Peter the Great, Essay Example

Peter I was Tsar of Russia from 1682 until 1725 conferring the title of Peter the Great on himself. He is responsible for singlehandedly beginning the modernization of Russia and broadly speaking instituted domestic, military, and government reforms.

The Reforms

Peter wanted Church reforms as part of his grand plant to modernize the domestic nature of Russia. As an absolute monarch, freedom within an organized structure such as the church was anathema. Clearly, the second reason for reforming the church was its wealth in land and peasantry making it a rival to his power.  When the Adrian, the Patriarch of the church died in 1700, rather than replace him, Peter assumed control. Consequently, the church’s property fell into the hands of the government. The final act was in 1721 when the church monarchy was eliminated permanently through an act called the Ecclesiastical Reservation. This had the effect of making the church answerable to the crown.

As noted above, Peter planned to modernize his military and to do so they had to be educated so he launched a massive educational reform. He recognized for example that ships needed more than captains-they needed engineers and a skilled knowledge of the sciences and mathematics. Thus, in 1701 the School of Navigation and Mathematics opened, the School of Engineering in 1712, and the School of Science in 1724. He recognized that Russia trailed other countries in the West so he brought foreign specialists to Russia. He understood that the short term cost of modernization would be enormous but the long term benefit to Russia from an educated people would be immense. Witness the reform program in China which has brought her from the medieval to modern world in a generation. He also provided a newspaper for the newly educated to read.

He enlarged the army using it as a tool in his foreign policy. It was no longer an amateur led military but an educated force to be reckoned with. Both noble and serf were subject to conscription and by 1725 Peter’s army was at or above its European counterparts.  The new Russian navy was his creation with ports in Moscow and later the Baltic. Initially officered by foreigners, by 1725 there were forty-eight naval ships. The competence of Russia’s navy was such that Sweden suffered a defeat at her hands.

Government reforms by 1700 gave towns the right to elect officials and collect taxes which resulted in a reduction of power by provincial offices. By 1724 towns were self-governed.

Peter the Great ruled Russia autocratically and despotically with his people acting on his initiatives, not their own. It was a brave but deceased man who decided that his own ideas took precedence over Peter’s, so few of his subjects contradicted their Tsar. However, if Peter understood that his reforms amounted to civilizing a backward nation he is also responsible for the inevitable failures. For example, his insistence that the army as a military power also be the creator of his military policy. The role of the military is to carry out government policy, not create it, and so Peter takes the blame for this failing. Also, no one questioned his orders which amounted to a nation acting on fear and not initiative. His autocratic management can be compared to the CEO of General Motors ordering coffee for the office. Peter did not delegate responsibility meaning that once a decree had been issued, its implementation flowed though him. In a nation the size and population of Russia, this had the counter effect of stifling the initiative of the people he had just recently educated. Consequently, in Peter’s Russia, you did what you were told and then you told him what you were doing. The magnitude of the task was phenomenal yet his genius is in knowing that he must raise a poor people to a standard enjoyed by developed nations (at that time) in Europe-to civilize his people without humbling the nation.

The Middle East’s 20^th century in terms of Westernization is a sad story. Muslims saw the Christian world as wealthy while the Islamic one poor and associated the dominance of the West with religion. Modernization in the Middle East has concentrated on three areas: the military, economic, and political with disappointing results. For example, updated militaries resulted in humiliating defeats (Iraq, Egypt etc). Development has brought wealth to the Gulf States but it has also brought impoverishment for others-nations whose economy is based on a single resource; fossil fuel. They were glad for the western investors yet understand that they were exploited as well since this fragile resource has an expected depletion date. Modernization in many Middle East nations has resulted in dictatorships and autocracies. (Iraq and Libya)

Remedies the Middle East has tried includes sophisticated weaponry purchased from the West, factories, schools, and parliaments with few achieving the hoped for result. The impact of westernization is that nations once rich in human and capital resources have been reduced to have-nots or have lost their ability to lead and reduced to the role of follower. The Middle East envied the economic miracle of post war Japan and Korea. Why, could this not happen in the Middle East?

One reason is the notion of anti-Semitism. Some countries blame Jews for their ills such as Iran for example. On the one hand there is resentment for the occupation of Palestine yet the Middle East knows that the single largest beneficiary of American foreign aid is Israel and they wish that they could enjoy the same privilege.  Socialism and nationalism are discarded ideas as either failures or the rare successes have had little impact. The Middle East is composed of independent states seeking solutions. One notion is the Iranian idea of attributing evil to the desertion of Islam in favour of the West pushing for a fundamentalist past . The second solution offered is a secular or global view such as we see in Dubai, Kuwait, and Qatar.

References

Raeff, Marc. Russian Intellectual History. (1999). Harcourt, Brace & World, Orlando, Florida.

Lewis, Bernard. What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response. (2002). Oxford University Press. Oxford.

Abbot, Jacob. Peter the Great. Biblio-Bazaar. Public Domain. Accessed at http://books.google.ca/books?id=zBFvV0hcmLEC&pg=PA108&dq=peter+the+great+reforms&hl=en&ei=Jx2ZTISqFMmTnQeupMAq&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=peter%20the%20great%20reforms&f=false on September 20, 2010.

Cracraft, James. The Church Reforms of Peter the Great.(1971). Macmillan and Company. London.

Baring, Maurice. The Russian People. Biblio-Bazaar. Public Domain. Accessed at: http://books.google.ca/books?id=G8zzcnl2YaMC&pg=PA159&dq=peter+the+great+reforms&hl=en&ei=Jx2ZTISqFMmTnQeupMAq&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFcQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=peter%20the%20great%20reforms&f=false on September 20, 2010.