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Psychoanalyzing Russia’s Childhood and How the Aforementioned Childhood Led to Specific Modes, Methods, and Motivations of Conquest and Control
(or, why russian and british imperialism was different) Q: Explain the crucial differences between Russian and Britaish Imperialism A: Basically stating that the difference between the two are based on Europe's head start (Mongol domination and all that) so there is no capitalism/social mobility, therefore they each have different reasons for conquest, different ways of running the empires, and different outcomes A fairly broad question, even placed within an imperialist conquest. What major differences led to Western domination and Russian stagnation? One, of course, the root of almost all other differences, was the time frames: Russia was several centuries behind European development. Peter the Great attempted to modernize Russia to Western standards, but that wasn’t until the early eighteenth century – England had already been under the influence of the early industrial revolution (the agricultural revolution) for nearly a century, now, something Russia wouldn’t experience for almost another two hundred years. Instead, Russia’s history had been one of oppression and fealty, weakness and subjugation. Their people knew only an agrarian life, hard, subsistent, and anonymous. There was no Renaissance in Russia, no sudden awakening of the common classes to their own individuality. No capitalism – only absolutist rule. No economic motivation for exploration, conquest, and control – in Russia, there was only the desire for power, a Freudian need to make up for what it was missing in its childhood, its Mongol-dominated, compliant early years on the Golden Horde playground. And so, when it came time for them to establish their empire, Russia had to business class, no entrepreneurs, and bankers to turn to. The majority of their citizens were tied to the land. They no great explorers, like England. Their capital was land-based, and they only, slowly and ineffectively, got involved with the European mercantilism when they saw the profitability of gold in the west. But without the tools, or capital, or people, their expansion was slow and awkward. It was distracted and delayed by internal problems: peasant revolts, weakened power, a lack of continuity in the rulers’ strengths, ambitions and plans for the country. Control of the newly acquired territory was another key point on which Russia and Britain differed. England sent out the new, ambitious middle class to settle and rule the colonies, to produce the exports that defined the colonies. Russia not only was lacking this middle class of adventurers and settlers, they wanted different things from their colonies – they didn’t want to tap into and exploit local economies like Britain did. They wanted tribute, as they had learned from their early foster parents, the Mongols. Russia had no factories to bring raw materials back to; they wanted, instead, riches: gold, exotic trade items, shortcuts to far distant and wealthy ports. They wanted to beat the British in travel-time and control the trade routes – for he who controls the trade routes levies the taxes and tolls. But demanding tolls doesn’t always bode well, as we see with ancient Ilium – Russia was unable to effectively control the trade routes they desperately wanted to establish. They had little local control, no homogony in the empire, and little understanding for the people they ruled. Russia was a horrible Machiavellian, a dismal failure, almost a complete antithesis. No understanding of the local context, no presence, except troops, who only march heavily upon the economy and (literally) eat up resources. Russia’s power structure and geographic sprawl determined its methods, means, and results of expansion. It coupled centralized power with land-based extension, versus Britain’s maritime empire of local governors and colonies. Peter’s great need for sea ports, in emulation of Western styles, only really translated into a few small fur-trading outposts in Northwestern America and Canada. Other attempts at water-based conquest failed, as well: Catherine’s eminent attack on Constantinople thwarted by an unexpected storm; the move to establish the Crimean Peninsula as a base for Russian navies, terminated by, essentially, all of Europe. No, there was little imperialist activity accomplished by Russian fleets. Perhaps Russia would have been able to successfully and profitably expand if it had had a continuous chain of command, instead of the erratic rule history provided – dramatic conquest in one generation (e.g. Peter the Great), followed by provincial neglect and subsequent loss of holdings in the next (e.g. Anne). Perhaps if the rulers had been able to follow a consistent policy…something Britain was more equipped to do, thanks to the Parliament, but, no, representative government was not for Russia – their history had led them along a different path, one of close-guarded power and tight control over the people. Russia’s past very much controlled its outlook on the future. In escaping the vestiges of that archaic Mongol control (from which, of course, they were emotionally scarred, and hence the overwhelming need to imitate Europe), Russia embodied the very tactics and policies from which they galloped, swords in upraised hands, conquest and domination at the ready, away from. back |