Russia and the Middle East

Abstract

D URING the past four years the Middle East has been experiencing the latest and by far the most serious of Russia's many attempts to establish her influence there. It is the most serious partly because Russia has never before been so powerful or so well organized, partly because the character of the Middle East has fundamentally changed during the past quarter of a century, and particularly since the last war. My object is to try to consider this question as a whole and not simply with reference to the present situation. I want to draw your attention to Russia's geographical position in relation to the Middle East. It seems to me that this is often overlooked by us, although not by the Russians. To them it is not the East but the South; and ever since the middle of the nineteenth century the southern fringe of Russia from the Caspian to Outer Mongolia has been peopled by millions of Muslims with strong cultural and racial ties with peoples over the border in Turkey, Iraq, Persia, and Afghanistan. This Muslim fringe is now organized into six republics which the Soviet Government is intent on using as a shop window to attract the countries of the East, and as a cultural bridge between the Soviet Union and the Middle East. The history of Russia's relations with the Middle East is of considerable importance. During the Tsarist period, and, until quite recently, during the Soviet period, it has been a history of failure. I have no intention of going into great detail, but I must touch briefly on Tsarist history because Soviet Middle Eastern policy is not, as many people suppose, an entirely new thing. The Revolution changed many aspects of Russian life, but it did not change the Russian climate or Russia's geographical position. I doubt very much if it has changed the Russian character or even Russia's aims, which still include the establishment of Russian influence in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf as the best means of promoting Russia's interests and of securing her against attacks from the West. Up to the first World War the Middle East contained only two sovereign States-Turkey and Persia, with both of which Russia had common frontiers. Transcaucasia and Central Asia, the parts of Russia abutting on the Middle East, contained nearly four-fifths of Russia's twenty-odd million Muslim subjects, the great majority of whom were Turkish by race and culture. These circumstances might have been expected to give Russia great strategic, political, and cultural advantages over her West European rivals. In fact, however, largely owing to her 295