Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Dominic Lieven
Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 30, No. 4. (Oct., 1995), pp. 607-636.
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Dominic Lieven
much more true in some eras than others. Britain lost its American
colonies partly because it had never created an effective apparatus
of imperial bureaucratic control. In response to the loss of
America, London attempted to rectify this weakness and was
carried still further in the direction of authoritarian, paternalist
rule by two decades of ideological and military confrontation
with revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Even in the 1820s, the
liberal, free-trading and de-centralized empire which emerged in
the Victorian era was scarcely yet in evidence.1
In the Soviet case, one has to make equally fundamental distinc-
tions between the 1920s and the Stalinist era. Under NEP, the
Soviet regime pursued policies of 'indigenization' and republican
cultural autonomy which, in Ukraine, resulted in Russians being
made to study in Ukrainian-language schools. In much of Soviet
Asia the regime itself created nations out of what had previously
been largely illiterate clan and tribal societies. Still more basic
were differences between empire in Romanov and Soviet Russia.
In the last decades of its existence the Romanov regime was
evolving from a dynastic-aristocratic ZIausrnacht towards a polity
appealing to Russian nationalist sentiment and reflecting Russian
interests and cultural values. It was thereby becoming more like
the British, French and German empires of its day. Under Stalin
Soviet imperial patriotism did absorb some elements of the Rus-
sian nationalist and imperial tradition. Nevertheless, in important
respects the Soviet regime was closer to the Ottoman Empire in
its heyday than to either Tsarist Russia or the maritime empires
of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Like the Ottomans, the
Soviet regime, especially in its early days, possessed a multi-ethnic
elite and a supra-national ideology rooted in dogmatic and mono-
theistic doctrines which claimed universal validity and sought
worldwide dominance."
In the Roman Empire, a fundamental distinction existed
between government in the primitive and barbarian West and in
the urban, civilized, Greek East.12 Most members of the Roman
elite indeed recognized the superiority of Greek culture, comfort-
ing themselves by pride in Rome's own military and political
virtues and triumphs. Still less would it have occurred to the
British to govern white colonists in the same manner as Asian or
African natives. O n the whole, the Romanovs' state was governed
in a more centralized and uniform manner than the Roman or
British empires. Nevertheless, in the eighteenth century, Russian
Lieven: Russian Empire and Soviet Union as Imperial Polities 61 1
national unity and political stability. At least in its Han core, China
presents the fascinating case of an empire far advanced along the
path to nationhood, which now faces the dramatic inequalities
and conflicts between regions which attend a centralized, imperial
communist polity's move towards the market." This polity must
also control non-Han ethnic minorities which predominate in
roughly half of China's territory." How effectively the Chinese
regime responds to a range of quintessentially imperial problemsw
will have a big impact on political stability and economic develop-
ment in much of East Asia.
In contemporary Eurasia, however, it is in the former Soviet
Union that problems of empire and its aftermath are most obvious
and dangerous Having shed its imperial Marxist-Leninist iden-
tity and abandoned direct control over most of its non-Russian
regions, Russia now has to find a new way of protecting its interests
in the 'Near Abroad' and defining for itself a new role, borders
and identity."'
Contrary to the view of many Russians, their present post-
imperial dilemma about identity and frontiers is by no means
unique and unprecedented. It has been shared by, among others,
the Austrians, the Turks and even the English. What does make
Russia unique are geopolitical aspects of its post-imperial status.
When Turkey, Austria or England lost their empires, they were
automatically relegated to second-class status or worse: their
homelands lacked the population or resources to sustain a great
power. Uniquely among the nineteenth-century European
empires, Russia has retained the jewel in its imperial crown,
namely Siberia. European maritime empires scattered their colon-
ists across the globe, in time losing them in newly independent
states. Russian colonists from the fourteenth century moved into
geographically contiguous areas, most of which remain within the
present-day Russian Federation. Even the 25 million Russians
who live in the 'Near Abroad' are a crucial potential arm of
Russian power and influence throughout the former USSR.
