same rail tracks existed in England - near Nottingham and in Brosley - in the first decade of the 17th century (perhaps even a little earlier). Mine rail transport was cheaper and more efficient than horse-drawn transport on bad roads. With the growth of industry, the network of all-metal railways developed and expanded.

With the advent of passenger rail services, travel opportunities have opened up more than ever before for a wider population. But railways played an even more important role in further industrialization, becoming the main arteries of industry. Industrial trends, notes S. Lilly, demanded further concentration of production in the form of large enterprises... The benefits of industrialization have become dependent on the routes of communication along which raw materials and finished products delivered to where it was needed. Railways on land and steamers at sea were designed to provide such transport.

Another component of the communications revolution was the use of electricity, expressed in the invention of the telegraph and the telephone. The first important field of application of electricity was the telegraph, partly because the practical difficulties were simpler here than, say, in the case of electric lighting, and partly because the need for a telegraph was felt more clearly and urgently. With the growth of trade, everything became more and more necessary quick ways communication, and with the development of railway communication, it has become absolutely urgent that it is extremely important in one way or another to promptly warn the signalman about the approach of a train.

From the very beginning of the 19th century, many people worked on the creation of the telegraph, but only in 1832ᴦ. the world's first electromagnetic telegraph was built in St. Petersburg by P.L. Schilling, independently of him in 1837, it was invented by the American S. Morse and the British Cook and Whitson. A year later, a telegraph of English invention was installed on the railway line between Paddington and West Drayton, about 20 kilometers long, and Morse completed in 1844 the line connecting Washington to Baltimore (64 kilometers). In the United States, four years later, telegraph communications were established in all but one of the states east of the Mississippi. In England, telegraph lines reached over 25,000 kilometers in 1868. The submarine cable between Dover and Calais was laid in 1851. With the discovery of transatlantic communications in 1866, the telegraph became a means of international communication.

If people managed to transmit signals over long distances with the help of electricity, then, quite naturally, they began to look for ways of a convenient way of transmitting oral speech. F. Reiss was the first in 1861 to achieve some success in this area, but his apparatus, which worked intermittently, remained just a fun toy. It was only in 1876 that A. Bell, a migrant from Scotland to the United States, managed to invent a telephone that was used in practice. Several years later, his telephone was already used in all civilized countries of the world.

Following England, France entered the capitalist path of development, where in 1789ᴦ. a bourgeois revolution took place. The battle against feudalism in France was fiercer and more stubborn than in England, for the inhibiting influence of feudal relations on the development of nascent capitalist production and technology was particularly acute here. The beginning of the industrial revolution in France, as shown by the French historians Lavisse and Rambeau in their "History of the XIX century", coincided with the period of the Napoleonic empire (1805-1814). In the French textile industry, Jenny working machines and mule machines were widely used. At some factories, there were hundreds of mule machines with tens of thousands of spindles. During this period, there were also purely French inventions of the Jacquard loom for the production of silk patterned fabrics (1805) and Girard's linen spinning machine (1810).

The industrial revolution in France reached its full development during the restoration of the Bourbons (1815-1830). At this time, there were tremendous technical shifts in industry, expressed in the widespread introduction of machines in all areas of production. The machine-based factory industry has replaced manufacturing-type enterprises. The completion of the industrial revolution took place in France after the revolution of 1848ᴦ., Already in the middle of the 19th century. At this time, France was the second (after England) in the world and the first in Europe in terms of production. "French industry is the most developed ... on the entire continent" (K. Marx).

In Germany, due to its feudal fragmentation and the long-term preservation of feudal relations, the industrial revolution took place later than in England and France. In the first half of the 19th century. Germany continued to be an agrarian country with small industrial production. The capitalist development of Germany begins only after the famous 1848ᴦ., When all of Central Europe, incl. and Germany, were shaken to the core by the bourgeois revolutions. From the end of the 40s, the industrial revolution in Germany began to quickly take over one branch of production after another, and by the end of the 60s of the 19th century it was completed. By the beginning of the 70s, Germany had so equipped its economy with first-class machinery that it came out on top in Europe in many types of industrial products.

