Putin's Wars
Page 5
The bad conscience about colonial practice that emerged in the nineteenth century necessitated the forging of a new legitimation theory in which the concept of moral duty had a central place. This was especially the case in protestant countries, such as Britain and the Netherlands. This new legitimation theory was dubbed the white man’s burden,[4] because imperialist expansion was considered not so much an interest- and profit-driven exploitation of foreign countries and foreign peoples, but rather a civilizing mission. Of course this civilizing mission had already played a role when the Christian faith was used as a legitimation theory. But then the emphasis was still on the spiritual salvation of the indigenous populations by their conversion to Christianity. Now this legitimation theory was turned upside down: what was at stake was not their spiritual salvation in the afterlife, but their earthly salvation here and now. The colonial ruler—far from being an oppressor and exploiter—was a helper and a coach of native populations, bringing them the benefits of modern governance, modern transport systems, modern industry and trade, and, in addition, the whole rich Western culture that became available to local elites by giving them access to higher education. In 1897 H. F. Wyatt, the founder of the British Imperial Maritime League, wrote:
In Asia and in Africa great native populations have passed under our hands. To us—to us, and not to others, a certain definite duty has been assigned. To carry light and civilization into the dark places of the world; to touch the mind of Asia and of Africa with the ethical ideas of Europe; to give to thronging millions, who would otherwise never know peace or security, these first conditions of human advance . . . .[5] To sustain worthily the burden of empire is the task manifestly appointed to Britain, and therefore to fulfil that task is her duty, as it should also be her delight.[6]
The young Winston Churchill, twenty-two years old, delivered his first political speech in Bath in the same year (1897). He told his audience “that our determination is to uphold the Empire that we have inherited from our fathers as Englishmen,” adding: “we shall continue to pursue that course marked out for us by an all-wise hand and carry out our mission of bearing peace, civilization and good government to the uttermost ends of the earth.”[7] Was this merely a new hypocrisy replacing the old? One might be tempted to reply in the affirmative. However, this is not completely true. Galbraith, for instance, stressed the important role Britain played in building a Rechtsstaat in India. Introducing a functioning independent and impartial judiciary in this large country was, indeed, a matter of great historical progress.
“The new faith was law,” wrote Galbraith. “The British were in India to trade and make money. There was nothing wrong with that. But the redeeming purpose was to bring government according to law. It was an idea of genuine power.”[8] “Largely in consequence,” he continued, “India was one of the best-governed countries in the world. Persons and property were safe. Thought and speech were more secure than in recent times. There was effective action to arrest famine and improve communications. The courts functioned impartially and to the very great pleasure of the litigiously-minded Indians.”[9] And Galbraith concluded: “The British rulers were snobbish, race-conscious and often arrogant. But if colonialism could anywhere have been considered a success (the empty lands always apart), it was in India.”[10]
At the end of the nineteenth century the theory of the white man’s burden became widely accepted in the Netherlands also. Here it was called de ethische koers (the ethical course). This “ethical course” was intended to repair the historical ereschuld (honorable debt) to the indigenous populations.[11] It is telling that even a Dutch socialist MP, Henri van Kol, who, in 1901, in an article in the press had severely attacked the imperialist policies of the Dutch government, was much more positive after a visit to the Dutch Indies (Indonesia) some years later. In a report he wrote of having felt “a feeling of pride” during his visit: “There is over there something great and noble being achieved.”[12] According to the Dutch sociologist Van Doorn, “this sense of mission, the feeling of being ‘responsible’ for Indonesia grew between the world wars to almost mythical proportions.”[13] The Dutch were even praised by outsiders:
In the 1920s American perceptions of Dutch colonial rule had been positive, even if such assessments were colored by paternalistic, racial overtones. Consul-General Chas Hoover spoke approvingly of Dutch colonial rule over the “apathetically conservative people of these islands.” His successor argued that “the whites—particularly the 30,000 Dutch who are doing it—are experts in the art of government” who were willing to “discuss with friendly interest the aspirations of the brown people to learn how to govern themselves.”[14]
Although recognizing the fact that “every empire has been both Jekyll and Hyde,”[15] ex-colonial powers, generally, have stressed the credit balance of their imperial rule. However, at the beginning of the twentieth century the sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, who was anything but a pure democrat, criticized the hypocrisy of the European powers. “An Englishman, a Frenchman, a Belgian, an Italian,” he wrote, “when he fights and dies for his fatherland, is a hero; but an African, when he dares to defend his fatherland against these nations, is a vile rebel and a traitor. And the Europeans carry out their holy duty to destroy the Africans, as, for instance in the Congo, in order to teach them to be civilized.”[16] Despite the moral self-satisfaction of the former colonial powers concerning the supposed blessings of their colonial rule, it is good to remember the words of Aimé Césaire, the founder of the négritude movement in France, who wrote:
I maintain that colonial Europe is dishonest in legitimating colonialism a posteriori by the evident material progress which has been realized in certain domains under colonial rule; . . . that nobody knows at what stage of material development these same countries would have been without European intervention; that the technical equipment, the administrative reorganisation, in a word: the “Europeanization” of Africa or Asia was in no way linked to a European occupation—as is proved by the example of Japan; that the Europeanization of the non-European continents could have been achieved in other ways than under the Europan boot.[17]
Social Darwinism: The Primacy of Naked Power
Theories of the white man’s burden reflected the growing feelings of moral uneasiness with imperialist policies amongst the enlightened metropolitan elites. However, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century we can witness in Western Europe a rude and cynical reaction against this new moral criticism with the emergence of legitimation theories based on social Darwinism. As the term indicates, these theories were inspired by Charles Darwin, especially by his theories of “natural selection” and the “survival of the fittest,” which he had developed in The Origin of Species (1859). Darwin’s theory was biology. It was not sociology or political science. However, already Darwin himself had given his theory a wider interpretation when he applied it to the human world in his book The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). In this work he spoke of the “lower races,” a term that he not only used to refer to colonized peoples outside Europe, but also to some peoples inside Europe. For instance, he quoted uncritically an author who compared the Scots, supposed to be “frugal, foreseeing, self-respecting, [and] ambitious,” with the Irish, who were considered to represent an “inferior and less favored race.”[18] Many of Darwin’s contemporaries were eager to grant his theory of the survival of the fittest, including its implicit conclusions of racial superiority and inferiority, an almost universal validity. It was a theory, considered not only useful to explain the biological world, but also human society, and even international relations.