Because Russia remains a great power, potential rivals such as the
USA, China, Iran or Turkey will be very slow to challenge it
within its former empire. The contrast to Turkey's position in
1918-22, or even to Britain's hold on the Middle East and South
Asia after 1945, is striking. For these reasons, although Russia's
post-imperial traumas are not necessarily deeper or more difficult
Lieven: Russian Empire and Soviet Union as Imperial Polities 613
Modern Irish history has many interesting lessons for the former
Soviet Union. Is it likely that Brussels, Berlin or some other power
centre will in time come to rival Moscow for influence in some of
the peripheral republics of the former Soviet Union. Will Russia
follow Britain in regarding it as forever unthinkable to reassert
control over former 'colonies' by force? Will Moscow attempt to
use Russian minorities in former Soviet republics as Trojan horses
and, if so, will it actually succeed in controlling and manipulating
them in its own interests? Will not Moscow's policy in the Near
Abroad, even more than Britain's in Ireland, be determined by
the chance and logic of factional struggles in domestic Russian
politics? Will Russia annex border regions with Russian-speaking
majorities and, if so, will it pay the same price for this policy that
London is st111paying in Ulster? All these questions remain open
and vital in 1995.
The Scottish case is also interesting for the historian of empire
in Russia and the Soviet Union. Parallels exist between Scotland
and Ukraine. The two countries entered their respective imperial
polities at roughly the same time. In the early eighteenth century
the cultural distance between London and Edinburgh was not
dissimilar to that between Moscow and Kiev, though the Kingdom
of Scotland and its institutions had a much older history than the
Ukrainian Hetmanate. In the eighteenth century, many Ukrainians
made successful careers in the imperial service and some contri-
buted greatly to Russian culture. The same was even more true
of the Scots. Scottish and Ukrainian patterns diverged in the 1830s
and 1830s. It IS to these decades that one can trace the origins of
a radical and anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism, precisely at a
moment when Scots seemed at their most contented within the
British imperial polity. Under the 'CJnion, Scotland preserved its
law, church and system of local government. In contrast, by the
1830s the last vestiges of the Ukrainian Hetmanate and its insti-
tutions had been destroyed by the rationalizing and centralizing
hand of Romanov bureaucracy. Life under Nicholas 1's authori-
tarian and bureaucratic regime provided ample incentives to
invoke the myth of the freedom-loving Cossack as Ukraine's
ancestor and the symbol of its identity.'"
In general in the nineteenth century it was easier, particularly
for educated members of the middle class, to identify with the
world's richest, most liberal and most admired polity than with
authoritarian Tsarist Russia, Europe's backward stepchild. The
618 Journal of'Conternporary History
ideas and temptations. For the next two centuries the empires'
ruling Clites belonged to very similar cultural worlds. They
absorbed the ideas of the Enlightenment and faced the challenges
first of the French revolution and then of nineteenth-century
democracy and nationalism. The great similarities between the
police-states of Metternich's Austria and Nicholas 1's Russia are
evident. All the more remarkable, therefore, was the fact that the
two empires had diverged markedly by 1900 in their response to
the nationalist challenge. Austria was moving in the direction of
concession, de-centralization, constitutionalism and even federalist
democracy. The Romanovs had attempted an intransigent defence
of centralized autocracy, gingerly beginning to mobilize Russian
popular nationalism in its defence.
One simple but important explanation for this divergence was
demography. In 1897 roughly 46 per cent of the Tsar's subjects
were Great Russians. About 23 per cent of Franz Joseph's sub-
jects were Austrian-Germans. However, Russia's rulers, and
indeed much of educated society, regarded Ukrainians and Belo-
russians as simply offshoots of the Russian tribe who spoke some-
what strange dialects. Given this premise, roughly two-thirds of
the empire's population were Russians, at which point a policy
of treating the whole polity as if it were, or ought to be, a nation
became plausible, if misguided. By contrast, it was inconceivable
that an empire less than one-quarter of whose population was
German could turn into anything approaching a nation, even had
an alternative, rival German national empire not existed to the
north.
