That anti-Czarism was a natural political response for 19th Century Americans is illustrated by the life of the Other George Kennan. The famous George F. Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was the intellectual architect of the successful Cold War strategy of containment. But he was the second George Kennan born on February 16 in his extended family to become an American expert on Russia. George F. Kennan's paternal grandfather's cousin George Kennan had been quite famous in his day as a Russia expert.
The Other Kennan's political evolution as he learned more about the Czarist regime's repression of dissidents by exiling them to Siberia seems to me representative of mainstream American feelings: e.g., Kennan's growing anti-Czarism was supported by Mark Twain.
From Wikipedia:
George Kennan (February 16, 1845 – 1924) was an American explorer noted for his travels in the Kamchatka and Caucasus regions of the Russian Empire. He was a cousin twice removed of diplomat and historian George F. Kennan, with whom he shared his birthday.
George Kennan was born in Norwalk, Ohio ...
In 1864, he secured employment with the Russian American Telegraph Company to survey a route for a proposed overland telegraph line through Siberia and across the Bering Strait. Having spent two years in the wilds of Kamchatka, he returned to Ohio via St. Petersburg and soon became well-known through his lectures, articles and a book about his travels.
In his book, Tent Life in Siberia, Kennan provided ethnographies, histories and descriptions of many native peoples in Siberia, that are still important for researchers today. ... In 1870, he returned to St. Petersburg and travelled to Dagestan, in the northern Caucasus region, which had been annexed by the Russian Empire only ten years previously. There he became the first American to explore its highlands, a remote Muslim region of herders, silversmiths, carpet-weavers and other craftsmen. He travelled on through the northern Caucasus area, stopping in Samashki and Grozny, before returning once more to America in 1871. These travels and earned him a reputation as an "expert" on all matters pertaining to Russia. ...
 |
| Ilya Repin's 1884 "They Did Not Expect Him" about a return from Siberia |
In May 1885, Kennan began another voyage in Russia, this time across Siberia from Europe. He had been very publicly supportive of the Tsarist Russian government and its policies and his trip was approved by the Russian government at the very highest levels. However, in the course of his meetings with exiled dissidents during his travel, notably Nikolai Mikhailovich Yadrintsev (1842–1894), Kennan changed his mind about the Russian imperial system. He had been particularly impressed by Catherine Breshkovsky, the populist "little grandmother of the Russian Revolution". She had bidden him farewell in the small Transbaikal village to which she was confined by saying "We may die in exile and our grand children may die in exile, but something will come of it at last." He also met a teenage Leonid Krasin during this trip.[1]
On his return to the United States in August 1886, he became an ardent critic of the Russian autocracy and began to espouse the cause of Russian Democracy. Kennan devoted much of the next twenty years to promoting the cause of a Russian revolution, mainly through lecturing. Kennan was one of the most prolific lecturers of the late nineteenth century. He spoke before a million or so people during the 1890s, including two hundred consecutive evening appearances in 1890-91 (excepting Sundays) before crowds of as many as two thousand people. ... He became the most prominent member of the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom—whose membership included Mark Twain and Julia Ward Howe—and also helped found Free Russia, the first English-language journal to oppose Tsarist Russia. In 1891 the Russian government responded by banishing him from Russia. ...
Kennan was vehemently against the October Revolution, because he felt the Soviet government lacked the "knowledge, experience, or education to deal successfully with the tremendous problems that have come up for solutions since the overthrow of the Tsar." President Woodrow Wilson did read and weigh Kennan's report to him in 1918 on the haplessness of the Bolshevik government,[2] but Kennan eventually criticized Wilson's administration for being too timid in intervening against Bolshevism.
"The Russian leopard has not changed its spots... The new Bolshevik constitution ... leaves all power just where it has been for the last five years--in the hands of a small group of self-appointed bureaucrats which the people can neither remove nor control."—Kennan's last criticism of Bolshevism written in the Medina Tribune (a small-town newspaper), July 1923.
"Kennan devoted much of the next twenty years to promoting the cause of a Russian revolution"
ReplyDeleteTHAT's whom you choose to celebrate? The Czars didn't oppress revolutionaries enough. That's why they lost.
This guy basically sounds like a 19th century McCain.
ReplyDelete"The Russian leopard has not changed its spots.."
ReplyDeleteBut it did. Enormously. And for the worse. Was that man blind?
Even bad things have value against worse things like this.
ReplyDeleteKennan was an American liberal and like all liberals, never understood that some societies simply aren't ready for "Democracy" until certain conditions are met.
ReplyDeleteAs shown by the experience of the Provisional Government, "Russia" wasn't ready for Democracy, even as late as 1917.
