Return to Home Page

Historical GeographyHistorical GeographySlides for October 17, 2013Slides for October 17, 2013

GEOG 433GEOG 433

Historical Geography #8

Important date – 1453, after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, Moscow became the Third RomeEven though Moscow considered herself as belonging to Europe, later events set Russia off on a very different historical path.

i.e., various theological, philosophical, and intellectual currents, often referred to as scholasticism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, and Reason & Enlightenment – which greatly impacted Europe drawing their Christianity from Rome, but only touched the ruling elite of Russia, as orthodoxy and autocracy went hand-in-hand until the Bolshevik revolution.

Question – could the fall of Constantinople perhaps be the origin of many east-west dichotomies/conflicts?

Historical Geography #9

Moscow/Moscovy became new core of the eastern Slavs.Beginning by local territorial expansion along the river systems, Moscow gradually acquired more and more power and wealth, until in 1478, Ivan III (1462-1505), the Grand Prince of Moscovy, successfully invaded and subdued Novgorod – which had been the only Russian principality to have avoided Mongol control.In 1480 Moscovy stopped paying tribute to the Tatars.Next, Ivan III and his successor Vasili III (1505-1533) began a policy of “gathering in the Russian lands.”As result of this conscious strategy of aggrandizement, the Grand Principality of Tver (Kalinin in Soviet time) was annexed in 1485, Vyatka in 1489, Pskov in 1510, and Ryazan’ in 1521.Smolensk recaptured from the Lithuanians in 1514.

Historical Geography #10

During this consolidation of Russian lands, a return migration, or re-colonization, was taking place by descendants of the earlier Russian peoples who had fled to the west instead of the northeast.By 16th Century, middle and upper Dniepr regions were populated by two new ethnic nations, with variant forms of the Russian language – Little Rus (Ukrainians) and Byelorussians (White Russians).

1547 the first title of Tsar assumed by

Иван Грознйи – Ivan IV - the Terrible

Growth of the

Russian (Europe

an) Empire

1533-1598

• “Ivan the Terrible” - Ivan IV (1533-1584)“Tsar of All the Russias” (1547)First conquest of non-Russian lands:blocked by:

Swedes to northwestunited Poland-Lithuania to the west and southwestBlack Sea Tatars to southTatars to east

Dismal failures to the west – spectacular successes in the eastInvaded Livonia (roughly modern Estonia and Latvia) in 1558Protracted war with Sweden, Poland & Lithuania until 1583Lost Russian possessions on Gulf of Finland, western shore of Lake LadogaIn east: Tatar khanates (kingdoms) disintegrated were easy pray:

Kazan’ – central Volga 1552Astrakhan’ – mouth of Volga 1556built fortresses – Samara (Kuybyshev in Soviet times), Saratov, Voronezh &

Tsaritsyn (Stalingrad, Volgograd) 1586-1590Significance: valuable steppe farm land & access to Caspian Sea

Russian Empire’s March across Siberia

• 1550-1858 major period of Russian empire eastward expansion

(most rapidly 1550-1650)• 1581 start of wave of Slavic eastward expansion that

reached Pacific in 1640• 1652 Baykal area annexed• 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk – Russia & China– Russia gets all land north of watershed of Stanovoy Mtns.– China granted land on both sides of Amur and all of Amur’s

tributaries east of the Argun River– Source of Sino-Soviet conflict

• this diffusion process:•Politically organized•Military and semi-military Cossacks, extracting fur tribute from small indigenous populations, built small forts (ostrogs) all the way

Russia’s turn westward

• Peter I (“the Great”) (1689-1725) (son of Alexis)• Alexis’ Military successes:

– Recapture of Smolensk, Kiev, left bank of Dnieper from Poles (1656-1667)

Peter’s accomplishments

-began industrialization of the Urals (iron, copper, lead)

-smelters for arms factories

-secure foothold on Baltic 1703

-St. Petersburg (“window on Europe”) became capital in 1713 (moved back to Moscow in 1918

-Treaty of Nystad in 1721 (end of Northern Wars) – gave Estonia, Livonia, and Karelia to Russia

-export trade from St. Petersburg – furs, timber, grain, flax, iron

-import trade through St. Petersburg – coffee, sugar, dyes, wine

-Navy, army, administrative organization

Catherine II (“the Great”)• Reign 1762-1796• Russia wins back the western lands from Lithuania and

Poland• Polish partitions – 1772, 1793, 1795 (western boundary

minus

East Prussia, Galicia, and Bessarabia• Capture of all southern steppes (Turkish wars) from

