Russia is great and abundant, but its industry is in an early state. Despite the countless gifts of nature, in our land and on our land, we cannot live by the products of our country, our labor. Industrial and cultural countries look at Russia as Africa, as a colony where all kinds of goods can be sold expensive, and from where raw products can be exported cheaply, which we, by our ignorance and laziness, cannot process ourselves. That’s why in the eyes of Europe, we are wild people, stray people, whose robbery, like the Negro, is not considered shameful.

M. Gorky wrote a hundred years ago. Has much changed? Add a plus if not.