Foreign Policy of Russian Tsardom

An article written by Engels at the request of the Russian socialists for the magazine Sotsial-demokrat which they were preparing for publication in London. Written between December 1889 and February 1890. The original text, in German, was translated into Russian and published in the Sotsial-demokrat, Vols. 1 and 2, February and August 1890, and the original German text was published in Die Neue Zeit, No. 5, May 1890. It was translated by the author into English and published in the April and May 1890 issues of Die Neue Zeit.

Engels originally wrote it in German, but was translated into Russian, published in the Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the above magazine, in February and August 1890. The German version was published in the German magazine Die Neue Zeit, No. 5, in May 1890. Later Engels translated it into English for the Time magazine to be published in April and May 1890.

In the Foreign Policy of the Russian Tsardom, Engels first analyzed the goals and principles of the Russian Tsardom’s foreign policy. He pointed out that the essence of Russia’s foreign policy was to fight for world supremacy, which “never changed, never lost sight of”. However, Russia is almost absolutely safeguarded against foreign conquest by absence of roads, immenseness of its territory, and poverty of resources. Strong to impregnability on the defensive side, Russia was correspondingly weak on the offensive. Therefore its foreign diplomacy must follow the following principles: try to avoid direct war and wage direct war only when it is absolutely necessary and only wage a direct war in favorable conditions. Hence Russian diplomacy prefers to use the antagonistic interests and desires of the other powers for its own ends, to set these powers by the ears, and to exploit their enmities for the benefit of the Russian policy of conquest, it fights on its own account, and in these cases it has not to share the spoils with anyone; it generally aims to undermine Britain’s maritime supremacy on the seas, by international treaty-limitations. And it is good in using both Liberal and Legitimist phraseology as occasions required as dust for the eyes of those who believe in phrases. Secondly, Engels discussed the Russian Tsardoms’ invasions, expansionism, and its influence in European continent. Engels pointed out that in order to realize its ambition to dominate the world, the Tsardom divided Poland in Europe, occupied Finland and the Baltic coastal countries, encroached on Eastern European countries, and threatened Western Europe. At the same time, Russia coveted Constantinople (Istanbul and its government) in an attempt to seize the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits. “And with that the whole situation again changed. The great military powers of the Continent divided themselves into two huge camps, threatening each other: Russia and France here; Germany and Austria there.” “Both camps are preparing for a decisive battle, for an unprecedent war, the world has not yet seen.” Finally, Engels pointed out that only by overthrowing Russian absolutism could the danger of a world war be eliminated. In his view, Russian aggression and expansion in an attempt to fight for world hegemony inevitably brought about the material basis for burying the Tsar’s absolutism and nurtured its gravediggers along with it. He pointed out, “Russia is the France of the present century. The revolutionary initiative of a new social reorganization legally and rightly belongs to it.” “Revolution in Russia at this moment would save Europe from the horrors of a general war and would usher in universal social revolution.” Therefore, “Western Europe in general, and especially its working class, is interested, very deeply interested, in the triumph of the Russian Revolutionary Party, and in the overthrow of the Tsar’s absolutism.”

Foreign Policy of the Russian Tsardom was written by Engels at the end of 1880s and the beginning of 1890s when the international situation in Europe was acute and the danger of a world war was increasing. This work clarified the international significance of the struggle of Russian revolutionaries against the Tsar’s absolutism and expounded on the historical tasks and the path forward for the working class parties in Europe.