The article discusses the impact of infrastructure upon the development of various branches of the national economy. The case of railroad construction in pre-revolutionary Russia is discussed within the context of an eternal Russian problem of managing vast spaces. The authors show how the objective necessity of geographic formation of markets, circulation of commodities, finances, investments, labor division and specialization produce a specific type of economic vision, which can be clearly traced in the economic politics of various countries in the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX c. Adequate infrastructural politics deals with the so-called “market gaps” and increases the degree of managerial control over the national economy. The article stresses that the infrastructural activity of the state creates a dynamic multiplier of the economic growth.