Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  East of Prussia lay Russia, already growing into the giant of later years. We have seen, when we were considering Chinese history, how Russia spread across Siberia to the Pacific, and even crossed to Alaska. Towards the end of the seventeenth century Russia had a strong ruler, Peter the Great. Peter wanted to put an end to many of the old Mongolian associations and outlook that Russia had inherited. He wanted to “Westernize” her, as they say. So he left his old capital, Moscow, which was full of the old traditions, and built himself a new city and a new capital. This was St. Petersburg, in the north, on the banks of the Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland. This city was quite unlike Moscow with its golden cupolas and domes; it was more like the great cities of western Europe. Petersburg became the symbol of “Westernization”, and Russia began to play a greater part in European politics. Perhaps you know that Petersburg, the name, is no more. Twice in the course of the last twenty years it has changed its name. The first change was to Petrograd, and the second one, which now holds, to Leningrad.

  Peter the Great made many changes in Russia. I shall mention one which will interest you. He put an end to the practice of the seclusion of women, called terem, which prevailed in Russia at the time. Peter had his eyes on India and knew the value of India in international politics. In his will he wrote: “Bear in mind that the commerce of India is the commerce of the world; and that he who can exclusively command it is dictator of Europe”. His last words were justified by the rapid growth in England’s power after she gained dominion over India. The exploitation of India gave England prestige and wealth, and made her for several generations the leading Power of the world.

  Between Prussia and Austria, on the one side, and Russia, on the other, lay Poland. It was a backward country with a poor peasantry. There was little trade or industry and no great towns. It had a curious constitution with an elected king, and with the power in the hands of the feudal aristocrats. As the countries surrounding it became stronger, Poland became weaker. Prussia and Russia and Austria eyed it hungrily.

  And yet it was the King of Poland that had beaten back the last Turkish attack on Vienna in 1683. The Ottoman Turks were not aggressive again. They had exhausted their energy and the tide turned gradually. Henceforward they were on the defensive, and slowly the Turkish Empire in Europe began to shrink. But in the first half of the eighteenth century, the period we are considering, Turkey was a powerful country in the south-east of Europe, and her empire extended over the Balkans and across Hungary to Poland.

  Italy in the south was split up under different rulers and did not count for much in European politics. The Pope no longer played a commanding role, and the kings and princes, while treating him with deference, ignored him in political matters. Gradually a new system was arising in Europe, the system of great Powers. Strong centralized monarchies, as I told you, helped to develop the idea of a nation. People began to think of their countries in a peculiar way, which is common enough today, but was uncommon before this period. France, England or Britannia, Italia and other similar figures, begin to emerge. They seem to symbolize the nation. Later on, in the nineteenth century, these figures take definite shape in the minds of men and women and move their hearts strangely. They become the new goddesses at whose altar every patriot is supposed to worship, and in their name and on their behalf patriots fight and kill each other. You know how the idea of Bharat Mata—Mother India—moves all of us, and how for this mythical and imaginary figure people gladly suffer and give their lives. So people in other countries felt also for their idea of their motherland. But all this was a later development. For the present I want to tell you that the eighteenth century saw this idea of nationality and patriotism take root. The French philosophers helped in this process, and the great French Revolution put the seal on this idea.

  These nations were the “Powers”. Kings came and went, but the nation continued. Of these Powers gradually some stood out as more important than the others. Thus in the early eighteenth-century France, England, Austria, Prussia and Russia were definitely “Great Powers”. Some others, like Spain, were in theory great, but they were declining.

  England was rapidly gaining in wealth and importance. Up to the time of Elizabeth she had not been an important country in the European sense, and much less so in the world sense. Her population was small; probably it did not exceed 6,000,000 at the time, which is far less than the population of London now. But with the Puritan revolution and the victory of Parliament over the king, England adapted herself to the new conditions and went ahead. So also did Holland, after the yoke of Spain had been shaken off.

  In the eighteenth century there was a scramble for colonies in America and Asia. Many European Powers took part in this, but the chief contest ultimately lay between two—England and France. England had got a great lead in the race, both in America and India. France, apart from being incompetently governed by Louis XV, was too much involved in European politics. From 1756 to 1763 war was waged between these two Powers, as well as several others, in Europe and Canada and India to decide as to who was to be master. This war is called the Seven Years’ War. We saw a bit of it in India when France was defeated. In Canada also England won. In Europe, England followed a policy, for which she has become well known, of paying others to fight for her. Frederick the Great was her ally.

  The result of this Seven Years’ War was very favourable to England. Both in India and Canada she had no European rival left. On the seas her naval supremacy was established. Thus England was in a position to establish and extend her empire and to become a world Power. Prussia also increased in importance.

