In his justification of War in Ukraine Putin has often mentioned "root causes" of the war. These "root causes" often include NATO's expansion into former Warsaw Pact and USSR states.
Putin and Russians wants to think that such expansion is due to American imperialism. However, that is not true. NATO expanded east because Eastern European states wanted protection against Russia and found it in NATO.
There are good reasons for Eastern European states to seek such protection and they lie in Partitions of Poland that Russia has orchestrated as well as in the way Russia has treated them during 19th and 20th century.
I would say even more, pretty much all the problems that plague Eastern European and post-Soviet states begin from the time when Russia, Prussia and Austria have partitioned the Commonwealth in late 18th century.
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Times
I will not talk too long about the Commonwealth as it is a long topic on its own, there are enough information in Wikipedia and other encyclopedias. Check it out if you never heard of this state before. Here I will summarize briefly facts necessary for this topic.
Commonwealth existed from around 13th century as separated but friendly to each other Poland and Lithuania. The state used to unite modern day Poland, Lithuania, Lativia, southern Estonia, Belarus. Ukraine and western parts of Russia.
Commonwealth had unusual for the times constitution where King was elected rather than simply inherit throne when previous dies. It was also multi-religious and multilingual during times when most other states had one official faith and language. There were elections to both national parliaments called Sejm as well as regional parliaments (Sejmik) for each Voivodeship. Cities enjoyed Magdeburg Rights, it was a European state with rule of law and other such things that distinguish it from autocracies further east.
However, there were issues too. Elections were limited to members of nobility only, effectively dividing society into 1st and 2nd class citizens. Despite official multilingualism and multi-confessionalism. in practice there was discrimination against non-Catholics and non-Polish cultured people. That left significant parts of population discontent and uninvested in this state and its fate.
This, combined with Liberum Veto provision from Commonwealth constitution, eventually led to its downfall. Russia manipulated election to elect few pro-Russian people in Sejm and them instructed them to use Liberum Veto to block useful legislation. Eventually Russian interference run country into the ground and Russia, together with Russian then friends of Prussia and Austria, simply conquered it without too much resistance and divided between themselves.
Era of Russian Control
Russia got by far the largest and most diverse part of Commonwealth that included parts of all above mentioned modern countries. Some Poles and Ukrainians ended up in Austria and only Polish parts went to Prussia.
Life under Russia was much worse not only for Poles but for Belarussians and Ukrainians as well. Ukrainians thought that fellow Orthodox Christians from Moscow would treat them better but that ended up being a mistake. They thought Polish discrimination was bad, but Russians were even worse. Russians treated everyone badly.
Unlike Poland in Russia there was no any elections to Sejm or Sejmiks, no Magdeburg Rights and no rule of law. Local governors and other officials were appointed from capital, St Petersburg and answered only to Tsar. They governed based on either personal whims or desire to please the Tsar. They completely ignored needs of the locals. Locals sure as hell hated that.
Much reduced in size rump so called Congress-Poland had certain rights guaranteed to it Congress of Vienna settlement. These guarantees and Congress Poland constitution however were routinely ignored by Russian appointed namestniks. The rest of former Commonwealth did not have even this and were governed as ordinary gubernias.
During 19th century Poland managed to organize several uprisings against Russian rule. All of them were crushed by Russian military after a year or so of fighting. Ukrainians, Belarussians and others too thought of breaking free from Russia and spend 19th century building up their national identities.
Poles who ended up divided between all the partitioning states, had unique opportunity to compare conditions between their neighbors. According to Poles conditions were somewhat better in Austria, worse than that in Prussia and worst of all in Russia. Astria organized former Commonwealth lands into Kingdom of Galicia-Lodomeria in personal union under Austrian Emperor and Free City of Krakow. In Galicia-Lodomeria there were elections to local parliament, language rights for Polish and Ukrainian as well as general rule of law, expected of a European nation. Prussia was worse than Austria because it actively pursued policy of Germanization and tried to make their Polish subjects more German. There were no language rights, and their status was Duchy that was later reduced to province. However, in Prussia there were still elections and rule of law. Worst of all was life under Russia.
Ukrainians confirm this assessment. They think Austrian rule was better than Polish one during Commonwealth times. They agree with Poles that Russian rule was worst of them all.
On Russian end of things, Tsar and his officials could not understand why people in Russia proper are OK with the way they are government and all their new subjects in western parts of the country see it as violation of their rights and constantly revolt against Russian rule.
The answer they arrived to was to Russify newly conquered lands and make them more like Russia proper. To that end Russia banned books printed in local languages such as Ukrainian or Belarussian. Polish language was transitioned to a Cyrillic scrip to make it look closer to Russian and use of original Latin scrip was forbidden.
This overt authoritarian Russification lasted from second part of 19th century all the way to the collapse of Russian Empire. For the most part it failed to achieve its objectives. Eliminating language and culture ended up much harder than decreeing a few bans. Parents could still pass their languages to their kids and Poles would teach them Latin script as well. They could print books in Europe and smuggle them in Russian controlled parts of former Commonwealth. Languages endured and situation hardly changed.
Revolution
Russian revolution gave all these people of former Commonwealth as well as other conquered people such as Moldovans a chance for independence. As Reds battled Whites in Russia, all abovementioned countries declared their independence from Russia, build their national armies and hoped they will manage to protect nauseant republics.
Eventually Red Army finished its battle with the Whites and came after nationalists. Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania managed to fight back and survived. Ukraine and Belarus fought too but were overrun by the Reds and absorbed into the USSR.