Darwin’s theory became popular because it responded to the ideological needs of the imperial powers of his time. Already Marx noted in 1862, “It is strange how Darwin recognizes among beasts and plants his English society with its division of labour, competition, opening of new markets, ‘inventions’ and Malthus’ struggle for life. It is Hobbes’s bellum omnium contra omnes.”[19] Alth
ough for Marx Darwin’s biological theory presented a surprisingly accurate description of the capitalist society of his time, for many of his contemporaries Darwin’s theory provided rather a mandatory prescription of policies to be followed. This was especially the case for recently unified nations, such as Germany and Italy, both aspiring to become colonial empires. These countries were historical latecomers. It was only after unification in the second half of the nineteenth century that they had the strength and the ambition to build a colonial empire. By that time, however, apart from Africa, most of the territories of the globe were already occupied by the older colonial powers. What arguments could they bring forward to claim their share? The Christian faith? The established colonial powers had already done this before them, and, in addition, this claim had in the meantime become obsolete. Or should they provide support for their territorial claims by stressing their unique civilizing mission? Could the white man’s burden not also be shared by Germany and Italy? The other powers were not convinced. While complaining about the unbearable weight of their burden, they were not in a hurry to share it with others. It was the new theory of social Darwinism that provided them with a solution. Neither Germany nor Italy needed new moral legitimation theories, such as the white man’s burden. These were, according to them, merely hypocritical veils cast over the naked economic interests of the old, established colonial powers. They only claimed a “rightful place under the sun.” They just claimed their part of the cake. Their only legitimation was their newly acquired power and their military strength, expressions of their racial superiority. This new social Darwinist legitimation theory of the latecomers found a staunch defender in the German historian Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–1896). Treitschke confirmed that “it was the highest moral duty of the state to take care of its power.”[20] However, this was challenged by Friedrich Meinecke, because it “leads, first, to suspending the definitive character of international treaties and, further, to inciting the praising of the glory of war. . . . He [Treitschke] considers war the only remedy for sick nations on the verge of sinking into egoistic individualism.”[21] Meinecke commented: “The new German theory says: ‘Our interest is our right,’ the old, very old English theory is: ‘Lawfulness is our interest.’”[22]
Germany’s and Italy’s claims for colonial expansion were based on the slogan Might Makes Right. In Germany social Darwinism expressed itself also in pan German theories, which were “a racist variant of those legitimation and expansion attempts.”[23] “Economic advancement and the subjugation of overseas territories seemed due to the ‘natural qualities’ of the nation, ‘that means its racial qualities.’ In any case, massive demands could be deducted from these. Out of the racist pan Germanism, that would heal the world, emerged a pseudo-scientifically ‘disguised legitimation’ for permanent expansion.”[24] Theories of the white man’s burden, even if they might have appeared hypocritical, still preserved a moral legitimation for imperial rule and justified this rule by the benefits that this rule was supposed to bring to the colonized populations. Pan Germanism and social Darwinism, on the contrary, did away with any bad conscience and proclaimed loudly and without any moral restraint the right of the strongest. “The general basic values in Imperial Germany,” wrote Helge Pross, “. . . were order, obedience, subordination, duty, work, performance, discipline, functioning. In the thinking of very many bourgeois men and women the state, monarchy, national greatness and [Germany’s] international standing equally had the status of values, they were desirable and should be realized.”[25] “Many citizens dreamt of German greatness, German international standing, a policy that would give Germany its rightful place as one of the leading world powers. . . . The state became a value in itself.”[26] Worshipping an almighty state that was able to extend its imperial rule overseas went hand in hand with feelings of racial superiority. According to the historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler the logical conclusion of these theories was fascism: “Undeniably since the 1870s–1880s this social Darwinism has spread throughout the western industrial nations and it has exercised a demonstrably great influence, but it reached its apogee only in the racist radicalization by National Socialism.”[27]
Three Russian Legitimation Theories for Imperial Expansion: Orthodoxy, Pan Slavism, and Communism
It is now time to turn to Russia and to ask what kind of legitimation theories were used during the expansion of the Russian empire. As was already mentioned, in the first centuries of Russian expansion no special legitimation theory seemed necessary. Territorial expansion was “the normal way of life” of the Russian state. It was something akin to breathing: you are doing it, but you are not conscious of doing it. This was especially the case when the empire expanded into quasi-empty, sparsely populated territories. However, when the expansion began to take place in territories occupied by foreign populations there emerged a need for legitimation theories. We can distinguish at least three:
The Orthodox religion
Pan Slavism
Communism
Sometimes these legitimation theories overlap. But they will be represented here as different, sequential phases.
