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Title: The Coming War Author: Pëtr Kropotkin Date: 1913 Language: en Topics: war Source: The Nineteenth Century: A monthly Review, online source https://www.revoltlib.com/anarchism/the-coming-war/.
If I were asked to give my opinion, as a geographer, on the pending
conflict on the Afghan frontier, I should merely open the volume of
Elisée Reclus's Geographie Universelle L'Asie, Russe, and show the pages
he has consecrated under this head to the description of the Afghan
Turkistan. Summing up the result of his extensive careful and highly
impartial studies of Central Asia, Reclus has not hesitated to recognize
that, geographically, the upper Oxus and all the northern slope of the
Iran and Afghan plateaux belong to the Ural-Caspian region, and that the
growing influence of the Slavonian might cannot fail to unite, sooner or
later, into one political group, the various parts of this immense
basin. And, surely, nobody who has studied these countries -without
being influenced by political or patriotic preoccupations will deny that
the Afghan Turkistan cannot be separated from the remainder of the
Ural-Caspian region. Afghanistan proper may remain for some time the
bone of contention between England and Russia; and if it be divided, one
way or the other, into two parts by the two rivals-no geographical or
physical reasons could be alleged for the partition; but the vassal
Khanates of Maimene, Khulm, Kunduz, and even the Badakshan and Wahkran
certainly belong geographically and ethnographically to the same
aggregation of tribes and small nations which occupies the remainder of
the basin of the Amu-daria. Arrangements concluded by diplomatists may
provisorily settle other frontiers: these frontiers will be, however,
but provisory ones; the natural delimitation is along the Hindoo-Kush
and the Paropamisus; Afghan Turkistan must rejoin the now Russian
Turkistan.
The necessity, in Central Asia, of holding the upper courses of rivers
which alone bring life to deserts, and the impossibility of leaving them
in the hands of populations which to-morrow may become the enemies of
the valleys; the necessities of traffic and commerce; the incapacity of
the population,, settled on the left bank of the Upper Amu to defend
themselves against raids after they have lost in servility their former
virile virtues; nay, even the national feelings of the Uzbeg population,
however feeble--all these and several other reasons well known to the
explorers and students of those regions contribute to connect the whole
of the basin of theAmn and the Murghab into one body. To divide it for
political purposes would be to struggle against physical, ethnographical
and historical necessities. As to the Wakhran, the Shugnan the Badakshan
and even the small khanates west of the Pamir, perhaps they could
struggle some time for their independence if they were able to rise in
arms like the Circassians; but they would necessarily succumb before the
power which already holds the high pasture-grounds of the Pamir, since
it has taken a footing on the Trans-Alay and about Lake Kara-hul. The
fact is, that the Roof of the World already belongs to the generals of
the Russian Czar. As soon as the Russian Empire bad stepped into the
delta of the Amu, the conquest of the whole of the, basin of the Oxus
with its thinly scattered oases, with its populations which have not yet
succeeded in constituting themselves into national units, became a said
necessity. The march oil Khiva already implied the occupation of Merv;
an(], as soon a,; a footing was taken on the eastern coast of the
Caspian, the conquest of Geok-Tepe, of Merv, and of the last refuges of
the Saryks at Penj-deh were unavoidable. The advance no longer depended
on the will of the rulers: it became one of those natural phenomena
which must be fulfilled sooner or later. Notwithstanding its seeming
incoherence its floating population its small tribes now at war with one
another and to-morrow allied together for a common raid; notwithstanding
the continuous wars between the desert which besieges the oasis-the
whole of the Steppe is one organism. The separate parts are perhaps
still more closely united together than the settled populations of
valleys separated by low ranges of hills. Owing to the impressionability
of its populations, the Steppe may remain for years together as quiet,
is an English village; but suddenly it will be set on fire, be shattered
in its farthest unapproachable Parts, be covered with outbreaks stopping
all intercourse for thousands of miles. African travelers know well how
rapidly the physiognomy of the desert changes: the same is true with the
Central Asian Steppe. Its internal cohesion cannot be destroyed by
frontiers colored on our maps. Those who have entered the Steppe with
their military forces have no choice; either they must retire
immediately, or they will be compelled to advance until they have met
with the natural limits of the desert. This is the case with England in
the Soudan, and so it is with Russia. She cannot stop before she has
reached the utmost limits of the Steppe in the Indian Caucasus and the
Hindoo-Kush.
