Monthly Archives: February 2015

What is a Colonial Empire? The Misclassification of the Soviet Union

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In his article, Adeeb Khalid, describes the distinct differences between colonial empires and modern mobilization states and argues that confusing the two different polities leads to the misinterpretation of modern history. Colonial empires and modern mobilization states have different overall goals and methods. Colonial empires were based on the difference between the rulers and the ruled and therefore destroyed any possibility of the natives being part of ‘civilized’ society. Whereas, modern mobilization states wanted to homogenize and sculpt their citizenry into an ideal in order to achieve universal goals. However, classifying governmental systems as either of these polities is rarely clear and often confusing. Khalid argues that Soviet Union is an example of a system that has previously been labeled as a colonial empire, but in reality it was a modern mobilization state. The continued comparison of the Soviet Union to oversea colonial empires such as Britain, leads to a biased Eurocentric view of their history,

To illustrate the differences and similarities between modern mobilization states, Khalid compares Early Soviet Central Asia with the Turkish Republic. The main common tie between the Soviet and Kemalist states were their mission to transform culture and reshape their citizenries. Both states reformed their language and adopted a latin based alphabet in order to distance themselves from the old backward traditions. Both states emphasized education, separated the state from religion, and exercised state power of all citizens to achieve their goals. The major difference between the two was that the Kemalist state’s leadership of the economy differed from the complete abolition of private property in the Soviet Union. The Kemalist state decided against a direct assault on religion, unlike the Soviet Union, and chose to subjugate all religion to the state. But the crucial point that Khalid argues is that because the Soviet civilizing mission was not targeting a specific group, but rather the old traditional way of life it can not be categorized as colonial. The absence of the racial or ethnic superiority of one group over another contradicts the basis of colonial empire.

Modern Mobilization

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What makes a regime a modern mobilization state and not a colonial empire? Adeeb Khalid answers this question in Backwardness and the Quest for Colonization: Early Soviet Central Asia in Comparative Perspective. Khalid states that empires, such as Britain, France and the Netherlands “were based on the perpetuation of difference between rulers and the ruled”, where as modern mobilization states “homogenize populations in order to attain universal goals”. Examples of modern mobilization include the Soviet Union and the Kemalist regime in Turkey. These two modern mobilization regimes both emerged after World War I after the collapse of the European political order, and both regimes pursued shock modernization in an attempt to quickly modernize and create a universal culture. Modern mobilization worked to transform the citizens of the regimes to create unification and equality for all, but in the attempt to equalize citizens many rights were taken away from different groups. In the Soviet Union ideas on new government were being spread through propaganda. Many were attracted to these new ideas quickly replaced the old transforming the life’s of citizens.

Richard Oastler and Factory Labor

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Author: Richard Oastler was an industrial reformer who was known as the “Factory King.” He conducted a campaign for shorter hours for factory workers, which helped lead to the creation of the Ten Hours Act of 1837. [1]

Context: His article was written during the the Industrial Revolution. The use of factory labor  was growing, which led to abuse of workers, especially for children.

Language: He wrote “Yorkshire Slavery” to educate the general public about the mistreatment of factory workers. He used simple and concise language so that everyone would be able to understand him.

Audience: General British population

Intent: He wants to educate people on the poor working conditions of factory workers, especially that of children. He wants people to realize just how long and cruel the hours are for the children.

Message: The use of child labor was becoming increasingly popular, which is something that he has become aware of. Also, he realizes how child labor causes stress in the family itself. He wants people to realize the mistreatment on working class people and wants something to be done about it.

Why? He writes this article because he sees the effect that the growing use of child labor in factories during the Industrial Revolution is having, and he wants people to become aware of it also in order for something to be done about it.

Oastler lived right in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. He saw first hand the effects industry had on people and wanted to reform practices to better the lives of people.

[1] “Richard Oastler.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2015.

What do you think Oastler would think of child labor today, both in developed countries with more strict child labor laws and less developed countries with less stringent laws?