The first, Orthodoxy, is a religious legitimation theory, and it resembles, therefore, the religious legitimation theories that played a role in the early colonial expansion of Western Europe, especially of Spain. In Russia religion played an important role from an early stage. That role, however, was different from that in Western Europe, where Protestantism and Catholicism were not the religions of one state, but of groups of states. In 1453, after the fall of Constantinople, Russia had become the only Orthodox country in the world. This led to a deep sense of Russian religious uniqueness. Moscow began to call itself the “Third Rome,” and a specific Russian messianism emerged: Russia considered itself to be the only real source of salvation for mankind. The resemblance here with the young Soviet Union is striking. In 1917 Russia became, again, the only state in the world with its own creed: communism. As the only communist country in the world, it considered itself to be a beacon for mankind. The messianism of the early communist era, expressed in the phrase “socialism in one country” was, in fact, a secularized version of the messianism of tsarist, Orthodox Russia, expressed in the slogan svyataya Rus, “Holy Russia.” To call your country “holy” is an immense pretention. “To see oneself as potentially ‘a holy nation’ is to link chosenness indissolubly with collective sanctification.”[28] But Russia was not the first to call itself “holy.” In the West there existed a precedent—and a competitor—in the Holy Roman Empire, headed by the emperor of Austria.[29] Both the emperor in Vienna and the tsar in Moscow pretended to be the legitimate heirs of the late Christian Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire in the heart of Europe, led by the Austrian emperor, however, was a weak and semifederal construction, a conglomerate of German principalities that would finally be dissolved in 1806 under pressure from Napoleon. The tsars, on the contrary, stood at the helm of a centralized and strong military power, and they were able to conduct an uninterrupted policy of territorial annexation.
The Symbiosis of Church and State
The Russian Orthodox religion gained in importance as a legitimation theory for Russian expansion, when, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Russia began its southward expansion into the territories of the Ottoman Empire. There Russia was no longer confronting “fellow Christians,” such as the Protestant Swedes or the Catholic Poles, but a non-Christian, Muslim power. The peoples over whom the Ottomans ruled, Greeks, Bulgarians, Romanians, and Serbs, shared the Orthodox faith of the Russians, a faith of which the Russian tsar considered himself to be the official defender. Consequently Russian imperialist expansion in the south took place under the banner of a defense of the Orthodox religion. The Crimean War, for instance, started with a conflict with the Ottoman Empire and France over Russia’s role as a protector of the Orthodox Christians and the Holy Places in Jerusalem. The Orthodox religion could play its role of legitimation theory for imperial expansion better th
an other religions in Europe because it was, in the most literal sense, a state religion. Tsar Peter the Great had subordinated the Church to bureaucratic state control when he introduced the lay function of Ober Procurator (Ober Prokuror) of the Holy Synod, which was a state official who exercised ultimate authority over the episcopal body.[30] Tsar Peter, the Westernizer, wanted to dominate the Church, which he considered, in his heart, a reservoir of primitive beliefs. His successors, however, wanted to use the Church and from the middle of the eighteenth century we can witness a growing symbiosis of the Church and the state. At the end of the eighteenth century, under the enlightened tsarina Catherine the Great, this symbiosis was still progressive in nature: she appointed modern, educated bishops who shared her ideas. But under the rule of the reactionary tsar Nicholas I (1825–1855), who was called the gendarme of Europe, the Church became the instrument of a repressive state. The right hand of Nicholas I, his deputy minister of Public Education, Sergey Uvarov, coined the ideological triad Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationhood,[31] which was to become Russia’s official state ideology. Priests were paid by the state and had the status of civil servants. They were spied upon: “The church itself was firmly under the control of the state so that even sermons were vetted by the police.”[32] In their turn the priests themselves were used as informants. They reported irregular behavior and the emergence of subversive ideas in their local parishes to the police, acting as unofficial spies for the state. “The doctrine of the Church provided Tsarism with a powerful ideological justification, and its priests acted as instruments of police rule in rural areas.”[33] They had also “to report confessions which revealed ‘evil intent’ towards the State.”[34] The iron grip of the state on the Church was further strengthened under tsar Alexander III (1881–1894), who made his tutor, the reactionary Pan Slavist Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Ober Procurator of the Holy Synod.