Colonialism

• Economics, trade

  • The exploitation of natural and human resources, in some cases - direct access to unique, rare resources (including transit ), the desire to monopolize world trade in them;
  • Optimization of trade routes, markets, elimination of inconvenient foreign cultural intermediary countries;
  • Achieving greater trade security , its more operational power support;
  • The best legal protection of trade through the unification of the legal field , the formation of imperial legal standards, a unified and understandable commercial culture;

• Social sphere, social balance optimization

  • Finding adequate goals for the application of efforts by criminally oriented social strata, reducing their “burden” on society in the metropolis, sometimes selling off prisoners, destitute, unable to find application, outcasts dissatisfied with traditions and customs established in society prescribed by him by the society of the social role, supplanted by competition;
  • Colony management, colonial administration is a good school for managers, and the use of force in resolving significant local conflicts is a way to maintain the imperial armed forces in good shape. Formation of a school of adequate professionally savvy and experienced civil and military bureaucracy for the needs of the empire, practical testing of a new generation of bureaucracy , renewal of the military, political, economic, cultural elite ;
  • The acquisition of a powerless compared with the inhabitants of the metropolis , cheaper or generally free (see slavery ) labor, including “for export” to the places of greatest need for it and / or its import into the metropolis for “dirty”, non-prestigious, but socially Significant work;
  • Testing new civilian and military technologies, techniques, tactics, know-how, exporting hazardous waste from their industries, the possibility of conducting risky military, scientific, industrial, natural experiments, activities whose results could jeopardize the well-being, health, and life of the metropolitan population. In some cases - a convenient way to keep such a secret from the public opinion of the empire and the world;

• Foreign policy, civilizational expansion

  • Geostrategic interests, the formation of a system of strong points at key points in the world to achieve greater mobility of its armed forces;
  • Control over the movements of troops , fleets , trade routes, population migrations of other colonial empires , prevention of the penetration of the latter into the corresponding region, reduction of their role, world status;
  • Considerations of imperial prestige , gaining greater geopolitical weight in the conclusion of international treaties , further decisions on the fate of the world;
  • Civilization , cultural, linguistic expansion - and through it the consolidation of authority, legitimacy of the current government in the metropolis, colonies and the rest of the world. The transformation of imperial civilizational standards into global ones.

• Political non-independence, special legal status , which usually differs from the status of full-fledged provinces of the mother country ;
• Geographical isolation and, in most cases, remoteness from the mother country;
• The economic exploitation of natural wealth, the labor of the natives in favor of the metropolis, which often leads to inhibition of economic development, degradation of the colony;
• In many cases - the ethnic , religious , cultural or other similar difference between the majority of Aborigines and the inhabitants of the metropolis, often giving the first reason to consider themselves a separate, independent community ;
• Historical factor:
  • Capture of the territory by the mother country, occupation ;
  • Deprivation of the colony by the mother country of an independent legal status:
    • by imposing unequal, enslaving treaties to local authorities on a protectorate , vassality , “lease” , concession , custody , redemption , other forms of deprivation or limiting the fullness of their sovereignty in the colony in favor of the metropolis,
    • by imposing military force or inspiring the coming to power in a colony of a dependent, puppet regime ,
    • by annexing the territory, forming the metropolis of its colonial administration,
    • by direct control of the colony from the mother country;
  • Immigration to a colony of a significant number of residents from the metropolis, their formation of local authorities, political, economic, cultural elite;
  • The presence of interstate agreements of the mother country with third countries, bargaining on the fate of the colony.
• Often (especially until the last quarter of the 20th century) - infringement of the civil rights of Aboriginal people in comparison with residents of the metropolis, imposition of an alien culture , religion , language , customs, discrimination of local culture, including racial, estate or other segregation , apartheid , deportation from the land, deprivation of livelihood, genocide ;
• In many cases, the desire of the majority of the inhabitants of the colony to change, improve their situation.
  • The presence of a clearly expressed and constant in time separatism ( national liberation movement ) - the desire of Aboriginal people to secession , gaining sovereignty to independently decide their fate ( independence or reunion with a more geographically , ethnically , religiously and / or culturally appropriate country);
  • Measures by the metropolis to violently suppress it;
  • Sometimes - long-term territorial claims to this colony by a more geographically , ethnically , religiously and / or culturally appropriate country.

