An essay in universal history

AN ESSAY IN UNIVERSAL HISTORY
From an Orthodox Christian Point of View
Part 4: THE AGE OF EMPIRE (1861-1914)
Volume 1: from 1861 to 1900
Vladimir Moss
© Copyright: Vladimir Moss, 2016. All Rights Reserved.
When I consent to be a Republican, I do evil, knowing that's what I do... I say Long live Revolution! As I would say Long live Destruction! Long live Expiation! Long live Punishment! Long live Death!
Charles Baudelaire (1866).
His undoing will not be the earthly sword which he possessed for so many years, but the fatal saying that 'Freedom of conscience is a delirium'.
F.I. Tiutchev on Pope Pius IX.
European politics in the nineteenth century fed on the French Revolution. No idea, no dream, no fear, no conflict appeared which had not been worked through in that fateful decade: democracy and socialism, reaction, dictatorship, nationalism, imperialism, pacifism.
Golo Mann, The History of Germany since 1789 (1996).
The Jewish people has rejected Christ, the true Mediator and Messiah, and therefore has excluded itself from history. Instead the Germans have become God's chosen people.
Constantin Frantz (1870s).
[The Jews] are at the root of the revolutionary socialist movement and of regicide, they own the periodical press, they have in their hands the financial markets; the people as a whole fall into financial slavery to them; they even control the principles of contemporary science and strive to place it outside of Christianity.
Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev to Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1879).
This is the final struggle. Let us come together and tomorrow the International will be the human race. There are no supreme redeemers, no god, no Caesar, no tribune. Workers, let us make our own salvation.
Eugène Pottier, L'Internationale.
It is neither blindness nor ignorance that ruins nations and states. Not for long do they ignore where they are heading. But deep inside them is a force at work, favoured by nature and reinforced through habit, that drives them forward irresistibly as long as there is still any energy in them. Divine is he who controls himself. Most humans recognize their ruin, but they carry on regardless...
Leopold von Ranke.
The Lord and Master of the money markets of the world, and of course virtually Lord and Master of everything else. He literally held the revenues of Southern Italy in pawn, and Monarchs and Ministers of all countries courted his advice and were guided by his suggestions.
Benjamin Disraeli, Former British Prime Minister, on Nathan Mayer Rothschild.
INTRODUCTION 6
I. THE WEST: THE MASTER RACE (1861-1900) 7
1.THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 8
2. BISMARCK AND THE UNIFICATION OF GERMANY 18
THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 22
4. THE PARIS COMMUNE 27
5. THE SECOND REICH 34
6. THE RISORGIMENTO AND THE FALL OF THE PAPAL STATE 44
7. NIETZSCHE AND THE NEW GERMANY 54
8. A JEWISH WORLD GOVERNMENT? 71
9. MOSES HESS AND THE PROTO-ZIONISTS 77
10. THE WESTERNIZATION OF JAPAN 89
11. THE ZENITH OF IMPERIALISM 95
12. IMPERIALISM AND CIVILIZATION 103
13. FUNDAMENTALISM VS. LIBERALISM IN AMERICA 109
14. THE FOUNDING OF ZIONISM 115
II. THE EAST: THE GOD-CHOSEN RACE (1861-1900) 126
15. RUSSIA IN ASIA 127
16. RUSSIA IN AMERICA 133
17. “THE NEW MAN" 136
17. THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS 140
18. THE REVOLUTIONARIES 151
In about 1870, writes Richard Pipes, “radical youths became increasingly interested in the newly emancipated peasant. The leading theoretical lights of this period, Michael Bakunin and Peter Lavrov, called on young people to abandon universities and go to the village. Bakunin wished them to carry the message of immediate rebellion. He believed that the muzhik [peasant] was a born anarchist, and only a spark was needed to set the countryside on fire. That spark was to be carried by the intelligentsia in the form of revolutionary ‘agitation’. Lavrov adopted a more gradual approach. Before he would turn into a revolutionary, the Russian peasant needed exposure to ‘propaganda’ which would enlighten him about the injustices of the Emancipation Edict, about the causes of his economic predicament, and about the collusion between the propertied classes, the state and the church. Inspired by these ideas, in the spring of 1874 several thousand youths quit school and went ‘to the people’. Here disappointment awaited them. The muzhik, known to them largely from literary descriptions and polemical tracts, would have nothing to do with idealistic students come to save him. Suspecting ulterior motives… he either ignored them or turned them over to the rural constabulary. But even more disappointing than the peasants’ hostility, which could be explained away by his ignorance, were his ethics. Some radical youths scorned property because they came from propertied backgrounds: they associated concern for wealth with their parents, whom they rejected. Hence they idealized the rural commune and the artel. The muzhik, living from hand to mouth, looked at the matter quite differently. He desperately wanted to acquire property… The intellectuals could indulge in talk of selfless brotherhood because, being supported by their families or the government (by means of stipends), they were not required to compete with one another. The muzhik, however, was always competing for scarce resources… 156
19. DOSTOYEVSKY ON PAPISM AND SOCIALISM 161
20. PORTENTS OF THE ANTICHRIST 166
21. THE JEWS UNDER ALEXANDER II 173
22. THE EASTERN QUESTION, PAN-HELLENISM AND PAN-SLAVISM 183
23. THE GRECO-BULGARIAN SCHISM 196
24. AT THE GATES OF CONSTANTINOPLE 205
25. L'ALLIANCE ISRAELITE UNIVERSELLE 213
26. DOSTOYEVSKY ON RUSSIA 218
27. DOSTOYEVSKY, KATKOV AND LEONTIEV 227
28. THE TSAR AND THE CONSTITUTION 237
29. THE JEWS UNDER ALEXANDER III 243
30. RUSSIA AND THE BALKANS 251
31. VLADIMIR SOLOVIEV AND THE TEMPTATION OF CATHOLICISM 257
32. POBEDONOSTSEV ON CHURCH AND STATE 268
33. POBEDONOSTSEV ON DEMOCRACY 276
34. THE REIGN OF TSAR ALEXANDER III 281
35. TOLSTOY AND THE VOLGA FAMINE 286
36. TSAR NICHOLAS II 290
37. RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY 295
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