Later, Russia entered the path of capitalist development in all European countries. Feudal-serf relations in Russia hindered the development of production and technology. The beginning of the industrial revolution in Russia dates back to the 30s of the 19th century. At the same time, its development proceeded extremely slowly, lagging far behind the advanced countries of Europe in pace. The abolition of serfdom played a decisive role in the formation of capitalism in Russia. After the abolition of serfdom, the industrial revolution in Russia proceeded extremely quickly. The mining industry in the South of Russia developed especially rapidly during the post-reform period, which in terms of its growth rates left behind both Western Europe and the United States of America. Over the ten years (1886-1896), pig iron smelting in Russia, mainly at the expense of the products of the southern metallurgical plants, tripled. France took this step in 28 years, the United States of America in 23 years, England in 22 years, Germany in 12 years.

The technical equipment of the industry proceeded at a rapid pace. The number of workers increased dramatically. IN AND. Lenin, analyzing the statistics of the development of the mining industry in the south of Russia at the end of the 19th century, wrote: "These figures clearly show what kind of technical revolution is currently taking place in Russia and what an enormous capacity for the development of productive forces large capitalist industry possesses." At the same time, even after the fall of serfdom, numerous remnants of feudal-serf relations in the country hampered the transition of industry from manual production to machine production.

This was especially pronounced in the mining industry of the Urals. Here, the remnants of serfdom - the strong development of labor jobs, the attachment of workers to factories, low labor productivity, low wages - primitive, predatory exploitation of natural resources, isolation and isolation from other regions of the country, etc., have deliberately slowed down the rate of introduction of machine technology into industrial production. Only at the beginning of the 20th century, Russia began its take-off thanks to technical achievements and the efforts of S.Yu. Witte economic reforms. It is another matter that these reforms were interrupted and instead of a brilliant take-off due to a number of historical circumstances, Russia perished as a great power.

The social consequences of the industrial revolution are very significant, for it ultimately generated a new, scientific and technological civilization. Indeed, in the era of the industrial revolution (according to V.A.Mel'yantsev's calculations, this is 1800-1913), dramatic shifts in the structures of production and national wealth took place in the now developed countries, which make it possible to speak of the formation of a qualitatively new type of economic evolution - the so-called modern economic growth. ... Over a period of a little over 100 years, their aggregate product has grown by almost 10 times, incl. per capita - 3.3-3.7 times. This means that compared with the first eight centuries of the second millennium average pace changes in per capita income increased by an order of magnitude (9-11 times).

An industrial civilization arose and took shape. Progress was achieved both on the basis of the expansion and deepening of internal competitive markets, and as a result of the intensification of external relations between countries, the creation of a world capitalist economy. ʼʼRelatively fast transformation of Western countries and Japan, emphasizes V.A. Mel'yantsev, and in this, apparently, the paradox and paradigm of development was determined not only (and perhaps not so much?) By the scale of displacement of the previous forms of production, but also by the achievement of organic synthesis of modern and most productive of the traditional growth factors whose role in the formation of industrial civilization and giving it relative stability turned out to be very significantʼʼ. The internal logic of the development of industrial civilization led to the scientific revolution at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries with all the ensuing consequences.

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION" 2017, 2018.

Industrial Revolution (industrial coup, Great industrial revolution) - the transition from manual labor to machine labor, from manufacture to factory, observed in the leading Western powers in the 18th-19th centuries.

The main feature of the industrial revolution was industrialization- the transition from a predominantly agrarian economy to industrial production, as a result of which there is a transformation of an agrarian society into an industrial one. The industrial revolution took place in different countries not simultaneously, but in general, it can be considered that the period when these changes took place began in the second half of the 18th century and continued throughout the 19th century. A characteristic feature of the industrial revolution is the rapid growth of productive forces on the basis of large-scale machine industry and the establishment of capitalism as the dominant world economic system.

The Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States made it possible for only 3-5 generations to move from an agrarian society (where the majority of the population lived subsistence farming) to an industrial one.

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Causes of the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the last third of the 18th century and took on a comprehensive character in the first half of the 19th century, then encompassing other countries of Europe and America.

There is an opinion that the export of capital from foreign British colonies was one of the sources of capital accumulation in the metropolis, which contributed to the industrial revolution in Great Britain and the conclusion of this country to the leaders of world industrial development. At the same time, a similar situation in other countries (for example, Spain, Portugal) did not lead to an acceleration economic development... Industry also developed extremely successfully in a number of countries that did not have colonies, but had a developed slave trade, the most striking example of which was the United States.

According to the Nobel laureate in economics John Hicks, the following economic and social factors of the industrial revolution in England were the main ones:

building institutions that protect private property and contractual obligations, in particular an independent and effective judiciary;
high level of trade development;
the formation of a market for factors of production, primarily a land market (that is, land trade became free and was freed from feudal restrictions);
the widespread use of wage labor and the impossibility of using forced labor on a large scale;
sophistication financial markets and low level loan interest;
development of science.

At the same time, he does not consider technical inventions to be the main and the main reason industrial revolution in England: "The Industrial Revolution would have occurred without Crompton and Arkwright and would have been, especially in its later stages, the same as it actually took place."

A slightly different view of the causes of the Industrial Revolution was developed in the works of economic historians: Immanuel Wallerstein, Christopher Hill, Charles Wilson, J. Bergier and others, who analyzed the course of industrialization of Western Europe and other countries in the 18th-19th centuries. on the basis of specific facts at their disposal. In their opinion, the system of protectionism, introduced in the 1690s and reinforced by additional protectionist measures by the middle of the 18th century, played a key role in accelerating the industrial growth of England in the 18th century. It was she who ensured the rapid development of English industry, despite the competition from the then stronger Dutch industry, and also ensured the development of the industry of Prussia, Austria and Sweden, where protectionist systems were also introduced.

Among other factors highlighted by economic historians, the following may have contributed to the Industrial Revolution:

Innovations

The success of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain was based on several innovations that emerged towards the end of the 18th century:

Textile industry- spinning of cotton thread on spinning machines Arkwright (1769), Hargreaves (English) Russian and Crompton. Subsequently, similar technologies were applied to spin wool and flax yarns.
Steam engine- invented by James Watt and patented by him in 1775, the steam engine was originally used in mines to pump water. But already in the 1780s, it found application in some other mechanisms, replacing hydropower where it was not available.
Metallurgy- in ferrous metallurgy, coal coke replaced charcoal, just as it was previously used in the production of lead and copper. Now coke was used not only in the manufacture of pig iron in blast furnaces, but also for the production of malleable iron, including the pudding invented by Henry Cort in 1783-1784.

History of the industrial revolution

The most famous of James Watt's early steam engines was proposed in 1778, and Watt significantly improved the mechanism, making it more stable. At the same time, the capacity increased by about five times, which gave 75% savings in the cost of coal. Even more important consequences had the fact that, on the basis of Watt's machine, it became possible to convert the translational motion of the piston into rotational, that is, the engine could now turn the wheel of a mill or factory machine. By 1800, the firm of Watt and his partner Bolton had produced 496 of these mechanisms, of which only 164 were used as pumps. Another 308 found use in mills and factories, and 24 served blast furnaces.

In 1810 there were 5,000 steam engines in England, and in the next 15 years the number tripled.

At the same time, mechanisms using water and wind energy competed with steam engines for a long time. In particular, until 1870 in the United States, most factories used the power of water turbines rather than steam engines.

Textile industry

At the beginning of the 18th century, the British textile industry was still based on the processing of local wool by individual artisans. This system was called the "cottage industry" because the work was done at home, in small cottage houses where artisans lived with their families. The production of linen and cotton yarns requiring finer processing in medieval England was not widespread, so cotton textiles were imported from India.

