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 24 Germany losing this very considerable portion of her foreign trade. But here too, unfortunately, nobody seemed to realise that the cessation of Russo-German trade would hit Russia's economic position infinitely harder than it would stimulate the commerce of this country with Russia.

In effect, the closing of the frontier with Germany and Austria was literally a death-blow to Russia's foreign trade. As regards her exports, this will easily be realised from a glance at the following figures:—

In 1913 Russia's exports across her European land frontiers amounted to 1,232 million roubles, whereas the sum total of her exports through all her other frontiers (i.e., Black Sea, Baltic ports, Caucasus, and Asiatic frontiers) was less than 300 million roubles. But the effect of the blockade on Russia's imports was even more disastrous. In 1913, the imports through Germany, Austria, and the Baltic ports, amounted to 1,146 million roubles, and through all other frontiers only to 227 million roubles. Thus the closing of the European frontiers put a stop to three-quarters of Russia's exports and to four-fifths of her imports.

But these figures by themselves do not enable us to realise the full significance of the cessation of exports and imports. In order to understand what it really meant to Russia's economic life, it is necessary to consider the nature of these exports and imports. It was, indeed, not the quantity of Germany's exports to Russia which mattered, so much as their nature and quality. Before the war Germany practically controlled Russia not only through the so-called "key-industries"; she actually dominated the whole of Russia's industrial life. Russia was dependent upon Germany—in the first place, for by far the greater part of her machinery; and secondly, because of the special character of Russian industry which consists in turning out the finished products from half-prepared materials. These half-manufactured materials ("polu-