POLI 235 midterm

and also reading quiz I guess

5 implications of geography in eurasian state building

relative poverty, multi-ethnicity, unique cultural construction, weak central authority

weber definition of a state

monopoly over the legitimate use of violence

un definition of a state

defined territory, permanent population, government, and capacity to enter relations with other countries

tasks of a state

violence (military to control its territory and enforce rule), economy, extract resources, system of property rights, domestic order and international defense

roving vs. stationary bandit

roving — no concerns over where you steal the resources from, no consequences, no need for state building (Mongols) → create strong armies because they depend on settled populations ofr resources

stationary — generate surplus over time so that expansion continues; reinvesting, generate surplus and take resources

significance of russian rivers

no major east/west rivers, only north/south → makes trade difficult, isolated from major trade routes in the mid east, atlantic, and mediterranean

15 ex-soviet states

armenia, azerbaijan, belarus, estonia, georgia, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, latvia, lithuania, moldova, russia, tajikistan, turkmenistan, ukraine, uzbekistan

eurasian east-west geography

quick expansion eastwards over a flat area; but also makes it easy to invade but can always retreat eastwards (boom and bust cycles)

centralization in russia?

appearance of strength and centralization, but in reality multiethnic and weak → needs to use a hierarchy because otherwise it cannot be maintained

highly centralized at the top and bottom, weak middle → absence of civil society

four territorial areas of eurasia

steppe, tundra, desert, forest

propiska

system of permits for living in different cities, introduced in the USSR to prevent people from running away

pravda and nepravda

idk this is kinda stupid but purity and order vs chaos — morality in interdependent communities

mir

peace → community-centered as a form of survival, local self-governance

krugovaya poruka

collective responsibility → survival of individuals dependent on survival of the collective — work together for success

russian nationalism is weird

ethnicity isn’t necessarily central because it’s so diverse — it’s loyalty to the regime that’s most important (us vs them mentality on a national level)

steppe politician

stalin is the last of these; political authority and loyalty to a system matter over ethnicity

holy fools

irrational, asceticism and revealing truths about society — to have a voice in the country one must extract oneself from the system entirely (Pavlensky performance art)

south eurasia

deserts with oases along rivers, mountains along the southern and eastern rims, nomadic

steppe eurasia

grasses and scrub land broken by rivers, nomadic

north eurasia

coniferous forest with deciduous trees in the south, becomes a deciduous ecological zone to the west of the urals

tundra eurasia

frozen swamp with broad rivers to the arctic, frozen for most of the year

inner eurasia

ussr plus xinjiang and mongolia; mountains east/south, frozen ocean in the north, open in the west (urals are too low)

empires here can be durable because of extensive territory and natural resources, indefinite retreat but also very isolated and hard to defend, impossible to assimilate all the different cultures

first east slavic state

formed on extreme western end in a deciduous forest near the volga in kyiv, trade north/south between scandiavia and byzantium and east/west to persia, india, china, western europe

dependent on nomads maintaining tarde routs

zasechnaya cherta

fortified steppe frontier in the south

situated between two or three ecumenes

administrative structure of an asian empire, cultural borrowing from europe, byzantine religion

the third rome

a way to balance the asian administration, european culture, and byzantine religion

“binary nature” of russian culture

seek extreme solutions and go from one set of cultural patterns to its diametrical opposite (paganism to orthodoxy, peter i reforms, bolshevik revolution)

success of orthodoxy among russian peasantry

pretty pictures instead of words is good for an illiterate peasantry

russian messianism

muscovites believe they are the true inheritors of the roman imperial legacy, and their mission was to save the known world (third rome — 1. rome, 2. byzantium, 3. moscow)

mongol yoke

perception of russians that they were exploited by the mongols — in reality the russians paid for security from the mongols and learned a lot about administration techniques

golden horde

conquers kyiv ands subordinates the princes — pay tributes to the khan, muscovy becomes the center of the slavic world by collecting taxes from the nearby principalities and in exchange gets administrative training

muscovy establishes itself as center of the slavic world

collects tribute for the golden horde, attracts more people, administrative training, gives resources to the orthodox church to compete with Tver’ to become the center of the chuch

continues expanding — “gathering of the russian lands” 14th 15th centuies via marriage, military, purchases, diplomacy

ivan i

accumulated wealth from tribute collection to purchase territory which allows for more wealth accumulation etc

ivan iii (the great)

