[lit-ideas] Re: Empire definitions, British and Russian
- From: palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 15:14:14 +0200
an old figure of these lands, claims that the imperialist came
1st with a priest
2nd with a trader
3rd with the soldiers
each wave killed one way or another those who did not resist
On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 3:09 PM, Lawrence Helm
<lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> In *The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997, *Piers
> Brenden on page xviii and xix writes, “The British Empire had a small human
> and geographical base, remote from its overseas possessions. In the late
> eighteenth century it gained fortuitous industrial, commercial and naval
> advantages that rivals were bound to erode. Having such a limited capacity
> to coerce, it sought accord and found local collaborators. But imperial
> domination, by its very nature, sapped their loyalty. . . The history of
> empires,’ he wrote, ‘is the history of human misery.’ This is because the
> initial subjugation is invariably savage and the subsequent occupation is
> usually repressive. Imperial powers lack legitimacy and govern
> irresponsibly, relying on arms, diplomacy and propaganda. But no
> vindication can eradicate the instinctive hostility to alien control.
> Gibbon, himself wedded to liberty, went to the heart of the matter: ‘A more
> unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than that which condemns
> the natives of a country to perpetual servitude, under the arbitrary
> dominion of strangers.’ Resistance to such dominion provoked vicious
> reprisals, such as the British inflicted after the Indian Mutiny, thus
> embedding ineradicable antagonism. Yet Britain’s Empire, much better than
> any other, as even George Orwell acknowledged, was a liberal empire. Its
> functionaries claimed that a commitment to freedom was fundamental to their
> civilizing mission. In this respect, Lloyd George told the Imperial
> Conference in 1921, their Empire was unique: ‘Liberty is its binding
> principle,’ To people under the imperial yoke such affirmations must have
> seemed brazen instances of British hypocrisy. . . And in the twentieth
> century, facing adverse circumstances almost everywhere, the British
> grudgingly put their principles into practice. They fulfilled their duty
> as trustees, giving their brown and black colonies the independence (mostly
> within the Commonwealth) long enjoyed by the white dominions. The British
> Empire thus realized its long-cherished ideal of becoming what *The Times
> *called in 1942 ‘a self-liquidating concern.’”
>
>
>
> *Observations: *While the above isn’t precisely a definition, we who
> have not been influenced by Lenin, will understand what Gibbons means when
> he uses the word “empire.” Rome and Britain subjugated a long list of
> cities and tribes. After that it occupied them and made them colonies.
> Britain because of influence of the Enlightenment and Humanism perhaps
> could not feel good about all aspects of their empire building – at least
> not ultimately. That did not seem to be true of the Russian empires.
>
>
>
> In *Russia's People of Empire: Life Stories from Eurasia, 1500 to the
> Present*, ed by Norris and Sunderland, we read on page 251, “In the last
> years, enfeebled by strokes, Stalin was arguably the most powerful man in
> the world. Not only did he control the USSR and much of Eastern Europe,
> but the communist leaders of China, North Korea, and Vietnam deferred to
> him. In 1950 he agreed that Korean leader Kim Il Sung could invade South
> Koreas, thus opening the way to the Korean War. . .”
>
>
>
> “Like his predecessors Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Catherine
> the Great, Stalin was both a state builder and an empire builder.
> Historically Russia’s ‘national’ identity was an imperial one – nation,
> absolute state, and empire intimately intertwined – and Stalin contributed
> to that tradition in an exceptionally brutal manner. His legacy was a
> hypercentralized state, a crudely industrialized economy, a country in
> which millions died to build his idea of socialism, and other millions to
> defend their country against the enemies of Communism.”
>
>
>
> Lawrence
>
>
>
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palma
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