Siberia and the Exile System - Kennan, George

. .

Résumé :
George Kennan was an American journalist and adventurer, who traveled to Siberia in the late 1800s to investigate how Russian criminals and dissidents were punished with exile to remote lands. By the time Kennan traversed the Siberian countryside, villages and towns, Russia's exile system had existed for several decades. His researches demonstrate how common the use of exile as punishment was in Russia; some were exiled due to serious crimes, while others were sent to Siberia for petty offences, or for expressing political opinions. Various intellectuals and creatively talented persons such as the author Dostoyevsky and the philosopher Pyotr Kropotkin spent time in Siberian exile. The remote country of Siberia is depicted as both beautiful and merciless; many convicts suffered immensely in dreadful conditions, struggling with hunger and cold. The climate was frequently harsh and residences commonly squalid or even ramshackle. Despite the often dire circumstances, a culture arose among the exiles; many - especially the politically inclined - were educated and cultured, and would hold impromptu debates upon various subjects. Kennan also examines the native populations such as the Cossacks in great detail, alongside settlements such as Omsk, Tomsk and Pavlodar.

Biographie:
George Frost Kennan was an American diplomat and historian who lived from February 16, 1904, to March 17, 2005. During the Cold War, he gained most notoriety as a supporter of the containment of Soviet expansion. In addition to writing academic histories of USSR-US ties, he gave several lectures. In addition, he belonged to the group of wise men in foreign policy known as The Wise Men. His writings in the late 1940s served as the impetus for the US foreign strategy of limiting the USSR and the Truman Doctrine. His 1946 Long Telegram from Moscow and the paper The Sources of Soviet Conduct that followed made the case that the Soviet system was inevitably expansionist and that its influence needed to be contained in areas that were crucially important to US strategy. The new anti-Soviet strategy of the Truman administration was justified by these writings. Kennan was instrumental in the creation of key Cold War initiatives and organizations, most notably the Marshall Plan. Kennan started to critique the foreign policies that he had assisted in articulating not long after his ideas had become U.S. policy. Kennan started to feel optimistic about the US starting constructive talks with the Soviet leadership by the end of 1948.