Lecture

 whether to build closer links to Europe or Asia  Not quite European; not quite Asian  European and Asian continents are sometimes treated as one mega-continent called  Eurasia

 Natural physical barrier between Europe and Asia  the choice of the Ural Mountains was largely arbitrary and based on history and politics.  If there is Eurasia as continent, then this would be biggest with 4 B population

 Straddles in two continents: Europe and Asia  Its former Russian Empire straddled in three continents:  1. Europe in the west  2. Asian Russia in the east  3. North America where it had Russian American colonies in Alaska and Northern California.

 Realm- geographical division of earth’s surface;  “imagined” boundaries; fluid; may cut across regional divisions or countries  “imagined communities” (Benedict Andersen)  Covers European and Asian countries

 – USSR or Soviet Russia  World Power emanating from the Kremlin that destroyed Hitler and the Third Reich (Empire)  USSR as the Third Empire; first and second are the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire  USSR collapsed in 1989

 State-run collective farms  Communal ownership (communism); no private ownership; “from each according to his ability to each according to his need”- Karl Marx

 Communism- Means of production is owned by the masses  Class struggle  Socialism-social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy

 Authoritarian govt  Best goods and services go the government  Focused on production quota  Also rife with corruption much like capitalism

 Gorbachev dissolved the Central Committee then he resigned; dissolved all party units  Supreme Soviet indefinitely suspended all CPSU activity on Soviet territory ending communist rule in 1991.

 cultural trauma; created a political vacuum  Russia, however, did not retreat from the European geographical space  Political boundaries prove to be elusive and fluid

 1. ethnically based domestic and international military conflicts in Caucasus, Moldova, Tajikistan and Chechnya

 2. still weak new independent states: Georgia, Krygyztan, Tajikistan

 3. repressions against liberal and religious opposition: Azerbajian, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan

 4. instability of borders with countries outside the former Soviet Union; illegal immigration and narcotics trafficking in Sino-Russian and Tajik-Afgan borders

 5. human and sex trafficking (women and children)

 Opulence of Tsars vs. abject poverty massespeople