1462-1505 — major architect of unification; novgorod, tver, yaroslavl, integrates all russian lands into one political structure (lots of useless territory)

battle of kulikovo 1380

dmitry i fights the golden horde and wins — first time the mongols are defeated in open battle, freed from the golden horde for 2 years until they come back

empire ideology

defender of orthodox christianity after the fall of constantinople in 1453, integrates orthodoxy into the government as essentially a state ministry

ivan iii marries sophia palaiologina, niece of the byzantine empire (more relationship with orthodoxy), also byzantine court rituals and the double-headed eagle

third rome

ivan iv (the terrible)

takes title of tsar (empire rather than principality, a western term), centralizes authority, revised law code, military reform, administrative restructuring

conquers kazan and astrakhan in 1552 and 1556 (expansion into multiethnic territories; religiously muslim, ethnically turkic), start gaining access to the caspian sea

time of troubles

after death of ivan iv 1598 because there’s no heir (he killed his son) — court offers up various options for the tsar (false ivans), foreign invasions, rally against foreigners, strengthen russian political identity

autocracy as an instrument of expansion

tsar controls everything — allows for increased extraction, intensity of serfdom, mobilization of resources → serfs bear the brunt of state expansion

peter the great reforms

makes russian into a european power

table of ranks for a “meritocracy” — aristocratic and military ranks given out for state service

move the capital to st. petersburg → access to the baltic

creates a navy

full nomads

live in steppe regions with definite changes in habitation

seminomads

bordered cultivated regions, sporadic agriculture

desert nomads

migrated between fixed water sources

mountain nomads

vertical, seasonal variation to pasture their herds

internal colonization

seen as unification and destiny, expansion rather than colonization, make land specifically for russian peasants to occupy

speransky reforms

create steppe court system to resolve disputes between kazakhs and russians (and a lot of other stuff that i don’t really remember)

revolution

the total breakdown of the system through which rulers govern a society; a reordering of society itself

freed temporarily from any sort of rules — struggle for power to combine social action with coercion as people compete for resources

constitutional view

russia was leaving its backwards past behind and developing industrial infrastructure; could’ve developed peacefully into a constitutional government if they had better political leaders, but instead the bolsheviks took over

class view

standard soviet interpretation — class conflict is inherent in societies where land ownership/production is concentrated in the hands of a few, accentuated in russia due to war and repression → bolsheviks as agents of an inevitable historical process towards socialism

cultural view

russia has a unique social and economic infrastructure and was searching for a government to embody those values

feb 27 1917

troops turn against the tsar and that’s the end of the tsardom

provisional government

set up by the duma to rule until a constituent assembly elected via universal suffrage could decide the future form of government

legitimate but temporary, with fluctuating composition and very little executive power that was increasingly challenged by the soviets

russian social democratic party

an underground marxist party in russia, splits over questions of tactics and organization in 1903 into bolsheviks and mensheviks

bolsheviks vs mensheviks

bolsheviks: led by lenin, small party to avoid tsarist police, immediate overthrow of the system

mensheviks: favored a broader base and looser membership, believed russia had to go through its capitalist and democratic stages before a socialist revolution first

soviets

workers, soldiers, peasant’s coucils that reemerged in feb 1917, challenged the authority of the provisional government

second congress of soviets october

kerensky sends troops to close a bolshevik printing press → trotsky revolution in danger, troops take over city installments and arrest the provisional government, power passes to the soviets and a new government the council of pepole’s commissars with lenin as chair

civil war

reds, whites and greens (peasant army)

leninist political system (goals I guess)

social ownership, welfare, goal is to abolish private property, participatory democracy, bolsheviks as the “mechanic” of the state machine — give orders above state organizations to get stuff done (unaccountable leadership and a militarized party)

nomenklatura

political appointees

new economic policy 1921 (nep)

revert to old methods of economy to promote growth — small-scale industry in private ownership, authorized free trade, renting out land allowed (too poor to immediately introduce socialism)

key elements of the leninist political framework

authority stems from ability to take society forwards towards justice, equality → moral guarantor of the political system

controlled means of coercion, communication, economic resources, responsible for policy and appointments

powerful, centralized but with built-in conflict and instability

lenin dies in

1924

triumvirate leadership after lenin

kamenev (moscow), zinoviev (leningrad), stalin (party general secretary)

also trotsky (council of people’s commissars)

left opposition

trotsky and co, argue that must shift towards socialism and away from the nep

right opposition

bukharin argues that the economy needs investment — expand agriculture to sustain industry; pro-peasant policy of bukharin and stalin