Geopolitics reinforced demography. Situated in the centre of
Europe, the Habsburg Empire was surrounded by potential enem-
ies whose combined resources were much greater than its own. A
tradition of cautious alliance-building and moderation developed
in Vienna to match this reality. 'Patterns of Habsburg statecraft
that later became associated with Clemens von Metternich, such
as coalition and balance of power diplomacy and the maintenance
of legitimate frontiers, were already evident by the seventeenth
century."' Russian geopolitical perspectives could afford to be
much wider and more ambitious. With the collapse of the Golden
Horde and the decline of nomadic power on the Eurasian Steppe,
a huge area opened up for Russian territorial expansion in a
region in which it was very difficult for rival powers to check
Russia's advance.
624 Journal o f Contemporary Histoty
Notes
1. In 1815. for instance. the English referred to the United Kingdom itself as an
cmpirc. By the twentieth century the tcrm meant 'the overseas dominions etc.. as
opposed to Great Britain'. K. W. Burchficld. A Supplerneni to the Oxford English
Dictionury (Oxford 1972). vol. 1, 936. 1. S. Lustick. Unsettled States: Disprtted I,un[f.s
(Ithaca. NY 1993). 69-70.
2. A recent example is J. Snyder. Myihs und Ernpire, Domestic Politics nrld
Iniernuiionnl Arnhiiion (Ithaca, NY 1991). M. W. Doyle. En~pires(Ithaca. NY
1986) is also above all a study of expansionism and its roots. in other words of the
international rather than the domestic aspect of cmpire. Though he uses the tcrm
'great power' rather than 'cmpire'. Paul Kennedy's famous ?he Rise und Full of
/he Grerii Powers (New York 1987) is also essentially a study of the sinews
of imperial power.
3. S. N. Eisenstadt. The Politicul Sysrems c ~ fErnpircs, whose first edition was
puhlished in 1963, remains the most comprehensive study of the domestic consti-
tution of empires. P Dibb. ?he Soviet Union: The lncompleie Superpower (London
1988) was unusual in applying the term 'emplrc' to the lJSSR and looking at both
external (e.g. foreign and defence policy) and domestic (e.g. inter-ethnic issues)
aspects of the Sovlct imperial polity. A. Kappcler, Kus.slrind uls Vielvolkerreich
(Munlch 1993) is not merely a splendid study of prc-1917 Russia's imperial .const]-
tution'. ideology and management of multi-ethnicity. but also makes many intcrcst-
ing comparisons with other empires. D. Gcyer. R~t.ssirinlmperiulism. The I~lieruciion
of Domestic rind Foreign PPocj~1860-191.1 (1,eamington Spa 1987) attempts to tind
causal links between domestic and foreign aspects of cmpirc in late lmpcrial
Russia.
4. Lustick, Unseiiled Siures. passim hut especially chapters 1 and 2.
5. J. A. Murray (cd.), A New E~lglrshDictionriry on Hisioricrrl Princip1e.s (Oxford
1897). vol. 3. (E) 128.
6. J. H. Kautsky. ?%e Po1iric.s c~fAri.srocrrrtic En1pire.s (Chapel Hill. NC 1982)
supplements Eisenstadt. Politicrrl Systerns. Kappclcr. H~~.s.slrrnd rrls Vielvolkerreich,
stresses that for most of its history Imperial Russia was a dynastic-aristocratic
Hritr.srnrichi rathcr than an empire benefiting ethnic Russians or reflecting their
values.
7. A. Kappelcr. Ii~~s.slunds Ersie Nriiionulifiifen. Dns Zurerlreich und die V d k e r
&.s Mittleren Volgu vom 16 his 19 .lrilzrlzunderi (Cologne 1982). is the definitive
work o n Impenal Russia's relations with its Tatar subjects. The best English-
language study of Russia's colonial empire is M. Rywkin (cd.). Ru.s.siurl Coloniul
Expunsion to 1917 (London 1988). Admittedly. 'Russian Empire' is a translation
of 'Kossiv.skuyrr imperivn' and rossiyskiy (as distinct from russkiy) means 'of the
Kussian land and state' rather than 'of the Kussian people'.
630 Journal of Conterr~poraryHistory
19. For example, uneven economic growth bctwcen centre and periphery can
cause major problems of political readjustment for centralized bureaucratic
empires. 'lhe centre's loss of control over local Clitcs and taxes, and the revolt it
inspires by subsequent attempts to reassert this control, have played their part in
the decline of a number of imperial polities (c.g. in eighteenth-century Spanish
America and in Central Asia under Brczhncv and tiorbachev). See, for example.