Dniester to Kuban’ rivers (i.e., superior agricultural farmland)

Catherine II’s successors• Entanglements in French Revolutionary and Napoleonic

wars• Large annexation of Caucasus (1801-1819)• Finland (1809)• Bessarabia (1812)• Warsaw (1815)• Rest of 19th Century – remainder of Caucasus, 5 Central

Asian republics and Far East

19th century economic transformation• Rich chernozem (black earth)• Construction of Black Sea ports• Russian Ukraine becomes breadbasket of Europe• Moscow-Ivanovo textile belt flourished• Old manufacturing complexes in St. Petersburg grew and

diversified• Coking coal of Donets Basin (Donbas) and high-grade iron ore

of Kryvyy Rih exclipse charcoal-based metallurgy of Urals• European timber markets invigorated both European North and port• of Arkhangel’sk• Emancipation of serfs in 1861• Trans-Siberian RR begun 1891, finished in 1917• Revolution, foreign intervention, and civil war 1918-1921

Fig 1.13 Industrial Geography of

European Russia 1913.

Table 1.2 Russian industrial output

Table 1.3 National income in 1913: Russia & other selected countries

Table 1.4 Russian economic indicators, 1890-1914

Marx’s Historical Materialism

• Primitive communism

• Slavery

• Feudalism

• Capitalism

• Socialism

• Communism

Soviet economic history

Revolution

War Communism

New Economic Policy

Industrialization Debate

Scissors crisis

Soviet Economic Development Model

Early Economic History

• Civil War (1917-1920)• War Communism (approx. 1917-1921)• New Economic Policy (NEP) (1921-1928)• Industrialization Debate (1924-1928)• First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932)• Second 5-Yr Plan (1933-1937)• Third 5-Yr Plan disrupted (1938-1942)• Fourth 5-Yr Plan (1946-1950)

Early Economic History

• Civil War (1917-1920)• War Communism (approx. 1917-1921)• New Economic Policy (NEP) (1921-1928)• Industrialization Debate (1924-1928)• First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932)• Second 5-Yr Plan (1933-1937)• Third 5-Yr Plan disrupted (1938-1942)• Fourth 5-Yr Plan (1946-1950)

Key Polices of War Communism

• Nationalization of all businesses with 5 or more employees

• Elimination of markets in agriculture and retail trade

• Agriculture remained in private ownership & control

• Massive spontaneous peasant land seizures and land redistribution in 1917

• Industrial labor conscripted

• Labor receives payments-in-kind from state stores

• Requisitioned agriculture produce

• Demonetized economic environment

• Tax-in-kind of peasants

• Practically all food stuffs rationed

Tensions during War Communism

• Passive peasant resistance–>

• Famine of 1921

• Kronstadt Naval Revolt 1921

• Lenin calls for tactical retreat 1921

• NEP comes into effect in 1922

No.2 banks & No 3 ind. enterprises

No. 4 Foreign trade & No 5 Inheritance

No. 6 large ind & No 7 real estate

No. 8 Constitution - Chapter 2

Fig 2.1 USSR about 1923.

NEP policies• Revival of private ownership & market economy• BUT small & medium industries and transport facilities remained

nationalized• Reason: create incentive for peasants to produce• NEP –> spectacularly rapid increases in output, I.e., restoring

production• Improve smyshka between peasants & proletariat• By 1926 significant class wealth division in countryside - kulaks• Scissors crisis worsens

No, 9 NEP

Industrialization Debates• Question of pace and source of investment• Question of sectoral distribution of investment• Question of pace of industrialization• Right - gradualist

– Bukharin, Stalin, slow, emphasis on agriculture

• Left - intensive industrialization, rapid pace - Preobrazhensky, Trotsky

Backdrop for political power struggle after Lenin dies in 1924

Irony - according to Marxism, primitive capitalist accumulation, with concomitant increasing misery of the working class, was to provide the material basis for socialism

Right - “natural” socioeconomic developmentLeft - violation of Marxist doctrine

By 1928 Stalin had a free hand and embarked on decisive, radically new policies.

No. 10 - output 1913-1928

End of NEP

• Deteriorating economic conditions of 1927-28• December 1929 Stalin issues collectivization orders• By March 1930 - over 50% of agriculture labor force in

collectives.• Arguments for collectivization:

– 1) increase marketed share of agriculture production– 2) shift resources from consumption into industrial investments– 3) eliminate private ownership of land– 4) vanquish the kulak opposition to Stalin’s regime

No. 16 - Dizzy with Success