Russians Discuss Historical Alliance With USA

June 5, 2007 (LPAC)--The June 8 issue of Executive Intelligence Review weekly and the current EIR Online (www.larouchepub.com/eiw) includes a report on one of the latest attempts by a Russian figure to take a fresh look at history, and see the potential for Russian-American collaboration--if the U.S.A. would revert to foreign policies that are in its genuine national tradition and interests. These discussions are consonant with the refrain of Russian President Vladimir Putin and members of circle, over the past year, that the outlook of Franklin Delano Roosevelt bears revival in a range of policy areas, from economic reconstruction to anti-imperial cooperation in international affairs. At the same time, there is growing attention in Russia to the historical, and current, role of British financial interests in targeting Russia for destabilization.

The EIR article by Konstantin Cheremnykh and Rachel Douglas reports on the first installment of a three-part series by Alexander Fomenko, a member of the State Duma, which began in the weekly Moskovskiye Novosti under the headline "Russia and the U.S.A.--a Forgotten Friendship." The year being the 200th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Russian Empire and the United States of America, Fomenko brought forward an array of high points in the rich history of diplomatic and strategic interaction between these two great powers, including events that were rarely recalled during the Cold War, or were interpreted in a distorted way. Fomenko referred first to the mission of John Quincy Adams, later the sixth President of the U.S.A., as America's first Ambassador to Russia (The discussions he had with Russian Minister Count Rumyantsev as ambassador during the Napoleonic Wars, as recounted in Adams' diaries, are a record of the great potential that existed at the outset of the 19th Century for a world of sovereign nation-states, had the oligarchical system of the 1815 Congress of Vienna not prevailed). The Duma deputy went on to write about military cooperation against the British: American arms sales to Russia during the Crimean War (1853-1855), and the dispatch of the Russian Navy to defend the Union during the U.S. Civil War.

In light of the current push by Russia to promote the Bering Strait intercontinental rail crossing, it is noteworthy that Fomenko wrote about how Russian and American interests along the Pacific rim were worked out in the mid-19th century. It was an area of potential conflict between them, but the arrangements that were reached were guided not only by each side's desire for territory and resources, but also by mutual hostility to the British desire to keep this strategic area locked up. When the United States bought Russia's North American colonies in 1867, the negotiations "were kept top secret until the deal was signed," since the deal would help "the United States to surround the British-owned lands in North America from all sides." Fomenko quoted a London Times commentary of the day, expressing worry over "a strange sympathy between Russia and the United States."

The pro-British faction of the Russian establishment was also caught by surprise. Minister of Internal Affairs P.A. Valuyev complained, "Silently selling a part of our territory [to the North American States], we are doing a bad service to England, whose Canadian lands are now even more alone in their defiance of the Monroe doctrine." The very acknowledgement that the Monroe Doctrine really was aimed at blocking European imperial control of parts of the Americas, and that its opponents were the friends of the British Empire, is practically a revolution in Russian historiography. In the Soviet period, the Monroe Doctrine was consistently interpreted as the U.S.A.'s own "imperial" thrust to dominate the Western Hemisphere. The second and third installments of Fomenko's series dealt with little-remembered episodes of 20th-Century history, in which America diplomacy acted against British attempts to exploit its assets in the Baltic littoral countries, for strategic aims against Russia. The Duma member's historical investigation is relevant to the recent tensions in and around Estonia, and will be reported in a future EIR article.