"The Russian leopard has not changed its spots... The new Bolshevik constitution ... leaves all power just where it has been for the last five years--in the hands of a small group of self-appointed bureaucrats which the people can neither remove nor control."
ReplyDeleteExcellent summation. The one thing that many Westerners fail to grasp is that there is a tremendous continuity in Russian history. Ivan the Terrible, Nicholas I, Lenin, Stalin, Putin: all show the common thread of Russian history.
Anonymous:"THAT's whom you choose to celebrate? The Czars didn't oppress revolutionaries enough. That's why they lost."
ReplyDeleteI think that the idea is that the Tsars failed to reform the system, thereby avoiding a violent revolution. Of course, in defense of the Tsars, that would have meant fighting against Russian culture itself....
Anonymous:"But it did. Enormously. And for the worse. Was that man blind?"
ReplyDeleteNo, just hopeful that Russia might embrace Anglo norms.
Anonymous:"Even bad things have value against worse things like this."
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I could see Sheldon Adelson and Putin getting along.
To say that the early Bolsheviks, who killed millions, were as bad as the Czars who did nothing more than send small numbers of Bolshevik scum on a few short-term Siberian vacations from which all of the scum, without exception, ended up escaping, is to cover for the Bolshevik scum. As I said above, I'm assuming that this guy was just a 19th century McCain, a useful idiot for the real movers behind that revolution.
ReplyDelete"I think that the idea is that the Tsars failed to reform the system, thereby avoiding a violent revolution. "
ReplyDeleteThis is highly disingenuous. The Bolsheviks wanted to kill all of the native elite, blow up all of the churches, destroy native culture, etc. How were the czars supposed to compromise with them? Can you only kill half of my children, blow up half of the churches and starve only half as many peasants as you were originally planning to? What specific reforms to the system would have satisfied the Bolsheviks?
Another noteworthy American traveler in Russia was John Lloyd Stephens (1805-1852), best remembered today for his work in uncovering the ruins of the ancient Mayan civilization.The sight of Russian serfdom truly shocked him:
ReplyDelete"The marks of physical and personal degradation on the Russian serf "were so strong, that I was insensibly compelled to abandon certain theories not uncommon among my countrymen at home in regard to the intrinsic superiority of the white race above all others.Perhaps,too, this impression was aided by my having previously met with Africans of intelligence and capacity, standing on a footing of perfect equality as soldiers and officers in the Greek army and the Sultan's."
(p. 81, RETURN PASSAGES:GREAT AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING,1780-1910, Larzer Ziff)
Anonymous:"This is highly disingenuous. The Bolsheviks wanted to kill all of the native elite, blow up all of the churches, destroy native culture, etc. How were the czars supposed to compromise with them? Can you only kill half of my children, blow up half of the churches and starve only half as many peasants as you were originally planning to? What specific reforms to the system would have satisfied the Bolsheviks?"
ReplyDeleteReforms did not have to satisfy the Bolsheviks; reforms merely had to satisfy the bulk of the population, thereby denying the Bolsheviks of popular support. Indeed, Lenin was at one point quite depressed at the thought that Stolypin's reforms might actually work.
"No, just hopeful that Russia might embrace Anglo norms."
ReplyDeleteThat makes no sense. He equated Bolshevik blood lust with the Czars' fatal (not just to themselves, to Russia as a whole) lack of it because he thought Russia might embrace Anglo norms? Your response has nothing to do with my original question which was "was that man blind?"
That sort of blindness, that sort of a mistake on a subject he claimed to be an expert on, is that an example of Anglo norms? Was it normal for American foreign policy experts of that period to be that ignorant? I know it is now. Or maybe it was deceit? Whatever it was, it testifies to a very low standard of behavior. His norms were found wanting.
Another American traveler who was appalled by Tsarism was John Ledyard:
ReplyDelete"John Ledyard (November 1751 – 10 January 1789) was an American explorer and adventurer.
Contents [hide]
Ledyard was born in Groton, Connecticut, the oldest son of John and Abigail (Hempstead) Ledyard and the nephew of Continental Army Colonel William Ledyard. After his father, a sea captain, died of malaria in the Caribbean, Ledyard's mother and family moved to Southold, Long Island. Three years later Ledyard joined his grandfather in Hartford, Connecticut, where he attended school. His grandfather died just before Ledyard turned 20; perhaps due to Ledyard's profligacy the bulk of the family inheritance was left to a younger brother.