Early New Time

The prerequisites of colonialism originated in the era of the great geographical discoveries , namely in the 15th century , when the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama opened the way to India, and Columbus reached the shores of America. In a clash with peoples of other cultures, Europeans demonstrated their technological superiority (oceanic sailing ships and firearms). The first colonies were founded in the New World by the Spaniards . The robbery of the states of the American Indians contributed to the development of the European banking system, the growth of financial investments in science and stimulated the development of industry, which, in turn, required new raw materials.

The colonial policy of the period of initial accumulation of capital is characterized by the desire to establish a monopoly in trade with conquered territories, the capture and plunder of entire countries, the use or imposition of predatory feudal and slave-owning forms of exploitation of the local population. This policy has played a huge role in the process of initial accumulation. It led to the concentration in Europe of large capital on the basis of the robbery of the colonies and the slave trade, which especially developed from the 2nd half of the 17th century and served as one of the levers of turning England into the most developed country of that time.

In enslaved countries, colonial policy caused the destruction of productive forces, delayed the economic and political development of these countries, led to the looting of vast areas and the extermination of entire peoples. Military confiscation methods played a major role in the exploitation of the colonies at that time. A striking example of the use of such methods is the policy of the British East India Company in Bengal that it conquered in 1757. The consequence of this policy was the famine of 1769-1773 , the victims of which were 10 million Bengalis. In Ireland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the British government confiscated and transferred to the English colonists almost all the lands belonging to the native Irish.

New time

With the transition from manufactory to large-scale factory industry, significant changes take place in colonial policy. Colonies are more economically connected with the metropolises, turning into their agrarian and raw materials appendages with a monocultural trend in the development of agriculture, into markets for industrial products and sources of raw materials for the growing capitalist industry of the metropolises. So, for example, the export of English cotton fabrics to India from 1814 to 1835 increased by 65 times.

The spread of new methods of exploitation, the need to create special colonial administration bodies that could consolidate dominance over local peoples, as well as the rivalry of various sections of the bourgeoisie in the metropolitan countries, led to the liquidation of monopoly colonial trading companies and the transfer of the occupied countries and territories to the state administration of the metropolises.

The change in the forms and methods of exploitation of the colonies was not accompanied by a decrease in its intensity. Enormous wealth was exported from the colonies. Their use has led to accelerated socio-economic development in Europe and North America. Although the colonialists were interested in the growth of marketability of the peasant economy in the colonies, they often maintained and consolidated feudal and prefeudal relations, considering feudal and tribal nobility in the colonized countries as their social support.

With the beginning of the industrial era, Britain became the largest colonial power. Having defeated France during a long struggle in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, she increased her possessions at her expense, as well as at the expense of the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. Great Britain subjugated India. In the years 1840-1842 and together with France in 1856-1860 she waged the so-called Opium Wars against China, as a result of which she imposed treaties advantageous to China. She took possession of Xiangang ( Hong Kong ), tried to subjugate Afghanistan, captured strongholds in the Persian Gulf, Aden. The colonial monopoly, together with the industrial monopoly, ensured Britain the position of the most powerful state for almost the entire 19th century. Colonial expansion was carried out by other powers. France subjugated Algeria (1830–1848), Vietnam (50–80s of the 19th century), established its protectorate over Cambodia (1863), Laos (1893). In 1885, the Congo became the possession of the Belgian king Leopold II, a system of forced labor was established in the country. At the beginning of the 20th century , the Qing empire announced the “new policy” of the colonization of Tibet and Mongolia.

