Notes 11/18
Class 11: The Russian Empire
and the Cold War
GEO105: World Regional Geography
Michael T. Wheeler
Syracuse University, Geography
Lecture slide 02
Global Tectonics
2.5 Major tectonic plates (p. 39)
2
Lecture slide 03
Physiographic Regions
4.3 Physiographic regions of the [former Soviet Union] (pp. 136-7)
3
Lecture slide 04
13th Century, Mongol Invasion
4
Lecture slide 05
Mongols in Europe
5
Lecture slide 06
Mongol States
• Conquered Empires
–
–
–
–
China
Persia
Korea
Threatened Japan (‘Kamikazes’ – divine wind)
6
Lecture slide 07
Russian Revival
• Under Mongols
– Moscow occupied
– Novgorod survived
• 15th-16th Centuries
– Regional power: Poland /
Lithuania
– Iberians discovering the
New World
– Local kingdom of Muscovy
begins expansion of Slavic
state
7
Lecture slide 08
The Russian Empire
15th-20th Centuries
4.16 Territorial growth of the Muscovite/Russian state (p. 146)
8
Lecture slide 09
The Russian Empire, until 1795
• Settlement
– Almost all along the southern edge
– Fortified towns (like Fort Apache)
9
Lecture slide 10
Western Development until 1795
• Minerals
• Brutal
regime
• Peasant
uprisings
• No
Finland
• (or
Poland)
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Lecture slide 11
Napoleon Invades, 1812
• 1861 Minard Map
– Six variables: location (2), direction (1), time (1), army size
(1), temperature (1)
• Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 1983
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Lecture slide 12
Expansion until 1914
• Geography
– Central Asia
– Caucus
– Alaska
• Economy
– Minerals in the
shield
– Pacific coast
– Trans-Siberian
Railroad
12
Lecture slide 13
Emigration to ‘Asiatic Russia’
• Attempted
Modernization
– Count Witte
– Forcibly export
grain
• December
Revolution, 1905
13
Lecture slide 14
World War I
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Lecture slide 15
The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921
• Bolsheviks
– Dedicated to world-wide
revolution
– Export Communism
• Other developed
countries
– Intervene to put down
Communists
– Canada, France, Greece,
Great Britain, United
States, Japan
• Civil War
– Reds vs. Whites
• Geography
– Other Europeans lopped
off big parts of former
Russian Empire
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Lecture slide 16
World-Wide Revolution
• Socialist Parties
– Almost all supported
World War One
• Major countries
– France
– Germany
• Rosa Luxemborg
– China
• Mao Tse Tung
• Chou En Lai
– United States
• Eugene Debs
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Lecture slide 17
Break
4.20 Population density (p. 153)
17
Lecture slide 18
World War II
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Lecture slide 19
Nazi-Soviet Pact
Population Movements
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Lecture slide 20
Post War Population Movements
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Lecture slide 21
The Holocaust
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Lecture slide 22
Unimaginable Destruction
• People
– 7.5 million soldiers
– 6-8 million civilians,
directly
– “indirect losses”
– Total: 20-25 m people!
• Agriculture
–
–
–
–
7m out of (11.6m) horses
20m (out of 23m) pigs
137,000 tractors
49,000 grain combines
• Transportation
– 65,000 km of railroads
– ½ of all railroad bridges
– 15,800 locomotives
– 428,000 wagons
• Housing
– Almost 50% of all urban
living space
– 1.2 urban houses
– 3.5m houses in urban areas
• Other bloodlettings
– World War One (8m?)
– Russian Revolution (2-3 m
people?)
– Collectivization and
Stalin’s pre-war purges
(10m?)
– Post-War pogroms (5m)
22
Lecture slide 23
The Soviet Empire, 1940s and 50s
4.17 Soviet state expansionism, 1940s and 1950s (p. 148)
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Lecture slide 24
The Iron Curtain
• Warsaw Pact
– Military Alliance
• COMECON
– Trading bloc
• Geography
– Berlin, Vienna divided cities
– Yugoslavia and Albania semiindependent
1968
1956
24
Lecture slide 25
Stand-Off in Europe
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Lecture slide 26
The Cold War
• Geography
– Confrontation across
the North Pole
– U.S. and NATO
‘contain’ Soviet
Union (the Truman
Doctrine)
• Asia
– Wars and revolutions
– China and Vietnam
only nominal Allies
of Soviet Union
26
Lecture slide 27
The Cold War (Legend)
• Europe
– Berlin (1948, 1961)
– Hungary (1956)
– Czechoslovakia (1968)
• Asia
– Korean War
– Vietnam War
– Afghanistan
• Africa
– Angola, 1974-90
– Namibia, 1975-91
• Latin America
–
–
–
–
Cuba
Chile
(El Salvador)
Nicaragua
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Lecture slide 29
Nuclear Weapons
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Lecture slide 29
Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
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Lecture slide 30
Berlin Wall Comes Down
• Gorbachev
– Perestroiyka (p. 156)
• Hungary
– Reinterring the heroes of
1956
– Open border with Austria
– Tens of thousands from
around Eastern Europe
fled west
• Berlin Wall
– Call down November 09,
1989
– Reunification of Germany
– Break up of the Soviet
Union
30
Lecture slide 31
The Former Soviet Union
4.1 The former Soviet Union (pp. 132-3)
31
Lecture slide 32
Break-Up of the Soviet Union
Also see 4.23 (p. 157) in WR
32
Lecture slide 33
Caucasus
33
Lecture slide 34
Environmental Degradation
4.15 Environmental degradation (p. 143)
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Lecture slide 35
Vital Rates, 20th Century
4.20a Vital rates (p. 153)
• Tragic history
– Massive bloodlettings
– Post-Soviet male life
expectancy now 59! (U.S. ~ 4.21 Russian Age-sex pyramid (p. 154)
35
77, Japan over 80)
Lecture slide 36
Review
• Physical Geography
– Land
• Huge (almost 180 of
latitude!)
• Cold
• Flat
– No warm water ports
• History
– Part of Europe or part of
Asia?
– Oppressive military
regimes
• People?
• Land?
– Invasions
• Mongols
• Napoleon
– Germans (two World
Wars)
– Allies (after Russian
Revolution)
• Soviet Union / Cold War
– Military / political buffers
– Economy
• State-run
• Huge environmental
problems
• Break-up of the Soviet
Union
– Collapse of Russian
Empire
– 400 years of antagonism
coming out
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Lecture slide 37
Next Week
• For next week:
– Reading
• Chapter 2: 68-78
• Chapter 13: 578-587, 591: Figure 13.12, 596-8: 'Sustainable
Development'
– Review
• p. 79:
– Testing Your Understanding: 10
• p. 604
– Testing Your Understanding: 6
– Thinking Geographically: 4
• Web Page:
– classes.maxwell.syr.edu/geo105_f04/class
_notes/12-Review.htm
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Lecture slide 38
Happy Thanksgiving!
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