Ledyard briefly attended Dartmouth College (which was then only 3 years old), arriving on 22 April 1772. He left for two months without permission in August and September of that year, led a mid-winter camping expedition, and finally abandoned the college for good in May 1773. Memorably he fashioned his own dugout canoe, and paddled it for a week down the Connecticut River to his grandfather's farm. Today, the Ledyard Canoe Club, a division of the Dartmouth Outing Club sponsors an annual canoe trip down the Connecticut River in his honor. At loose ends, he decided to travel; "I allot myself a seven year's ramble more," he wrote to a cousin. He shipped as a common seaman on a year-long trading voyage to Gibraltar, the Barbary Coast, and the Caribbean. On his next voyage, he jumped ship in England, but was soon impressed and forced to join the British Navy as a marine.[1]
Captain Cook's third voyage[edit]
In June 1776, Ledyard joined Captain James Cook's third and final voyage as a British marine. The expedition lasted until October 1780. During these four years, its two ships stopped at the Sandwich Islands, Cape of Good Hope, the Prince Edward Islands off South Africa, the Kerguelen Islands, Tasmania, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Tahiti, and then Hawaii (first documented by the expedition). It continued to the northwest coast of North America, making Ledyard perhaps the first U.S. citizen to touch its western coast, along the Aleutian islands and Alaska into the Bering Sea, and back to Hawaii where Cook was killed. He attempted to climb from Kealakekua Bay to Mokuaweoweo, the summit of Mauna Loa, but had to turn back.[2] The return voyage touched upon Kamchatka, Macau, Batavia (now Jakarta), around the Cape of Good Hope again, and back to England.[1]
Still a marine in the British Navy, Ledyard was sent to Canada to fight in the American Revolution. Instead he deserted, returned to Dartmouth, and began to write his Journal of Captain Cook's Last Voyage. It was published in 1783, five years after he had visited Hawaii,[3] and was the first work to be protected by copyright in the United States. (It was in fact protected by Connecticut state copyright by special act of the legislature; federal copyright was not introduced until 1790.) Today, this work is annotated in rare-book bibliographies as the first travelogue describing Hawaii ever to be published in America.[3]
Fur trade[edit]"
More on Ledyard:
ReplyDelete"As Ledyard had noticed that sea otter furs from the American northwest commanded extremely high prices in Macau, he lobbied during the early 1780s for the formation of fur-trading companies. Ledyard suggested trading furs for Chinese silk and porcelain, which could then be sold in the United States. Although his partnership with Philadelphia financier Robert Morris was not successful, it did lay the pattern of the subsequent China trade.
Ledyard left the United States in June 1784 to find financial backers in Europe. In Paris he partnered with John Paul Jones; however this venture, too, failed to reach fruition.
Overland around the world[edit]
In Paris, Ledyard conceived a remarkably bold scheme of exploration with encouragement from Thomas Jefferson, then American ambassador, and with financial backing from the Marquis de Lafayette, botanist Joseph Banks, and John Adams' son-in-law, William Smith. Jefferson suggested that Ledyard explore the American continent by proceeding overland through Russia, crossing at the Bering Strait, and heading south through Alaska and then across the American West to Virginia. [1]
Ledyard left London in December 1786, and made it most of the way across Russia. He left St. Petersburg in June 1787 to travel through Moscow, Ekaterinburg, Omsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk, and Kirensk, reaching Yakutsk after 11 weeks. [4] Here he stopped for the winter but then returned to Irkutsk to join a larger expedition led by Joseph Billings (of the Cook voyage). However, Ledyard was arrested under orders from Empress Catherine the Great in February 1788, returned to Moscow by approximately his original route, then deported to Poland.
African expedition[edit]
Back in London, Ledyard came across the African Association, then recruiting explorers for Africa. [4] Ledyard proposed an expedition from the Red Sea to the Atlantic. He arrived in Alexandria in August 1788, but the expedition was slow to start. Late in November 1788, Ledyard accidentally poisoned himself with vitriolic acid[5] (sulfuric acid) and died in Cairo, Egypt on 10 January 1789. John Ledyard was buried in the sand dunes lining the Nile, in a modestly marked grave, the location of which is unknown today.[6]
Selected works[edit]
The Last Voyage of Captain Cook: The Collected Writings of John Ledyard, ed. James Zug, National Geographic Adventure Classics, National Geographic Society, 2005.
Sources[edit]
Memoirs of the Life and Travels of John Ledyard, Jared Sparks, 1828.
American Traveler: The Life and Adventures of John Ledyard, the Man Who Dreamed of Walking the World, James Zug, Basic Books; 30 March 2005. ISBN 0-465-09405-8.
Ledyard: In Search of the First American Explorer, Bill Gifford, Harcourt; 5 February 2007, ISBN 0-15-101218-0.
The Making of John Ledyard, Edward Gray, Yale Press, 2007."