The invention of the flying shuttle in 1733 increased the demand for yarn. In 1738, a machine was created that spun a thread without the participation of human hands, and in 1741 a factory was opened near Birmingham, on which a donkey set in motion. The owners of the factory, Paul and Wyatt, soon opened a new factory near Northampton, equipped with five spinning machines with fifty shuttles each, which operated until 1764. The weaver inventor James Hargreaves invented the Jenny mechanical spinning wheel in 1765, which could handle 16-18 spindles. In 1771, the Arkwright Spinning Mill began operating in Cromford, Derbyshire, which encouraged invention, and his machines were improved to be driven by a water wheel. In addition, now, in addition to wool, it has become possible to process plant fiber imported from America on new machines. By 1780, there were 20 in England, and after another 10 years - 150 spinning mills, and many of these enterprises employed 700-800 people.

Among other crafts that required high-precision metal processing was the manufacture of locks. One of the most famous mechanics who became famous for making locks was Joseph Bramah. His student Henry Maudsley later worked for the Royal Navy and built machines to make pulleys and blocks. It was one of the first examples of in-line production with standardized parts.

Metallurgy

The increase in the number of machines caused an increased demand for metal, and this required the development of metallurgy. The main achievement of this era in metallurgy was the replacement of the charcoal used by medieval blacksmiths with coal coke. It was introduced into use in the 17th century. Clement Clerk and his blacksmiths and casting masters.

Since 1709, in Colebrookdale, Abraham Darby, the founder of a dynasty of metallurgists and blacksmiths, used coke to extract pig iron from ore in a blast furnace. At first, only kitchen utensils were made from it, which differed from the work of competitors only in that its walls were thinner and less weight. In the 1750s, Darby's son built several more domains, and by this time his products were also cheaper than those made with charcoal. In 1778, Darby's grandson, Abraham Darby III, built the famous Iron Bridge from his cast in Shropshire, the first all-metal bridge in Europe.

To further improve the quality of cast iron in 1784, Henry Court developed a puddling process. Growth in production and improvement in the quality of English metal by the end of the 18th century. allowed Great Britain to completely abandon the import of Swedish and Russian iron. The construction of canals was launched, which made it possible to transport coal and metals.

From 1830 to 1847, metal production in England more than tripled. The use of hot blast in the smelting of ore, which began in 1828, reduced fuel consumption by three times and made it possible to use lower grades of coal in production. From 1826 to 1846, the export of iron and cast iron from Great Britain increased 7.5 times.

Transport

The emergence of railways was of great importance. The first steam locomotive was built in 1804 by Richard Trevithick. In subsequent years, many engineers tried to create steam locomotives, but the most successful of them turned out to be Georg Stephenson, who in -1829 proposed several successful designs of steam locomotives. His steam locomotive was used on the world's first public railway from Darlington to Stockton, opened in 1825. After 1830, rapid railroad construction began in Great Britain.

Chemicals

The Industrial Revolution made possible the industrial production of some of the most sought-after chemicals on the market, and the development of the chemical industry was initiated. Sulfuric acid was known back in the Middle Ages, but it was obtained from oxides formed during the combustion of mineral sulfur in glass vessels. In 1746, John Rebuck replaced them with more voluminous lead ones, which significantly increased the productivity of the process.

Another important task was the production of alkaline compounds. The method of industrial production of sodium carbonate was developed in 1791 by the French chemist Nicolas Leblanc. He mixed sulfuric acid with table salt and heated the resulting sodium sulfate with a mixture of limestone and coal. The mixture of reaction products was treated with water, sodium carbonate was obtained from the solution, and insoluble substances (limestone, coal, and calcium sulfide) were discarded. At first, hydrogen chloride also polluted the atmosphere of industrial premises, but later they learned to use it to obtain hydrochloric acid. Leblanc's method was simple, cheap, and produced a much more readily available product than the previously used method of producing soda from plant ash.

