Studying Russian and Soviet History. INSTITUTION Social Science Education Consortium, Inc., Boulder, Colo

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AUTHOR Ascher, Abraham, Ed. TITLE Studying Russian and Soviet History. INSTITUTION Social Science Education Consortium, Inc., Boulder, Colo. SPONS AGENCY National Endowment for the Humanities (NFAH), Washington, D.C. REPORT NO ISBN-0-89994-317-9 PUB DATE 87 NOTE 120p.; Originally presented at summer institutes for teachers. AVAILABLE FROMSocial Science Education Consortium, Inc., 855 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80302. PUB TYPE GuiCes Classroom Use - Guides (For Teachers) (052) Historical Materials (060)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC05 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Area Studies; *Foreign Countries; *History; *History Instruction; Secondary Education; Social Studies; World History IDENTIFIERS Historical Background; Historical Bibliography; Russia; Russian History; *Russian Studies; *Soviet Studies; USSR

ABSTRACT These essays were written to assist teachers in the task of making Russian history intelligible to young U.S. students. In "An Approach to Russian History," Edward Keenan proposes that students need to gain a better understanding of how Russians perceive themselves and their history. In "Pre-Petrine Russia," Andrzej S. Kaminski focuses on the origins of the state, problems of the steppe, autocracy, structure of society, church, and the multinational character of the sl.ate. Marc Raeff describes developments during the 18th century in "Russia From 1689 to 1825/55." Richard Wortman discusses how the political social, and cultural settings defined the way in which ideas were understood and used in "Russian Intellectual History to 1917: An Introduction." Abraham Ascher delineates the fundamental economic, political, and social changes that took place in "Revolutionary Russia, 1861-1921." Robert C. Tucker's aim is to put the Soviet Union's history into a Russian perspective in the essay, "Soviet Russia under Lenin and Stalin: 1921-1953." Vojtech Mastny discusses "The Soviet Union since 1953." The scholars also include bibliographic essays to help teachers locate materials that are usable in teaching Russian history. An eight-page index is provided. (SM)

*********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** STUDYING RIEMAN 63 S VIET HET Rilf ,. p- Abraham Ascher, Editor (N.._ U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement Q` jEOUC RONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION N CENTER (ERIC) his document has ceen reproduced as received from the person or organization O phginating .1 C.' Minor changes have been made to improve W reoroduclion Quality

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b, TO THE EL UCATIONAL RESOURCES N INFORMAT ON CENTER (ERIC) Social Science Education Consortium Boulder, Colorado 1987 2 STUDYING RUSSIAN AND SOVIET HISTORY

Abraham Ascher, Editor

Social Science Education Consortium Boulder, Colorado 1987 ORDERING INFORMATION

This publication is available from.

Social Science Education Consortium, Inc 855Broadway Boulder, Colorado80302

ISBN0-89994-317-9

This publication was prepared with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of NEH. CONTENTS

Foreword, by James R Giese iv

Preface, by Abraham Ascher v

An Approach to Russian History. by Edward Keenan 1

PART 1: ESSAYS ON THEMES IN RUSSIAN AND SOVIET HISTORY

Pre-Petrine Russia. by Andrzej S Kaminski 11 Russia from 1689 to 1825/55. by Marc Raeff 21

Russian Intellectual History to 1917 An Introduction, by Richard Wortman . 33 Revolutionary Russia, 1861-1921, by Abraham Ascher 45

Soviet Russia Under Lenin and Stalin 1921-1953, by Robert C Tucker . 57 The Soviet Union Since 1953, b, Vo 'tech Mastny 67

PART 2: BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAYS

Pre-Petrine Russia, by Andrzej S Kaminski . 79 Russia from 1689 to 1825/55, by Marc Raeff 87 Russian Intellectual History. 1825 -1917' A Bibliographic Introduction,

by Richard Wortman . . . . 93 The Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, by Abraham Ascher 97 Soviet Russia's History Under Lenin and Stalin, 1921 -1953' Sources and Issu9s.

by Robert C Tucker . 103 The Soviet Union from 1953 to the Present, by Voltech Mastny 109

Index 115 FOREWORD

As the co-director of three summer institutes sponsored by the National Endowmentfor the Humanities, I have witnessed firsthand the great impact these institutes have on participants, for manyteachers, the institutes are one of the best professional experiences of their lives But the institutes aresmall in number and typically reach only a few practitioners each year. I have long believed that one way ofwidening the circle of teachers affected by the institutes is through publication of materials prepared for andduring the institutes both by scholars and by teachers

The SSEC's first effort in this area was publication of two volumes of teaching activitiesdeveloped by participants in our own summer institutes on the early national period of U S historyI am delighted that we are now able to extend our efforts by publishing this collectionof materials developed by scholars for a series of conferences on Russian and Soviet history. I am particularly pleased that the volumeaddresses an area of high interest to world history teachers but one in whichfew have extensive training

The task facing world history teachers is not an enviable one They not only must be knowledgeable about events across the sweep of history, but also must be skilled in helping young peoplebring meaning to this vast array of materialIf this publication can inform and facilitate their work, it has achieved an important objective James R Giese, Executive Director Social Science Education Consortium

iv 6 PREFACE

The prigins of this book can be traced to a conversation I had early in the fall of 1983 with Dr Richard Ekman, then Director of the Division of Education Programs at the National Endowment for the Humanities. We were discussing the various reports on the decline of the teaching and study of the humanities in our secondary schools We were especially distressed to note that in many schools history was no longer taught as a separate subject Furthermore, in other schools the emphasis was on broad concepts, methodological questions, and current events rather than on the evolution of human societies. As a consequence, many high school graduates have only the vaguest notion of major developments in the past that have decisively shaped our contemporary world.