(WIKIPEDIA)
Anonymous:"That makes no sense. He equated Bolshevik blood lust with the Czars' fatal (not just to themselves, to Russia as a whole) lack of it"
ReplyDeleteThe Tsars needed to embrace reform in more consistent fashion, not spill blood.
Anonymous:" because he thought Russia might embrace Anglo norms? Your response has nothing to do with my original question which was "was that man blind?"
No, just a Victorian liberal who thought that Anglo norms could work anywhere.
Anonymous:"That sort of blindness, that sort of a mistake on a subject he claimed to be an expert on, is that an example of Anglo norms? Was it normal for American foreign policy experts of that period to be that ignorant? I know it is now. Or maybe it was deceit? Whatever it was, it testifies to a very low standard of behavior. His norms were found wanting."
Well, the besetting sin of Anglo liberals is that they think that everyone is an Anglo under the skin. Clearly, Russians are not Anglos.
" reforms merely had to satisfy the bulk of the population, thereby denying the Bolsheviks of popular support."
ReplyDeleteThe Bolsheviks were not brought to power by a mass uprising. They simply won over a few thousand soldiers in St. Petersburg. There was no polling back then, but I have no reason to think that the Tsar's approval rating ever went below 50%.
George F. Kennan -- just another Yankee apologist for the Bolsheviks.
ReplyDeleteI suppose that the terrible lesson that Anglos must learn is that a mild form of Tsarism is about the best that Russia can do. But that is a rather depressing thought to the Anglo mind. It's rather akin to imagining Henry VIII as marking the summit of Anglo political evolution...
ReplyDeleteAnonymous:"The Bolsheviks were not brought to power by a mass uprising. They simply won over a few thousand soldiers in St. Petersburg. There was no polling back then, but I have no reason to think that the Tsar's approval rating ever went below 50%."
ReplyDeleteWell, one sign of the unpopularity of the Tsarist system is the fact that it cracked under the stress of WW1. Note that Britain, which had spent roughly the last century or so reforming its body politic, did not succumb to a communist clique.
RE: the roots of the Russian Revolutions of 1917:
ReplyDelete"Despite its occurrence at the height of World War I, the roots of the February Revolution go much further back in time. Chief among these was Imperial Russia's failure, throughout the 19th and early 20th century, to modernize its archaic social, economic and political structures whilst maintaining the stability of ubiquitous devotion to an autocratic monarch. As historian Richard Pipes writes, "the incompatibility of capitalism and autocracy struck all who gave thought to the matter".[3]
The first major event of the Russian Revolution was the February Revolution, which was a chaotic affair, caused by the culmination of over a century of civil and military unrest. The causes of this unrest of the common people towards the Tsar and aristocratic landowners are too many and complicated to neatly summarise, but key factors to consider were ongoing resentment at the cruel treatment of peasants by patricians, poor working conditions experienced by city workers in the fledgling industrial economy and a growing sense of political and social awareness of the lower orders in general (democratic ideas were reaching Russia from the West and being touted by political activists). Dissatisfaction of the proletarian lot was further compounded by food shortages and military failures. In 1905 Russia experienced humiliating losses in its war with Japan, then Bloody Sunday and the Revolution of 1905, Tsarist troops fired upon a peaceful, unarmed crowd—further dividing Nicholas II from his people. Widespread strikes, riots and the famous mutiny on the Battleship Potemkin ensued.
These conditions led to considerable agitation among the small working and professional classes. This tension then erupted into general revolt with the 1905 Revolution, and did so again under the strain of total war in 1917, but this time with lasting consequences."
(WIKIPEDIA)
All was not peace, land, and bread under the Tsar....
