Ed. by R. G. Landa, Moscow: Eastern Literature, 2006, 717 p., maps

The publication of the fifth volume of the History of the East is an important event in the history of Russian Oriental studies. Leading researchers have proposed a vision of the history of the East in an extremely important historical era: the time of two world wars, the interwar period, which included the "Great Depression", the division of the world into ideological blocks and the obvious increase in the crisis of the colonial system. The most powerful aspect of this work is its fundamental character, which is expressed in a truly titanic coverage of events and processes, individuals and social groups that created the historical process not only in the East, but also around the world. Not a single country, not a single major political figure, not a single significant party was omitted, which is undoubtedly the merit of all the authors of the volume and its responsible editor R. G. Landa.

Conceptually, the structure of the collective monograph is of particular interest: It is divided into "theoretical" and "country" parts, the first of which offers a comprehensive analysis of the problems of the history of the East, and the second describes the contradictory historical process in each of its states.

Of course, it is fair to conclude that "The First World War... It brought radical political, economic, social, moral and psychological changes to the countries of the East" (p. 22). No less valid is the thesis that it was the First World War, and not the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, that played a decisive role in the rise of the liberation movement in the East.

The analysis of the forms and consequences of the world economic crisis of 1929-1933 in the East is convincing. The" Great Depression " here was contradictory: on the one hand, the existence of significant territories with populations that were not affected by it at all, on the other hand, the fall in prices for agricultural products (the main occupation of most Easterners) led to a certain decline in agriculture, a change in the structure of rents, and sometimes to a significant landlessness of the peasantry (in Burma). It is interesting that at the same time there was a growth of mechanized industry in the East, which was facilitated by various factors: from the cheapness of labor and the ability to manipulate wages to the policies of states and colonial authorities in a number of countries. Of course, the crisis has severely affected world trade, in which the countries of the East occupied by no means the last place. The development of transport and communications has increased competition in the global market. Scientific and technological progress has also intervened in this process: guano is beginning to be replaced by mineral fertilizers, natural rubber by artificial rubber, shellac by plastics, artificial fibers appear that crowd cotton and silk. The desire to maintain their positions pushed countries on the path of developing autarky, which was reinforced by the "Great Depression".

Some of the consequences of the global economic crisis can not be considered only economic: it is the growth of the number of paupers, a reduction in the share of the well-off peasantry, and in general-the complication of the social structure due to the erosion of traditional social groups. Another result of the crisis G. K. Shirokov calls "a change in the worldview of the political elite" of the Eastern countries (p. 88), who realized the need for new management methods, a radical revision of agrarian relations and the elimination of the hierarchy of the world system.

According to R. G. Landa (chapter of the Axis Powers and the East, pp. 90-106), the Axis powers "acted quite successfully in the East on the whole and, apparently, much more effectively than both the Comintern and the traditional colonial powers. But they are, especially Germany and Italy... missed your own

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they did not win the pre-war confrontation in the Middle East, largely due to the fact that their main attention was focused on military operations in Europe and the preparation of an attack on the USSR" (p.105).

As for the participation of the East in the Second World War, R. G. Landa is absolutely right, stating: "The East [in it] was no longer a remote periphery of the global conflict, but an active participant in it" (p. 122). This conflict "became a powerful stimulator of the liberation struggle of the peoples of the East" (p. 123), as the weakening ties of the colonies with the mother countries contributed to the formation of new professional groups, the development of industry, trade and infrastructure. According to R. G. Landa, the USSR's emergence from" relative isolation " and its transformation into one of the superpowers during World War II contributed to the development of the communist movement in the East. After the war, Communist parties came to power in China, North Korea, and Indochina. So the collapse of the colonial system that followed in the next decade and a half after the end of World War II was one of its consequences.

There is no reason to describe the content of each chapter devoted to a particular country in the review. I would like to focus on those issues that are of primary importance for historical science.

First, is it possible to free historiography from ideology? The goal stated in the Introduction-to offer a "de-ideologized approach, free from ideological bias" (p. 8) - has been partially implemented. This is confirmed by the textual data of the reviewed volume. So, on page 40, you can read: "Such a policy (Stalin's repressions. - A. 3.) created a vacuum of trained personnel and, hindering the development of society as a whole, deprived the Soviet government... the opportunity to rely on competent people who know local conditions and are able to carry out the theoretically proclaimed course of socialism not in words, but in deeds." This statement assumes the possibility of building socialism, and this is a conscious choice of a certain model of social development, therefore, a certain image of the future.

