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Russian Colonialism[dubious — see talk page] comprises the social, political, economic and cultural policies Russia has extended over both neighbouring countries and overseas primarily during the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century. While Russia is not generally treated as a colonial power in the same sense of Great Britain or France, Russia was successful in conducting similar policies[dubious — see talk page] in regions forming modern Ukraine, Belarus, Finland and the Baltic countries, especially in areas dependent on agrarian production. Russian policies of frontier expansionism are present in colonization of Crimea, Siberia and Alaska, as well as the aborted attempt to control the Bosporus Strait during the Russo-Turkish war. National movements pressing for sovereignty were subdued within cultural policies, such as Russification seen in official state policies like the Ems Ukaz, the Language Manifesto of 1900 in Finland and policies toward Belarusian language in the 1840s to early 1870s. In the late 19th century, industrialization became a driving force behind imperial policy, and coal and iron-ore extraction were rapidly developed in areas like the Donets Basin, eventually eclipsing production in the Urals. While industrial growth was successful, the amount of reciprocity with Russia was limited, as a result of underdeveloped secondary industries and tertiary industries in host areas. Finished goods were imported at excessively high prices set by Russia,[dubious — see talk page] while the prices for Donets' industrial products was low.[dubious — see talk page] Vladimir Lenin, in exile in 1914 stated in a speech that "it [Ukraine] has become for Russia what Ireland was for England: exploited in the extreme and receiving nothing in return."
The period of Russian imperial colonialism ended with the transition from imperial capitalism to communism in the 1920s when former economic and cultural policies were mollified within the developing communist ideologies.
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[edit] References
- Iavorsky, M. Ukraina v epokhu kapitalizmu. Kiev: Derzhavne Vydavnytstvo Ukrainy, 1924.
- Kolarz, Walter. Communism and colonialism. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964
- Martin, Virginia. Law and custom in the steppe: the Kazakhs of the Middle Horde and Russian colonialism in the nineteenth century. Richmond: Curzon, 2001
- Serbyn, Roman. Lenine et la question ukrainienne en 1914. Pluriel no. 25, 1981.
- Subtelny, Orest (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5808-6.
