For the Russian capitalist class, therefore, it was of the most vital importance that Germany's power should not be increased, as it would of necessity be if the Entente submitted to her threats and permitted Serbia to be crushed by Austria, and the furtherance of the Pan-German _Mitteleuropa_ designs. It was vitally necessary to Russian capitalism that Germany's strangle-hold upon the inner life of Russia should be broken. The issue was not the competition of capitalism, as that is commonly understood; it was not the rivalry for markets like that which animates the capitalist classes of all lands. The Russian capitalist class was animated by no fear of German competition in the sense in which the nations of the world have understood that term. They had their own vast home market to develop. The industrialization of the country must transform a very large part of the peasantry into factory artisans living in cities, having new needs and relatively high wages, and, consequently, more money to spend. For many years to come their chief reliance must be the home market, constantly expanding as the relative importance of manufacturing increased and forced improved methods of agriculture upon the nation in the process, as it was bound to do.
It was Germany as a persistent meddler in Russian government and politics that the capitalists of Russia resented. It was the unfair advantage that this underhand political manipulation gave her in their own home field that stirred up the leaders of the capitalist class of Russia. That, and the knowledge that German intrigue by promoting divisions in Russia was the mainstay of the autocracy, solidified the capitalist class of Russia in support of the war. There was a small section of this class that went much farther than this and entertained more ambitious hopes. They realized fully that Turkey had already fallen under the domination of Germany to such a degree that in the event of a German victory in the war, or, what really amounted to the same thing, the submission of the Entente to her will, Germany would become the ruler of the Dardanelles and European Turkey be in reality, and perhaps in form, part of the German Empire.
Such a development could not fail, they believed, to have the most disastrous consequences for Russia. Inevitably, it would add to German prestige and power in the Russian Empire, and weld together the Hohenzollern, Habsburg, and Romanov autocracies in a solid, reactionary mass, which, under the efficient leadership of Germany, might easily dominate the entire world. Moreover, like many of the ablest Russians, including the foremost Marxian Socialist scholars, they believed that the normal economic development of Russia required a free outlet to the warm waters of the Mediterranean, which alone could give her free access to the great ocean highways. Therefore they hoped that one result of a victorious war by the Entente against the Central Empires, in which Russia would play an important part, would be the acquisition of Constantinople by Russia. Thus the old vision of the Czars had become the vision of an influential and rising class with a solid basis of economic interest.