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Russian History and the Soviet Union
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
Extract
The problem I wish to discuss is how Russian history has differed from that of Western Europe and whether the reasons for these differences continue to be relevant and deep-seated enough to make it seem likely that they will continue in the future.
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- Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1962
References
1 Marx, K., Secret Diplomatic History of the 18th Century (1899), is often quoted by Soviet writers on the parallelism between Charlemagne and Rurik. But Marx's point was that this similarity was due to the Germanic (Norman or Viking) origin of ancient Russia; moreover, he sharply distinguished post-Mongol from pre-Mongol Russia. “The bloody mire of Mongolian slavery, not the rude glory of the Norman epoch, forms the cradle of Muscovy, and modern Russia is but a metamorphosis of Muscovy”, p. 77.Google Scholar
2 H. A. L. Fisher, A History of Europe.
3 Total European population is about 550 million; of these the populations of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia amount to 57 million and there are 126 million Slays in the European part of the USSR (a further 35 million Slays are in the Eastern parts of the USSR). Russians in the USSR now number about 115 million. Sources: U.N. Demographic Yearbook (1958), p. 104; Izvestiya 4 ii 60.
4 H. J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919). For the Eurasian school see the collections issued under the general title Utverzhdenie Evrazietsev (Sofia, Berlin, Prague, Paris, 1921–31). Certain Polish historians have made efforts to exclude most of Russian history from Europe, see: O. Halecki, The limits and divisions of European history (1950) and his Borderlands of Western Civilization (1952); H. Paszkiewicz, The origin of Russia (1954).
5 A. Toynbee, A Study of History; Obolensky, D., “Russia's Byzantine Heritage”, Oxford Slavonic Papers, I, p. 37.Google Scholar
6 See especially G. F. Debets, Paleoantropologiya SSSR (Trudy Instituta etnografii im. N. N. Miklukho-Maklaya, novaya seriya, tom 4, 1948).
7 Povest' vremennkh let, I (1950), p. 10.
8 Wittfogel, K., Oriental Despotism (New Haven, 1957).Google Scholar For a very interesting criticism of Wittfogel's views see Leach, E. R., “Hydraulic society in Ceylon”, Past and Present, 15 (April 1959), pp. 2–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 Childe, V. G., “The socketed celt in Upper Eurasia”, Annual Report University of London Institute of Archaeology, X (1954), pp. 11–25; The Dawn of European Civilisation, 6th ed. (1957), p. 343. But the socketed celt may have originated in the Kara-suk culture, an Asiatic although barbarian society. Perhaps this again stresses the importance of intercultural influences in Eurasia, even around 1300 B.C.Google Scholar
10 Agamemnon was ⋯ναξ ⋯νδρ⋯ν the Persian monarch is Shahanshah.
11 Childe, op. cit., pp. 223, 299, 309, 336.
12 Pittioni, R., “Prehistoric copper-mining in Austria”, Annual Report VII (1951), pp. 31, 35.Google Scholar
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14 Selinov and Lagodovskaya in Sovetskaya arkheologiya, V, p. 239; Passek, Materialy í issledovaniya po arkheologii SSSR, 10, p. 194.
15 Rybakov, B. A., Remeslo drevnei Rusi (1948), pp. 36–7.Google Scholar
16 Rybakov, op. cit., pp. 38–40, includes a map showing the distribution of these ores.
17 D. Obolensky, op. cit., pp. 51–2.
18 A. Toynbee, op. cit., VP, p. 577.
19 Toynbee, op. cit., III, p. 283 recognises that Peter's models were taken from the contemporary West, but he continues to refer to the Byzantine emperors' aim of caesaro-papism. Perhaps the main western source of Peter's ideas for his reform of the church is to be found in the writings of Samuel Pufendorf (1631–94), some of which were translated under Peter's direction.
20 Byzantine control of the new church only came into effect with the arrival of Theopemptus in 1039. In 1051 Yaroslav appointed Hila?on as metropolitan; but till after 1453 there seems to have been no general challenge of Byzantine clerical control.
