Russia and Decolonization in Eurasia

Abstract

Europe lived in fear of Asian invasions until colonial expansions turned the tables. Except for Russia’s overland expansion, Europe expanded in Asia by way of the sea. The overland and overseas colonial expansions were of two distinct kinds: settler colonization and ‘administrative colonization’.1 The Russians, unlike other Europeans, appropriated a major part of Asia through irreversible settler colonization while other Europeans implanted the modern state and capitalism in Asia through administrative colonization and decolonization.