Sodium carbonate has been used in a variety of manufacturing processes, including soap, glass, paper, and the textile industry. Sulfuric acid, in addition to the production of soda, was also used to remove rust from metal products and as a bleach for fabrics. Only by the beginning of the 19th century. Charles Tennant and Claude Louis Berthollet developed a more effective bleach based on bleach. Tennant's new bleach factory has long been the world's largest chemical company.

In 1824, the British bricklayer Joseph Aspdin patented a chemical process for the production of Portland cement. It consisted in the sintering of clay with limestone. Then the mixture was ground into powder, mixed with water, sand and gravel, resulting in concrete. A few years later, engineer Mark Isambard Brunel used concrete to build the world's first waterproof tunnel under the River Thames, and in the middle of the 19th century. it was used to construct a modern urban sewage system.

Gas lanterns

Street lighting was another achievement of the industrial revolution. Its appearance in British cities was made possible by the Scottish engineer William Murdoch. He invented the process of obtaining lamp gas by pyrolysis of coal, as well as methods for its accumulation, transportation and use in gas lamps. The first gas lamps were installed in London in the years 1812-1820. Soon, most of the coal mined in the UK was used for lighting, as it not only improved comfort and safety on city streets, but also contributed to lengthening the working day in factories and plants previously dependent on lighting with relatively expensive candles and oil lamps.

Industrial revolution in Russia

During the XIX - early XX century living conditions most of the hired workers did not meet basic sanitary and hygienic requirements. In most cases, their homes were overcrowded. If by overpopulation we mean more than two people living in each room, including the kitchen, then in overcrowded apartments lived: in Poznan - 53%, in Dortmund - 41%, in Dusseldorf - 38%, in Aachen and Essen - 37%, in Breslau - 33%, in Munich - 29%, in Cologne - 27%, in Berlin - 22% of workers. Overcrowded 55% of apartments in Paris, 60% in Lyon, 75% in Saint-Etienne. It was also common for families to rent apartments to rent beds. In London, there were advertisements for the surrender of part of the room, and the man who worked during the day and the girl who worked as a servant in the hotel at night had to use the same bed. Contemporaries in the middle of the 19th century wrote that in Liverpool "from 35 to 40 thousand people live below the soil level - in cellars that do not have a drain at all ...".

In general, the standard of living of the population has increased as a result of the industrial revolution. Improvements in nutrition, sanitation, quality and availability of health care have led to significant increases in life expectancy and a drop in mortality. There was a population explosion. Over 13 centuries (from VI to XIX century) European history the continent's population has never exceeded 180 million. In the 19th century alone (from 1801 to 1914), the number of Europeans increased to 460 million. In addition, the Industrial Revolution is believed to have fundamentally changed the very notions of well-being in European and American societies.

Education

Knowledge about innovation was spread in different ways. Workers who qualified from one employer could then move on to another. This method of professional development was very common, in some countries, such as France and Sweden, it was even possible to send workers for internships abroad. public policy... Trainees, as now, usually kept records of their work, which have survived to this day as monuments of the era.

Another way of spreading knowledge was philosophical societies and circles, whose members, in particular, studied "natural philosophy", as the natural sciences were then called, and its practical applications. Some societies published reports on their activities, on the basis of which scientific journals and other periodicals, including encyclopedias, later emerged.

Medieval universities also changed during the industrial revolution, and their educational standards approached modern ones. In addition, new higher educational institutions have appeared, in particular, polytechnic and specialized institutes and academies.

Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution(industrial revolution, the Great Industrial Revolution) - the transition from manual labor to machine labor, from manufacture to factory; the transition from a predominantly agrarian economy to industrial production, as a result of which there is a transformation of an agrarian society into an industrial one. The industrial revolution did not take place in different countries at the same time, but in general it can be considered that the period when these changes took place began in the second half of the 18th century and continued throughout the 19th century. A characteristic feature of the industrial revolution is the rapid growth of productive forces on the basis of large-scale machine industry and the establishment of capitalism as the dominant world economic system.

