A History Of Russia Volume 2: Since 1855 / Edition 2

by Walter G. Moss

Overview

Moss has significantly revised his text and bibliography in this second edition to reflect new research findings and controversies on numerous subjects. He has also brought the history up to date by revising the post-Soviet material, which now covers events from the end of 1991 up to the present day. This new edition retains the features of the successful first edition that have made it a popular choice in universities and colleges throughout the US, Canada and around the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781843310341
Publisher:	Anthem Press
Publication date:	10/01/2004
Series:	Anthem Series on Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies , #2
Edition description:	First Edition, 1
Pages:	667
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Walter G. Moss is Professor of History in the Department of History and Philosophy at Eastern Michigan University.

Read an Excerpt

A History of Russia

Volume II: Since 1855

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By Walter G. Moss

Wimbledon Publishing Company

Copyright © 2005 Walter G. Moss
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84331-034-1

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CHAPTER 1

Russia: Geography, Peoples, and Premodern Developments

As German troops discovered in late 1941, when fierce winter weather hindered them from taking Moscow, geography affects history. Although Russia's geography helped defeat the forces of Hitler, it has also made life more difficult for Russians than for people located in less harsh lands.

The amount of territory controlled by Russian and Soviet governments has varied considerably throughout Russian history (see Map 1.1), but the enormous size of Russia throughout most of its history has made centralized rule more difficult than in smaller countries. In 1533, after substantial expansion but before moving into Siberia, the Russian government ruled over 2.8 million square kilometers. At the height of the Russian Empire, around 1900, the empire contained eight times as much territory (22.4 million square kilometers). Although the new Soviet government ruled over slightly less land in the period between the two world wars, victory in World War II enabled the USSR to become as large as the Russian Empire had once been. Following the collapse of the USSR at the end of 1991, Russia was left with 17.1 million square kilometers, or 76 percent of the former Soviet Union.

Although smaller than the former USSR, Russia remains the largest country in the world and is about 1.8 times the size of the United States. From east to west, it extends about 10,000 kilometers (more than 6,000 miles) and traverses eleven time zones. From north to south, it spans more than 4,000 kilometers (or about 2,500 miles). Alaska, which once belonged to Russia and today is separated from Siberia only by the narrow Bering Straight, is closer to much of eastern Siberia than is Moscow. Even Seattle is closer to the Russian city of Magadan, which became famous as part of Stalin's labor camp system, than is the Russian capital.

THE LAND: PHYSICAL FEATURES, CLIMATE, AND RESOURCES

Russia is part of the vast Eurasian land mass, and in recent centuries the Ural Mountains have been considered the dividing line between European and Asiatic Russia. But Europe is more of a cultural concept than a geographic one, and scholars such as Christian, who believes the above division is artificial, have chosen to emphasize more Russia's Eurasian character. Christian stresses the significance of Russia being part of what he calls Inner Eurasia, which includes most of the former Soviet Union, Mongolia, and China's Central Asian territory. Without ignoring his insights, however, we will continue to use the Urals as a convenient dividing line. In so doing we may note that the Russian Empire and the U.S.S.R. contained Asiatic territories besides Siberia, but Asiatic Russia today can be thought of as synonymous with it (this definition of Siberia includes Russia's Far Eastern Provinces, which are sometimes dealt with separately).

European Russia is primarily a large plain, as is western Siberia, which extends from the Urals to the Enisei River. The Urals are not very high, reaching only a little over 6,000 feet at their highest point. East of the Enisei River, the Siberian terrain becomes more hilly, and east of the Lena River stretching to the Pacific Ocean are various mountain ranges. Other mountain ranges exist in south-central and eastern Siberia, and the Caucasus Mountains are along Russia's southern border between the Black and Caspian seas.

Russia possesses many large rivers and lakes. The longest rivers are three Siberian ones, the Lena, the Irtysh and the Ob. The Enisei is fifth in size, behind the Volga River, European Russia's (and Europe's) largest river and almost as long as the American Mississippi. Most of the main Siberian rivers flow south to north and empty into the Arctic Ocean. The Irtysh flows through Kazakhstan before entering Siberia and empties into the Ob. The Amur River, which forms part of the Chinese-Russian border before turning northward and entering into the Pacific Ocean, is an exception and flows mainly west to east.

Although not as long as the greatest Siberian rivers, several of Russia's European rivers, such as the Dnieper and Volga, have played a greater historical role. In European Russia, most of the major rivers also flow northward, such as the Northern Dvina and Pechora, or southward, such as the Volga and Don. As in Siberia, many tributaries are located on an east-west axis. Several important rivers have their headwaters southeast of the city of Novgorod in the Valdai Hills. Here in heights of only about 1,000 feet above sea level, lakes and marshes give birth to the Volga, the Western Dvina, and the Dnieper. West of these Valdai Hills, some fifty to a hundred miles, are the Lovat and Volkhov rivers, divided by Lake Ilmen. Via connecting rivers, portages, and later in history, canals, the Lovat-Volkhov waterway and the three bigger rivers (the Volga, the Western Dvina, and the Dnieper) have provided water routes between the Baltic and the Black and Caspian seas.