Colonial domination was administratively expressed either in the form of “ dominion ” (direct control of the colony by means of the Viceroy , Captain-General or Governor-General), or in the form of a “ protectorate ”. The ideological justification of colonialism came through the need for the dissemination of culture (cultural integration, modernization , westernization ) - the "burden of a white man." The Spanish version of colonization implied the expansion of Catholicism, the Spanish language through the encomienda system. The Dutch variant of colonization of South Africa meant apartheid , the expulsion of the local population and its conclusion in a reservation or bantustana. The colonists formed communities completely independent of the local population, which were staffed by people of various classes, including criminals and adventurers. Religious communities ( Puritans of New England and Mormons of the Wild West) were also widespread. The power of the colonial administration was carried out according to the principle of " divide and conquer ", in connection with which it supported local rulers who willingly accepted external signs of power and methods of leadership.

A common occurrence was the organization and support of conflicts among hostile tribes (in colonial Africa ) or local religious communities (Hindus and Muslims in British India), as well as through apartheid . Often, the colonial administration supported the oppressed groups to fight their enemies (oppressed Hutus in Rwanda ) and created armed groups from the natives ( sepoys in India , gurkhas in Nepal , zuaves in Algeria ). All this provoked a response in the form of uprisings, and the years in which it was calm on the African continent were a rarity. So in 1902/03, the Ovimbundu tribe in Angola rebelled against the Portuguese . In 1905, armed opposition began against the German administration in Tanganyika , for six years the uprising against the French in Madagascar lasted, which ended in 1904. Islamists rioted in Tunisia . ^[one]

Decolonization. Neocolonialism

The decisive demolition of the colonial system ( decolonization ) occurred after the Second World War as a result of the beginning of the process of humanization and democratization of society. Decolonization was welcomed by both then superpowers, the USSR (represented by Stalin and Khrushchev ) and the United States ( Eisenhower ).

With great difficulty, India gained national independence, largely thanks to the campaign of passive resistance launched by Gandhi (Indy Satyagraha ) and in 1947, India gained independence, and in 1960 a whole series of African possessions. After the defeat at Dienbyenfu, the French left French Indochina. The once-powerful empire of the Netherlands was relatively calmly transformed.

The countries freed from colonial dependence were called third world countries. In the post-colonial period that began, the developed Western countries economically and politically far exceeded the third world countries. Some of the third world countries still act as sources of raw materials, which allows them to provide a level of well-being of the population comparable to, and in some cases, superior to the level of European countries (United Arab Emirates). The low level of wages makes them reservoirs of cheap labor , which makes it possible for international corporations to minimize their costs by moving their production into them, primarily consumer goods.

Not all consequences of the elimination of the colonial system were positive. Since instead of a mixed administration represented by its own bureaucracy and the bureaucracy of the metropolis with their long-established management policies, weak corrupted third-world regimes came to power that could not achieve fair price ratios in domestic markets, provide control over the return of foreign exchange earnings and increase collection taxes for the development of their own educational and scientific fields. The debt of many developing countries is chronically growing.

The impact exerted by colonial politics on states and their populations can be described as extremely substantial and comprehensive ^[2] . A variety of effects, both instant and remote in time, are numerous; these may include the spread of disease , the establishment of unequal social relations , the exploitation and enslavement of the population, the ethnocide of some non-European ethnic groups, and at the same time, the development of medicine , the formation of new social institutions , abolitionism , improvement of infrastructure and overall technological progress ^{[3] [ 4] [5]} . Colonialism also contributed to the spread of languages ​​and literature, as well as cultural exchange in general.

The Epidemiological Aspect of Colonization

Contacts between the indigenous population and the discoverers of new lands often led to the emergence of new diseases, which in some cases caused local epidemics of an extremely high degree of virulence ^[6] . К примеру, в доколумбовой Америке не было таких заболеваний, как натуральная оспа , корь , малярия и др ^[7] .