The industrial revolution is associated not only with the beginning of the mass use of machines, but also with a change in the entire structure of society. It was accompanied by a sharp increase in labor productivity, rapid urbanization, the beginning of rapid economic growth (before that, economic growth, as a rule, was noticeable only on the scale of centuries), a historically rapid increase in the living standard of the population. The industrial revolution made it possible, during the life of only 3-5 generations, to move from an agrarian society (where the majority of the population led a subsistence economy) to an industrial one.

Causes of the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the last third of the 18th century and took on an all-encompassing character in the first half of the 19th century, then encompassing other countries of Europe and America.

There is an opinion that the export of capital from foreign British colonies was one of the sources of capital accumulation in the metropolis, which contributed to the industrial revolution in Great Britain and the conclusion of this country to the leaders of world industrial development. At the same time, a similar situation in other countries (for example, Spain, Portugal) did not lead to an acceleration of economic development. In addition, the industry successfully developed in a number of countries that did not have colonies, for example, in Sweden, Prussia, and the United States.

According to the Nobel laureate in economics John Hicks, the main factors of the industrial revolution in England were the following:

1. the formation of institutions that protect private property and contractual obligations, in particular, an independent and effective judicial system;

2.high level of trade development;

3. the formation of a market for factors of production, primarily a land market (that is, land trade became free and was freed from feudal restrictions);

4. the widespread use of wage labor and the impossibility of using forced labor on a large scale;

5.development of financial markets and low lending rate;

6. development of science.

At the same time, he does not overestimate the importance of technical inventions: "The Industrial Revolution would have occurred without Crompton and Arkwright and would have been, especially in the later stages, the same as it was in reality."

A slightly different view of the causes of the Industrial Revolution was developed in the works of economic historians: Immanuel Wallerstein, Christopher Hill, Charles Wilson, J. Bergier and others, who analyzed the course of industrialization of Western Europe and other countries in the 18th-19th centuries. on the basis of specific facts at their disposal. In their opinion, the protectionism system introduced in the 1690s and reinforced by additional protectionist measures by the middle of the 18th century played a key role in accelerating the industrial growth of England in the 18th century. It was she who ensured the rapid development of English industry, despite the competition from the then stronger Dutch industry, and also ensured the development of the industry of Prussia, Austria and Sweden, where protectionist systems were also introduced.

A significantly lesser or very insignificant role in this process, in their opinion, was played by factors associated with money and the availability of capital. Historians' studies have shown that the overwhelming majority industrial enterprises in the period 1700-1850 were founded by representatives of the middle class (peasants, merchants, artisans) who did not resort to any external sources financing, and developed at the expense of own funds or money taken from relatives / friends.

William Bell Scott Iron and Coal, 1855-1860.

Among other factors highlighted by economic historians, the following may have contributed to the Industrial Revolution:

1. the fight against monopolies and the provision of real freedom of entrepreneurship (in England, these measures were especially active in the period from 1688 to 1724 and after 1746);

2. the conclusion of an unspoken social contract between business and society, which guaranteed that they would adhere to certain rules of conduct, respecting the rights of both business and society.

There is an opinion that the deep reason that the industrial revolution, and subsequently the scientific, innovative revolution, began in Europe, was in the behavioral stereotypes of the European man: namely, in his attitude towards women. The European, in general, had to distinguish himself in front of a woman in order for her to choose him as a marriage partner. While the eastern mentality assumed such behavior from the individual to a much lesser extent. Before a woman who is more powerless, those in power in the East were less required to prove their superiority, including in the intellectual sphere, encouraging a poet who composes poetry, an astronomer scientist, an outstanding architect or a brilliant scientist or inventor.

Spinning machine S. Crompton, 1779.

Innovations

The success of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain was based on several innovations that emerged towards the end of the 18th century:

Textile industry - spinning of cotton thread on spinning machines by R. Arkwright (1769), J. Hargraves and S. Crompton. Subsequently, similar technologies were applied to spin wool and flax yarns.

Steam engine - invented by J. Watt and patented by him in 1775, the steam engine was originally used in mines to pump out water. But already in the 1780s, it found application in some other mechanisms, replacing hydropower where it was not available.