I). Brading, 'Bourbon Spain and its American Empire', ch. 3 (1 12-62) in L. Bcthcll
(cd.), Coloniul Spani.sh Americu (Cambridge 1987); J. Lynch. "lhe Origins of
Spanish American Independence', ch. 1, 1 4 8 in L. Bethell (ed.), 172e Independence
of Latin America (Cambridge 1987). and C. J. MacLachlan, Sparn:~Empire in the
New World (Berkeley 1988). M. Goodman, 'Perestroika: Its Impact on the Central
Asian Republics and their Relations with Moscow' in t-1. Malik (ed.). Centrul Asiu.
Its Strrltegic lrnportrrnce rrnd Frtt~rreProspects (London 1994). Also J. Critchlow.
Nrrtionulisrn in Uibekistrm. A Soviet Republic's Rorrd to Sovereignty (Boulder, C O
1991).
20. '[he best book on Russia's re-emergence in new post-communist foml is J.
1)unlop. The Rise of R~r.ssirirrnd the Full o f t h e Soviet Union (Princeton 1993). On
the post-Soviet international order in Northern Eurasia, see K. Dawisha and B.
Parrott. Rllssirr und the New Strifes of Eurmiu (Cambridge 1994). M . Bettino (ed.),
In u Collupsing Empire. Underdevelopment, Ethnic. Conflicts und Nutlonalism in
the Soviet Union (Milan 1993) is a useful collection of essays on aspects of the
Soviet collapse. On Kussia's post-1991 diaspora see, in particular. N. Melvin, Forg-
ing the New Krtssiun Nrrtion, KIIA, Discussion Paper No. 50 (London 1994).
21. .I.Darwin, The End of the British Empire (Oxford 1901) discusses both
Britain's hopes of retaining a predominant informal influence in its former empire
and why this hope proved illusory.
22. E. Bruckmullcr, 'Tne National Identity of the Austrians', 196227 (here
p. 219) in M. 'l'eich and K. Porter (eds). The Nutionul Q~restionin E~rrope in
Historical Per.spective (Cambridge 1993). For a fuller discussion, see G. Stourzh.
Vorn Reich zur Kepublik. Stndien zrtrn O.sterreid~beu~~r.s.stsein im 20 Jrrhrh~rndert
(Vienna 1990).
23. On these themes see, for example, Dunlop, The Kise of Ru.s.siu and R.
Szporluk, 'Dilemmas of Russian Nationalism' in L. Hajda and M. Beissingcr (cds),
The Nutionri1irie.s Fucror in Soviet Politics und Society (Boulder, CO 1990). C)n the
Slavophiles, see M. Hughes, 'Independent Gentlcmen: the Social Position of
the Moscow Slavophiles and its Impact on their Political Thought', Sluvonic rind
Errst Europeun Revieua. 1993, 71, 66-88. For a more detailed introduction to Slavo-
phile thought, see A. Walicki, ?he Sluvophile C'ontroversy (Oxford 1975), and the
biographies of individual leading Slavophiles by P. Christof.
24. See. for example, L. E. Davis and R. A. Huttcnback. Mumrnon rrnd dze
P~rrsuirof Empire (Cambridgc 1988). 'Ihe debate on British imperialism and its
economic bases remains heated. ?he most impressive recent contribution is P. J.
Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Irnperiul~srn,2 vols: vol. 1. Innovrition und E.rprin-
sion, 161111-1914: vol. 2. C'ri.si.s rind Deconstrrtction, 191&1YYO (London 1993).
25. By 1631 even the state's rulers were beginning to question the advantages
of cmpire. In that year Spain's chief m~nistcr,the Count-Duke of Olivares. com-
mented that overall the American cmpire had wcakened the Spanish monarchy. J.
H. Elliott. Spriin und i1.s World, 1500-1700 (New Haven. CT. 1989), 25-6. On
reactions to the loss of the American empire, see M. I? Costelloe. Response
632 Journal of Conterr~poruryHistoiy
concentration on the state and the 'Great liadition': for example. over one third
of S. Naquin's and E. S. Rawski's survey, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century
(New Haven. CT 1987) is devoted to exploring differences between China's
regions.
