RUSSIAN POLICY OF EXPANSION

Southland Times, Issue 25796, 6 October 1945, Page 6

RUSSIAN POLICY OF EXPANSION

Link With Peter The Great

EASTERN EUROPEAN DOMINATION

“Russia today is following, perhaps unconsciously, the traditional lines of Russian expansion. She is following the ideas of Peter the Great for domination of the Baltic and the Black Sea,” said Dr A. McLintock, of Dunedin, in a lecture entitled “The Influence of Geography on History,” which he gave last night under the auspices of the University Association of Southland Dr McLintock said that for the greater part of her history Russia had been isolated by geographical factors, from the rest of Europe. While the rest of Europe was developing at a great pace, Russia was isolated and had only slight contacts with the west. Peter the Great had spent 33 years of his reign of 35 years in wars designed to bring Russia into contact with the western world.

After the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, Peter the Great had fallen into discredit in Russia, but since 1937 there had been a change in the outlook of Russia, and the connection between the times of Petet the Great and modern times had come to be recognized. EUROPEAN “HEART LAND” Dr McLintock also dealt with an idea, which had arisen since the First World War, of the importance of Eastern Europe. According to this theory, Eastern Europe was the “heart land”; that the nation that controlled the “heart land” would also control all Europe, Africa, India, Asia, and indeed the whole world. “Russian policy, whether conscious or not, is directed towards the control of Eastern Europe,” he said. In America, on the other hand, the idea of regionalism was growing up; in other words, that the world should be divided up into geographical regions. According to this view, Canada and possibly also South America were part of the American region, and America’s sphere of influence was the Pacific. Regionalism, according to Americans who held this idea, would lead to the breaking up of the British Empii’e. UNITY OF BRITISH EMPIRE In his opinion, however, a firm peace was dependent on the unity of the British Empire, Dr McLintock declared. Because of her world-wide interests, Britain had a breadth of outlook which both America and Russia lacked; America because of her isolationist and regionalist ideas, and Russia because of the Slavophile movement, which was strong in that country in the 19th century and had developed greatly since the Red Army had smashed the power of the German military machine.

In New Zealand there were some well-intentioned but misguided people who thought that New Zealand should regard herself as a Pacific nation rather than as a unit of the British Empire. In his view this was quite wrong, Dr McLintock added. In face of the teeming millions of the Far East and of Russia, which was likely to develop into a Pacific Power, there would be no safety for New Zealand apart from the British Empire. “The British Empire was built up in defiance of the facts of geography, and its unity must be preserved,” Dr McLintock said.