This is a good question. It's one of those things you assume is self-evident until you pause to think about it. What does backwards actually mean? I'll start with the more obvious indicators before going into the broader importance of the concept. I've skipped over much of the economic details and theories - though I'll largely stick to the economic plane - but let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

At its most basic level, 'backwardness' meant that in 1914 Russia lagged behind its European competitors in a variety of economic indicators. That is, it wasn't industrialising as fast as everyone else. The late 19th C was the golden age of economic 'penis measuring' but the below statistics should give some idea as to Russia's place in the emerging industrial order:

World Industrial Powers - Production per capita in 1910

Nation	Cotton (kg)	Iron (kg)	Railways	Coal (kg)	Steam Power (hp)
USA	12.7	270	122	4,580	180
UK	19.8	210	69	4,040	240
Belgium	9.4	250	102	3,270	150
Germany	6.8	200	75	3,190	130
France	6.0	270	87	1,450	73
Italy	5.4	8	38	270	46
Russia	3.0	31	24	300	16
Japan	4.9	5	14	230	10
Spain	4.4	21	58	330	4

Now, I've used these figures because they were to hand but they give a good impression as to the relative level of industrialisation in Europe on the eve of war. Of the major powers, only Spain (and Japan) were producing less iron, coal, etc per head than Russia. These were the modern industries that counted, the high-value products that had transformed European cities and landscapes over the past century. Lacking these, the Russian economy was still dominated by traditional agriculture.

With an emphasis on 'traditional'. Russian agriculture was notoriously poorly productive. Some of this may be due to climate factors, as Robert C Allen has argued, but much of the blame has to be put on tools and conditions that often hadn't changed in centuries. For all that we today scoff at 'progress', an iron plough is undoubtedly better than a wooden one. Many regions of Tsarist Russia still used the latter. Similarly, seed quality was poor and the communes practised strip farming - distributing their land in various strips across the village. This was inefficient (for grain) and prevented consolidation and improvement of the land.

With both industrial and agricultural productivity lagging behind European competitors, and with the gap increasing, there was a clear sense in which Russia was being 'left behind'. Put bluntly, its economic growth needed to be much quicker if it was to keep up with the rest of Europe or provide for its growing population.

That's the big picture. Often lost within are a couple of important points that complicate things:

• The uneven development of Russian industry. Tsarist Russia was industrialising and had been since the 1880s. While still swamped by the size of the agricultural sector, industrial centres like Moscow, Petrograd, Ivanovo, etc were as large and as modern as any in Western Europe.

• Agriculture was reforming. Admittedly it was doing so slowly but the Stolypin reforms of 1907 encouraged the break-up of peasant communes and the consolidation of land. Improved education (the number of agronomy students increased from 75 in 1895 to 3,922 in 1912), better techniques and favourable weather contributed to a good rise in agricultural production in 1900-14. Importantly, most peasants were now engaged to some degree with the market and were not merely producing for their own sustenance.

So there was a sense that Russia was progressing economically but hadn't quite shaken off its 'state of backwardness'. That is, there were still barriers (be they political, economic or cultural) that prevented Russia from 'catching-up' with the rest of Europe. Most of the political debate of the late Tsardom was around removing these fetters - or whether they should be removed! - and modernising the country.

It's the same question that would bother Russian/Soviet leaders until Stalin finally cut the Gordian Knot - how to shift the economy from a (backwards) agricultural basis to a (modern) industrial one? This was at the heart of the later Stalinist determination to 'conquer the steppes' for industry. As Stalin famously put it in 1931:

Those who fall behind get beaten... One feature of the history of old Russia was the continual beatings she suffered because of her backwardness. She was beaten by the Mongol khans. She was beaten by the Turkish beys. She was beaten by the Swedish feudal lords. She was beaten by the Polish and Lithuanian gentry. She was beaten by the British and French capitalists. She was beaten by the Japanese barons. All beat her because of her backwardness, military backwardness, cultural backwardness, political backwardness, industrial backwardness, agricultural backwardness. They beat her because to do so was profitable and could be done with impunity.

I've used that quote to try and show that 'backwardness' was more than just a matter of economics. The idea of progress, of overcoming a state of backwardness and reaching modernity, was central to progressive thought in the late Tsardom and all consuming in the early Soviet Union.

Recommended Reading

My standard recommendation for an introduction to the Soviet or Late Tsarist economy is Alec Nove's Economic History of the USSR. All statistics above are from there.