Such is the opinion which a geographer, whatever his nationality, ought
to give, and which I should give, but with sadness of heart. For, during
the years I spent in Eastern Siberia I was enabled closely to appreciate
what the anomalous, monstrous extension of the frontiers of the Russian
Empire means for the Russian people. One must have stayed in one of our
colonies to see, to feel, and to touch the burden, and the loss of
strength which the population of Russia in Europe have to support in
maintaining it military organization on the absurdly extended frontiers
of the Empire; to reckon the heavy costs of the yearly extension of the
limits of the Empire; the demoralization which repeated conquests
steadily throw into the life. (if our country; the expense of forces for
assimilating ever new regions the loss resulting from emigration, as the
best elements abandon their mother-country instead of helping her to
conquer a better future. The expansion of the Russian Empire is a curse
to the metropolis We must recognize that. But life in our Asiatic
colonies teaches us also that this continual growth is taking the
character of a fatality: it cannot be avoided; and even if the rulers of
Russia (lid nothing to accelerate it, it still would go oil until the
whole of the process is fulfilled.
Of course the expansion might have been slower; it, ought to have been
slower. When the St. Petersburg Geographical Society was besieged in
1870-73 with schemes of exploration of the Amu basin, it was in the
power of Government either to lavour them or to abandon them to their
proper destiny. Abandoned to itself, private initiative would have done
but very little; and none of the scientific expeditions which used to be
the precursors of military advance, would have started at all were they
not literally, very literally, supported and patronized by Government.
While geologists, botanists engineers, and astronomers came to us every
day to offer themselves for penetrating further and further into the
Transcaspian region; while we naively interested ourselves in
discussions about the testimonies of Greek and Persian writers as to the
old ]led of the Amudaria and planned detailed explorations, the
Government took advantage of this scientific glow for planning its
advance into the Turcoman Steppes. never refusing either money or
Cossacks and soldiers to escort the geographers who dreamed of resolving
the long debated question as to the Uzbegs. While the Irkutsk
geographers and geologists were compelled to start with a few hundred
rubles and a broken barometer for the exploration of the great unknown
Siberia, thousands of rubles were immediately voted by all possible
Ministries for pushing forward the learned pioneers into the
Transcaspian. This willingness to support scientific exploration,
precisely in that direction, wag obviously the result of a scheme long
ago elaborated at the Foreign Office for opening a new route towards the
Indian frontier. Far from checking the advance-as it does on the
Mongolian frontier- the Government favored it by all means.
Recently, we have been told by the enfant terrible what was the real
meaning of this advance, I via I lei-at, to Constantinople '-such, we
are told, is the watchword of a group of Russian politicians; and when
we consider the energy and consciousness displayed by Government in that
matter, instead of the formerly quite unsystematical advance in Central
Asia we cannot but recognize that the advance in the Transcaspian region
has been really made with a determined aim-the seizure of Herat. But in
this case, the Afghan frontier question is no more a, geographical or
ethnographical question. It is not a question of more or less rapidly
aggregating into one political body the loose populations scattered
north of the 'Indian Caucasus' and the Hindoo-Kush: it becomes a
political question, and, as such, an economical one.