After 123 years of occupation Poland and Lithuania were back on the map. However, their jubilations were short lived. in less than 20 years USSR will make a Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Nazi Germany and came to oppress Eastern Europe once again. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were made in republics of USSR. Poland was turned into a puppet state that is nominally independent but ruled by people chosen by Kremlin and loyal to Kremlin and not their country.
Life Under USSR and Warsaw Pact
While in early days of USSR Lenin announced that all nationalities were equal, and USSR even encourage some development of local languages and cultures. Ukrainian and Belarusian languages were made co-official with Russian and other languages of USSR. USSR wanted to give impression that it will play nice and make everyone welcome.
That did not last too long however and already in early 30s a new more elaborate Russification program was unrolled in USSR. Russian language was given unique special status of "language of international communications" that gave it status above others. That meant that in conversation between a Russophone and a non-Russophone or between Belarussian and Ukrainian, Russian language had to be used.
That alone would not do much, but USSR knew how to make most use of that: massive population transfers. Under Stalin it was done in completely autocratic manner by making armed KGB agents force people in train carts and shipping them away. After Stalin government became more subtle and used a rule where a fresh Uni graduate has to pay back for their education by working 3 years in an organization of government choice. That also meant that they would have to move and live where this organization is located.
The purpose of these transfer was to disperse the problematic former Commonwealth population across the vast space of USSR. Torn from their community and thrusted in a different one hundreds of miles away, Ukrainian or Latvian will have no choice but to switch to Russian language as no one around them understands Ukrainian or Latvian. To replace these migrants USSR would send people from Russia proper to former Commonwealth lands. These Russophone migrants, who are unable to speak local languages, will be backed by Soviet state to force locals to speak Russian language at least to them. Russian language will finally take root all across USSR.
This policy was deadly efficient. Over 45 years of Soviet control over Latvia, local Latvians went from around 90% of total population to a measly 52%. If it had continued for another 5 years of so Latvians would have become a minority in their country and even democratic elections would have produced a Russophone government that would have all but outlawed Latvian language.
Another thing USSR did to further advance Russification was border engineering, tweaking border to put more Russophones among the locals. I wrote many separate articles about many problems with Soviet borders and why they have to change, search them in my blog, start
here. Here I will add some more.
When Khruschev gave Crimea to Ukraine it was not because Crimea is naturally Ukrainian. Crimea is 2 million strong Russophone stronghold that meant to boost number of Russophones in Ukraine's borders and make Ukrainians speak Ukrainian less and Russian more.
Moldova is almost of textbook example of such border butchering. Until USSR took control of Bessarabia in 1940, the territory was always understood to be an area between Prut and Nistra rivers. To create modern Moldova USSR first took away Bessarabia's access to sea with its many historic cities. Then to "compensate" Moldova, USSR gave it a Russian military base full of soldiers loyal to Moscow and a few villages mostly Ukrainian in character.
Main city in Moldova's new lands, Tiraspol, was founded by Suvorov after his victory over Ottomans and annexations of Ottoman land. The city was built on the border between Russia and Ottomans and meant for Russian soldiers and their families. There is nothing Moldovan about this city and its surroundings, the only reason it was given to Moldova is to make these solders play warden's role and keep Moldovans down. All energy infrastructure was placed there so that soldiers could shut Moldova down if their try to revolt.
These two are the most glaring and well documented examples. USSR placed their loyalists in many places in every part of USSR to supervise and keep locals down. That is why
linguistic map of Ukraine has to many red dots in sea of blue, Russophone stronghold behind enemy lines.
Warsaw Pact puppet states avoided settlements of Russophones, but learning Russian as second language was mandatory there. There were no free elections and when people wanted to overthrow their puppet government, USSR would bring its own army to suppress locals. USSR exploited wealth of Eastern Europe, so locals not only had freedom but many of its produce was simply taken by USSR as either "reparations for WWII" or as part of "friendly" economic "cooperation".
After Collapse of USSR
Collapse of USSR caught Soviet government off guard. Russification was not fully completed and, in most soviet republics, locals still had significant enough numbers to seize control and push for independence. Just like during Russian Revolution and Civil War, many saw their one now or never chance to break free and went for it.
However, Russophone settlers, that USSR have planted there, fought back. They formed so called Interfronts oppose their republic independence from USSR. Interfronts claimed to be oppressed by local Nazis to and asked that USSR use it as pretexts to send troops to "protect" them. USSR tried to do that, for example during
January Events, but failed.
Ultimately USSR collapsed and former parts of Commonwealth and other post-Soviet Republics in the same situations became independent. However, most of them were now saddled with the problem of all these Russophones that USSR planted there during its reign. Some sort of policy was needed to deal with them. Expelling them back to Russia was not feasible as European liberal countries will not support such move. Russia will also refuse to take them back and will likely use such attempt to interfere on settler's behalf. Lativa and Estonia refused to grant them their citizenship, insisting that only descendants of the pre-WWII citizens can be citizens of newly independent Latvia and Estonia. Those who arrived during Soviet occupation has to naturalize or seek other citizenship. The rest did nothing in particular and just hoped they will somehow assimilate over time or something.
Thus, a form tug of war between locals and settlers ensured in pretty much every post-Soviet state. Cultural, linguistic, educational and other issues continue to pit settlers against locals up to this day. These differences among other things led to War in Ukraine.
[continue later]
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