Often, however, Russia was cut off from access to these seas. Its desire to obtain access, especially to the Baltic and Black seas, and then play a larger maritime role became significant in Russian foreign policy. Despite the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia still has coastline on both seas, although not as much as earlier. The Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers, for example, now empty into sea waters outside Russian borders. Although its vast Arctic and Pacific ocean coastlines (the latter first reached in the seventeenth century) have been less significant in Russia's historical development, they have become more important in recent centuries.

Although lakes are especially numerous in the European northwestern part of the country, the greatest lake (in Russia or the world) in terms of water volume is Siberia's wondrous Lake Baikal. Despite being called a "sea," the Caspian, which Russia shares with several other former Soviet republics and Iran, is actually the world's largest lake if measured by surface area.

Russia's extreme northern location, comparable to Alaska's and Canada's, has combined with other factors to make Russia's climate harsh. Average January temperatures in some parts of northeastern Siberia are between –50°F and –60°F, although these areas can also experience very hot, but short, summers. Further south and west, temperatures are less extreme, but winters are still long and summers short. Average January temperatures in Novosibirsk hover around 0°F and in Moscow are about 14°F, only about 7° below Chicago's.

Russia's rainfall pattern is also less than ideal. Precipitation is heaviest in the northwest and diminishes as one moves southeast. In many parts of the country, including the Moscow area, rain tends to be less plentiful in the spring and early summer, when it would most help crops, and instead falls more heavily in the late summer. Taken together, Russia's northern location and unfavorable rainfall patterns have adversely affected Russian agriculture, which, in turn, has affected many other aspects of Russian life from the people's diet to population density and state revenues. Some scholars, such as the contemporary Russian historian L.V. Milov, claim that these unfavorable agricultural conditions are one of the chief explanations for why both Russian serfdom and autocracy developed and continued for so long.

Not counting transitional areas, Russia can be divided into four main vegetation zones: From north to south, they are the tundra, taiga, mixed forest, and steppe (see Map 1.2). The tundra region is a treeless one where much of the ground beneath the surface remains permanently frozen year-round. Permafrost also extends south into much of the taiga forest zone. This is an area primarily of coniferous trees like the pine. Next comes the smaller mixed forest belt of both coniferous and leaf-bearing trees. This area is much more densely populated than the taiga and contains many of Russia's larger cities including Moscow. Taken together, Russia's two forest areas equal almost one-quarter of the world's total forest lands. South of the mixed forest is a steppe or prairie zone that originally contained few trees.

In pre-Russian and early Russian history, the steppe was a dangerous area from which numerous nomadic groups, including the Mongols, threatened the Slavic peoples residing in the northern forest areas. A Centra1 Asian desert zone that existed in the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire at its height is no longer under Russian control.

Russia's most fertile soils lie in a black-earth belt that can be found in the transitional area between the mixed forest and steppe and in the steppe itself. Because the transitional area receives more rain during appropriate times, it is the more productive agricultural area.

Further north, the soils of the mixed forest zone are not as favorable but have been farmed throughout much of Russian history. In early Russian history, peasants used the "slash-and-burn" technique of clearing lands by cutting trees and burning the stumps (the ashes making good fertilizer) before farming.

Although nature has been rather harsh to Russia in some regards, it has been generous in other areas. Besides its great timber resources, it has possessed abundant wildlife, including many valuable fur-bearing animals. It is a world leader in the possession of mineral resources, including mineral fuels. Among its abundant resources are coal, petroleum, natural gas, iron and iron alloys, copper, diamonds, gold, silver, lead, zinc, mercury, asbestos, potassium, magnesium, salt deposits, phosphate ores, sulfur, and limestone. Aluminum is about the only major mineral resource that Russia lacks. Of course, large quantities of many of these materials are in areas of Russia, especially Siberia, that have not always been part of the Russian state, and harsh climactic conditions have often made extraction costly and difficult.

GEOGRAPHY'S IMPACT ON COLONIZATION AND NATIONAL IDENTITY

The great Russian historian Vasili Kliuchevsky (1841–1911) believed that the history of his country was one of colonization, and there is little doubt that Russia's geographic conditions helped stimulate its colonization and expansion. Among other reasons, the Russians expanded to acquire better agricultural lands, Siberian furs, and access to warm-water ports.

