So I was thinking about the sham referenda in the eastern Ukraine, and history. I’m from California, and the history I’m aware of is that:
Texas and California were part of Mexico.
By the 1830s, there were a lot Americans in both places.
They agitated and formed breakaway republics.
Within a reasonably short term, those breakaway republics were annexed by the very large country of America, and have remained part of the USA ever since.
I accept the premise that times are different and what was okay (in the sense of broadly accepted by world powers) then is not okay now. My question is, controlling for the difference in times, what are the qualitative differences between what we did then and what Russia is doing now?
No referenda in US history, obviously. I know 19th-century treaties were signed, but I gather that was as a result of losing the war rather than a meeting of minds.
As I understand Russian / Ukrainian history, the ethnic difference is largely as a result of whether the people were under the sway of Poland / Lithuania / etc. vs not, rather than Russians coming into eastern Ukraine in large numbers in recent history, but I’m not that clear on why the eastern part of Ukraine is ethnically more Russian and yet part of Ukraine rather than Russia (i.e. why the borders of Ukrainian SSR got drawn as they did).
I’m interested in other parallels with such soft / civilian invasions and subsequent change of territory.
I put this in IMHO because MHO is that it’s a pretty decent parallel and Putin is just working from a very old playbook, but I’m prepared to be schooled.
The ethnicities within the Ukrainian SSR changed significantly while it was the Ukrainian SSR. See the deporation of the Crimean Tatars and the impact on Ukraine of the Holodomor (Whether it was deliberate or not it impacted Ukrainians more than Russians in Russia.) So it would be more like if Texas was forced to join the union while it was still inhabited mostly by Mexicans and Indigenous people, some “Americans” moved there during that time, and after the overwhelming majority of Texas voted for independence from a crumbing US, including the areas with the most Americans, whatever rump US we’ll designate as the equivalent to Russia worked hard to change the desire for independence in those regions.
ETA: And of course a major difference is that the people in Russia and in Ukraine have hundreds of years of history there or in neighboring regions.
Off-hand you could say the difference is that Texas, California and Hawaii (at least the white government of Hawaii after they overthrew the monarchy) wanted to be annexed. Despite what Putin says about the referenda, those areas of Ukraine do not want to be annexed (I don’t know about Crimea).
But that’s my point: it’s clear that a minority in Ukraine, some of whom are governing at least chunks of their regions, also want to be annexed. It’s just that we’re well aware that a large number of ordinary citizens do not want this.
What interests me is whether the minority pushing for the annexation in eastern Ukraine is roughly parallel to the minority pushing for annexation in American history, or not. I can’t imagine that the Bear Flag Republic crew was anything like representative of the people of California, or that anyone considered the native Hawai’ians’ wishes.
AIUI, there might have been a case for the argument that the Soviet boundary between Russia and Ukraine was a bit of a whim (with Crimea being allocated to Ukraine rather than Russia as recently as the 1950s), and that what suited Soviet administrative convenience might not have been a sensible basis for separating into independent countries.
But of course what Putin’s done is to reinforce the sense of Ukrainian national identity that he says doesn’t exist.
The Texas Revolution occurred during a period of time in Mexican history when multiple different Mexican states not just Texas were in open rebellion over Mexico recently changing it’s constitution to a much more repressive one. Texas was the only one to actually succeed in their rebellion though because they defeated the Mexican army in combat and got a nice treaty out of it. It has almost nothing to do with the current Ukraine situation.
Texans voted in favor of the annexation.
California was more conquest than annexation. Similar to Russia taking Crimea
Hawai’i was all sorts of wrong. An insurrection of foreigners that then ask to be annexed over the objections of the natives.
California is probably the best parallel, in that a bunch of Americans settled there, declared independence and were annexed during the Mexican-American war when the Mexicans couldn’t really do anything about it. Hawaii and Texas were internationally recognized sovereign nations before annexation, and both had been so for a good long time beforehand- Hawaii from time immemorial, and Texas for 9 years.
None are awesome parallels, because the Donbas separatists are, as best as I know, being egged on and supplied by Russia, while none of the 3 US states that were annexed were being deliberately encouraged/assisted in their revolts by the United States.
Right. Despite some blogs, Texas Independence had very little to do with slavery. It was a rebellion vs a Totalitarian dictator who abrogated the Constitution. One Mexican state did succeed for a good while.
No. The Californios hated the corrupt Mexican Government. Note there was very little resistance.
Those “foreigners” were, by and large- born in the Island, and in some cases, their parents were born there too. The revolt was caused by Queen Liliʻuokalani abrogating the constitution and proclaiming herself an absolute monarch (and taking away all rights from all the Whites). This wasn’t popular with the natives, either. Not to mention an Independent Hawaii was pretty much impossible, due to the Germans, British and others all wanting to grab it. If the Queen hadn’t gone racist bonkers, Hawaii could have survived as an American Protectorate, but eventually would have joined anyway.
Thanks, all: I hadn’t known anything about the Mexican or Hawai’ian governing systems (thanks, US-centric educational system!).
So it sounds like a major difference is that, for the eastern Ukraine in the 2000s, they didn’t have a legitimate beef with the sovereign government, whereas in TX and HI, they did. I find that a really useful distinction to know about.
My point is that the US went to war and took California by treaty. Very unlike Texas & Hawai’i. That being said, I don’t think they minded being annexed.