Russia and China have the same fundamental problem. Pre-industrialisation, both have all their power and wealth concentrated in the landowners. You need to rush industry so that wealth is broken up between capitalists/petit bourgeoisie/trade unions. Playing Russia I immediately shift my capital to Perm so it's invasion-proof without 1m casualties. Then I start building up construction, wood, and iron in Perm. I max it out there, Urals, and Moscow. Then I build up Trans-Baikal, Luhansk, and the Caucuses. I upgrade to iron construction methods and my whole mission until about 1850 is getting it up to about 300 capacity. The industrialisation that brings will drop the landowners down to like 20-30% power and make the reforms easy with a power base for them.