No matter how we define Russia—as a “civilisational state”, a “nation-state”, an “empire”, or in any other political form—without modernisation, it is doomed to perish. The legacy of Peter the Great is more than relevant in the current international climate, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Ivan Timofeev.
The crisis in relations between Russia and the West suggests that the “window to Europe” created by the Russian Emperor Peter the Great is losing its purpose. It is quickly being bricked up, and this work is clearly proceeding faster on the Western side. However, a closer look at his policies suggests that it is premature to talk about abandoning his paradigm. For the first Russian emperor, the “window to Europe” was more of a means to an end. The goal, however, was to overcome backwardness and strengthen the Russian state, especially in the face of external dangers and threats. This goal remains relevant today, requiring a reflection on Peter the Great’s legacy.
In brief, the essence of Peter the Great’s policies can be summed up as follows: the comprehensive modernisation (contemporisation) of the supporting structures of Russian statehood, including the military as an organisation, the country’s administrative system, its industry, and infrastructure. Given that Russia at that time lagged behind its Western neighbours in a number of respects, their forms of military, bureaucratic, and industrial organisation were viewed as a benchmark, while the neighbours themselves were viewed as a source of the necessary specialists and competencies for the establishment of Russia’s own school.
Russian rulers had set similar goals long before Peter the Great. Individual models were adopted in military affairs, fortification, metallurgy, and so on. This convergence was reinforced by the experience of continuous military conflicts with neighbours. Historically, Russians learned from their adversaries to the south and east, as well as from rivals on their western borders. The experience of such borrowings can be traced back at least to the reforms of Ivan the Terrible. They continued as a common thread throughout the 17th century, accelerating particularly in the second half. By the reign of Peter the Great, experience in military reforms had already been accumulated (including the “regiments of the new order”), numerous attempts had been made to gain access to the Baltic Sea, and elements of a military industry had been created, including with the participation of foreigners.
The fundamental distinguishing feature of Peter’s policy was his attempt to make modernisation irreversible and systemic, to infuse it into the “DNA” of Russian identity, and transform it into an integral part of the nation’s culture and way of life. The nobility—the future foundation of the officer corps and civil servants—was to become the bearer of this “DNA”. Peter went far beyond mere technical borrowings. Having won the Northern War, he created the conditions for permanent transport links with the leading Western countries. In addition to purely economic benefits in the form of easier access to markets for Russian raw materials and industrial imports, conditions were created for more stable “humanitarian ties”. Here, Peter broke with the established practice of relative isolation from the West. The pendulum swung back with tremendous force.
And yet, for Peter, the “window to Europe” was a tool, not an end. Using this “window”, he achieved colossal successes. However, they were determined not only and not so much by the “window” as by colossal political will, the ability to adapt foreign innovations to Russian soil, existing practices in such adaptation, and Russia’s own legacy. In military affairs, Peter directly borrowed tactical techniques from the Swedish army, learning from it directly on the battlefield and then inflicting painful lessons on the teachers themselves. The military industry made significant strides. Shipbuilding was practically created from scratch. Metallurgy and other industries made enormous breakthroughs.
Peter didn’t limit his foreign policy to engagement with the West. His attempts to gain access to the sea began in the south, with the conflict with the Turks over the Sea of Azov. Peter’s push in that direction would continue, leading to Russia’s consolidation of power on the Black Sea. As a result of its Persian campaigns, Russia strengthened its position on the Caspian Sea. Relations with China developed, although they were objectively hampered by geography. Kamchatka expeditions and a series of explorations of Siberia and the Arctic were organised. However, unlike in the West, these ventures did not serve as a source of modernisation for Russia. Moreover, Russia’s accelerated modernisation along Western lines and the growing backwardness of its neighbours became an important condition for the expansion of the empire, both militarily and peacefully.
The flip side was a colossal loss of life, the accelerated enslavement of the peasantry, and the formation of an absolute monarchy in Russia without checks and balances. In the West itself, the experience of developing political systems during that period was highly contradictory. On the one hand, there was the experience of bourgeois revolutions in England and the Netherlands. On the other hand, there was the development of absolutism in most polities on the western borders. The British and Dutch experience in this context is rather marginal. It would have been simply impossible to replicate it in Russia or in any other context. However, both “marginal| countries found themselves at the forefront of industrial progress. Russia itself, despite the development of industry under Peter the Great, failed to resolve the problem of its peripheral economic role. Strengthening ties with the West, instead, deepened this peripheral role, cementing Russia’s role as a supplier of raw materials and a market for industrial products. Developing its own advanced industrial base remains a challenge to this day.
The model created by Peter the Great proved remarkably resilient. After the Emperor’s death, Russia was plagued by palace coups, and industry was held back. However, his paradigm soon resurfaced. Perhaps the most serious challenges were the objective economic and social changes of the second half of the 19th century, against the backdrop of bourgeois revolutions abroad and the rapid development of bourgeois countries with all the foreign policy threats. The country increasingly faced the task of political modernisation. It would seem that the revolutions of 1917 put an end to the Petrine model, but Soviet modernisation retained several of its key features—a focus on military, industrial, and technological modernisation, the establishment of the cultural and social foundations for this, and active engagement with Western countries, both peacefully and militarily. The USSR achieved impressive results. Peter the Great’s legacy plays a significant role in the structure of Soviet identity, being seen as unequivocally progressive.
The failure of the Soviet project once again threatened the Petrine model. Russia attempted to become a “normal” bourgeois country. In many ways, it succeeded—capitalism developed in Russia at an impressive pace. However, Russia’s place in the global division of labour once again proved to be peripheral. Moreover, the collective West still did not accept Russia as “one of its own”.
The current crisis in relations between Russia and the West, paradoxically, returns us to the Peter the Great paradigm. It has become clear that without technical, scientific, and industrial modernisation, maintaining competition will be difficult, if not impossible. The symbolic sealing of the “window to Europe” does not change the logic itself. Russia is simply turning to other sources of modernisation that have emerged outside the West, and applied them domestically. This applies primarily to China. However, interaction with the West itself is also not excluded. Its consolidation is unprecedented, but not absolute. Just yesterday, the United States was at the forefront of containing Russia, and today, it is Washington that is initiating negotiations on the Ukraine issue, and not ruling out the resumption of economic cooperation.
Western countries remain a dangerous rival, but Peter the Great’s Russia learned much from its equally dangerous rivals, just as the Soviet Union had to do. The relevance of Peter the Great’s progressivism remains, although it is no longer confined to the West, which has lost its monopoly as the leader of modernisation. However, no matter how we define Russia—as a “civilisational state”, a “nation-state”, an “empire”, or in any other political form—without modernisation, it is doomed to perish. The legacy of Peter the Great is more than relevant in the current international climate.
The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. It is named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the Club’s first meeting took place.
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