Russian Colonialism and Imperialism: The Paradox of the 1917 Revolution

One of the symbols of Imperial Russia, Iberian Gate and Chapel in Moscow. Demolished by the Bolsheviks in 1931 and rebuilt in 1994–1995. Photo by the author

A radically new reading of Russia’s political and cultural history was proposed about ten years ago by Alexander Etkind, Professor of Russian Literature and Cultural History at the University of Cambridge. He traced how the Russian Empire conquered foreign territories and domesticated its own heartlands, thereby colonizing many peoples, Russians included. This view of Russia’s vast expanses as internal colonies is not widespread in historical literature. However, this vision of colonization as simultaneously internal and external, colonizing one’s own people as well as others, is crucial for scholars of empire, colonialism and globalization.

Often the language of historical documents, free from modern political stereotypes, allows us to understand deeper and clearer the most complex aspects of social and political history. Russian history is no exception. In this short article I will offer you several historical documents on the specifics of Russian imperialism in the early 20th century, which allow to look at the problem in a new way.

Since the end of the 19th century, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Empire had advocated the idea of creating an interdepartmental commission to consider ways of solving agrarian problems. But this proposal was implemented only in 1902, when the Special…