Source:
https://www.wdl.org/en/item/101/view/1/3/
pp.53-63
Guide to the Great Siberian Railway, published by the Russian Ministry of Ways of Communication in 1900
Speaking of inventions with a global reach, it seems only fitting to consider the Trans-Siberian Railway, the longest of its kind in the world. Its roughly 9000 miles of track straddle two continents, Europe and Asia, and they facilitated Russia’s meteoric expansion beyond the Urals until her borders confronted the Sea of Japan at Vladivostok (c.1901). Russia had first reached the Pacific Coast in the 1600’s but had left the lands of its conquest undeveloped, navigable only by ancient horse-paths slinking quietly through vast steppes and boreal forests of the Siberian hinterland. Admiral Possiet, a prominent minister in the court of Tsar Alexander III threw his backing behind a proposal to lash these vast realms to the railway system which already existed in the European corners of Russian territory, and exploit their untapped natural resources. The railway would allow Russians to settle Siberia by moving people and the ingredients of a functional infrastructure, such as building materials, over vast distances which were perilous to traverse by foot. Once there, they could harvest natural resources, and set up trade relationships with Asian countries. Globalisation entails the increasing interconnectedness of different people and places from different parts of the world. Siberia constitutes 1/13 of all continental land on earth, covering an area of nearly 250,000km2. Any railway which connects one end of this vast expanse to the other has significant global reach, and has to stand as one of the most important agents of globalisation in history.
Railways have surprising implications for global politics, and this is especially true of the one which girdles Siberia. The Siberian Railway greatly assisted Russia’s ability to maintain rule over territories in which her authority had always been tenuous, by allowing for the rapid mobilisation of soldiers and their deployment to areas of conflict, as well as ethnically Russian settlers who loyally planted the Imperial Russian Tricolour wherever they went. 4 million arrived from the West between 1906 and 1914 (Wikipedia). Many millions more would be transported Eastwards under the Soviets. This was especially important given the rebellious disposition of the colonized Siberian Aborigines, who if not for the consistent application of force permitted facilitated by the railway, would certainly have resisted rule from Moscow much more vehemently, and probably succeeded in shaking it off. The Siberian Railway defeated their rebellion in 1918(-1921). That said, the railway also created new global political challenges for Russia, by bringing it to the doorstep of Asian powers. The existence of expanding Russian outposts in such intimate proximity to their territory was a source of much paranoia for Meiji Japan and Qing China. This suspicion culminated in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, which the Russians humiliatingly lost. Thus, the railway simultaneously provides the means and the incentive – that is, defence - for Russia to settle and develop its territories further East.
As well as securing public order and territorial integrity within Russia itself, the railway was of decisive importance in preserving the country’s economic health and in developing new global partnerships. One of the reasons Russia’s foreign policy was traditionally expansionist was that her rulers understood that their country’s main defence lay in its vast interiors and punishing climates which killed off enemy armies by attrition. Thus they sought to spread their frontiers ever further, increasing the distances their enemies would have to traverse. However, the far more important motivation behind Russian expansion lay in the economic necessity of finding warm-water ports to increase Russian participation in the global marketplace. Before the Trans-Siberian Railway, Russia could only access maritime trading routes via the Baltic ports in and around Saint Petersburg. These were, however, located extremely close to the Arctic Circle and remained frozen over for most of the year. Russia’s rulers recognised that the geography of their Empire, which deprived their boats of access to the sea for half the year, imposed quite burdensome restraints upon their economies. They consequently made several incursions into the Caucuses and the lands of their westerly neighbours in pursuit of warmer waters. The Trans-Siberian railway helped to mitigate these economic insecurities, by somewhat liberating Russia from the constraints of its climate. It offered a far more direct route from Europe to the markets of the Far East than did the ocean highways, which had to go around most of the African seaboard and cross the entirety of the Indian Ocean before ships could anchor in East Asian ports. In modern times, the railway can transport containers in half the time of an ocean voyage. 30% of Russia’s exports travel on the railway. Furthermore, in 2008 Russia formed an agreement with Germany, Poland, Belarus, Mongolia and China to cooperate on a cargo train service from Hamburg to Beijing.
The railway’s importance is not solely in the past, and it has more meaningful implications for global economics and politics today than one might think. The Arctic has been neglected as an unproductive wilderness for most of human history, but in the 20th century large reserves of oil and natural gas were discovered there. Because of the Trans-Siberian Line’s contribution to the development and settlement of Siberia, Russia stands first in line to claim this prize. When resources such as fossil fuels are increasingly scarce, the legacy of the Trans-Siberian Railway may yet have important global consequences for the 21st century.
Bibliography
o Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography (Elliot and Thompson, 2015)
o Henry Kissinger, World Order (Penguin, 2015)
o Pankaj Mishra From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia (Penguin, 2013)