The Russian connectionRussian interventions in other people’s elections: A brief history
In the last nine years, Russia has invaded its neighbor Georgia, annexed the Ukrainian province of Crimea, supported rebels in Eastern Ukraine, interfered in the U.S. presidential election, and more. Are these actions a sign that Russia is returning to aggressive foreign policies or are they part of an entirely new direction in Russian foreign policy? The answer to this question is important for the U.S. and countries throughout the world. If these policies are a return to deep Russian tradition, it will be difficult to reverse Russian aggression.
Author Eric Lohr // Source: american.edu
In the last nine years, Russia has invaded its neighbor Georgia, annexed the Ukrainian province of Crimea, supported rebels in Eastern Ukraine and interfered in the U.S. presidential election. The U.S. and the European Union have imposed biting sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine.
As a historian of Russian history, I find the most interesting question to be this: Are these actions a sign that Russia is returning to aggressive foreign policies or are they part of an entirely new direction in Russian foreign policy?
The answer to this question is important for the U.S. and countries throughout the world. If these policies are a return to deep Russian tradition, it will be difficult to reverse Russian aggression.
To answer it, let’s look at patterns of Russian policy stretching back over three centuries.
Buying off nobles
At the beginning of the 17th century, Poland was a great power that not only meddled in Russian politics but even sent an army to Moscow in 1610 and put a Polish prince on the throne. However, Russia grew in power through the next hundred years. By the early 18th century, Russia was routinely meddling in internal Polish electoral politics. At this time, the Polish king was elected by the noblemen. Peter the Great and his successors bribed nobles to vote against attempts of the king and central government to strengthen the central government and national army.
At the end of that century, Russia, Austria and Prussia – three states that had overridden Polish noble resistance and heavily taxed their subjects to fund powerful armies – partitioned the Polish state among themselves, wiping it off the map entirely. Indeed, Poland remained part of the Russian Empire until it regained independence during World War I.
The other direction of Russian expansion was to the southwest. In 1774, Russia defeated the Ottoman Empire, a major empire that dominated the Mediterranean from Morocco through the Middle East and Turkey into the Balkans. In the punitive peace, Russia preserved a right to intervene in internal Ottoman affairs on behalf of Christians. In 1814, after Alexander I pushed Napoleon out of Russia, the tsar’s troops marched to Paris and brokered the European peace. In 1848, in an uncanny precursor to the Soviet invasion in 1956, Russian troops quashed the Hungarian noble uprising against Habsburg rule.