There was a time when so-called national jealousies were nothing more
than personal jealousies between rulers. Nations were moved to war and
thousands were massacred to revenge a personal offense, -or to satisfy
the ambition of an omnipotent ruler. But, manners have changed now. The
omnipotent despots are disappearing, and even the autocrats are mere
toys in the hands of their camarillas which camarillas however personal
their aims, still submit to some influence of the opinions prevailing
among the ruling classes. Wars are no longer due to personal caprices,
and still they are as, numerous as, and much more cruel than, they
formerly were. The Republican faith which said, Suppress personal power,
and you will have no wars,' proved to be false. Thus, for instance, in
the pending Conflict between England and Russia no personal causes are
at work. The Russian Czar entertains personally quite friendly relations
with English rulers, and surely he dreads war much more than any of his
soldiers who would he massacred on the battle-fields. As to the English
Premier, it is a secret to nobody that be tenderly, much too tenderly,
looks on the 'Czar of All the Russias,' and still both countries are
ready to fight. Not, that the eighty millions of our peasants sing very
warlike songs just now, as they are asking themselves how they will
manage to keep body and Sold together until the next harvest, the last
handful of flour already having been swept tip and eaten, together with
dust and straw. Not that the English miners or weavers, who also ask
themselves how to go through the industrial crisis, are inspired with
much hatred towards the famine-struck Russian peasants. But it is so:
gunpowder smells in the air, and a few weeks ago we were so near
fighting that if we escape from war, it surely will be. a very narrow
escape. The reason is very plain. Wars are no more fought, for personal
reasons, still less are they occasioned by national idiosyncrasies: they
are fought for markets
What is, in fact, the chief, the leading principle of our production?
Are we producing in order to satisfy the needs of the millions of our
own countries? When launching a new enterprise, when creating a new
branch of industry, when increasing an old one, and introducing therein
the I iron slaves' we are so proud of-does the manufacturer ask himself
whether his produce is needed by the people of his country? Sometimes he
does; but, as he produces merchandise only for selling, only to realize
certain benefits oil selling, he seldom cares about the needs of his own
country-he merely asks himself whether he will find customers in any
quarter of the earthball or not . The English people need some less
cottons, and want some cheaper shoes-for instance, for the 110,585 boys
and girls under thirteen years of age employedi n Great Britain's texthe
industries - less velveteen and some More cheap clothing for the
inhabitants of Whitechapel; less fine cutlery, and some more bread. His
only preoccupation is to know whether the Indian, the CentralAsian, the
Chinese markets will absorb the cottons, the velveteen, and the cutlery
which lie will manufacture; whether new markets will be opened in Africa
or New Guinea. And the producers themselves the laborers being reduced
to live on twenty, on fifteen, and even twelve and ten shillings a week
for a whole family' are no customers for the riches produced in England;
so dial English produce goes in search of customers everywhere: among
Russian landlords and Indian rajahs, among Papuans and Patagonians, but
not among the paupers of Whitechapel, of Manchester, of Birmingham And
all nations of Europe, imitating England, cherish the same ambition.
To produce for exportation-such is the last word of our economical
progress, the watchword of our pseudo-economical science. the more a
nation exports of manufactured ware, the richer it is; so were we taught
in school, so are we told still by economists. All this, however, was
very well with regard to England as long as England's manufacturing
development was by a whole fifty years in advance of that of other
countries of' Europe, and all markets were open to her produce. But now,
all other civilized countries are entering the same line of development;
they endeavor, too, to produce their merchandise for selling throughout
the world; they also produce for exportation; and, therefore, all our
recent history becomes nothing but a steeple-chase for markets, a
struggle for customers on whom each European nation may impose the
produce which her own producers are rendered unable to purchase. The '
colonial polities' of late years mean nothing more. England has in India
a colony to which she can export 20,000,000l. of cottons, and whence she
can export 11,000,0001. of opium, realizing on both some twentymillions
of profits. No wonder that the ruling classes of France, of Germany, and
of Russia try in their turn to find anywhere advantageous customers,
that they endeavor to their own manufactures, also for exporting-no
matter that their own, people may go barefoot, or starve for want of a
Mehlsuppe or of black bread. Russia is now beginning to enter on the
same road. Per manufacturess being Dot yet sufficiently developed, site
exports the corn taken from the months of her peasants. When the
tax-gatherer comes, our peasant is compelled to sell so much of his
harvest that the remainder hardly do to give him a scanty allowance of
black bread for nine months out, of twelve. Ile will mix grass, straw,
and bark with his flour; each spring one-third of our provinces will be
on the verge of starvation; -Nit the exports will rise, and the
economists will applaud the rapid economical development (if the
Northern I Empire '; they will foretell the time When the peasants, I
having been liberated from the burden of land,' will gather in towns and
feed the ever-growing manufactures; when Russian merchants also will
send their steamers on the oceans in search of customer-, and good
profits. A new mighty runner joins thus the steeple-chase for markets
and colonies.
