Page 340 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

russian-soviet empire 1641

work in Greece by means of the 250 million dollars
brought into that country? The sovereignty and inde-
pendence of Greece will be the first victims of such had to devote an overwhelming part of its state budget to
singular “defence.” its military. At the same time, Russia remained econom-
The American arguments for assisting Turkey base ically underdeveloped, and some of its colonies—notably
themselves on the existence of a threat to the integrity Poland (dismembered between 1772 and 1815) and Fin-
of Turkey territory—though no-one and nothing actu- land (acquired in 1808)—exhibited greater economic
ally threatens Turkey’s integrity.This “assistance” is evi- and social sophistication than the Russian core area
dently aimed at putting this country also under U.S. itself. New Russian territories in the east and south—
control. Crimea (conquered by 1790), the region of Caucasia
Some American commentators admit this quite (subdued by the mid-nineteenth century), and Turkestan
openly. Walter Lippman, for example, frankly points (subjugated between 1850 and 1900)—did resemble
out in the Herald Tribune that an American alliance European colonies, being administered through a mixture
with Turkey would give the U.S.A. a strategic position, of economic extraction and development, civilizing pater-
incomparably more advantageous than any other, nalism, and the cooptation of local elites. Unlike Western
from which power could be wielded over the Middle possessions, however, they had relatively low popula-
East.... tions, relatively more colonial settlers, and displayed far
We are now witnessing a fresh intrusion of the fewer differences in terrain, climate and ecology relative
U.S.A. into the affairs of other states. American to the metropolitan power.
claims to leadership in international affairs grow Because of its greater proximity to Europe, Russia was
parallel with the growing appetite of the American forced to respond to European military, economic, sci-
quarters concerned. But the American leaders, in the entific, and technological innovations earlier, but this in
new historical circumstances, fail to reckon with the turn accounted for its greater dynamism vis-à-vis other
fact that the old methods of the colonisers and die- tributary and contiguous empires. The Russian empire
hard politicians have out-lived their time and are expanded at the expense of the Ottomans in the Black
doomed to failure. In this lies the chief weakness of Sea region and the Persians in Central Asia, and, by the
Truman’s message. nineteenth century, established hegemony over Chinese
Source: Doomed to failure (1947, March 15). Soviet News, p. 3. Manchuria. Still, its effort to extend its control by in-
corporating expanding Ukrainian and Belarussian
populations—both Orthodox and both heirs of Kievan
Rus—into its ethnic core proved less successful than sim-
ilar efforts by China.The late-nineteenth-century policies
of cultural Russification, which affirmed nationality as the
constituted political police. Subsequent rulers, though third pillar of the regime alongside autocracy and ortho-
they may have freed the nobility (1762), granted the right doxy, fared no better than the attempted federalism of the
for the free establishment of industries (1767), liberated Habsburgs.
the serfs (1861), and permitted the creation of a legisla- Continued territorial and economic growth generated
ture (the Duma, in 1905), never relinquished their increasing counter pressures that eventually led to the
monopoly on political power. empire’s undoing. Externally, its early successes con-
Unlike the empires of Western Europe, the Russian tributed to the rise of more powerful rivals along its
empire was a contiguous and continental power that perimeter. In the west, Poland and Sweden were replaced
lacked easily defensible boundaries and therefore pursued by a united German empire—an industrial powerhouse
a predominately territorialist rather than a maritime strat- with a much larger population. In the south, France and
egy.As a result, it pursued expansion in all directions and Britain propped up the declining Ottoman and Persian