Peter the Great and the Emergence of Russia

B.H. Sumner, in Peter the Great and the Emergence of Russia, makes the basic argument that the efforts and leadership of Peter were responsible for the entrance of Russia into the modern world, paving the way for the creation of the Soviet Union under Lenin. Sumner writes, with respect to the world at the time of his writing in the early 1960s, with the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States dominating and defining world affairs, that

Certainly no historical theme is for us more significant than the double transformation that has taken place---of Muscovy into Russia and of Russia into the Soviet Union, a transformation linked indissolubly both by contemporaries and by posterity with the names of Peter the Great and Lenin (9).

Sumner goes even further and argues that Peter was responsible for revolutionizing not only Russia, but also all of Europe, in terms of his having driven Russia into a relationship, however antagonistic, with the West.

The book covers the life and career of Peter, from his birth in 1672 to his death in 1725 at fifty-two years of age, showing how and when he ascended to the throne at the age of ten in 1682, officially sharing power with his half-brother Ivan V, seven years older and much weaker as a leader than Peter would prove to be.

Peter assumed exclusive power at the age of twenty-three in 1695. The undisguised admiration of the author for his subject is revealed in passage after passage, including in this summation of Peter

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went beyond all memories. Henceforth Peter stood out as a tsar of implacable will and tempestuous violence (44). Clearly, Sumner admires what Peter did in expanding and developing Russia, and the author is quick to minimize the cruelty and despotism he exhibited in bringing about those developments. For example, after writing of a number of Peter's contemporaries' remarks about the more vicious of Peter the Great's traits, author Sumner writes that "Others, more discerning, marvel that 'the providence of God . . . has raised up such a furious man to so absolute authority over so great a part of the world'" (41). Peter saw as well that control of the nation's pursestrings through effective taxation was a step toward maintaining political power and effecting reforms he sought (46-47). Above all, however, Peter's military empowerment of Russia serves as the source of his leadership. The Great Northern War and its victory for Peter stands as testament to his ability to realize his grand ambitions for himself and his nation. As Sumner summarizes, the three years preceding the start of the Great Northern War had already established Peter as a powerful, unique and revolutionary leader. Among the changes he wrought before that war are

Category: Foreign - P