Of course we may foresee that this anomalous organization of industry,
being not a physical necessity, but the result of a wrong direction
taken by production, cannot last for ever. Already we bear voices raised
against this anomaly. We begin to perceive that, not to speak of
countries so thinly peopled as Russia is, even the, United Kingdom with
its 300 inhabitants per square mile, Could yield for the whole of its
population the necessary agricultural produce, and give them, together
with a healthy occupation, a wealth not to bo compared with the actual
poverty of the millions. Already Belgium nearly nourishes her 197
inhabitants per square mile with her own produce, and needs to add to
her own yearly crops but onetwentieth of their amount, imported from
other countries. Yet Belgian agriculture is still very far from the
pitch which might be reached, even under the present conditions of
agricultural knowledge, not to speak of further improvements. Those are
surely not far from the truth who say that, if all Great Britain were so
cultivated as some of her estates are, if all ameliorations of her
machinery were employed, not for weaving cottons for the earthball, but
in producing what is necessary to her own people, she would give to all
her children wealth such as only the few may Dow dream of. The time will
come when it will be understood that a nation which lives on her
colonies and on foreign trade is subject to decline, like Spain and
Holland, and when applying their experience, their industry, their
genius to the benefit of their own people, the civilized nations of
Europe will no more consider the Far East and West as I markets,' but as
fields for diffusing the trite principles of humanity and civilization.
But we are still in that period when manufacturing for exportation is
considered the only means of giving wealth to a country, and Russia's
rising industry follows the example it has in its predecessors. Her
manufactures are rapidly developing, and, notwithstanding many
obstacles, her exports are steadily increasing. A free issue to the
ocean becomes a necessity under these conditions; but this outlet in
precisely what fails to the young competitor. The outlet of the Baltic
may be shut up at a moment's notice, and that of the Black Sea depends
on the good-will of those who will rule at Constantinople' At the same
time Southern Russia is daily acquiring more and more importance, not
only in consequence of the richness of the soil and the, rapid growth of
population, but, also on account of the development of industry. The
commercial and industrial center of' gravity of Russia slowly move,
towards the south; but this south has no outlet to the ocean. Under more
normal conditions the circumstance would be of' no moment, though in
foreign hands the Bosphorus still would remain open to pacific
navigators. But with the actual nonsensical competition for markets the
want of a free issue becomes a real danger. And it is obvious that the
Russian Empire will never cease to struggle to conquer the outlet it is
in need of. It will recoil before no sacrifices, no difficulties. It is
already planning to reach this issue through Asia Minor, perhaps through
the valley Of the Tigris and Euphrates,; it will bleed itself nigh to
death, but it will still endeavor to reach its aim: and there will be no
peace in Europe and Asia until the problem has been solved it) One way
Or another.
Three times during our century in 1828, 1853, and 1877 Russian statesmen
have tried the direct, way --that of conquering the Balkan Peninsula.