 

Not Colonial but Not Much Better: Backwardness and the Quest for Civilization

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While colonial empires strove to emphasize the difference between the “ruler” and the “ruled”, modern mobilizational states sought to homogenize the entire population. Modern mobilizational states, such as that of the Soviet Union and to the Kemalist regime, dealt directly with their citizens through destroying traditions and “micro-managing” society. Both the Soviet regime and the Kemalist regime emerged in the disorganization following WWI and both pursued “shock modernization” programs which involved radical and intense intervention in society and culture, including the spread of literacy, secularization, and the integration of women into public life. In the Soviet Union, local nationalist groups were allowed, such as the Jadids, as long as they fit into the structure of the soviet regime. In regards to the “emancipation” of women, both the Jadids and the Bolsheviks attacked the paranji-chachvon (a long robe and veil that completely covered Muslim womens’ bodies) as a health hazard and a means of oppression, and encouraged women to abandon and burn the garments. This campaign against traditional Muslim garb is comparable to the Kemalist regime in that the veil was considered a sign of backwardness and similarly linked to health hazards. The Kemalist regime and the Soviet Union stood at odds to traditional ideas of colonialism in that both regimes attempted to wholly transform Muslim gender norms and the social order, as opposed to simply condemning the norms in order to legitimize their imperial order. In the Soviet Union in particular, there were considerable efforts to deploy state power in order to remake society, an effort towards transformation that was not synonymous with colonial powers. The victims of the cultural revolution were not one group of peoples or a specific ethnic group but the traditional ways of life in general. Although the the Soviet and Kemalist states professed a civilizing mission similar to that of colonial empires, their power was utilized not to exclude people but to force them to participate. Such a goal of integration conflicted with that of colonial empires. However, the seemingly less harmful and often well-intentioned effort to homogenize society did not make the Soviet or Kemalist states any less brutal, aggressive, or invasive than colonial empires. For example, the Kemalist regime brought all education under state supervision and into a secular agenda, banning religious teachings in attempt to coincide the individual’s thinking with national ideals. Such actions, even though the focus is on integration as opposed to segregation, forced people to abruptly abandon cherished traditions and ideals, inevitably encouraging resistance and outrage. While colonial empires employed intermediaries to transform their colonies, modern mobilizational states cut away intermediaries to directly focus state power on transforming the whole of their society, forcing change upon all individuals, not just the “colonized”, and therefore surpassing the ruthlessness of a colonial empire.

Richard Oastler and “Yorkshire Slavery”

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Author: Richard Oastler was a labor activist who set out to reform the terrible conditions seen in England’s factory system. He was born in 1789 and died 1861.[1] His activism helped shed light on the labor horrors of the factory system.

Context: As a labor activist, Oastler writes his piece “Yorkshire Slavery” in the heart of the Industrial Revolution. As increasing industrial practices swept through England, new knowledge on its societal effects were becoming known. These effects include children working in horrible conditions.

Language: He wrote “Yorkshire Slavery” to shed light on the horrors of industry. In order to inform everyone he could, he wrote in simple language that all could comprehend. He makes his points clear and definitive.

Audience: Since his writing is simple and comprehendible, his target audience is all those who reside in England.

Intent: To educated all English people on disturbing features that exist within the factory system. He wants parents of children who work long hours in factories to be aware of the hardships they face day in and day out.

Message: He sees the changes taking place within families that rely on their children to produce an earning to live on. He notices old-fashioned domestic manufacturers are beginning to be taken over by factory manufacturers. When he was a child, “there was filial affection and parental feeling”[2] within a family. When describing family life post Industrial Revolution, he says “it destroys the happiness in the cottage family, and leads both parents and children not to regard each other in the way that Providence designed they should”.[3] His work, “Yorkshire Slavery” is meant to shed light on the real life effects the Industrial Revolution is having on working class people.

Why? Oastler lived right in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. He saw first hand the effects industry had on people and wanted to reform practices to better the lives of people.

[1] Bloy, Marjorie. “Biography.” Richard Oastler (1789-1861). January 1, 2013. Accessed February 8, 2015. http://www.historyhome.co.uk/people/oastbio.htm.

