Why did Russia become the largest country in the world?

The prototype of modern Russia was born in Kiev, Russia in the 9th century. That is, an ancient Russian country with Kiev (now the capital of Ukraine) as its capital.

At this time of the earth, the protagonists are the Tang Empire in the East, the Arab Empire in Central Asia, the Frankish Kingdom in Europe and the Byzantine Empire.

Kiev Ross is just a small landlocked country surrounded by enemies. This area is a vast plain with almost no natural barriers. Great powers can come and go at any time. Therefore, Russians are often harassed by Sweden from the north, Germanic knights from the west and Lithuania.

In the 12 century, the Mongols occupied the Russian region of Kiev, and the divided Russian principality had to bow to the Mongols in its heyday and pay taxes and tributes. At the same time, the Russians also summed up the historical lesson: if there is less land, they will be beaten. Since there is no danger of defense, we will use offensive expansion to keep the enemy out of the country.

/kloc-In the 3rd century, the Moscow Principality canonized by Mongols began to rise, gradually annexing other Russian Principalities, and finally overthrowing the Mongolian regime and unifying Russia. /kloc-At the end of 0/6, Russia's territory was 2.8 million square kilometers, making it the largest country in Europe. After the great cause of reunification was completed, the Principality of Moscow embarked on the road of external expansion.

This expansion based on the traditional security crisis is also deeply influenced by Mongolian style. Ivan IV regarded himself as the natural heir of Jin Zhanghan and began the title of "Tsar". In the next 300 years, the czars of all dynasties took the expansion of territory as their established policy, encroaching on the surrounding territory from west to east in order to expand to the natural geographical frontier.

However, Russia has formed a paradox in its constant external expansion: the purpose of expansion is for security, but the result of expansion has added new unsafe factors, so a new round of expansion has begun. ...

The expanded Russia suffers from the black eyes of the West.

In the east and the west, the route of Russian efforts is very different. After Moscow captured the neighboring khanate, it eliminated the potential threat from the East and was able to enter Siberia. Its rapid expansion in the East can be said to be effortless, and it is an eastward process in which the government and the people go hand in hand: spiritually, the Russian nation has developed salvation in its own religion, and firmly believes that only by being sincere to God and shouldering the mission of saving Europe and the world can the Orthodox Church become a tool to serve the endless expansion of the empire; In reality, poor agricultural conditions make Russian farmers migrate eastward to find more fertile land, and at the same time to avoid official taxes. In this process, missionaries, farmers, caravans and explorers jointly led the government to the natural frontier of the eastern mainland.

Compared with the barren east where there are basically no rivals, Russia's expansion in the west is not so smooth, and every step forward is the result of hard struggle. There are Poland, Sweden, Turkey and other big countries in the west that are fully capable of destroying Russia, which makes Russia feel very insecure. Russia and Turkey fought for 300 years and made peace for 300 years, while Poland, as the overlord of Eastern Europe, fought with Russia for only 500 years and almost wiped out Russia.

In addition, the confrontation between Russia and the West is largely due to its embarrassing position on the edge of Europe.

Under the iron hoof of Mongols, European countries did not realize the existence of Russia. At the end of 15, Europeans were surprised to see that in the past few decades, such a big Russia appeared in Eastern Europe.

Mongolia's rule for many years has cut off the ties between Russia and Western Europe and widened the cultural differences between them. For example, at that time, Russia inherited diplomatic etiquette such as "kowtowing ceremony", which aroused the suspicion of western politicians and was regarded as "heterogeneous". As for 1 1 century, the Eastern Orthodox Church and Catholicism expelled each other, which led to the ideological split between Russia and Europe.

During the Mongolian occupation, the West experienced profound changes. The Renaissance was in full swing, and religious reform and geographical discovery followed. In contrast, Russia is "barbaric" and missed more than two centuries of prime time.

After the unification of Russia, geographically far away from the two major centers of the world economy-the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, the access to the world's major trade routes has been turbulent. European countries try to prevent any technology from entering Russia to expand their military strength, believing that "Muscovites are enemies of all freedoms in the world", and the only way to stop them is to keep them "barbaric and ignorant".

The grim situation makes the demand for Russia's external expansion from land to water, and gets a warm seaport to the foreign strait. 1At the beginning of the 8th century, Tsar Peter I defeated Sweden with a powerful navy in 2 1 year, seized Estonia, Latvia and other Baltic coastal areas, took the Baltic Sea estuary, built Petersburg, and opened a window to Western Europe. After this war, Sweden completely withdrew from the ranks of big countries and became a peaceful small country.