Metallurgy - in ferrous metallurgy, coke has replaced charcoal, just as it was previously used in the production of lead and copper. Now coke was used not only in the manufacture of pig iron in blast furnaces, but also for the production of malleable iron, including the pudding invented by Henry Cort in 1783-1784.

Similar information.

The end of the 18th century went down in history under the banner of the industrial revolution. First, England, and then other European countries, gradually abandoned the usual use of manual labor, that is, manufacturing production. The first looms, steam machines and other inventions appear. The era of the industrial revolution begins, the transition from manufactories to factories and plants.

Predys-to-riya

In the second half of the XVIII century. in An-glia, there is an ag-rar-naya re-vo-lu-tion. The pre-pri-no-ma-tel-farm-farmer's farm is you-tes-nya-et tra-di-ts-one-ny peasant. This was due to the fact that practically the whole earth was in the hands of large owners, who were given -whether her in rent-do far-me-ram. Skla-dy-va-las si-ste-ma ka-pi-ta-li-sti-che-ni-nos between land-lor-da-mi (vl-del-ts-mi of the earth) , fer-me-ra-mi-aren-da-to-ra-mi and na-em-us-mi-work-bot-ni-ka-mi (ba-tra-ka-mi). This leads to the improvement of the quality of the processing of the land, the development of abandoned plots of land, in the se-wu cor- my culture-tour (for livestock). After the ag-rar-noy re-vo-lu-tion, many people in the village were left without work and means for existence. They went to the city, where one hundred-but-they-were-on-them-workers-bot-ni-ka-mi on the industrial pre-pri-i-ti-yah ...

Pre-by-link of the pro-thought re-vo-lu-tion
... Accumulation of ka-pi-ta-la in the hands of pre-pri-ni-ma-te-lei, merchants and bans-ki-dov.
... An increase in the number of hired workers (the growth in the number of workers, in particular, was caused by ag-rar-noy re-in-lu-chi-she).
... Development of trade-gov-li and growth of cities.
... Are there a sales market in no-lo-no-y.

The wrong reason for the pro-thought re-vo-lution was the dissolution of the English weavers in connection with importing to An-gliya des-she-vykh fabrics from India. They needed -di-mo increase the amount of labor and reduce the cost. (cm. )

Developments

1733 g.- John Kay invented a me-ha-ni-ch-sky (self-years-old) weaving mill.

1735 G.- Ab-ra-ham Der-bi-son introduced the domain-name you-float chu-gu-na on coke.

1784 g.- iso-re-ten to-kar-ny hundred-nok Henry Mauds-lee.

Rice. 2. James Hargreaves ()

Rice. 3. Spinning wheel "Jenny" by James Hargreaves ()

Rice. 4. James Watt ()

Rice. 5. James Watt Steam Machine ()

At the end of the 18th century, lathes(fig. 6). New technique led to a new organization of industry. Manufactures are becoming a thing of the past, and factories and factories are replacing them. It became real industrial revolution, which made it possible to significantly increase the growth of productive forces. The advent of factories changed the lives of workers. For the first time in the history of mankind there was a working day schedule... From Monday to Saturday, a harsh 12-hour workday was established. This was very bad for a family of workers. They used to be able to earn extra weekends and extra money with their special talents and extra efforts. The workers lived in very difficult conditions. New factory towns were built near coal mines (Fig. 7). In them, workers could only rent one or two rooms. The manufacturers, taking advantage of their position, squeezed out of their subordinates everything they could. They fined workers for swearing, untidiness, tardiness, used cheap child labor, refused to pay medical service... All this led to an increase in discontent among the workers. The first signs of such discontent were expressed in Luddite movement(fig. 8). Members of this movement called themselves Luddites after the legendary worker Neda Ludda(Fig. 9), who, according to legend, was the first to destroy his own machine. Following him, hundreds of people throughout England began to deliberately spoil the hated cars. The British manufacturers were very unhappy with this. Soon, the government passed a law under which the death penalty was imposed for damage to the machine.)

