Breakup of Empires
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In the nineteenth century, the rise of nationalism contributed to the development of the nation-states that would continue into this century, and expansionist programs on the part of many of the stronger nations contributed to the creation of empires built around colonies in different parts of the world. The British Empire was probably the largest of these and included colonies all over the world. In the twentieth century, many of the existing empires and nation-states have undergone transformations as various pressures have caused them to disintegrate, to break up into discrete units around nationalistic, geographic, and ethnic differences. An examination of the decline and disintegration of the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia will serve to develop rules as to why countries decline, and these rules will then be applied to Canada, Brazil, and India to see what may happen there in the future. Three dimensions appear important in the disintegration of a nation: economic problems, ethnic differences, and nationalistic aspirations. These forces can be seen in the disintegration of the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. The British Empire was quite extensive at one time, as noted, and one by one British possessions, colonies, and protectorates were stripped away in this century. The impetus for the British to expand and to acquire territory was made explicit and coherent by Disraeli in 1872 when he envisioned Britain as an imperial country,
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, the majority indifferent whom 70 years of Communism had taught to take care of themselves and leave public affairs to their betters (Pipes, 1992, 28).
The legitimacy of the Soviet system was being called into question in the mid 1980s in part because the bureaucracy had reached a point of near immobility. The Soviet Union was not being held together by its institutions in any case, at least not its governmental institutions. It was being held together by the Communist Party. The Communist Party so controlled the infrastructure of the nation from a centralized position that the newly independent states are still having difficulty developing and controlling their own systems without the participation of the party, even if that participation today has been reduced to a shadow of what once was:
Hence the anomaly of the present situation: Communism has been abolished and the country is committed to democracy, and yet the civil service remains largely and the miliary command exclusively in the hands of one time Communists (Pipes, 1990, 31).
The ethnic divisions have been apparent in the way the different republics divided into new entities showing little in common with the Russian republic to which in the past they had bee
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Communist Party, British Empire, Union West, British India, World War, Quebecois Canadians, Soviet Union, Divisions Brazil, Communists Pipes, India Nyrop, soviet union, british empire, world war, ethnic divisions, communist party, ethnic conflict, country study, american university, washington dc, nyrop 1985, soviet union yugoslavia, canada brazil india, washington dc american, empire soviet union, british empire soviet,
Approximate Word count = 2335
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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