t;developed a coherent strategy to cope with the rapid advance of industrialisation in Western Europe" by the 1880's, the government had no choice but to either "control expenditure to create financial stability and attract foreign capital, or raise taxation with the same objective". The Minister of Finance in 1891, Vyshnegradsky, attempted the second approach in order to accelerate industrialisation, and raised import duties up 33 per cent which superficially gave the Russian budget a surplus in 1892, and a first foreign loan was secured in 1888. However Vyshnegradsky's policy put pressure on the peasantry due to its "net effect [for] fiscal rectitude". His words 'we must go hungry, but export' proved true when the grain export increased by 18 per cent in total exports between 1881 and 1891 and the worst famine of the nineteenth century hit Russia in 1891-2.
             The effect of the famine cost Vyshnegradsky his role as Minister of Finance and was replaced by Witte who was a firm advocate of modernisation. Wi
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