It seemed to us that although there were several reasons for this state of affairs, two of the more important were the inadequate training of teachers and the lack of opportunity for teachers to take part in programs of intellectual renewal We decided to consider ways to help restore the study of history in secondary schools' promised to survey the situation in my own field, Russian and Soviet history, and to make some recommendations

I discovered that slightly over 50 percent of our high schools still offer courses in world history and that many other schools offer social studies courses in which some attention is paid to modern Russia and the Soviet Union. It also became evident, however, that these subjects are too frequently taught by members of social studies departments whose training in the discipline of history is exceedingly modest. In several states, among them New York, Indiana, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Oregon, virtually no training in history was demanded as a qualification for a teaching position in social studies at the secondary school level. In about one-third of the states, prospective teachers of history were expected to have taken four to six three-hour history courses in college Fewer than one-sixth of the states required a minimum of seven three-credit courses in history.

I also discovered that textbooks in world history tend to be brief and superficial in their coverage of Rus- sia Generally, the best that one can hope for is an accurate account of events, without any attempt to analyze trends or to offer the reader an understanding of the nature of Russian and Soviet societies. One of the better books in this genre devotes three pages to the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, one of the most critical events of the 20th century. The years from 1924 to the late 1930s, when the Soviet Union underwent major social and political transformations, are covered in about five pages. In another widely used textbook in world history, developments in Russia from the 16th century to 1914 are dealt with in 13 pages.

Such brevity may be inevitable in textbooks and might not be troublesome if teachers could be counted upon to add depth to the discussion of significant events in the classroom. But teachers cannot be expected to have read widely in all areas of a field as vast as world history. Very few teachers have ever taken a course in Russian and Soviet history. Consequently, even if teachers have learned the basic facts about the history of Russia, they rarely have a sophisticated understanding of the traditions and institutions of that country No wonder that classroom discussions of such critical and exciting events as the Revolution of 1917 and the evolution of Soviet society often strike students as dry and uninteresting. Only a teacher who has studied the history of Russia in some depth and is familiar with the major historiographical controversies surrounding the revolution and subsequent Soviet history can _01-Ivey to students the drama and significance of that country's past.

After further extensive discussions with Dr. Ekman, I developed a project for high school teachers that we both recognized would be a bit risky We would invite carefully selected teachers to three-day conferences at which ellablished scholars would conduct intensive seminars on six major areas of Russian and Soviet history We knew, of course, that such a conference would not transform teachers into experts if; Rus- sian history, but we believed that we could achieve several goals. For one thing, we hoped to make them aware of the need to devote more attention to the rigorous study of history. More specifically, we wanted to impart to teachers at least a general sense of the state of scholarship on a very important area of the world and to familiarize them with the most crucial trends in Russian and Soviet history. An essential premise un- derlying our enterprise was the importance of analyzing trends in Russia within the larger context of Western and world history Teachers, we realized, teach very broad courses, it is therefore vital for them to understand differ- raditions and to be able to integrate historical material on countries such as Rus;;:l into the standard hit. ,chool offerings

V If teachers are to raise interesting and thoughtful questions about a history as complex as that of Russia, they must also have a solid grounding in chronology and facts Consequently, another aim of the project was to direct participants to secondary works and primary sources, to whichthey might turn for further information and which they might wish to assign to their students as supplementary reading.

Each of the teachers participating in the conference was sent a package containing an essay on each of the six periods, written especially for the conference by the seminar leaders The essays discussed themajor themes that would be taken up in the seminars and surveyed the most important historical works on those themes The teachers were also expected to do some assigned readings on every period

Professor Edward L Keenan of Harvard University presented a general approach to Russian history, which set the stage for the discussions of more specific issues The six scholars who conducted the seminars were available throughout the three-day conference for meetings with small groupsof teachers who might pose specific questions or wish to pursue one particular subject at greater length At these meetings participants also discussed the most effective ways to present the material covered in the seminars to high school students.

The schedule of activities was extraordinarily demanding For three days, teachers who were accustomed to occupying positions of authority in discussions of academic subjects were themselves once again "students"for seven to eight hours a day. We were concerned as to whether they might be uncomfortable In their roles, whether they would consider the lectures too scholarly, or would dismiss as unrealistic our effort to cover the entire sweep of Russian history in three days. Much to our delight, the teachers were en- thusiastic participants in the seminars, and their interest in the discussions never flagged. Virtually all of them indicated that they had gained a deeper understanding of Russian and Soviet history and that their teaching of the subject would be greatly enhanced Not only did they raise interesting questions during the seminars, they also made a point of seeking out seminar leaders during lunch and dinner to continue the discussions of substantive issues. It was the teachers who urged us to publish the talks as a book that would bemade available at low cost to themselves and to teachers who could not attend the conference.

