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This book examines the nature of Russia’s relations with the former Soviet states (FSS), in particular with countries which formed the Commonwealth of Independent States, in order to assess whether there has been a resurgence of Russian imperialism since the collapse of the USSR. The book sets out to determine whether Russian leaders have attempted to restore a sphere of influence over the former Soviet republics or whether Russia’s policies reflect a genuine desire to establish normal state-to-state relations with the new states. It adopts a comprehensive approach, analysing Russia’s policies towards the FSS across a broad range of areas: energy, trade and investment; military assistance, security provision and peacekeeping; conflict management, political support, and alliance formation. While not denying the Kremlin’s assertive role in the FSS, this book challenges the assumption that Russia has always intended to restore a sphere of influence over its ‘Near Abroad’. Rather, it argues that Russia’s policies are much more complex, multi-faceted, and often more incoherent than is often assumed. In essence, Russia's actions generally reflect a combination of legitimate state interests, enduring Soviet legacies, and genuine concerns over events unfolding along Russia’s borders. This book also shows that, at times, Great-Power nostalgia and a real difficulty with discarding Russia’s imperial legacy shapes Russia’s behaviour towards the FSS. This book will be of great interest to students of Russian politics and foreign policy, east European politics, and International Relations in general.
The fall of the Soviet Union was one of the most dramatic events of this century. It was also one of the most surprising. Perhaps because many Sovietologists neglected its status as an empire, most Americans were taken completely by surprise when the USSR began its precipitous collapse under Mikhail Gorbachev. This book subjects the Soviet Union as an empire to systematic scrutiny, using tools and methods at the disposal of modern political science. Foreign policy specialists, defense experts, and Russian area analysts will find this book essential. The book is also recommended for undergraduate and graduate courses in Russian and Soviet history and the study of empires. This book subjects the Soviet Union as an empire to systematic scrutiny, using tools and methods at the disposal of modern political science. Foreign policy specialists, defense experts, and Russian area analysts will find this book essential. The book is also recommended for undergraduate and graduate courses in Russian and Soviet history and the study of empires.
Russia is the world's foremost energy superpower, rivaling Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer and accounting for a quarter of the world's exports of natural gas. Russia's energy reserves account for half of the world's probable oil reserves and a third of the world's proven natural gas reserves. Whereas military might and nuclear weapons formed the core of Soviet cold war power, since 1991 the Russian state has viewed its monopolistic control of Russia's energy resources as the core of its power now and for the future. Since 2005, the international news has been filled with Russia's repeated demonstrations of its readiness to use price, transit fees, and supply of gas and oil exports as punitive policy instruments against recalcitrant states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, striking in turn the Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, and Lithuania. Orban reveals for the first time in Power, Energy, and the New Russian Imperialism Russia's readiness to wield the same energy weapon against her neighbors on the west, all of them former Soviet satellite states but now EU and NATO member nations: the three Baltic nations and the five East European nations of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia. Orban shows how the Kremlin since 1991 has systematically used Russian energy companies as players in a concerted neo-mercantilist, energy-based foreign policy designed to further Russia's neo-imperial ambitions among America's key allies in Central East Europe. Her unprecedented analysis is key to predicting Russia's strategic response to American negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic to host the US missile shield. She also reveals the economic and diplomatic modus operandi by which Russia will increasingly apply its energy clout to shape and coerce the foreign policies of the West European members of the EU, as Russia's contribution to EU gas consumption increases from a quarter today to three-quarters by 2020. Orban proves that Russia's neo-mercantilist energy strategy in East Europe is not at all dependent on the person of Putin, but began under Yeltsin and continues under Medvedev, the former chairman of Gazprom.
In 1950 the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China signed a Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance to foster cultural and technological cooperation between the Soviet bloc and the PRC. While this treaty was intended as a break with the colonial past, Austin Jersild argues that the alliance ultimately failed because the enduring problem of Russian imperialism led to Chinese frustration with the Soviets. Jersild zeros in on the ground-level experiences of the socialist bloc advisers in China, who were involved in everything from the development of university curricula, the exploration for oil, and railway construction to piano lessons. Their goal was to reproduce a Chinese administrative elite in their own image that could serve as a valuable ally in the Soviet bloc's struggle against the United States. Interestingly, the USSR's allies in Central Europe were as frustrated by the "great power chauvinism" of the Soviet Union as was China. By exposing this aspect of the story, Jersild shows how the alliance, and finally the split, had a true international dimension.
Examines the evidence for Russian expansionism in all parts of Eastern Europe, analyzes Moscow's objectives and strategies, and outlines measures for ensuring the region's commitment to democracy and Western integration.
