Development of the Social Infrastructure of the Russian Empire at the Turn of the 19th-20th Centuries

In modern historical science, one of the explanations for the causes of the revolutionary events of 1917 is the assertion that the political regime that existed in the country at the beginning of the last century was an obstacle to the movement of society forward. This should also manifest itself in a slowdown in the development of social infrastructure. In this regard, the article, for the first time in Russian science, sets the goal of giving a comprehensive description of the development of social infrastructure in Russia at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Particular attention is paid to those areas of infrastructure, the influence of the state on the state and development prospects of which is especially noticeable. These include public health, education, development of science and technology, and transport. To achieve this goal, primarily systematic, historical and comparative methods, as well as factor analysis, were used. The result of the study was the conclusion about the progressive development of the above areas of social infrastructure in the decades preceding the revolution, which was largely determined by the activities of public authorities.