Notes 11/18 Class 11: The Russian Empire and the Cold War GEO105: World Regional Geography

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Notes 11/18Class 11 The Russian Empireand the
Cold WarGEO105 World Regional Geography

• Michael T. Wheeler
• Syracuse University, Geography

2
Global Tectonics

• Lecture slide 02

2.5 Major tectonic plates (p. 39)
3
Physiographic Regions

• Lecture slide 03

4.3 Physiographic regions of the former Soviet
Union (pp. 136-7)
4
13th Century, Mongol Invasion

• Lecture slide 04

5
Mongols in Europe

• Lecture slide 05

6
Mongol States

• Lecture slide 06

• Conquered Empires
• China
• Persia
• Korea
• Threatened Japan (Kamikazes divine wind)

7
Russian Revival

• Lecture slide 07

• 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

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The Russian Empire15th-20th Centuries

• Lecture slide 08

4.16 Territorial growth of the Muscovite/Russian
state (p. 146)
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The Russian Empire, until 1795

• Lecture slide 09

• Settlement
• Almost all along the southern edge
• Fortified towns (like Fort Apache)

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Western Development until 1795

• Lecture slide 10

• Minerals
• Brutal regime
• Peasant uprisings
• No Finland
• (or Poland)

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Napoleon Invades, 1812

• Lecture slide 11

• 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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Expansion until 1914

• Lecture slide 12

• Geography
• Central Asia
• Caucus
• Alaska
• Economy
• Minerals in the shield
• Pacific coast
• Trans-Siberian Railroad

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Emigration to Asiatic Russia

• Lecture slide 13

• Attempted Modernization
• Count Witte
• Forcibly export grain
• December Revolution, 1905

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World War I

• Lecture slide 14

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The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921

• Lecture slide 15

• 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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World-Wide Revolution

• Lecture slide 16

• 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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Break

• Lecture slide 17

4.20 Population density (p. 153)
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World War II

• Lecture slide 18

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Nazi-Soviet PactPopulation Movements

• Lecture slide 19

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Post War Population Movements

• Lecture slide 20

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The Holocaust

• Lecture slide 21

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Unimaginable Destruction
Lecture slide 22

• 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 Stalins pre-war purges
  (10m?)
• Post-War pogroms (5m)

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The Soviet Empire, 1940s and 50s

• Lecture slide 23

4.17 Soviet state expansionism, 1940s and 1950s
(p. 148)
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The Iron Curtain

• Lecture slide 24

• Warsaw Pact
• Military Alliance
• COMECON
• Trading bloc
• Geography
• Berlin, Vienna divided cities
• Yugoslavia and Albania semi-independent

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Stand-Off in Europe

• Lecture slide 25

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The Cold War

• Lecture slide 26

• 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

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The Cold War (Legend)

• Lecture slide 27

• 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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Nuclear Weapons

• Lecture slide 29

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Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

• Lecture slide 29

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Berlin Wall Comes Down

• Lecture slide 30

• 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

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The Former Soviet Union

• Lecture slide 31

4.1 The former Soviet Union (pp. 132-3)
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Break-Up of the Soviet Union

• Lecture slide 32

Also see 4.23 (p. 157) in WR
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Caucasus

• Lecture slide 33

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Environmental Degradation

• Lecture slide 34

4.15 Environmental degradation (p. 143)
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Vital Rates, 20th Century

• Lecture slide 35

4.20a Vital rates (p. 153)

• Tragic history
• Massive bloodlettings
• Post-Soviet male life expectancy now 59! (U.S.
  77, Japan over 80)

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Review
Lecture slide 36

• 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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Next Week
Lecture slide 37

• 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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Happy Thanksgiving!
Lecture slide 38