21 A. I. Klibanov, Reformatsionnoe dvizhenie v Rossil v XlV—pervoi polovine XVIvv (1960) as well as Kazakova and Lur'e (see footnote 22) have done much to correct the widespread neglect of the humanist movement in 15th-16th century Russia.
22 Joseph Sann, abbot of Volokolamsk, Prosvetitel' ili oblichenie zhidovstvuyushchikh (Kazan', 1896). See also N. A. Kazakova and Ya. S. Lur'e, Antifeodal'nye ereticheskie dvizheniya na Rusi XIV-nachala XVIvv (1955). Joseph looked on the Empress Irene's treatment of the heretics in much the same way as Stalin looked on Ivan IV's treatment of the boyars. Both Irene and Ivan failed to extirpate their opponents.
23 The clashes between conflicting groups in medieval Novgorod, which frequently ended with one party in the river, are well known. But perhaps it might be objected that they in part contain a West European element and are not representative of the expansion of the power of the patriarchal head of a household on a public scale which seems to typify much Russian behaviour even now. But was not public conflict in medieval Western Europe also through this expansion of household power with its resultant expulsions and suppressions?
24 Wittfogel, K., Oriental Despotism (New Haven, 1957), p. 225.Google Scholar
25 Bolin, S., “Mohammed, Charlemagne and Rurik”, Scandinavian Economic History Review, I (1953), p. 5. But the Viking impact seems to have been unimportant as a permanent influence on administration and economy (see above, n. 25). Much of the Eastern wealth probably had an ultimate destination West of Russia.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26 The census, the post-horse system the word for money (den'gi) are supposed to be acquisitions from the Mongols; Karamzin, lstoriya gosudarstva Rossiiskago t.v (1836), Primechanie 356, p. 63. Wittfogel op. cit., p. 224, seems to regard service-tenure (pomest'e) as being Tartar in origin; but Dyukov and Masevich (see below footnote 33) implying a borrowing from the West, argue that the Mongols and Tartars in the Golden Horde, who had no private land ownership in the steppes, developed the suyurgal “which had much in common with Russian service-tenure and the West European fief” (p. 137).
27 Smith, R. E. F., The Origins of Farming in Russia (1959), p. 22.Google Scholar
28 Baykov, A., in Economic History Review (Second series) VII, no. 2, 1954, pp. 137–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29 Kostomarov, N., Ocherk torgovli Moskovskago gosudarstva v XV i XVI stoletiyakh (1889), p. 214.Google Scholar
30 E. I. Zaozerskaya in Ocherki istorii SSSR, Rossiya v pervoi cherverti XVlllv., pp. 87, 92.
31 Zaozerskaya, op. cit., p. 282. See also S. G. Strumílin, Istoriya chernoi metallurgic v SSSR, I (1954), chapters 14 and 15.
32 While population engaged in industry increased from 8% of the total in the economy in 1928 to 31% in 1958, the proportion in agriculture and forestry declined from 80% to 42% in the same period. Source: Narodnoe Khozyaistvo SSSR v 1958g. (1959), p. 654.
33 Dyukov, L. V. and Masevich, M. G., “Ob osobennostyakh zemelnoi sobstvennosti v nekotorykh kochevykh narodov v epokhu feodalizma”, Uchenye zapiski yurídicheskogo fakul'teta Kazakhskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, vyp. IV (1957), pp. 119–45.Google Scholar
34 Sh. F. Mukhamed'yarov, “K voprosu o sistemt zemledeliya v srednem Povol'zhe nakanune p?soedineniya k Rossii', Uchenye zapiski Kazanskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, Obshcheuniversitetskyi Sbornik, t. 117, Kn. 9 (1957), pp. 43–6; “K istorii zemledeliya v Srednem Povolzh'e v XV-XVI vekakh”, Materialy po istorii selskogo khozyaistva i krest'yanstva SSSR, t. III (1959), pp. 89–122.
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