Happily enough for civilization, they have not yet succeeded; but it
must be acknowledged that, if they failed, it was not on account of the
obstacles put in their way by English diplomatists. These last, to speak
frankly, have been very awkward. Lord Beaconsfield found nothing better
to oppose to Russian advance than the disintegrating body of the Turkish
Empire, or so fantastic a scheme-at least it is attributed to him-as
that Of initing Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan into a common action !
As to the Liberal Ministry, they patronized the Russian Czar during the
war and Opposed him only when his decimated armies were unable to move
farther. The Liberal Ministry came into power, to some extent, in
consequence of the sympathies with the revolted and massacred
Selavonians which were awakened in the people of England. But the
Selavonians were forgotten as soon as Mr. Gladstone was in office.
Obeying the influences which represented to him the Russian Czar as a
liberator, lie confounded the cause of the Selavonians with that of the
Moscow manufacturers and St. Petersburg diplomatists; as to the
Servians, the Bulgarians, the Bosnians, and the herzegovinians they were
banded over, manacled, to Russian despotism and Austro-Hungarian
Militarism. Neither Conservatives nor Liberals perceived the only right
way of preventing once for all any further attempt of Russia, and of
Austria too, on the Balkan Peninsula: that of recognizing the rights of
the South Selavonians to independence, that of helping them to conquer
it, that of opposing to Russian autocrats-a South Selavonic Federation.
Neither France nor England understood at that time that a South
Selavonic Federation would be the best darn against Russian and Austrian
encroachments; that if the Servians and the Bulgarians accepted Russian
intervention surely it was not from mere sympathy: they would have sold
themselves to the devil himself, provided lie would promise to free them
from the Turkish yoke. Once free, they -would care is little about
Russian protection ' as about Turkish rule. But apart from a, few war
correspondents, who eared in England about Selavonians?
Therefore, even the partial success of the Russian Empire during the
last war brought about such sad consequences that several generations
will hardly repair the evil already done. The Russian people gave the
lives of their best children to help the oppressed Bulgarians,and they
succeeded only in giving them new oppressors Worse. than the former.
'file intervention of the Russian autocracy in Servia, its rule in
Bulgaria, have killed in the bull all the excellent germs of healthy
development which were growing up in Servia, and even in Bulgaria,
before the war. It has lighted up internal war, it has opened an era of
internal discords, which will not be pacified for twenty or fifty years.
The heart bleeds when one learns what it; now going )it in Servia, since
Russian generals, inspire the Court and diplomatists struggle for
'influence.' Will it then Dever lie understood in Europe that the Only
Wily Of resolving 'the Eastern question ' is to guarentee a South
Selavonic Federation a free life? As to the question of a free issue for
Russian merchants, It is quit,-, different front Chat of keeping
Constantinople, and the former can be, resolved without endangering
anybody's liberty in Europe.
And now, to return to Afghanistan. After having said so Much about
European interests, is it not time to say a few words, at least, about
the interests of the Mohammedan population of Central Asia and of the
250,000,000 inhabitants of British India, for the possession of whom we
are -so ready to fight? Surely the loose aggregations of Central Asia
will finally fall tinder The influence or the rule, of some. European
Power. But, at the risk of shocking some of my readers, I must avow that
it seems to me most desirable to see them remain as they are, free of
that influence, as long as possible-until the Europeans, more civilized
themselves, will be able to come to them, not as conquerors, but as
elder brethren, more instructed and ready to help them by word and deed
to ameliorate their condition. Two years ago the benefits of Russian
'civilization' were ably enumerated before the London Geographical
Society, and the fact was dwelt upon that Russia had liberated slaves
wherever they were found. The statement is quite true, and we have good
reason to believe M. Petrusevitch when he says that the slaves in the
Turcoman Steppes immediately left their masters -as soon as a Russian
traveler made his appearance, Surely the liberation of slaves is a great
progress, but all is not yet done by saying to a slave, IYou are free;
go away;' for the thus liberated prisoner will return to his former or
to another master if lie has nothing to eat. Let any one read the
elaborate work published by
the TiflisGeographical Society on the liberation of slaves in the
Caucasus, and he will see how the Russian Government has accomplished
it; and we have no reason to suppose that it has been accomplished
better in Central Asia.
