Following the 1905 revolution, Pyotr Stolypin became the Empire's Prime Minister. A reactionary loyal to the Romanovs, he was assassinated in August of 1906, just a few months into his administration. The culprit was a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, of the Bolshevik faction. In his stead rose Pavel Milyukov, an anti-tsarist liberal, which Nicholas II could not stop. The Russian Empire saw, in a span of a few months, sweeping industrial, political and social reforms. However, one of Milyukov's greatest preoccupations was in the Imperial Army. His personal experiences in the Russo-Turkish War and fascination with modernity led him to realise, alongside a number of liberal army commanders, that the next war would be industrial. A change in Russia's still largely agrarian economy was not only favourable, but necessary for its survival.
The Russian Military-Industrial Program of 1906, also known as the Industrial War Plan, was Milyukov's solution to this problem. It called for the use of Russia's vast monetary resources to promote careers in engineering and management, worker training programs, as well as importing machinery to accelerate industrialisation. Nicholas II, once humiliated by defeat in 1905, grudgingly put the Romanov dynasty's wealth towards the program. From 1906 to 1914, Russia's national production of manufactured goods, especially weapons and ammunition, rose rapidly. This was especially true in western Siberia, which Milyukov correctly considered Russia's strategic centre.
At the outbreak of WW1, Russia was able to confidently equip its vast armies with modern weapons thanks to the vast Siberian industrial complex. However, Milyukov's downfall and the subsequent takeover of both military and civilian leadership by pro-Romanov loyalists, which were wildly incompetent, led to defeat by the German Empire in World War I and the October Revolution. Even then, the Military-Industrial Program's facilities and trained technicians proved vital for the Soviet Union's own industrialisation and education programs, which allowed them to fight toe-to-toe with the German Empire in World War II.