Повлиял ли политаризм на продажу Аляски? (Ответ на замечания И. Виньковецкого)
The Russian Politarism as Main Reason of the Sale of Alaska

Summary/Abstract: The report is devoted to research about of the most discussed problems in historiography: the reasons, which led to that the Tsarist Government to sale Alaska in 1867 to the USA. On the analyses of historical documents and scientific literature the author pick out 16 such reasons and factors including e.g. natural, economic, and military. In scientific Russian historiography the most popular is the last, i.e. the military factor, which was connected to the threat of American (and British) occupation of Alaska. Some authors have added that in the middle of the nineteenth century the penetration of American and British traders, miners, whalers, and smugglers increased into the territory of Alaska. It is true that such a prominent researcher, as Academician N. N. Bolkhovitinov, has recently pointed out also other reason for the Alaska’s sale: continental (but not maritime) character of Russian colonization. In the author’s point of view, the main fundamental factor was not the military threat from foreign powers for the Russian colonies in America but the politarism, i.e. socio-economical system that dominated in Russia during almost all of its history (but not the feudalism and socialism, as most historians have believed). The politarism has based on the supreme right of the state to the main means of production and the workforce. The peculiarity of this socio-economical system has helped to explain the insignificance of the Russian population in Alaska, the weak Russian trade fleet, non effective economics, and lastly the continental character of Russian colonization. The relative conservatism and the backwardness of the politaristic empire and its colonies very clearly manifested itself in the clash with the more dynamic Anglo-American capitalistic colonization of the North Pacific during the second half of the nineteenth century. The theory of politarism has also made it possible to explain why the state in the person of Tsar decided the Alaska problem, ignoring interests and rights of the Russian-American Company (which ruled the colonies since 1799), people living in the colonies, and the public opinion in Russia.

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