  Europe was again exhausted by this fighting, and again there appeared to be comparative calm over the continent. But this calm did not prevent Prussia, Austria and Russia from swallowing up the kingdom of Poland. Poland was in no position to fight these Powers, and so these three wolves fell on her, and by partitioning her repeatedly, put an end to Poland as an independent country. There were three partitions—in 1772, 1793 and 1795. After the first of these, the Poles made a great effort to reform and strengthen their country. They established a parliament, and there was a revival of art and literature. But the autocratic monarchs surrounding Poland had tasted blood, and they were not to be baulked; besides, they had no love for parliaments. So, in spite of the patriotism of the Poles and the brave fight they put up under their real hero Kosciusko, Poland disappeared from the map of Europe in 1795. It disappeared then, but the Poles kept alive their patriotism and continued to dream of freedom, and 123 years later their dream was realized, when Poland reappeared as an independent country after the Great War.

  I have said that there was a measure of calm in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. But this did not last long, and it was mostly on the surface. I have also told you of various happenings in this century. But the eighteenth century is really famous for three events— three revolutions—and everything else that happened in Europe during these 100 years fades into insignificance when put beside these three. All these three revolutions took place in the last quarter of the century. They were of three distinct types—political, industrial, and social. The political revolution took place in America. This was the revolt of the British colonies there, resulting in the formation of an independent republic, the United States of America, which was to become so powerful in our own time. The Industrial Revolution began in England and spread to other western European countries and then elsewhere. It was a peaceful revolution, but a far-reaching one, and it has influenced life all over the world more than anything in recorded history before. It meant the coming of steam and the big machine, and ultimately the innumerable offshoots of industrialism that we see around us. The social revolution was the great French Revolution, which not only put an end to monarchy in France, but also to innumerable privileges, and brought new classes to the front. We shall have to study all these three revolutions separately in some slight detail.

  We have seen that on the eve of these grea
t changes monarchies were supreme in Europe. In England and Holland there were parliaments, but they were controlled by aristocrats and the rich. The laws were made for the rich, to protect their property and rights and privileges. Education also was only for the rich and privileged classes. Indeed, government itself was for these classes. One of the great problems of the time was the problem of the poor. Although conditions improved a little at the top, the misery of the poor remained, and indeed became more marked.

  Right through the eighteenth century the nations of Europe carried on a cruel and heartless slave trade. Slaves, as such, had ceased to exist in Europe, although the serfs or villeins, as the cultivators on the land were called, were little better than slaves. With the discovery of America, however, the old slave trade was revived in its most cruel form. The Spanish and Portuguese began it by capturing Negroes on the African coast and taking them to America to work on the land. The English took their full share in this abominable trade. It is difficult for you or for any of us to have any idea of the terrible sufferings of the Africans as they were hunted and caught like wild beasts and then chained together, and so transported to America. Vast numbers died before they could even reach their journey’s end. Of all those who have suffered in this world, the Negroes have perhaps borne the heaviest burden. Slavery was formally abolished in the nineteenth century, England taking the lead. In the United States a civil war had to be fought to decide this question. The millions of Negroes in the United States of America today are the descendants of these slaves.

  I shall finish this letter on a pleasant note by telling you of the great development of music in this century in Germany and Austria. As you know, Germans are the leaders in European music. Some of their great names appear even in the seventeenth century. As elsewhere, music in Europe was almost a part of religious ceremonial. Gradually this is separated, and music becomes an art by itself, apart from religion. Two great names stand out in the eighteenth century—Mozart and Beethoven.

  They were both infant prodigies, both composers of genius. Beethoven, perhaps the greatest musical composer of the West, became, strange to say, quite deaf, and so the wonderful music he created for others he could not hear himself. But his heart must have sung to him before he captured that music.

  97

  The Coming of the Big Machine

  September 26, 1932

  We shall now consider what is called the Industrial Revolution. It began in England, and in England therefore we shall study it briefly. I can give no exact date for it, for the change did not take place on a particular date as if by magic. Yet it was rapid enough, and from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards, in less than 100 years, it changed the face of life. We have followed the course of history, you and I in these letters, from the earliest days for several thousand years, and we have noted many changes. But all these changes, great as they sometimes were, did not vitally alter the way life was lived by the people. If Socrates or Ashoka or Julius Caesar had suddenly appeared in Akbar’s Court in India, or in England or France in the early eighteenth century, they would have noticed many changes. They might have approved of some of these changes and disapproved of others. But on the whole they would have recognized the world, outwardly at any rate, for ideas would not have differed greatly. And, again so far as outward appearances went, they would not have felt wholly out of place in it. If they wanted to travel, they would have done so by horse or carriage drawn by horses, much as they used to do in their own time, and the time occupied in the journey would have been about the same.

  But if any of the three came to our present-day world, he would be mightily surprised, and it may be that his surprise would often be a painful one. He would find that people travel now far faster than the fastest horse, swifter almost than the arrow from the bow. By railway and steamship and automobile and aeroplane they rush about at a terrific pace all over the world. Then he would be interested in the telegraph and the telephone and the wireless, and the vast number of books that modern printing-presses throw out, and newspapers and a host of other things—all children of the new forms of industry which the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century and after introduced. Whether Socrates or Ashoka or Julius Caesar would approve of these new methods or disapprove of them, I cannot say, but there is no doubt that they would find them radically different from the methods prevailing in their own times.