revolution from above

1928-1932 establish a system of state ownership of the means of production and a centrally planned economy, increase the labor force and reach quotas

ussr 3-sector economy

priority: heavy industry and defense

second: light industry

third: agriculture

new generation

puritanical and macho, freedom and self improvement — khrushchev emblematic of this generation and the peasantry party members

vanguard party

leninist idea that says that the right to rule is from a party’s ability to find the best way forward for society → thus a tendency for cults to emerge around a single leader

stalinist system

huge state apparatus with centralized bureaucratic institutions that operate on commands from above and compete with each other

nkvd, wielder of coercion, executes policies

creation of a super-human leader who can provide leadership

empire

a state that rules over other states/peoples (or a tribute system)

imperial

a style of governance — the actions a government may take to control other states

__ in form, __ in content

nationalist in form, socialist in content

federal setup in form via institutions but the content is socialist-controlled (renders form irrelevant)

structural issues in russia leading to revolution

rural and urban crises, food shortages and inflation

rural crisis

breakdown of traditional agriculture after the abolition of serfdom by alexander ii in 1861

urban crisis

industrial revolution creates cities and changes relationships within them — social turmoil, urbanization

1905 revolution

massacre of workers protesting in st. petersburg and moscow — discredits the tsar as the “little father” and becomes a dictator instead

bloody sunday

1905 peaceful protest of workers in st. petersburg, massacred by the imperial army

impact of wwi

send peasants to the war and it goes really badly → peasants desert → roving bands of armed peasants returning to russia, violence over law

scandals amongst the aristocracy and extravagance (rasputin etc)

october revolution

tsar resigns in feb, provisional government under kerensky and majority socialist revolutionary party — bolsheviks launch a coup against the provisional government

agrarian question for the bolsheviks

bolsheviks focus on the proletariat but russia is a primarily urban country

fundamentally want to abolish private property but also promised to hand out land

peasants are also mostly self-sufficient and don’t care about this nonsense

the scissors crisis

supply and demand no longer match (grain prices rise and the ability to provide goods in exchange is falling); necessitates militarization of the food supply as seen later

international question

where is the global proletariat revolution? strikes and protests across europe put down

treaty of brest-litovsk

gets russia quickly out of wwi by giving up tons of east and central european territory and the baltics, as well as their industrial capacity and productive farmlands — becomes a very weak target (and thus invaded by several countries)

internal enemies

bolsheviks assume that they will be popular and they are not (SR remains biggest party), gradually take over elections

russian backwardness

mass of political uninvolved peasantry and a society dominated by the state; course of development driven by state initiative

stalinism as a continuation of state compulsion and bureaucratic dominance already present in imperial russia

bifurcated social structure (urban/rural, industrial/agrarian) and low levels of economic/social development

leadership split after lenin’s death

1. stalin zinoviev and kamenev against trotsky and the left opposition about “socialism in one country” and what to do with the peasantry

2. stalin and right opposition vs united opposition of trotsky, zinoviev, kamenev

3. stalin vs right opposition of bukharin, rykov, tomsky

socialism in one country

create a socialist state based on their own efforts rather than being rescued by an international revolution

dekulakization

starts in 1928 ish, collectivization of agriculture means the removal of kulaks as a class

cultural revolution

1928-1932 culture dominated by proletarian values — radical postures on the ordinary worker as the main hero to establish a hegemony of proletarian values

stalin changes this — socialist realism, shift heroes to a higher class, with happiness achieved by climbing ranks

great terror

1936-1938 search for enemies, particularly within the party blah

shakhty trial 1928

links domestic class enemy with hostile capitalist powers — politicizes all social relations, hidden enemies

four faces of stainism

economic, social, cultural, political

economic face

economy controlled by directive principles rather than market forces to help achieve political aims, prioritize heavy industry to easily transition to wartime demands

social face

high levels of social mobility — opportunities from the “revolution from above” and from the terror, urbanization and embourgeoisement of the populace, establishment of a new social strcutre

cultural face

egalitarian emphasis in the original cultural revolution shifts to conservatism and russian nationalism

political face

personal dictatorship of stalin, terror as an instrument of the government

kirov assassination

1934 secretary of the leningrad party shot — was very popular within the party and was about to move to moscow for a central position — kamenev and zinoviev arrested as for allegedly designing the assassination as part of an opposition group, nkvd given increased powers of arrest and sentencing

the great trial 1938

third of the show trials in which bukharin, rykov, and yagoda are tried and shot

stalin dies in

1953