And some more immediate causes:
ReplyDelete"In an attempt to boost morale and to repair his own reputation of being a weak ruler, Nicholas announced in the summer of 1915 that he would become the new Commander-in-Chief of the army, in defiance of almost universal advice to the contrary.[2] The result was disastrous on three grounds. Firstly, it associated the monarchy with the unpopular war; secondly, Nicholas proved a poor leader of men on the front line, often irritating his own commanders with his interference;[citation needed] and thirdly, whilst at the front, he was unavailable to govern. This left the reins of power to his wife, the German Tsarina Alexandra, who was unpopular and accused of being a spy and under the thumb of her confidant Grigori Rasputin, himself so unpopular that he was assassinated by members of the nobility in December 1916.[4] The Tsarina proved an ineffective ruler in a time of war, announcing a rapid succession of different Prime Ministers and angering the Duma.[4] The lack of strong leadership is illustrated by a telegram from Octobrist politician Mikhail Rodzianko to the Tsar on 11 March [O.S. 26 February] 1917, in which Rodzianko begged for a minister with the "confidence of the country" be instated immediately. Delay, he wrote, would be "tantamount to death".[10]
On the home front, a famine was looming and commodities were becoming scarce as a result of problems with the overstretched railroad network. Meanwhile, refugees from German-occupied Russia came in their millions.[11] The Russian economy, which had just seen one of the highest growth rates in Europe, was blocked from the continent's markets by the war. Though industry did not collapse, it was put under considerable strain and when inflation soared, wages could not keep up.[12] The Duma (lower house of parliament), composed of liberal deputies, warned Tsar Nicholas II of the impending danger and counselled him to form a new constitutional government, like the one he had dissolved after some short-term attempts in the aftermath of the 1905 Revolution. The Tsar ignored the Duma's advice.[citation needed] Historian Edward Acton argues that "by stubbornly refusing to reach any modus vivendi with the Progressive Bloc of the Duma... Nicholas undermined the loyalty of even those closest to the throne [and] opened an unbridgeable breach between himself and public opinion."[2] In short, the Tsar no longer had the support of the military, the nobility or the Duma (collectively the élites), at the same time as the legitimacy of the monarchy with the Russian people was at a low ebb. The result was revolution."
(WIKIPEDIA)
Anti-czarism, or anti-absolutism as it really is, comes naturally to the American yeomanry. But ironically it is the kind of distilled animus and hatred that the most anti-czarist of all have brought to the US that creates exactly the conditions for czarism. After all, who is to protect the common people from those motivated others who despise them on a racial/religious basis if not a czar?
ReplyDeleteDespotism doesn't come about by accident. A relatively impartial emperor/strongman is a better bet for more people than an insecure lord who plays favorites to bolster his position.
Bio on John Lloyd Stephens:
ReplyDelete"John Lloyd Stephens (November 28, 1805 – October 13, 1852) was an American explorer, writer, and diplomat. Stephens was a pivotal figure in the rediscovery of Maya civilization throughout Middle America and in the planning of the Panama railroad.
Contents [hide]
John Lloyd Stephens was born November 28, 1805, in the township of Shrewsbury, New Jersey.[1] He was the second son of Benjamin Stephens, a successful New Jersey merchant, and Clemence Lloyd, daughter of an eminent local judge.[2] The following year the family moved to New York City. There Stephens received an education in the Classics at two privately tutored schools. At the early age of 13 he enrolled at Columbia College, graduating at the top of his class four years later in 1822.[3]
After working as a student-at-law for a year, he joined the Law School at Litchfield, Connecticut. He entered practice after finishing, and returned to New York.
After 8 years, he embarked on a journey through Europe in 1834, and went on to Egypt and the Levant, returning home in 1836. Stephens wrote several popular books about his travels and explorations.
Politics[edit]
He was recommended for the post of Ambassador to the Netherlands in 1839, but politics prevented him from securing the post.
In 1846 he would be chosen as delegate from New York city to the State Convention of New York to revise the Constitution. He was responsible for the introduction and the adoption of a Conciliation Court at the convention.
(WIKIPEDIA)
More on J.L. Stephens:
ReplyDelete"Stephens read with interest early accounts of ruined cities of Mesoamerica by such writers and explorers as Alexander von Humboldt and Juan Galindo.
In 1839, President Martin Van Buren commissioned Stephens as Special Ambassador to Central America. While there, the government of the Federal Republic of Central America fell apart in civil war. His Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán gives a vivid description of some of those events which Stephens witnessed. Stephens and his traveling companion, architect and draftsman Frederick Catherwood first came across Maya ruins at Copán, having landed in British Honduras (present-day Belize). They were astonished at their findings and spent a couple weeks mapping the site. They surmised that this must have been built by some long forgotten people as they couldn't imagine the native Mayans as having lived in the city. Stephens was actually able to buy the city of Copan for a sum of $50 and had dreams of floating it down the river and into museums in The United States. They went on to Palenque, Uxmal, and according to Stephens, visited a total of 44 sites. Stephens and Catherwood reached Palenque in April 1840 and left in early June. They documented the Temple of the Inscriptions, the Temple of the Cross, the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Foliated Cross.[4] Of even greater importance, their book provided descriptions of several ancient Maya sites, along with illustrations by Catherwood. These were greatly superior in both amount and accuracy of depiction to the small amount of information on ancient Mesoamerica previously published.
Stephens continued his investigations of Maya ruins with a return trip to Yucatán which produced a further book.
His books served to inspire Edgar Allan Poe,[5] who also reviewed three of his travel books for the New York Review and Graham's Magazine.
