War and Revolution in Asiatic Russia
where live simple and hungry nomads. Between these two elements political fusion has been impossible. The oasis regions on the other hand have created the most cultured types of humanity, ever absorbing the raw nomads from the mountain and desert. All of these human types have played their part in the history of the Eastern Question to a greater or a less extent. Their countries have become bones of contention between the Western Powers, competing for political and economic influence there. For with the development of capitalism and industrialism in the last century, the raw material wealth of these regions has become valuable. It is possible, therefore, to interpret the political controversies that have affected this southern gateway between Europe and Asia, as a struggle of outside influences for the possession of trade routes and spheres of influence.
The material instincts of man, which have always urged him to increase the products of nature to his advantage, have led him from earliest times to look beyond his own valley, and to exchange what he has for something belonging to his neighbour. The exchange, if it took place voluntarily, became trade; if involuntarily, and under the influence of superior force, imperial exploitation. In early times, when man's power over nature was not yet strengthened by science, the relations between peoples generally took the form of exchange of raw materials. The temperate regions of Europe and the sub-arctic Russian plain produced hides, tallows and furs, which were readily exchanged for the sub-tropical products of the Levant, the Persian and Mesopotamian oases. Thus there sprang up across the southern gateway a
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