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Historical Geography
Slides for October 17, 2013
GEOG 433
Historical Geography #8
Important date – 1453, after the fall of Constantinople to
the Turks, Moscow became the Third Rome
Even 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
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“Ivan the Terrible” - Ivan IV (1533-1584)
“Tsar of All the Russias” (1547)
First conquest of non-Russian lands:
blocked by:
Swedes to northwest
united Poland-Lithuania to the west and southwest
Black Sea Tatars to south
Tatars to east
Dismal failures to the west – spectacular successes in the east
Invaded Livonia (roughly modern Estonia and Latvia) in 1558
Protracted war with Sweden, Poland & Lithuania until 1583
Lost Russian possessions on Gulf of Finland, western shore of Lake Ladoga
In east: Tatar khanates (kingdoms) disintegrated were easy pray:
Kazan’ – central Volga 1552
Astrakhan’ – mouth of Volga 1556
built fortresses – Samara (Kuybyshev in Soviet times), Saratov, Voronezh &
Tsaritsyn (Stalingrad, Volgograd) 1586-1590
Significance: 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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Question of pace and source of investment
Question of sectoral distribution of investment
Question of pace of industrialization
Right - gradualist
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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 development
Left - 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:
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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