Panama railroad[edit]
At the time England enjoyed a monopoly over the ocean navigation to and from the United States. Stephens obtained a charter from the state of New York, and incorporated the Ocean Steam Navigation Company. The company acquired two steam ships, the Washington and the Hermann which made journeys to Europe.
When the Panama Railroad Company was founded in 1849, Stephens was chosen to be Vice President. He visited Panama and New Granada to make arrangements for the laying of the railroad. On his way to Bogotá, the capital of New Granada, he fell off his mule and was severely injured. He was never to recover from the effects of the accident. He returned to the United States, and was appointed President of the railroad company. He spent the next three years personally supervising the progress of the railroad. However, he suffered from a disease of the liver, and died after four months of illness at the age of forty-six. He is buried in the New York City Marble Cemetery.
Stephens is the subject of a biography Maya Explorer by Victor Wolfgang von Hagen, first published in 1947.
Bibliography[edit]
Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land (1837)
Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia and Poland (1838)
Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán, Vols. 1 & 2 (1841) (Reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-108-01730-5)
Incidents of Travel in Yucatán, Vols. 1 & 2 (1843)"
(WIKIPEDIA)
ReplyDeleteJust another reason why I enjoy watching the 1971 film 'Nicholas and Alexandra.'
Please stop pasting in slabs of Wikipedia. It's so dull.
ReplyDeleteFor everyone saying Kennan was too soft on the Bolsheviks, I remind you that reading is fundamental:
ReplyDeletePresident Woodrow Wilson did read and weigh Kennan's report to him in 1918 on the haplessness of the Bolshevik government,[2] but Kennan eventually criticized Wilson's administration for being too timid in intervening against Bolshevism.
Like the old Navy chiefs who wanted to make sure you hadn't fallen asleep during the lecture, I will stamp my foot: KENNAN CRITICIZED WILSON FOR BEING TOO TIMID AGAINST BOLSHEVISM. (Since this is the Cliff's notes version, some editing has taken place.)
TOO TIMID AGAINST BOLSHEVISM.
"Well, one sign of the unpopularity of the Tsarist system is the fact that it cracked under the stress of WW1"
ReplyDeleteSo did the German and Austrian ones.
"Note that Britain, which had spent roughly the last century or so reforming its body politic, did not succumb to a communist clique."
As always, it fought the entire war on other people's territory. And it was just stronger economically - more industrialized than Russia and with a bigger empire, most of which was not run on democratic principles. WWI turned into an endurance race. Only the very strong survived it. The British Empire as a whole - which outside of the home counties, Canada and Australia was not democratic - was just bigger than others. That came about because Brits conquered more than others - a very undemocratic process. And invented more, yes, but conquest was still essential to strength, and WWI was really a test of strength.
And yes, Russia also had major reforms during the century before WWI. There was the abolition of serfdom, the institution of trial by jury and even of an elected parliament. The latter functioned from 1906 to 1917.
Jeremiah Curtin, who translated Henryk Sienkowicz' magnificent "Trilogy" and also "Quo Vadis" (and who incidentally is thoroughly trashed on his wikipedia page), also traveled extensively in Siberia, although I haven't read his account. Amazon assures me its on the way.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what art critics think of Repin, but I've enjoyed every picture of his that I have seen.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a strange misunderstanding of history.
ReplyDeleteIn February of 1917 the Tsar was overthrown in a matter of 5 days starting with a demonstration commemorating of all things International Women's Day.
The Bolsheviks had nothing to do with it.
The Tsar abdicated in favor of his brother the Grand Duke Michael, who, knowing how the people felt (he had been repeatedly told by his fellow aristocratic officers of how revolutionary Russia was), declined in favor of the Provisional government lead by Prince Georgy Lvov. Incidentally the first government to recognize the Provisional Government was the US.
In the railroad car when the Tsar abdicated there were no revolutionaries.
(For those interested in Crimean Tatars, gays and bi's there's always Felix Yusupov)
While history is full of regimes that were unpopular at home and regimes that were unpopular abroad, the Tsarist autocracy, especially at the end, may have been a regime that had no support anywhere.
I'm suprised you had nothing to say about the Kennan journals that were being reviewed in the washington post and NYT a couple of weeks ago Steve.
ReplyDeleteOf course the older relative probably had something to do with the Younger Kennan's deep understanding of Russia.
ReplyDeleteThe Obama goon squad may yet bring all Kennan's work preventing World War 3 to nought.
I remember reading something by Kennan and thinking that his writing style reminded me of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Then I read his bio and saw that Kennan went to Princeton within a few years of Fitzgerald.