  The Industrial Revolution brought the big machine to the world. It ushered in the Machine Age or the Mechanical Age. Of course there had been machines before, but none had been so big as the new machine. What is a machine? It is a big tool to help man to do his work. Man has been called a tool-making animal, and from his earliest days he has made tools and tried to better them. His supremacy over the other animals, many of them more powerful than he was, was established because of his tools. The tool was an extension of his hand; or you may call it a third hand. The machine was the extension of the tool. The tool and the machine raised man above the brute creation. They freed human society from the bondage of Nature. With the help of the tool and the machine, man found it easier to produce things. He produced more, and yet had more leisure. And this resulted in the progress of the arts of civilization, and of thought and science.

  But the big machine and all its allies have not been unmixed blessings. If it has encouraged the growth of civilization, it has also encouraged the growth of barbarism by producing terrible weapons of warfare and destruction. If it has produced abundance, this abundance has not been mainly for the masses, but chiefly for the limited few. It has made the difference between the luxury of the very rich and the poverty of the poor even greater than it was in the past. Instead of being the tool and servant of man, it has presumed to become his master. On the one side, it has taught certain virtues—co-operation, organization, punctuality; on the other, it has made life itself a dull routine for millions, a mechanical burden with little of joy or freedom in it.

  But why should we blame the poor machine for the ills that have followed from it? The fault lies with man, who has misused it, and with society, which has not profited by it fully. It seems to be unthinkable that the world, or any country, can go back to the old days before the Industrial Revolution, and it hardly seems desirable or wise that, in order to get rid of some evils, we should throw away the numerous good things that industrialism has brought us. And, in any event, the machine has come and is going to stay. Therefore the problem for us is to retain the good things of industrialism and to get rid of the evil that attaches to it. We must profit by the wealth it produces, but see to it that the wealth is evenly distributed among those who produce it.

  This letter was meant to tell you something about the Industrial Revolution in England. But, as is my habit, I have gone off at a tangent and started discussing the effects of industrialism. I have put before you a problem that is troubling people today. But before we reach today we have to deal with yesterday; before we consider the results of industrialism we must study when and how it came. I have made this preamble so long in order to impress you with the importance of this revolution. It was not a mere political revolution changing kings and rulers at the top. It was a revolution affecting all the various classes, and indeed everybody. The triumph of the machine and of industrialism meant the triumph of the classes that controlled the machine. As I told you long ago, the class that controls the means of production is the class that rules. In olden times the only important means of production was the land, and therefore those who owned the land—that is, the landlords—were the bosses. In feudal times this was so. Other wealth than land then appears, and the landowning classes begin to share their power with the owners of the new means of production. And now comes the big machine, and naturally the classes that control this come to the front and become the bosses.

  In the course of these letters I have told you on several occasions of how the bourgeoisie of the towns rose in importance and struggled with the feudal nobles and gained a measure of victory in som
e places. I have told you of the collapse of feudalism, and I have probably led you to imagine that the bourgeoisie—the new middle class—took its place. If so, I want to correct myself, for the rise to power of the middle class was much slower, and it had not taken place at the period we are discussing. It took a great revolution in France and the fear of a similar revolution in England for the bourgeoisie to gain power. The English Revolution of 1688 resulted in the victory of Parliament, but Parliament itself, you will remember, was a body representing a small number of people, chiefly landowners. Some big merchants from the towns might get into it, but on the whole the merchant class—the middle class —had no place in it.

  Political power was thus in the hands of those who owned landed property. This was so in England, and even more so elsewhere. Landed property was inherited from father to son. Thus political power itself became an inherited privilege. I have already told you of “pocket boroughs” in England—that is, constituencies, returning members to Parliament, consisting of just a few electors. These few electors were usually under someone’s control, and thus the borough was said to be in his pocket. Such elections were, of course, farcical, and there was a great deal of corruption and selling of votes and seats in Parliament. Some rich members of the rising middle class could afford to buy a seat in Parliament in this way. But the masses had no look-in either way. They inherited no privileges or power, and obviously they could not buy power. So what could they do when they were sat upon and exploited by the rich and the privileged? They had no voice inside Parliament, or even in the election of members to Parliament. Even outside demonstrations by them were frowned upon by those in authority and put down by force. They were disorganized and weak and helpless. But when the cup of suffering and misery was over-full they forgot law and order and had a riot. There was thus a great deal of lawlessness in England in the eighteenth century. The general economic condition of the people was bad. It was made worse by the efforts of the big landlords to increase their estates at the expense of the small farmers who were squeezed out. Common land belonging to villages was also grabbed. All this increased the sufferings of the masses. The people also resented having no voice at all in the government, and there was a vague demand for more liberty.