The use of the dictionary of historical materialism to describe various historical data is also significant. These are the concepts of "bourgeoisie", "proletariat", "collaborationism", "national liberation movements" (p. 22), " militarists "(p. 375 et seq.)," feudal lords"," feudal relations "(p. 36)," superior forces of world capitalism " (p. 46). The principle stated by R. G. Landa: to be guided by "one's own analysis of facts, one's own approach to the abundance of historical material "(p.8), when carefully studying the volume, fits into the historical and materialistic research program.

I would like to emphasize that this is not a lack of work. In one of his articles, the reviewer noted :" It is impossible to write any generalizing works that are free from assessments related to the political, economic, ideological and other realities of today " [Zakharov, 2003, p. 71]. It is desirable only to clearly state the main theoretical propositions that are applied by the researcher, and not to assume that it is possible to write sub specie aeternitatis, without theoretical introspection.

The question arises: is the objectivity of cognition possible? The answer to this question is very difficult (see another reviewer's paper on this: [Zakharov, 2005, p.49-56]). Criticism of an ideology is possible, so there is a way to distinguish it from what is not. For example, the Second World War began on September 1, 1939, and this is a fact that does not depend on whether the researcher belongs to the apologists of Western democracy or to the supporters of communist ideology. Ideology reveals itself rather in attempts to determine the causes of this war. You can write off all the blame on Hitler and Nazism, protecting the participants of the anti-Hitler coalition, you can include the "short-sighted" Western politicians Chamberlain and Daladier (and after them, the states they ruled), you can, as the enemies of Russia do, call the USSR the culprit of this global conflict, or you can - the whole the system of international relations formed as a result of the First World War. Surely there will be those who see the cause of the war in the laws of the development of world capitalism with its inevitable competition, in which all participants in the Second World War are involved (the question of the role of the USSR is not so simple: let's recall the trade turnover between our Homeland and other states in the 1920s-1930s; the the state, not an individual entrepreneur or their association). Supporters of geopolitics have their own view.

The choice between competing theories is made by the researcher. That is why introspection should become a fundamental intellectual operation of the historian. Only honest

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admitting your own likes and dislikes will allow you to criticize them and distinguish preferences from rationally based knowledge.

In the reviewed volume, there is a chapter that highlights the problem of ideology in a special way - "Revolutionary Russia and the East" (pp. 23-45), written by R. G. Landa. It deals not only with the impact of the 1917 revolution on the rest of the world, but mainly with national (perhaps it is better to say ethnic) movements and problems in the territory of the former Russian Empire. Should these trends be considered an independent part of the history of the East, as the authors of the volume do? Or is it an internal matter of Russia? After all, the gravitation, and sometimes even the desire of a number of peoples to separate from Russia, is a political and modern problem. What do we Orientalists want our own country to look like? Is it possible to maintain a powerful state without a powerful ideological press? Does it not turn out that the desire for freedom at any cost, without taking into account the principle "freedom is a conscious necessity", leads to arbitrariness, in which the strongest wins, that is, the one for whom "power is higher than law", and this is already a fundamental lack of freedom?

Returning to the problems of the volume, I would like to note that it would be desirable to pay more attention to everyday life, everyday life of people, and culture in the broad sense of the word. When reading a collective monograph, it is difficult to get rid of the idea that its main subject is political history. In many ways, the volume would benefit if each "country" chapter was divided into separate paragraphs, as is done in chapter 14 "India: the National Liberation Movement and the aggravation of confessional differences" (pp. 308-362), written by L. B. Alaev.

