Russländische Kontinuitäten?: Zur Debatte über die „persistenten Grundlagen“ der Außenpolitik von Zarenreich und Sowjetstaat

• Published in: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 2012-06, Vol.60 (2), p.226-260
• Main Author: Mueller, Wolfgang
• Format: Article
• Language: ger
• Subjects: ABHANDLUNGEN; JGO 2012, 226
• ISSN: 0021-4019; 2366-2891

Russian Continuities? The Debate about “Persistent Factors” in Russian Foreign Policy from the Tsarist Empire to the Soviet State This article deals with the question of continuity and change in Russian and Soviet foreign policy. Since the October Revolution, observers in the West wondered whether the new regime’s international behavior was more influenced by communist or by imperial aims. As a result of Stalin’s expansion in 1939‒1940 and 1945‒1949, the controversy became heated in the early Cold War. While emigres from Russia tended toward denying the interrelation between tsarist and Stalinist imperialism, expatriates from Eastern Europe and Western scholars stressed some sort of continuity. In the 2000s, the re-emergence of Russia on the international stage reinvigorated the discussion. After delineating the controversy and analyzing its political background, this article attempts to re-systematize three “persistent factors” that shaped Russian and Soviet foreign policy: The absence of natural boundaries hindered neither expansion nor foreign invasion and, thus, made the creation of a large army in Russia both indispensable and feasible. Second, authoritarian rule retarded the emergence of checks and balances that control decision-making in more democratic regimes and contribute to reducing the application of violence by the state. Third, Russia’s modernization lag convinced some leaders regularly to open their country for limited modernizing imports. As the regime’s authoritarian character induced other rulers to restrict the contacts between their subjects and foreign, perhaps destabilizing, ideas, the tension between modernization and control resulted in zigzags in foreign policy between confrontation, isolation, and detente.