In this volume, historian Milan Hauner brilliantly links the lessons of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with the East/West political struggles of today. Masterfully, he demonstrates the geographical and historical predicates of Russian imperialism in Asia. His analysis focuses on the failed military campaign in Afghanistan and Soviet diplomacy in Southwest Asia as a whole. The results are impressive. The reader is given the advantage of a fuller historical spectrum, and can better grasp the true shape of the present. More importantly, the reader can look into the future. From this vantage point, the constraints, possibilities, and obligations of U.S. diplomacy become more clear. Co-published with the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
This book gives a radically new reading of Russia’s culturalhistory. Alexander Etkind traces how the Russian Empire conqueredforeign territories and domesticated its own heartlands, therebycolonizing many peoples, Russians included. This vision ofcolonization as simultaneously internal and external, colonizingone’s own people as well as others, is crucial for scholarsof empire, colonialism and globalization. Starting with the fur trade, which shaped its enormous territory,and ending with Russia’s collapse in 1917, Etkind exploresserfdom, the peasant commune, and other institutions of internalcolonization. His account brings out the formative role of foreigncolonies in Russia, the self-colonizing discourse of Russianclassical historiography, and the revolutionary leaders’illusory hopes for an alliance with the exotic, pacifistsectarians. Transcending the boundaries between history andliterature, Etkind examines striking writings about Russia’simperial experience, from Defoe to Tolstoy and from Gogol toConrad. This path-breaking book blends together historical, theoretical andliterary analysis in a highly original way. It will be essentialreading for students of Russian history and literature and foranyone interested in the literary and cultural aspects ofcolonization and its aftermath.
This book offers a fresh and stimulating analysis of the often elusive relationship between domestic and foreign policy in Russia before the First World War. Dietrich Geyer, one of Germany's leading historians of Russia, discusses a wide variety of economic, fiscal, institutional, and ideological developments within imperial Russia. In so doing, he brings into sharp relief the difficulties faced by the ruling elites in maintaining Russia's great power position in Europe, the Near East, and the Far East. Now available in English for the first time, this widely acclaimed book will be welcomed as an indispensable resource by all those who were unable to read the original German edition. "By far the most perceptive, knowledgeable, and intelligent work on the last half century of imperial Russia in print." -Theodore H. Von Laue, Russian History "This important, tightly packed book... analyzes the basic problems of Russian imperialism thoroughly and with enormous erudition.... Scholars concerned with imperialism and Russian domestic and foreign problems will welcome this thought-provoking work." -David MacKenzie, American Historical Review "A convincing and important analysis of the mutual dependence of autocratic domestic and foreign politics.... This book ought to be the occasion for a renewed and wide discussion of Russian imperialism and should give rise to further studies of the question." -Alan Kimball, Slavic Review "This is a remarkably good book. Good in many respects--quality of research and writing, breadth of view, command of the facts, balance and penetration in judgment, familiarity with relevant theory.... The book represents a revived and deepened historicism." -Paul W. Schroeder, Journal of Modern History
This book first proves that the rationale behind Russia’s aggressive actions in its neighborhood resides in its goal of achieving certain geostrategic objectives which are largely predefined by the state’s imperial traditions, memories, and fears that the Kremlin may irretrievably lose control over lands which were once Russian. In other words, Russia constantly remains an expansion-oriented and centralized state regardless of epochs and political regimes ruling over it. That is its geopolitical modus operandi successfully tested throughout history. This book also scrutinizes Ukraine as a young post-colonial and post-communist state which, unlike Russia, is more prone to democratize and decentralize. To understand the logics of the ongoing Ukrainian transformation, its domestic and international developments are assessed in their connection to the Soviet political tradition and the medieval legacy of the Cossack statehood (15–18 centuries). This book outlines differences between the political cultures of Ukrainian and Russian nations. This envisages scrutiny of historical experiences and their impacts on the Ukrainian and Russian state-building, institutional structures, national identity, religious issues, and other features of sovereignty. Based on these discoveries, a structure of symbolic thinking which predefines indigenous understandings of justice and order has been constructed for Ukrainians and Russians.
Revolution Goes East is an intellectual history that applies a novel global perspective to the classic story of the rise of communism and the various reactions it provoked in Imperial Japan. Tatiana Linkhoeva demonstrates how contemporary discussions of the Russian Revolution, its containment, and the issue of imperialism played a fundamental role in shaping Japan's imperial society and state. In this bold approach, Linkhoeva explores attitudes toward the Soviet Union and the communist movement among the Japanese military and politicians, as well as interwar leftist and rightist intellectuals and activists. Her book draws on extensive research in both published and archival documents, including memoirs, newspaper and journal articles, political pamphlets, and Comintern archives. Revolution Goes East presents us with a compelling argument that the interwar Japanese Left replicated the Orientalist outlook of Marxism-Leninism in its relationship with the rest of Asia, and that this proved to be its undoing. Furthermore, Linkhoeva shows that Japanese imperial anticommunism was based on geopolitical interests for the stability of the empire rather than on fear of communist ideology. Thanks to generous funding from New York University and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access (OA) volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.