The reviewer also has some specific comments. The chapter " The Countries of the East and the Comintern "(pp. 46-69), written by V. I. Maksimenko, contains a number of factual inaccuracies. One can argue about how to interpret the "international isolation of the USSR" (the thesis about its existence is also supported by R. G. Landa (pp. 46, 63, 126), but one can hardly agree with the statement that " the coming to power of Hitler in January 1933, together with the Japanese intervention in China, created a real threat to the USSR wars on two fronts, in Asia and Europe " (p. 64). In 1933, Germany and the USSR were divided by Poland, the victory over which the Reichswehr, not yet transformed according to the instructions of the Fuhrer into the Wehrmacht, looks if not impossible, then, in any case, problematic. France, in the event of a German war against Poland, could have started fighting for the Saar coal basin, and this already meant a war on two fronts for Germany. In any case, one should not exaggerate the real capabilities of the Nazis immediately after they came to power: they were still dealing with each other (remember the "night of the long knives" on June 30, 1934, when Roehm, other leaders of the "assault detachments" and Gregor Strasser were destroyed). Even in 1936. The Fuhrer was fiercely bluffing when he sent troops into the Rhineland, admitting that "if the French had moved into the Rhineland, we would have had to retreat in disgrace, because the forces at our disposal were not sufficient to offer even a weak resistance" [Melnikov, Chernaya, 2004, p. 329]. The threat of war on two fronts, which V. I. Maksimenko suggests, looks like a transfer of a later phenomenon to an earlier time.

In my opinion, the thesis about L. D. Trotsky's removal from power in 1927 is also erroneous (p. 66): the defeat of Trotskyism was carried out, in fact, already by the XIII Party Conference at the beginning of 1924, in 1925 he lost the posts of People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, in 1926 he ceased to be a member of the Politburo The Central Committee of the CPSU (b), and in 1927 was expelled from the party and exiled to Alma-Ata. Once L. D. Trotsky lost control of the Soviet armed forces, he hardly had any power: his only weapon since 1925 was his personal authority and connections with his supporters.

The following argument of V. I. Maksimenko looks very strained: "However, with all the negative attitude towards the 1939 pact, it should be taken into account that it was... an attempt by the USSR to neutralize the consequences of the same collusion of Western democracies with the Axis powers in Munich a year earlier! At that time, the democracies did not want to fight fascism, but to direct it against the USSR. Stalin paid them back in kind. Besides, he has... There was simply no choice: both the democracies and the Axis powers tried to outdo each other in their propaganda and concrete actions in hatred of the USSR and the Comintern. The threat of uniting the whole of Europe on an anti-Soviet basis was very real" (p. 67). Apparently, the researcher believes that in 1939 England, France and Germany could unite. This is an obvious misunderstanding caused by the perception of the propaganda moves of these countries for their real intentions. Hitler in 1937 expressed the view that providing Germany with living space is possible only if France is "neutralized", plus the Anschluss of Austria and the annexation of Czechoslovakia [Melnikov and Chernaya, 2004, pp. 343-345].

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about a week after the defeat of Poland in 1939, Hitler announced his intention to attack the West and eliminate its military threat, starting, of course, with France [ibid., pp. 413-414]. Here we should recall the attitude of the Germans to France after the First World War: after all, it was Alsace and Lorraine that went to her, 52% of the total amount of reparations (132 billion rubles) were intended. gold marks), she received the right to use the Saarland swimming pool and in the eyes of the Germans was enemy number one. Unification with France was also unlikely because the ideology of Nazism was equally critical of Bolshevism and liberal democracy represented by the West [Melnikov and Chernaya, 2004, p. 89; Ponomarev, 2001, p.309].

Summing up, I would like to note that individual comments and suggestions do not in any way detract from the merits of the reviewed volume "History of the East". The fact that it turned out to be so informative and coherent in concept is a great merit of all its authors and responsible editor R. G. Landa. The questions raised by them awaken theoretical thought, and the rich empirical material collected provides abundant food for thought.

list of literature

Zakharov A. O. "The main contradiction of our epoch" or contradictions of our thinking (about the article by L. B. Alaev)? // East (Oriens). 2003. N 5.

Zakharov A. O. K probleme istoricheskoi obektivnosti: istoriografiya v svete "Kritiki chistogo razuma" I. Kant [On the problem of historical Objectivity: Historiography in the Light of I. Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason"]. St. Petersburg: Severnaya Zvezda Publ., 2005.

Melnikov D., Chernaya L. Adolf Hitler-criminal N 1. Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2004.

Ponomarev M. V. Germania v 1900-1945 gg. [Germany in 1900-1945]. XX century. Study guide for students in 2 ch. / Ed. by A. M. Rodríguez and M. V. Ponomaryov. Ch. 1. 1900-1945. Moscow: Gumanit. izd. VLADOS Center, 2001.

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