As commenters in a previous thread pointed out, Mr Kennan was a bright Midwesterner who had aspirations to become part of the reigning WASP elite, I suppose he and Fitzgerald were also similar in that regard.
"the Czars who did nothing more than send small numbers of Bolshevik scum on a few short-term Siberian vacations...
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind that it was tsarism that was the problem, not the tsar. Even when the latter was comparatively enlightened, the former assured that there would be a cabal of uncontrollable radicals within the secret police and other government organs wreaking all sorts of skullduggery in order to rid the ruler of anyone they deemed too meddlesome. The dynamics of secret societies guaranteed as much. And any tsar who would upend that system would himself risk an assassin’s bullet or a plate of poisoned meat.
Eventually, another kind of radical cabal got the upper hand, but there was much that the old and new systems had in common.
The Russian decision to fight WW1 was the worst ever made by anyone about anything, but one can see why they took it.
ReplyDeleteSay what you like about the Tsars, they freed the serfs before you fellows freed the slaves.
ReplyDeletePutin's Russia is nothing on the scale of the heavy handedness of the Bolsheviks or even the Tzars. Not only that, Russian GDP is up 10X under Putin. Yes he isn't a liberal democrat. So what?
ReplyDeleteActually, Putin is more popular among ordinary Russians than any American President could ever hope to be in a million years.
For a vivid depiction of Tzarist Russia, read "Flashman at the Charge" by George MacDonald Fraser. Brilliant novel and also extremely funny in places.
ReplyDelete> I suppose that the terrible lesson that Anglos must learn is that a mild form of Tsarism is about the best that Russia can do. But that is a rather depressing thought to the Anglo mind. It's rather akin to imagining Henry VIII as marking the summit of Anglo political evolution...
ReplyDeleteWell, hello, look at Britain today. In that light I really can't comprehend your feeling.
Putin was intended to be a puppet of the oligarchs, but he turned on them.
ReplyDeleteCan it be said the current Putinphobia is designed to facilitate eventual regime-change in Russia? Will Putin be replaced by a more oligarch-and west-friendly successor? These videos about the oligarchs and Putin are worth watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Cib5FMq9A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnLJOXg4u-g
"I think that the idea is that the Tsars failed to reform the system, thereby avoiding a violent revolution. "
ReplyDeleteThe falsehood of this general point is one of Moldbug's strongest arguments.
Generally, when faced with revolution, giving in to reforms only emboldens the revolutionaries, and wins them greater popular support as they are seen to be winning.
Giving in is never as good as crushing and humiliating your enemies, and if you don't have the ability to do that you've got no business calling yourself Caesar anyway.
Also note it was Louis the 16th, the reformer, who was executed.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous:"So did the German and Austrian ones."
And both had rather more in common with Tsarist Russia than with liberal Britain.
Anonymous:"As always, it fought the entire war on other people's territory."
France was a battlefield during WW1, yet it avoided revolution.
Anonymous:" And it was just stronger economically - more industrialized than Russia"
Well, yes. Russian backwardness was a severe problem.
Anonymous:" and with a bigger empire, most of which was not run on democratic principles. WWI turned into an endurance race. Only the very strong survived it."
Well, yes. Britain's reforms made her very strong indeed.
Anonymous:" The British Empire as a whole - which outside of the home counties, Canada and Australia was not democratic - was just bigger than others."
The Russian Empire was not exactly small....
Anonymous:" That came about because Brits conquered more than others - a very undemocratic process. And invented more, yes, but conquest was still essential to strength, and WWI was really a test of strength."
And Britain's strength was due to it's reforms.
Anonymous:"And yes, Russia also had major reforms during the century before WWI. There was the abolition of serfdom, the institution of trial by jury and even of an elected parliament. The latter functioned from 1906 to 1917."
Some reforms, but not enough. Always fun to imagine what would have happened had Stolypin lived.
Hunsdun:"For everyone saying Kennan was too soft on the Bolsheviks, I remind you that reading is fundamental:
ReplyDeletePresident Woodrow Wilson did read and weigh Kennan's report to him in 1918 on the haplessness of the Bolshevik government,[2] but Kennan eventually criticized Wilson's administration for being too timid in intervening against Bolshevism.
Like the old Navy chiefs who wanted to make sure you hadn't fallen asleep during the lecture, I will stamp my foot: KENNAN CRITICIZED WILSON FOR BEING TOO TIMID AGAINST BOLSHEVISM. (Since this is the Cliff's notes version, some editing has taken place.)
TOO TIMID AGAINST BOLSHEVISM."
Exactly. People seem to have confused Kennen's dislike of Tsarism with being pro-Bolshevik.
Anonymous:"Please stop pasting in slabs of Wikipedia. It's so dull."