[2] Report from the Committee on the Bill to regulate the labour of children in the mills and factories . . . 1832: Parliamentary Papers, 1831-1832, xv, pp. 454-5 [Added by Marjie Bloy, Senior Research Fellow, National University of Singapore]

[3] Ibid.

Physical Deterioration of Textile Workers

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Author:  there are multiple authors for this article, all writing about experiences in English textile factories and the workers there.

Context: All articles are written in the 1800s, some earlier in others. This is after the industrial revolution and the harm coming from all the work and production is coming to the surface.

Language: Though their are multiple authors, each used medical language as to describe the state of the bodies of the workers.

Audience: They were trying to talk with the owners of the factories. The owners were the ones subjecting their works, children and adults, to this harsh work that physically changed their bodies and lives.

Intent: To change the working conditions for the textile workers in England. They wanted to spread the word on what working in the factories was doing to the workers,

Message: They were explaining what was happening to the workers, how work had changed them. In the last article, the author even wrote about how the conditions changed, suggestions someone had been listening.

Why: These articles were written to show the dark side of industry, darker than what Saint-Simon, Owen, and Marx were writing about. They wanted to show the factory owners and upperclass what the new industry was doing to the workers. They wanted change for these workers because , even though they were workers, they were humans that deserved a good life just like anyone else.

Yorkshire Slavery and Labor Conditions

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Author: Richard Oastler. Oastler was born in 1789[i] to an English family and advocated for the abolishment of slavery and improved labor conditions, especially for children.

Context: His letter “Yorkshire Slavery” was written in 1830 during the time of significantly increased industry (at this point, right in the thick of the Industrial Revolution), and need for more labor in factories and mills.

Language: I would describe the language of the piece as assertive and defiant. Oastler brought forward several gruesome examples of the difficulties of labor at the time, while using a very negative tone to display these hardships.

Audience: Oastler intends to reach the hearts and minds of the English people, who he believes don’t fully understand the severity of the situation at hand.

Intent: As mentioned above, Oastler was disgusted with the current conditions of the labor, especially the hardships young children were dealing with in the workforce. His intent was to bring forth these cruelties in a way that would inspire his fellow English people to act on improving these respective conditions.

Message: With descriptions such as “whose forehead has been cut open by the thong; whose cheeks and lips have been laid open, whose back has been almost covered with black stripes”[ii] and references to “the bodily sufferings that these poor creatures are subject to”[iii], Oastler’s message here is clear: what is happening here is not right and needs to stopped, now.

But…why?: Oastler has seen these horrific conditions first hand, and has gathered several stories from parents of these respective children. He empathizes with these parents and believes these conditions are “the foundation of the disaffection and unpleasantness of the present age”.[iv]

 

[i] http://www.victorianweb.org/history/yorkslav.html

[ii] ibid

[iii] ibid

[iv] ibid

Problems with Industrialization

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Author: Heinrich Heine was born in 1979 into a Jewish family in Rhineland. In 1825 he converted to Christianity. Many of his works were banned by German authorities because of their potentially revolutionary and radical views.
Context: Inspired by a protest against working conditions in 1844 Germany. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution around 1820, the revolution was fully underway and people were beginning to become more aware of the problems and abuses that they were experiencing.
Language: Heine seems to use a rebellious tone with the idea of unification. Along with that, it is a somewhat dark, ominous tone.
Audience: Within the poem, Heine is addressing Germany and the atrocities that are being committed due to the Industrial Revolution. This is for those workers that are being abused so that they know there are people out there willing to stand up.
Intent: The intent of this work is to create a change in Germany that would create better conditions for the workers.
Message: Within this poem, Heine is trying to let the people of Germany know that there are others that are also unhappy while also letting Germany know that change is imminent. This opinion was obviously correct with the March Revolution occurring in 1848.
Within the poem, Heine not only addresses the lying father nation (Germany), but also the king and God in other verses. Clearly, the people that are being abused, in this case the weavers, are not happy with any of these three.

Yorkshire Slavery

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AUTHOR: Richard Oastler was born to a linen merchant in 1789 and later moved to Leeds. He was an Anglican, Tory and protectionist as well as a strong advocate for the abolition of slavery in the West Indies. He was also against Roman Catholic emancipation.