Following England, the introduction of machine tools into production came to other countries. The demand for various inventors and their inventions has increased. More and more technical innovations appeared in Europe. Not only the quantity, but also the quality of the manufactured products grew. Their prices were gradually decreasing.

Summing up, it is worth noting that the industrial revolution in Europe had a number of positive factors:

Sanitation.
Improving health care.
Improving the quality of goods.
Improving the nutrition of the population.

It is worth noting that all these factors did not appear immediately; it took years for Europe to find itself on the verge of a qualitatively new period in its history.

Bibliography

1. Vedyushkin V.A., Burin S.N. Textbook on the history of modern times, grade 7. - M., 2013.

2. Dmitry Travin. Otar Margania. European modernization

3. Erofeev N.A. Industrial Revolution in England. - M., 1963

4. Potemkin F.V. Industrial Revolution in France. T. 1. From manufactory to factory. - Moscow: Nauka, 1971.

5. Hobsbawm E. Century of the Revolution. Europe 1789-1848. - Rostov: Phoenix Publishing House, 1999.

6. Yudovskaya A.Ya. General history. History of Modern Times. 1500-1800. - M .: "Education", 2012.

Homework

1. How do you understand the terms "agrarian revolution" and "industrial revolution?" When and in which country did they first occur?

2. What caused the industrial revolution?

3. Tell us about the consequences of the industrial revolution in England.

4. What famous inventions can you name? List the outstanding inventors of that time.

The Industrial Revolution was the rapid development of technology in modern times and the transition from manual to machine labor. As a result of technological innovations, the social, political, and economic conditions of Europe and the whole world have undergone significant transformations. At the same time, the industrial revolution is not at all a one-step process. Its duration is traditionally

stretched from the second half of the XIII century to the beginning of the XX. And a number of scientists adhere to the point of view that this process does not end to this day, as evidenced by the ever-accelerating pace of technology development in our time, when many new products become obsolete within several years.

Industrial revolution in England

Traditionally, it is this country that is called the ancestor of the technological revolution in modern times. Already in the 1760s and 80s, revolutionary changes were achieved here in a number of the most important areas of heavy and light industry. For example, the invention of the spinning machine and its spread throughout the island made England the largest supplier of fabrics to the European and American markets. The creation of the steam engine made it possible to build ships of a new type - faster and more ergonomic, which confirmed the domination of the British at sea. Epochal

changes have also taken place in land transport. Thus, the emerging railways entangled the entire state with a network by the middle of the 19th century and became a new word in the possibility of communication between remote regions of the country - the transportation of goods, people, animals was facilitated and accelerated. Brand new possibilities are open! Heavy industry has also undergone important changes. So, the appearance of a milling machine and a number of other similar inventions significantly stimulated the development of mechanical engineering. The quality of the metal itself has significantly improved due to the fact that now, when smelting it, not coal was used as a fuel material, but coke. This allowed England to abandon export metal, covering its growing needs, and channel the freed funds to other industries.

Industrial revolution in Europe

Soon, the rapid pace of technological development spread to the continent, giving Germany, France, the Netherlands, Russia their own factories of heavy and light industries. However, this process did not occur simultaneously in different countries. For example, in France and Belgium, the industrial revolution began immediately after England, already at the end of the 13th century, but it reached Germany and Russia only in the 1830s and 1840s. However, this did not mean mandatory outsiders. Germany, being a lagging country back in the middle of the century, by 1900 was able to significantly increase its technological and military potential, and at the beginning of the 20th century, belatedly, to join the re-division of spheres of influence in other parts of the world (the fact that practically all world territories and led to a military solution of the issue - the First World War).

Impact on society

The industrial revolution was not limited to changes only in the technological part. It inevitably entailed social, political and economic consequences, giving rise to new classes of society (workers, the bourgeoisie), accelerating the growth of cities (urbanization). The complication of social processes led to the birth of new political and socio-economic doctrines and movements, which soon exploded in the mood of the masses.