As to the agrarian relations, perhaps nowhere in Europe have they the
same importance as in Central Asia, on account, of the necessities of
co-operative work and common agreement for the digging out and
utilization Of irrigation-canals In such countries, theslightest error
of the administration in agrarian contests may Lave, and often has had
on the Caucasus and in Russian Turkistan, countless consequences; a
simple error, a counfirmation of supposed rights, turns t rich garden
into a desert. All European administrations are liable to such errors as
soon as they come into contact with the Mohammedan agrarian law, and
their consequences are too well known with regard to India to dwell
upon. True that, as a rule, the Russian Administration, familiarized ,it
home with village communities, does not interfere much with agrarian
questions 'UnOng (lie Mohammedan population which falls under its rule.
But the direction prevailing at St. Petersburg with regard to agrarian
questions is continually changing. For tell years the St. Petersburg
rulers may favor self-government in villages, they may take the village
communities under their protection; but for the next twenty years they
wilt abandon the peasants; they will rely in the newly-conquered region,
upon an aristocracy they will try to create at the expense of the
laborer. The history Of the Caucasus is nothing but, a series of such
oscillations, which resulted in the growth of the Kabardian feudal
system and file servitude of the Ossetians.
In Russian Turkistan, too, the reckless confirmation of imaginary
Tight,; in land which was carried on on a great scale at the beginning
(we do not know if it, continues) endangered the very existence of the
Uzbeg villages. And one cannot, but remember, when speaking on this
subject the scandalous robbery of Bashkir lands which was carried oil
for years at Orenburg and became known only when the Bashkir people were
deprived of their means of existence. Of course, the cruelties of a khan
at Khiva, or of a Persian shah, will. Dot ,be repeated under Russian
rule; but the creation of a Turcoman, a Khivan, and a Bokharian
aristocracy, adding the temptations of European luxury to Asiatic pomp,
surely will be a much greater evil for the Central-Asian laborers than
the atrocities of a khan. With regard to Russian administration itself
itself, we must certainly admit, that during the first years after a
conquest the choice of administrators is not very bad; but as time goes
oil and all enters into smooth water one will be perplexed to make his
choice between them; and the officials of a khan. Finally, the time is
not far off when Russia will send to Central Asia her merchants, who
will ruin whole populations, of which we may see plenty of proofs in
Siberia, and not only in Siberia, but also everywhere else where
Europeans have made their appearance.
And what, on the other side, could England give? It is time, quite time,
to cease repeating load words about civilization and progress, and
closely to examine what British rule has done in India. Progress is not
measured by the lengths of railways and the bushels of corn exported. It
is time to examine what the creation of the class of zamindars, followed
by the sub-infeudation and subdivision of rights, which is so well
described by Sir John Phear, has produced in Bengal. It is time to ask
ourselves whether the millions of Bengal have, each of them, even the
handful of rice they need to live, upon. It is not enough to admire at
the Indian Museum in London the ivory chairs and chess-boards brought
from India by Mr. A. and Mr. B., and each piece of which represents a
human life. It is time that the English people should consider and
meditate over the model of an Indian bazaar exhibited at the same
Museum, and ask themselves how it, happens that, the incredible riches
exhibited in the rooms were brought about by the same naked and starving
people who are represented in the bazaar around a woman whose whole
trading-stock consists of a few handfuls of rice in a bowl. Perhaps they
will discover that the very origin of the above riches must lie sought
for in the nakedness of the starving human figures whose portraits were
exhibited in 1877 at the doors of the Mansion House. And perhaps they
will agree then that, before carrying our present civilization to
Central Asia and India, we might do better to carry it to the savages
who inhabit the den-holes of Moscow and Whitechapel.