Так, болезнь уничтожила все коренное население Канарских островов в XVI веке ; в 1518 году от оспы погибла половина индейского населения Гаити . Натуральная оспа также свирепствовала в Мексике в 1520-х годах, где в одном лишь Теночтитлане умерло 150 тысяч человек, включая императора, и в Перу в 1530-х годах; тем самым заболевание оказало определённую помощь европейским завоевателям. В XVII веке коренное население Мексики пострадало от кори, которая унесла жизни двух миллионов человек; кроме того, в 1618 — 1619 годах эпидемия оспы произошла среди американских индейцев, населявших берега залива Массачусетс , и в итоге смертность там достигла 90 % ^[8] . Вспышки этого заболевания имели место также во второй половине XVIII и первой половине XIX веков среди индейцев Великих равнин , что также привело к существенному сокращению численности населения ^[9] . Некоторые исследователи полагают, что в общей сложности до 95 % населения Америки погибло от болезней, занесённых из Старого Света ^[10] . На протяжении многовекового контакта с возбудителями этих заболеваний европейцы выработали к ним относительную устойчивость, в то время как американское коренное население не имело против указанных заболеваний никакого иммунитета ^[11] .

В ранние годы британской колонизации оспа проникла также и на территорию Австралии , где от неё погибло почти 50 % аборигенов ^[12] . Пострадали от неё и коренные жители Новой Зеландии ^[13] . В 1848 — 1849 годах корь, коклюш и грипп распространились на Гавайских островах , в результате чего умерло порядка 40 тысяч проживавших там человек из 150. Занесённые болезни, главным образом оспа, практически уничтожили население острова Пасхи ^[14] . В 1875 году вспышка кори на островах Фиджи повлекла за собой смерть более чем 40 тысяч человек, примерно одной трети от общей численности населения ^[15] . Кроме того, в XIX веке существенно сократилась численность айнов — в значительной степени из-за инфекционных заболеваний, принесённых японскими переселенцами, которые проникали на остров Хоккайдо ^[16] .

Учёные полагают, что, в свою очередь, из Нового Света в Европу также были перенесены некоторые болезни — к примеру, сифилис . Исследования в этом направлении показали, что соответствующая тропическая бактерия, завезённая возвращавшимися домой европейцами, в новых для себя условиях могла мутировать в более опасную для жизни и здоровья форму ^[17] . В эпоху Возрождения заболевание характеризовалось более высоким уровнем смертности, нежели в наши дни ^[18] . В Бенгалии началась первая пандемия холеры , которая впоследствии, к 1820 году , распространилась по всей Индии ; там от неё погибло 10 тысяч британских солдат и множество индийцев ^[19] . Впоследствии Владимир Хавкин , работавший в Индии в конце XIX века, разработал вакцины от холеры и бубонной чумы .

Борьба с заболеваниями

В 1803 году испанской короной была организована миссия, целью которой была доставка вакцины от натуральной оспы в колонии и обеспечение массового вакцинирования населения ^[20] . К 1832 году федеральное правительство США также запустило программу оспопрививания для коренного индейского населения ^[21] . Аналогичная программа работала и в Индии, под руководством Маунтстюарта Эльфинстона ^[22] . С начала XX века все колониальные державы сосредоточили усилия на уничтожении болезней или установлении контроля над ними в тропических странах ^[23] . Так, например, была остановлена вспышка сонной болезни в Африке — благодаря работе мобильных команд, которые систематически обследовали миллионы людей, подверженных риску заболевания ^[24] . В результате в XX веке произошёл наиболее существенный рост численности мирового населения в истории — главным образом благодаря снижению уровня смертности во многих странах, вызванному прогрессом медицины ^[25] .

• Колониальная война
• Национально-освободительное движение
• Неоколониализм
• Внутренняя колонизация
• Холодная война
• Движение неприсоединения
• Алфавитный список современных зависимых территорий мира

• Вред и польза колониализма. — Журнал «Власть» № 31(735) от 13.08.2007
• А. Б. Давидсон. АНТИРАСИСТСКИЙ РАСИЗМ?
• В.П.Макаренко. РАСПАД ИМПЕРИЙ И ПРОБЛЕМА КОЛОНИАЛИЗМА
• Густерин П. В. Франко-британские противоречия перед созданием Антанты
• Густерин П. Колониальные противоречия перед Первой мировой войной