We Shall Be Masters: Russian Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin

by Chris Miller

Overview

An illuminating account of Russia’s attempts—and failures—to achieve great power status in Asia.

Since Peter the Great, Russian leaders have been lured by opportunity to the East. Under the tsars, Russians colonized Alaska, California, and Hawaii. The Trans-Siberian Railway linked Moscow to Vladivostok. And Stalin looked to Asia as a sphere of influence, hospitable to the spread of Soviet Communism. In Asia and the Pacific lay territory, markets, security, and glory.

But all these expansionist dreams amounted to little. In We Shall Be Masters, Chris Miller explores why, arguing that Russia’s ambitions have repeatedly outstripped its capacity. With the core of the nation concentrated thousands of miles away in the European borderlands, Russia’s would-be pioneers have always struggled to project power into Asia and to maintain public and elite interest in their far-flung pursuits. Even when the wider population professed faith in Asia’s promise, few Russians were willing to pay the steep price. Among leaders, too, dreams of empire have always been tempered by fears of cost. Most of Russia’s pivots to Asia have therefore been halfhearted and fleeting.

Today the Kremlin talks up the importance of “strategic partnership” with Xi Jinping’s China, and Vladimir Putin’s government is at pains to emphasize Russian activities across Eurasia. But while distance is covered with relative ease in the age of air travel and digital communication, the East remains far off in the ways that matter most. Miller finds that Russia’s Asian dreams are still restrained by the country’s firm rooting in Europe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674916449
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	06/08/2021
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Chris Miller is the author of Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia and The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy. An Associate Professor of International History at Tufts University, he writes for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy.

Table of Contents

Introduction: "Only a Short Distance Away" Russia's Arrival on the Pacific Coast 1

1 Lord of Alaska Tsar Alexander I's Transpacific Empire 17

2 "Russian Control Will Be Guaranteed Forever" Nikolai Muravev and the Conquest of the Pacific Coast 52

3 "We Can Still Repeat the Exploits of Cortez" Expansion and Retreat in China's Central Asian Borderlands 84

4 "Tightening the Bonds between Us" Sergei Witte and the Trans-Siberian Railway 108

5 "A New Mecca for the East" The Bolshevik Revolution in China 145

6 "We Must Have Our Hands Free" Stalin's Drive for Hegemony in East Asia 180

7 "The Great Hope of Humankind" Soft-Power Socialism in Asia 217

8 Perestroika and the Pacific Mikhail Gorbachev's Opening to Asia 246

Conclusion: "Heir to the Empire of Genghis Khan" Vladimir Putin's Pivot to Asia 273

Abbreviations 293

Notes 295

Acknowledgments 349

Index 351

Editorial Reviews

04/26/2021

Tufts University historian Miller (Putinomics) delivers a rich and well-informed chronicle of Russia’s engagement with Asia over the past three centuries. He details the establishment of Russian trading posts in Alaska and northern California in the early 1800s, and captures the immensity, complexity, and importance of Russia’s eastern borderlands through the eyes of its explorers, including Nikolai Przhevalsky, who mapped Central Asia in the mid-19th century. Arguing that Russia’s enduring fixation on Europe and “episodic and erratic” foreign policy in Asia have hampered its dream of becoming a major presence in the region, Miller discusses the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the late 1800s; Stalin’s purging of “spies, saboteurs, and hidden enemies” in the Russian Far East in the 1930s (according to Miller, 15,000 people died in the crackdown and several hundred thousand more were “deported, jailed, or sent to a gulag”); the militarization of the border with China under Brezhnev; Gorbachev’s decision to withdraw troops from Mongolia and end the nearly decade-long war with Afghanistan; and Putin’s prioritization of relations with Asia over the U.S. and Europe. The result is a comprehensive and fluidly written survey that will be welcomed by students of international history. (June)

Publishers Weekly

As much of the world now turns more attention and resources to Asia, partly in response to China’s emergence as a global power, Miller’s terrific book reminds that Russia made moves toward the East five hundred years ago, and explains why ignoring the Russian factor in Asian geopolitics today would be a big mistake for strategists in Tokyo, Delhi, Brussels, or Washington. His masterful history shows why Russia has been an Asian power for centuries and will remain a central player in balance-of-power politics in Asia for decades to come.

Michael McFaul

Miller’s broad historical overview of Russian foreign policy in Asia challenges the conventional view that the country has enduring interests in the Far East…For Russia, Miller argues, Asia has been a land of unfulfilled promises.

Foreign Affairs - Maria Lipman

In a panoramic account of three hundred years of Russian history, Miller presents a Russia little known in the West: a Eurasian power that treats its eastern calling as seriously as it does its western one. Exceptionally well written and argued, We Shall Be Masters helps us understand Russia on its own terms and offers historical insight into the future of its relations with China, its main rival and occasional ally in the region and the world.

Serhii Plokhy

A sweeping and fast-paced tour through the last three hundred years of Russian foreign policy…It is, therefore, a welcome addition to the literature on Imperial Russian and Soviet foreign policy toward Asia.

H-Net Reviews - Paul Behringer

[A] highly readable history…The over-ambitious, over-committed and over-confident policies of modern Russia through the globalization period and the rise of Asia in the 21st century mimics the hubris of Petersburg’s historical Pacific Ocean ambitions.

Global Asia - Tristan Kenderdine

A sweeping overview of Russia’s long-running pattern of aspiring to yet often falling short of securing lasting influence over Asian affairs. Engaging and impressively researched, Miller’s book offers an insightful historical perspective on contemporary Russian–Asian relations.

Willard Sunderland

Few historians have probed as deeply into the complex history of Russia’s imperial engagements in East Asia as Miller has done here. He weaves a subtle theme through a sweep of events, as Russian tsars, officials, diplomats, and explorers are lured east in various ‘spasms of enthusiasm,’ only for these various pivots to peter out owing to military failure, excessive cost, or simple exhaustion. A supple, well-written, and important work.

Sean McMeekin

[A] comprehensive and informative account of Russia’s historical outreach to Asia…Vladimir Putin became the latest Russian leader to pursue a pivot to Asia from 2014. Yet, argues Miller, there are limits to this strategy.

Survival - Angela Stent