CONTEXT: “Yorkshire Slavery” was written in 1830 after Oastler met with John Wood, a manufacturer in Bradford who introduced the atrocities of the factories to Oastler. The Industrial Revolution had taken off around 1820, therefore, around the time “Yorkshire Slavery” was written in 1830, the revolution was in full force.

LANGUAGE: Oastler uses confidence and information in order to portray his points. However, he also seems horrified and shocked when describing the conditions of factories and the stories about child workers being abused.

AUDIENCE: In this piece, Oastler addresses the English nation, as many of them were unaware of the issues within the factory. He even states, “my attention had not been particularly called to the subject of the factory system, until I had that fact communicated to me.” ((Yorkshire Slavery 1)) As mentioned above, his encounter with John Wood opened his eyes towards what was really occurring within the factories and he felt obligated to share it with the English nation.

INTENT: As previously mentioned, Richard Oastler was an advocate for children’s rights in the factory only after he met with John Wood. However after learning all of the information, he was compelled to share it with the nation in order to bring about change and help the workers.

MESSAGE: Oastler’s overall message is understood to be that the children are being overworked in an inhumane and cruel way. He states that there are some things he would “never [dare] to publish” because of how awful they are (“Yorkshire Slavery” 1). Beyond the working conditions within the factory, he also advocates for shorter work hours, arguing that the children grow up with out knowing what it is like to be loved because they hardly see their parents. Oastler makes the argument that the child workforce is dehumanizing and needs to change.

WHY? As stated before, Richard Oastler had met with a manufacturer in Bradford before writing “Yorkshire Slavery.” During this meeting, he discovered the evils of the factory and the struggles the child workers face; he promised himself he would not stop doing everything in his power to help the workers of the factories.

Quest for Civilization and the Question of Colonialism or Modern Mobilization

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In his article “Backwardness and the Quest for Civilization: Early Soviet Central Asia in Comparative Perspective,” Adeeb Khalid addresses the problematic use of colonialism when discussing the government of the Soviet Union. Khalid argues that the Soviet Union’s control over its territories in Central Asia should not and cannot be discussed in terms of colonialism. Using the Turkish Republic as a comparison, Khalid demonstrates that in both cases the state wielded its power to create a universal standard within the nation’s culture that forced all citizens into a new, modern era. The states of the Turkish Republic and the Soviet Union sought to universally civilize their people, where as the colonial empires focused on perpetuating the differences between themselves and their newly conquered peoples.[1] As with any nation building exercise, language and education played a central role in the mission of these “modern mobilizational states,” as Khalid refers to them.[2] It is the Soviet Union and the Turkish Republic’s nationalizing efforts that separate them from contemporary colonial empires, such as Britain and France.

However, how different are colonialism and modern moblizational states? Both oppress ethnic groups under their control and impose their own culture onto the conquered populations. Is one policy better than the other?

The question of the Soviet Union’s role as a colonial power or a modern mobilizational state is of great importance when determining its historical legacy. As Khalid shows, the Bolsheviks did not want to only modernize Russia proper they also sought to create a universal culture and nationality amongst all of the territories under Soviet control. In order to do so, they established secular, state operated schools and Latinized all languages within the Soviet Union. They imposed their radical notions of language, women’s rights, and legal operations onto those indigenous peoples of Central Asia. By bringing all cultural institutions under the control of the state, they collectively modernized the Soviet Union and its territories in Central Asia. They created a standardized culture and ideology throughout the Soviet Union that served as the foundation for the country’s new nationalist identity. In contrast, colonial powers allowed their conquered peoples to retain aspects of their traditional culture while infusing it with their own ideology. This led to the establishment of a separate national identity from that of the colonial power. In this fundamental way, modern mobilization differs from colonialism.

The question still remains, is one policy better than the other? Should they even be compared?

[1] Abeed Khalid, “Backwardness and the Quest for Civilization: Early Soviet Central Asia in Comparative Perspective,” Slavic Review, 65.2 (2006): 232, 250.

[2] Ibid., 232.