Time to Ride the Tide

Written for the High Plains Journal

You do not need to be a very quick study to understand why the movement has taken place to eliminate the teaching of history in our education system. If you become a student of history on your own, you will very quickly learn there is nothing new being done in the quest for power and control. It is also abundantly clear that the epicenter of the power grab always involves control of farming and land. The weapon of choice throughout the course of human history has been food and specifically the restriction of food.

A couple of Hutterite friends stopped by the house last week and we got into a great discussion about the history of religious persecution of the Hutterites dating back to the 1500’s in Germany. I knew they had been kicked around Europe before coming to the United States in 1873, but what I was not clear on were the actions that led to them leaving Russia. That sent me down a path in world history that looks eerily like what we are living through today.

With a massively colorful lifestyle, to say the least, Catherine the Great took over control of Russia and led a coup to overthrow Peter II, her husband. At the age of 33, Catherine began her 30-year tenure as the ruler of Russia in 1762. I will note that I have looked up several different sources to cross reference this issue because, even in the study of history, you still get the rendition of the one who is writing it.

Several things jumped out at me as hitting really close to home today. Catherine’s reign was notable for imperial expansion. First in importance for the empire was securing the northern shore of the Black Sea. The Annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 1783 and the expansion in the region beyond the Urals and along the Caspian Sea were a priority for her and Russia at the time.

The fact that war was always imminent and how it seems to be consistently used to keep serfs and peasants busy working for the cause of the country is obvious. From 1768-1774, Russia claimed victory from the first Russo - Turkish War which saw the Russian border expand into modern day Ukraine and the Black Sea. After the second Russo – Turkish War from 1787-1792, Russia annexed Crimea and the Black Sea. This permitted the adequate protection of Russian agricultural settlements in the south and southeast and the establishment of trade routes through the Black Sea and up the Danube.

Within a generation or two, these became lively cultural centers and major commercial cities for all of southern Russia, contributing to the reorientation of Russia’s pattern of trade with the development of agricultural exports from Ukraine. The interesting thing about this, as I read it, was the massive growth in farming during this period of time was not enjoyed by many but rather just those referred to as the “elites” as they simply resettled their ”serfs.”

The nobles also obtained a monopoly of ownership of inhabited estates, which in fact restricted ownership of agricultural serfs to the noble class. Catherine hoped to stimulate agricultural expansion and modernization by providing easy credit and by disseminating the latest techniques and achievements of Western agriculture through the Free Economic Society.

This resulted in what is known as the Pugachov Peasant Rebellion led by Cossasck Yemelyan Pugachov. Although they captured many towns and cities, they were ultimately defeated by the government armies. But the huge take away from this was that Catherine the Great saw the rebellion and its ability to grow because of what they called “inadequacy of local control” by the federal government and consequently forced reform of the provincial administrations.

What I take from this is that control of the land by the elites has always been fueled by government selecting winners and losers. The peasants of yesterday are the working class of today. The massive handouts by this government in the form of subsidies are, without question, creating the division among us. My final thought is that all the corruption that is surfacing today around eminent domain and property rights simply goes back to control of land, fuel and trade around the world.

A new wave of control is rolling in hard and high and “we the surfs” must work with our communities to ride the tide.