At the beginning of the twentieth century most people in Russia were engaged in what work?

Correct answer: Agriculture

The governing concept is the economic structure of pre-revolutionary Russia. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the overwhelming majority of Russians lived in villages and depended on agriculture. They worked as peasants, cultivating land owned by landlords, the village community, or sometimes themselves. Industrial workers were important in revolutionary politics, but they formed only a small proportion of the total population. Factory ownership, sea trade, and banking were limited urban activities and could not describe the livelihood of most Russians. Therefore, option D, agriculture, is correct because Russia was mainly an agrarian society before the 1917 Revolution.