supervision of their morals; without it this
mass of people will gradually be corrupted
and eventually turn into a class as miserable
as they are dangerous for their masters.
Just as with Francis I, Nicholas feared that the creative
destruction unleashed by a modern industrial economy
would undermine the political status quo in Russia. Urged
on by Nicholas, Kankrin took specific steps to slow the
potential for industry. He banned several industrial
exhibitions, which had previously been held periodically to
showcase new technology and facilitate technology
adoption.
In 1848 Europe was rocked by a series of revolutionary
outbursts. In response, A. A. Zakrevskii, the military
governor of Moscow, who was in charge of maintaining
public order, wrote to Nicholas: “For the preservation of
calm and prosperity, which at present time only Russia
enjoys, the government must not permit the gathering of
homeless and dissolute people, who will easily join every
movement, destroying social or private peace.” His advice
was brought before Nicholas’s ministers, and in 1849 a
new law was enacted that put severe limits on the number
of factories that could be opened in any part of Moscow. It
specifically forbade the opening of any new cotton or
woolen spinning mills and iron foundries. Other industries,
such as weaving and dyeing, had to petition the military
governor if they wanted to open new factories. Eventually
cotton spinning was explicitly banned. The law was
intended to stop any further concentration of potentially
rebellious workers in the city.
Opposition to railways accompanied opposition to
industry, exactly as in Austria-Hungary. Before 1842 there
was only one railway in Russia. This was the Tsarskoe Selo
Railway, which ran seventeen miles from Saint Petersburg
to the imperial residencies of Tsarskoe Selo and Pavlovsk.
Just as Kankrin opposed industry, he saw no reason to
promote railways, which he argued would bring a socially
dangerous mobility, noting that “railways do not always
result from natural necessity, but are more an object of
artificial need or luxury. They encourage unnecessary travel
from place to place, which is entirely typical of our time.”