The czars of later generations all obeyed the will of Peter I and regarded the expansion of quick success and instant benefit as a powerful means of the country, which was also the purpose of the country.

/kloc-in the 9th century, in order to obtain an ice-free port in the Far East and prevent Japan from annexing nearby sites to pose a threat to itself, Russia planned an ambitious "Yellow Russia Plan": draw a line from Koguryo Peak in Kunlun Mountain in Xinjiang to Vladivostok in the northeast, and all the north will be incorporated into the Russian territory, becoming the so-called "Yellow Russia".

△ The Huang-Russia plan includes most of Xinjiang today, almost the whole three northeastern provinces and almost half of Inner Mongolia.

The plan was almost partially realized. When Eight-Nation Alliance invaded, Russia, which had long been eager to move, immediately sent troops and forcibly occupied the whole northeast of China, and did not return it for five years.

However, Russia's fiasco in the Russo-Japanese War and the October Revolution later declared the "Yellow Russia" plan bankrupt. It is precisely because of this that Tieling is still Tieling and Changchun is Changchun, and it has not been renamed as "XXX Sk" or "St. XX Fort".

Japanese scholar Qianchun Watanabe made statistics at the beginning of the 20th century: in the four centuries from16th century, Russia expanded outward at an average speed of 130 square kilometers per day. No country in the world history can compare with such an expanded territory except the British Empire. 1852, Engels wrote in the article "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany": "Every move of the Russian Empire exposed its ambition to turn the whole of Europe into a Slavic nation, especially the only powerful part of this nation, namely the territory of the Russians. ..... In the past 150 years, this empire not only did not lose territory in every war it fought, but always gained territory. "

In this way, from the first generation of Tsar Ivan IV to the last Tsar Nicholas II, Russia developed into a huge colonial empire with 22.8 million square kilometers in 300 years.

By 19 14, the territory of tsarist Russia was quite vast, starting from Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in the north, reaching Bissalabia in the southwest and Alhan and Kars in the south.

The British and French powers also have many colonies. Why didn't they leave many territories?

For a rising country, expanding to seek more resources is its instinct. But why did the European powers once establish huge colonies, and only Russia became a huge empire with terrible territory?

Although the European colonial empires once established an "empire where the sun never sets", their expansion is essentially different from that of Russia.

The expansion power of European capitalist powers mainly comes from trade, and they prefer low-cost and limited colonial rule: as long as they can trade profitably, there is no need to turn it into a colony; As long as the colony can provide raw materials, cheap labor and markets, there is no need to completely turn it into a white land.

As a great empire based on serfdom, Russia's expansion goal is more direct and bloody: turning all the places that Russia can touch into Russian land; Turn all land resources directly into Russian resources.

Therefore, when the capitalist empire expands, it generally only establishes management bureaucracies in the colonies, and is not very keen on forcibly changing the population, religion, language and culture of the aborigines.

On the other hand, in the expanding colonies, the Russian Empire generally enforced Russian and Orthodox Christianity, suppressed indigenous languages and cultures, tried to emigrate to these areas, and at the same time drove and slaughtered the indigenous people, making Russians the main population of the area. For example, the well-known Hailanpao massacre and the sixty-four Tun massacre in Jiangdong are the products of this guiding ideology.

Thus, when the tide of world national independence began in the twentieth century, the colonies of capitalist powers got rid of "limited rule" and gained independence; In Russian colonies, no one will make a voice demanding independence.

For centuries, Russia has always equated the greatness of the Russian nation with the vastness of its territory, paid more attention to the significance of territory to security than other countries, and developed Russia's unique concept of geo-security.

This expansion under the command of power logic was also inherited by the Soviet Union. Before and after World War II, faced with the threat of Germany's eastward advance, the Soviet Union responded by annexing the three Baltic countries by force and annexing large areas of land in Poland, Finland, Romania and other countries.

Today, you still find that Russia dares to put all its eggs in one basket and upset the table with western countries for geopolitical security.

There is a Russian military song called "March of Preau Brass Group", and the first sentence of the lyrics is "Let Sweden and Turkey remember us". Until now, the music of this song will still appear in the background sound of the Red Square military parade, together with Soviet tanks and atomic bombs, making the West feel frightened.