ABSTRACT
Russia’s foreign trade was made the subject of the same theoretical controversies that characterized the interpretation of all the other branches of her economic life. A modern school of thinkers, to whom the title of “Eurasians” has been given, 1 take exception to Russia engaging to any serious extent in international trade; she was in their view a link, and an almost independent link, between East and West, a “Eurasian” country. Their arguments rest mainly on the facts of Russia’s geographical structure. As has been seen, Russia consists of an immense land mass, with no free access to the sea. Thus, the “Eurasians” point out, such of her produce as was destined for the international market had first of all to bear the expense of long and costly transport by land. Its access to the open sea was subject to the consent of those Powers who controlled such access, and was constantly liable to interruption in case of war. The Straits of the Dardanelles, for instance, were closed to Russian commercial shipping four times in the course of the last seventy years: in 1853–6, during the Crimean War; in 1877–8, during the Russo-Turkish War; in 1912, during the Turko-Italian War; and in 1914, at the beginning of the Great War. On each occasion, a very marked diminution was immediately shown in the statistics for the import and export trade on the Black Sea. The “Eurasians” therefore hold that Russia’s economic structure ought to be based on self-support and internal exchange.