This colonization was also encouraged by few natural barriers; an excellent artery of rivers; and fluid, poorly defined frontiers. Such porous frontiers could be a danger and a source of contention as well as an opportunity. They contributed to the heavy emphasis on the military throughout most of Russian history. Russia today, like the USSR before it, borders on more nations than any other country in the world.

Colonization led to the absorption of many non-Russian peoples and the creation of a multinational empire. Ruling over so many non-Russians affected both Russian domestic and foreign policies. The difficulties of ruling over so many differing peoples helped lead to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The Eurasian location of Russia — part European, part Asian — has been another geographic feature that has had a significant impact on Russian history and culture. During the nineteenth century, Russian Slavophiles and Westernizers debated whether Russia was culturally part of Europe or not. Later on, the émigrés from the Russian Empire who founded "Eurasianism" in 1920 emphasized the importance of a Eurasian location. Just a few years earlier, the great Russian poet Alexander Blok had foreshadowed their doctrine in his poem "The Scythians." There he depicted Russians as between Europe and Asia, but also wrote: "Yes, we are Scythians! Yes, we are Asians."

Today, years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians are once again vigorously debating their national identity and relationship to the West.

THE PEOPLES

The Russians (or Great Russians) are part of the large number of Slavic peoples who reside from the Adriatic Sea to the Russian Far East. By the thirteenth century, the Russians had emerged as a distinct ethnic group as a result of East Slavs in the north of Russia intermingling with Finnish peoples of the area.

Some Finnish tribes, however, such as the Komi, the Mordva, and the Mari, although subject to various pressures throughout Russian history, maintained their separate identities. (Komi, Mari, and Mordovian Republics exist in present-day Russia, although the native peoples are outnumbered in each by Great Russians.)

As the Russian state expanded in medieval and modern times, more than 100 other nationalities were brought under Russian control. Among them were the peoples of modern-day Ukraine and Belarus, Siberia, part of the Baltic area, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. In the Russian Empire's census of 1897 (which excluded Finland), those who listed their native language as Russian composed only 44.3 percent of the population. Using language as a rough guide to ethnicity, Ukrainians made up 17.8 percent, Poles 6.3 percent, and Belorussians 4.7 percent. Among the non-Slavic population, the many Turkic peoples, primarily in Central Asia and the Caucasus, together composed 10.8 percent. Jews were 4 percent, and other nationalities (including Armenians, Georgians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Finnish peoples) each composed a smaller percentage.

At the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Russians were just a bare majority in the USSR. In the new post-Soviet Russia, however, the Great Russians in 1992 made up more than 80 percent of the total population of almost 150 million people. Although Tatars and Ukrainians were the only other nationalities possessing more than 1 percent of the total, more than 100 national groups still existed within Russian borders. Conversely, the 25 million Russians residing in other former Soviet republics almost equaled the number of non-Russians still inside Russian borders.

ANCIENT RUS TO 1855: A SUMMARY OF MAJOR HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

By 1853, when the Crimean War began, Russia was recognized as one of Europe's major powers. Yet, as the Crimean War made clear, Russia had not progressed industrially in the preceding half-century as rapidly as some of its chief rivals, especially Great Britain. Although easily more than sixty times the size of the British Isles, the Russian Empire in 1855 possessed only about two and a half times the population, and about five Russian babies died in infancy for every three in Britain. Although half of the British people were already living in urban districts, and more than half of them could read and write, nine out of ten Russian subjects still lived in rural areas, and nineteen out of twenty were illiterate. The backward nature of Russian agriculture, along with its climate and growing conditions, meant that it took the work of about three peasants just to produce what one Englishman could. Despite Russia's much greater size, its railway tracks covered only about one-tenth the distance of British ones, and its production of such a vital modern industrial resource as pig iron suffered even more in comparison.

Russia also suffered from less tangible drawbacks. For example, the state discouraged social initiative, and Russia lacked a civil society — that is, a social sphere standing between the government and the family or individual, in which people can freely interact and create their own independent organizations. Partly because of state dominance, Russian commercial and civil law was poorly developed. The most characteristic features of the Russian Empire in 1855 were autocracy, serfdom, and the many nationalities Russian expansion had brought into the empire.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from A History of Russia by Walter G. Moss. Copyright © 2005 Walter G. Moss. Excerpted by permission of Wimbledon Publishing Company.
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Table of Contents

List of Maps; List of Illustrations; Preface to the Second Edition; A Note to Students; Introduction; Part I. Late Imperial Russia, 1855-1917; Part II. Russia and the Soviet Union, 1917-1991; Part III. Contemporary Russia; General Bibliography; Appendix A: Chronology; Appendix B. Glossary; Appendix C: World Oil Prices; Index