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, it does allow us to read interesting info without having to read ISTEVE. If you find it dull, just skip over it.
Laguna Beach Fogey:"George F. Kennan -- just another Yankee apologist for the Bolsheviks."
ReplyDeleteUhm, No. Kennen had a profound love and appreciation for 19th century Russian culture.His great hope was that this old Russia might push back against the new Russia of Lenin and Stalin. Here's a quote from Kennen's biographer, Gaddis:
"Kennan was one of the first group of trained Soviet specialists in the American Foreign Service, trained back in the 1920s before the US developed diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Kennan then went to the Soviet Union in 1933 with the first US ambassador, William C. Bullitt. You would think his insight into why patience would pay off might come from the study of the Soviet economy or of Russian history, but it came from reading the great Russian literature of the 19th century—Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekhov. The Bolshevik revolution, he felt, had not fundamentally changed the national character, reflected in these novels. It was that character that would eventually reassert itself to overthrow or subvert the Soviet system. When Kennan's plane stopped to refuel in Omsk during his first visit to Siberia in June 1945, he stood under the wing and read Tolstoy aloud to an illiterate babushka he had befriended in-flight. All the passengers gathered around to listen. That moment shows that at the high point of the Soviet system there was something else in Russia, quite alien to Marxism-Leninism. "
(http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/11/quick-study-george-kennan%E2%80%99s-cold-war-policy-containment)
Laguna Beach Fogey:"George F. Kennan -- just another Yankee apologist for the Bolsheviks."
ReplyDeleteAre you talking about George Kennen (1845-1924), the actual subject of this post, or are you talking about George F. Kennen (1904-2005), his cousin twice removed?
In either case, you are quite incorrect. As Steve's post shows, the elder Kennen despised the Bolshevik regime, and the younger Kennen's opinions were not much different.
"Putin was intended to be a puppet of the oligarchs..."
ReplyDeleteYou'd best put the bong away for a while.
"Putin was intended to be a puppet of the oligarchs..."
ReplyDeleteYou'd best put the bong away for a while.
dearieme:"Say what you like about the Tsars, they freed the serfs before you fellows freed the slaves."
ReplyDeleteSerfdom ended in 1861. Slavery ended in 1865. Not exactly a huge temporal gap, is it?
ReplyDeleteBurpleson AFB:"The falsehood of this general point is one of Moldbug's strongest arguments."
Which would be impressive, if Moldbug had any strong arguments...
Burpleson:"Generally, when faced with revolution, giving in to reforms only emboldens the revolutionaries, and wins them greater popular support as they are seen to be winning."
That's why you don't frame your reforms as "giving in." Cf Lenin's despair over the seeming success of Stolypin.
Burpleson:"Giving in is never as good as crushing and humiliating your enemies, and if you don't have the ability to do that you've got no business calling yourself Caesar anyway."
Well, note that one can always crush your enemies, then exact reforms...
Burpleson:"Also note it was Louis the 16th, the reformer, who was executed."
Ah, Louis, not exactly a very impressive figure....
ReplyDeleteRS:"Well, hello, look at Britain today. In that light I really can't comprehend your feeling."
Probably due to a lack of historical imagination on your part.
Anonymous:"Putin's Russia is nothing on the scale of the heavy handedness of the Bolsheviks or even the Tzars."
ReplyDeleteI should certainly hope not.
Anonymous:"Not only that, Russian GDP is up 10X under Putin."
Which has a lot to do with the price of oil and natural gas, Russia being a primitive, resource extraction economy...
Anonymous:" Yes he isn't a liberal democrat. So what?"
Well, one can't explain colour to a blind man...
Anonymous:"Actually, Putin is more popular among ordinary Russians than any American President could ever hope to be in a million years."
Living in a dreamworld is fun, isn't it?
Which has a lot to do with the price of oil and natural gas, Russia being a primitive, resource extraction economy...
ReplyDeleteThere are so primitive that they just happen to have an aerospace industry and currently provides our only ride into space.
Anonymous:"There are so primitive that they just happen to have an aerospace industry"
ReplyDeleteWhich is a shadow of what it was during its glory days.....
Anonymous:" and currently provides our only ride into space."
You mean that busywork International Space Station?Well, at least it gives the Russians something to do....
"Putin was intended to be a puppet of the oligarchs..."
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what he was supposed to be.
"Berezovsky saw this happening and came up with a plan. The mood of the country was nationalistic, even militaristic. The oligarchs (or liberals, as Berezovsky thought of them) needed their own nationalist candidate, and he found one in a short, unassuming former KGB officer named Vladimir Putin. He convinced Yeltsin to replace Primakov with Putin."