Russia under the Old regime

116

The question naturally arises why in the late seventeenth century Russia required a large and modern standing army, considering that it was already the largest country in the world and strategically one of the least vulnerable. (The existing forces, as noted, were adequate to protect Russia along its exposed eastern and southern frontiers.) In its broadest sense, the question is a philosophical one and can be posed with equal justice in regard to France of the Bourbons or Sweden of the Vasas. The seventeenth century happened to have been an age of intense militarism, and Russia, whose contacts with the west were increasing, could hardly have escaped being influenced by the spirit of the times. When we seek more specific answers, however, we find that the standard ones given by Russian historians, pre- and post-revolutionary alike, fail to convince. In particular, it is difficult to accept the proposition that Russia needed a powerful modern army in order to realize alleged 'national tasks': the recovery from the Poles of the lands which had once been part of the Kievan state, and access to warm-water ports. It is a matter of the historical record that the realization of both these 'tasks' in the course of the eighteenth century did nothing to assuage Russia's appetite for land. Having secured in the partitions of Poland what she regarded as its rightful patrimony, she went on in 1815 to absorb the Duchy of Warsaw which had never been in Russian possession and even to demand Saxony. As soon as she had gained the northern shore of the Black Sea with its warm sea ports, she began to claim the southern shore with Constantinople and the Straits. Having gained access to the Baltic, she seized Finland. Since it is always possible to justify new conquests on the grounds that they are required to protect the old - the classical justification for all imperialisms - explanations of this kind can be safely discounted: the logical sequence of such reasoning is mastery of the globe, for only at that point can any state be said to be fully protected from external threats to its possessions.

Setting aside the philosophical questions of the reasons for the appeal of warfare, two explanations can be suggested for Russia's obsession with military power and territorial expansion.

One explanation has to do with the manner in which the national state in Russia had come into being. Because in their drive for absolute authority the rulers of Moscow had to acquire not only autocratic powers but also what we have defined as monocracy (p. 58), ever since they had instinctively identified sovereignty with the acquisition of territory. Expansion in breadth, along the earth's surface, joined in their mind with expansion in depth, in the sense of political power over subjects, as an essential ingredient of sovereignty.

The second explanation concerns the inherent poverty of Russia and the perpetual hunger of her inhabitants for fresh resources, especially