title: The Russian Moment in World History
author: Marshall T. Poe
description: In this short, muscular essay, Poe covers Russian history in its widest parameters, assessing various theses about the subject and offering his own. This is an interesting exercise for Russophiles since the historical controversies are enduring and, with regard to the Communist period, very polarized. Right off, Poe rejects the idea that Russians over the centuries have had a predisposition to authoritarianism, expansionism, or messianism--all categories of analysis one can find in the historiography both by Russians and Westerners. But surprisingly, Poe proceeds to interpret Russian history in terms that Russian leaders themselves have used to justify autocracy and territorial expansion: namely, the preservation of independence against European invaders. Since Russia achieved this goal, Poe views the features of Russia that are negative to many historians--its people's comparative poverty and abjectness before the power of the state--as a consequence of geography rather than inherent to Russian history. Students will find Poe an able provocateur of debate. <i>Gilbert Taylor</i><br><i>Copyright &#169; American Library Association. All rights reserved</i>
zlib_text: This Etext prepared by Joseph Gallanar Gallanar@microserve.net
  
  # RUSSIA IN 1919 BY ARTHUR RANSOME
  
  ## PUBLISHER'S NOTE
  
  On August 27, 1914, in London, I made this note in a memorandum book: "Met
  Arthur Ransome at_____'s; discussed a book on the Russian's relation to the
  war in the light of psychological background—folklore." The book was not
  written but the idea that instinctively came to him pervades his every
  utterance on things Russian.
  
  The versatile man who commands more than respect as the biographer of Poe and
  Wilde; as the (translator of and commentator on Remy de Gourmont; as a
  folklorist, has shown himself to be consecrated to the truth. The document
  that Mr. Ransome hurried out of Russia in the early days of the Soviet
  government (printed in the New Republic and then widely circulated as a
  pamphlet), was the first notable appeal from a non-Russian to the American
  people for fair play in a crisis understood then even less than now.
  
  The British Who's Who—that Almanach de Got