48. Kappeler. Russlund a1.s Vielvolkerreich, argues for tolerance originating in
Steppe traditions. N. Itzkowitz, Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition (Chicago
1980) chapter 2 provides a splendid introduction to Ottoman institutions, which is
amplified by I. M. Kunt. The Sultan's Servants. The Transformation of Ottoman
Provincial Government (New York 1983) for the crucial century between 1550 and
1650 when the Ottoman Empire began its relative decline. R. Mantran (ed.),
Histoire de L'Empire Ottoman (Lille 1989). and H. Inalcik and D. Quataert (eds).
An Economic and Social Hbtorv of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914 (Cambridge
1994) are the most recent and comprehensive surveys of Ottoman history. Chapter
7 of J. Lynch. Spain 15161598. From Nation State to World Empire (Oxford 1991)
analyses Christian Spain's relations with Islam in the sixteenth century. The author
stresses (p. 330) the realism and absence of crusading spirit in Philip 11's policy
towards the Ottomans. Nevertheless, the contrast between Orthodoxy's missionary
efforts on the one hand, and on the other the Catholic Church's sense of mission
and the scale of its role in Spain's colonies. is striking.
49. On Ottoman receptivity to European influences. see B. Lewis. The Muslim
Discovery of Europe (New York 1982). On nomads and empires. see P.S. Khoury
and J. Kostiner (eds), Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East (Berkeley
1990). For an attempted comparison between the Ottomans and Mongol China,
see Isenhike Togan. 'Ottoman History by Inner Asian Norms'. New Approachar
to State and Peasant in Ottoman History (London 1992). 185-210. T. Ertman. 'The
Sinews of Power and European State-Building Theory' (ch. 2. 33-51) in L. Stone
(ed.), The Imperial State At War. Britain from 1689 to 1815 (London 1994) argues
that latecomers enjoyed sign~ficantadvantages in creating effective administrative
and fiscal machines in early modem Europe. This may be relevant to Russo-
Ottoman comparisons. On the Ottoman Empire's geopolitical position, see also
an ~nterestingpiece by U. Ostergaard, 'The European Character of the Ottoman
Empire' in L. Anderson (ed.). Middle East Studies in Denmark (Odense 1994).
50. A number of useful recent surveys of Habsburg history now exist even in
English. They include: J. Berenger, A History of the Huhshurg Monarchy 1273-1700
(London 1994): C. Ingrao. The Hahsburg Monarchy 1618-1815 (Cambridge 1944):
A. Sked, The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire 1815-1918 (London 1989).
Behind them tower R. J. W. Evans, The Making of the Huhshurg Monarchy
155&1700 (Oxford 1979) and the immensely scholarly I? G. M. Dixon. Finance
and Government under Marin Theresia 1740-1780. 2 vols (Oxford 1987). We even
have the benefit of a recent collection of essays (albeit of varying quality) compar-
ing the Habsburg and Soviet empires: R.L. Rudolph and D. F. Good (eds),
Nationalism and Empire. The Hubsburg Empire and the Soviet Union (New York
1992).
51. Ingrao, Hahsblrr~Monarchy. 20.
52. On eighteenth-century geopolitics, see D. McKay and H. M. Scott, The Rise
of the Great Powers, 1648-1835 (London 1983); E. Luard. The Balance o f Power.
The S ~ s t e mof International Relations 1648-1815 (London 1992): H. M. Scott.
'Russia as a European Great Power' in J. Hartley and R. Bartlett (eds), Russia in
the Age of the Enlightenment (New York 1990) 7-39.
Lieven: Russian Empire and Soviet Union as Imperial Polities 635
Dominic Lieven
is Professor of Russian Government,
London School of Economics and
Political Science. His publications include
Rz~ssiaand the Origins of the First World
War (London 1983); Rz~ssia5 Rulers under
the Old Regime (London and New
Haven, CT 1989); Aristocracy in Ez~rope,
1815-1 914 (London 1992); Nicholas 11,
Emperor of all the Rz~ssias(London 1993).
He is presently working on a comparison
of Russia's solutions to the problems of
empire (external and domestic) with
those adopted by other great empires.