Russia

Yet barriers of ice and wetland continued to impede settlement long after the global warming got under way. The ‘Black Earth’ belt of rich, loamy soil which made Ukraine the breadbasket of Russia — and for a time around 1900 of Europe too — extends from the margin of European Russia, the core of the original Russia, into the Urals and western Siberia. But the quality of arable land in the rest of the country is inferior, and most of the land mass is not cultivable at all. Marshes and bogs still preclude agriculture over large areas, though some were drained in the Soviet period; and until relatively modern times, seemingly dense forest impeded development.

And always the Russian climate has been unstable, largely unpredictable. It has been a major influence on Russians, and made them unlike other peoples. Severe though the North American climate can be, Russia’s is worse. Even the south is cold — colder than central Europe. Summers there may be mild, even hot, but, as Baedeker warned, ‘Sudden variations in temperature are very frequent … The traveller must always be on his guard against sudden falls in temperatures.’ ¹² Climate variations can cause havoc, and have often done so in Russia. On the North American prairies one expects snow to fall before the ground freezes, which insulates autumn-sown crops. But on the Russian steppes severe ground frosts not infrequently precede snow falls, in which case the seed freezes — and until a few decades ago that could spell famine. As for rainfall, it is adequate in the north, where soils are poor, but poorer where the soil is good. And not only does the climate tend to extremes: so do the seasons. Winters are long and dark, summers hot but short, and in the north it remains light throughout the month of May.

In the west of Europe spring comes in March and farmers can continue working the fields into December. In Russia, by contrast, it is still as if the Ice Age has not quite concluded: the growing season lasts barely five months rather than eight or more. Moreover, to produce enough for subsistence the poor soil demands more labour than in, say, France or North America south of the 52nd Parallel. These conditions were to have huge implications for the way in which both Russia and the Russians developed. They influenced the Russian temperament, and even the nature of Russian institutions.

For example, the very short growing season made for haste in both sowing and reaping. This encouraged interdependence between farmers to get things done, and even a tendency to share resources. But it also discouraged farming on an individual basis. Individualism involved risk; co-operation was a form of insurance. Russians may not have been natural communists, as romantic socialists used to claim, but the landscape and the harsh environment from which they have had to wrest a living seem to have developed in them a capacity for suffering, a certain communalism, even a willingness to sacrifice the individual for the common good. Circumstances made it impossible for the Russian economy and the Russian state to develop as England, France or, in due time, the United States were to develop.

The pressure to prepare the soil for spring sowing as soon as the ground was safe from frost, and to harvest all one’s crops before the rains came, required frenetic, strenuous effort, long hours in the field, and the mobilization of children. On the other hand in winter, when days were short and there was little work to do outdoors, and little indoors either apart from whittling wood, Russians tended to indolence and lethargy. In short, temperamentally they inclined to extremes — or at least the men did. The demands on women were different. Not only were the domestic chores left to them, so too was the care of the homestead’s domesticated animals — and cows and goats, of course, not to mention children, need attention on a daily basis. Such tasks induced a different approach to work, a different temper.