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Soft Spots in the Hard Line

Soft Spots in the Hard Line JAMES CRACRAFT (Chicago, U.S.A.) Soft Spots in the Hard Line Professor Hellie surely is right to suggest that many historians today are impressed more by the continuities in modern Russian history and particu- larly by those between pre- and post-Revolutionary Russia, than they are by the discontinuities. This is not a new attitude but it does undoubtedly reflect a new concern for the long-range development in history as distinct from the climactic event. In the case of Russian history it also undoubtedly reflects certain quite contemporary considerations, external to the discipline itself but still pressing, and seeming to require from the historian the perspective afforded by his knowledge of the Russian past: these might be described as constituting at base an anxiety over the Soviet Union's continued failure to liberalize itself or in other ways to "converge," even while it grows awesome- ly in economic and especially military strength, and aims, as it is being said, at universal military supremacy. (The attribution of such global designs to Russian policy-makers itself has a long history, as a recent reconsideration of the "Testament of Peter the Great,"' tracing its origins to disappointed Hun- garian and Ukrainian autonomists, reminds us.1) This attitude http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Russian History Brill

Soft Spots in the Hard Line

Cracraft, James
Russian History , Volume 4 (1): 8 – Jan 1, 1977
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0094-288X
eISSN
1876-3316
DOI
10.1163/187633177x00043
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

JAMES CRACRAFT (Chicago, U.S.A.) Soft Spots in the Hard Line Professor Hellie surely is right to suggest that many historians today are impressed more by the continuities in modern Russian history and particu- larly by those between pre- and post-Revolutionary Russia, than they are by the discontinuities. This is not a new attitude but it does undoubtedly reflect a new concern for the long-range development in history as distinct from the climactic event. In the case of Russian history it also undoubtedly reflects certain quite contemporary considerations, external to the discipline itself but still pressing, and seeming to require from the historian the perspective afforded by his knowledge of the Russian past: these might be described as constituting at base an anxiety over the Soviet Union's continued failure to liberalize itself or in other ways to "converge," even while it grows awesome- ly in economic and especially military strength, and aims, as it is being said, at universal military supremacy. (The attribution of such global designs to Russian policy-makers itself has a long history, as a recent reconsideration of the "Testament of Peter the Great,"' tracing its origins to disappointed Hun- garian and Ukrainian autonomists, reminds us.1) This attitude

Journal

Russian History – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1977

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