I should like to thank everyone who contributed to the success of these conferences Dr Ekman gave us excellent advice, without which the project could not have been brought to fruition His staff In the Division of Education Programsin particular Mr. John Halegave us all the support we could hope for. The National Endowment for the Humanities provided the financial support that enabled us to bring 180 teachers to conference sites in New York, New Orleans, and Chicago. Much of the administrative work was ably handled by my assistant, Mr Robert Kostrzewa, a doctoral student in history at theGraduate School of the City Univer- sity of New York. Mr. Kostrzewa also prepared the index for this volume.

Finally,I want to thank the six scholars who took time off from their busy schedules to take part in a project about which they, too, had some initial reservations. These scholars were.

Andrzej Kaminski, Professor of History Marc Raeff, Professor of History Georgetown University Columbia University

Edward L Keenan, Professor of History Robert Tucker, Professor Emeritus of Politics Harvard University Columbia University

Vojtech Mastny. Professor of International Relations Richard Wortman, Professor of History Boston University Princeton University

These six scholars all acknowledged the worthiness of the project, but they wondered as I did whether much could be accomplished in a three-day conference At the end of each conference, we were all pleasantly surprised by the excitement and enthusiasm of the participantsIt was the recognition that the seminars had been intellectually stimulating ancl effective beyond all expectation that encouraged us to prepare the seminar presentations for publication We hope that the book will prove tobe helpful to secondary school teachers of history who did not themselves attend any of the seminars and that ourendeavor will lead to further cooperation between university scholars and high school teachers

Abraham Ascher Graduate School, City University of New York

8 vi AN APPROACH TO RUSSIAN HISTORY by Edward Keenan

The primary goal of the present collaboration is like those being formed in American classrooms to assist teachers in the daunting task of making today, despite the changes in our lives In the inter- Russian historyand today's Russia intelligible to vening decadesI think I may have been typical of young Americans in the context of what they know. young Americans in that somewhere I acquired the and must learn, about their own and other, more generally optimistic expectations about humans familiar, societies. As my own contribution to that and the orderly society that we seem to have common enterprise, and as a form of introduction retainedlonger thanotherinhabitantsofour to the excellent essays of my colleagues, I have un- planetfrom the Enlightenment century in which dertaken to set forth below a few prosaic but often- our republic was formed. And like many others, I overlooked notions concerning the difficulties that had some wise teachers, who transmitted echoes Americans typically encounter in their attempts to of early 20th-century social thought, imparted a make sense of how Russians behave and of how belief in the methods of the social and behavioral Russians think about themselvesin particular, sciences, and stimulated interest and confidence in about their history. the search for patterns in human culture. Although The natureofourundertaking which can ours was a "churchy" town, a kind of relaxed aspire to be no more than the beginning of a long secularism extended right up to the doors of the intellectual journey of discoveryleads one to a churches (and into some of them), and point of departure that scholars rarely acknow- metaphysics and transcendent abstraction were ledge openly: that rich source of authoritative wis- wisely restricted to those antemeridianal Sunday dom andattractivehypotheses,autobiography. hours when spiritousdrink was notforsale. What, I have asked myself, did I know about Moreover, we all learned that, behind the doors of humans and society when Ibegan the study of all of those churches but one, people whom we Russia? What would I have liked to have had knew as otherwise perfectly rational said and did presented to me in my first introduction to the sub- some pretty strange things. ject? What would have been most accessible, most These banal reminiscences, in short, lead me to interesting, most useful in what has turned out to conclude that, by the fateful day of my first en- be a lifetime of engagement with the subject? counter with the more-or-less systematic study of Russian culture, I Readers will perhaps be relieved to learn that I had been equipped with some find my recollections about my early acquaintance rather typical American notions, very much like with Russian history dim and untrustworthy. Nor those thatI suspect to be present, mutatis mutan- can Ireally identify any formative experience or cir- dis, even today in young people: namely, with the cumstance that might have drawn me to this busi- innateor learnedconviction that humans are na- ness in the first place. My home town, which con- tively benign to themselves and to others; that sisted of 1144 souls in the year (1940) in which I humans make sense; that society in its natural condition is stable and orderly; that one can design entered kindergarten, and where I stayed in the same school for 13 years, was not the place to methods and terms with which to demonstrate and learn very much about distant lands and exotic cul- to express its regularities; that secular and "ration- tures, although I do remember a good unit on the al" ideas are the only thought-systems one can history of Erie County. My first remembered con- decently urge upon others; and that even the great tact with Russian history, then, took place in Har- variety of individuals, and the diversity of human vard College, in the course that I now teach, which ideas, do not speak against these general proposi- was then an even more conventional introductory tions of social order and human rationality. undergraduate course thanitis now, and about It Is not difficult to imagine the magn!tude of the which I think little can usefully be said for our Intellectual handicap that was imposed t y my typi- present purpose. cally American embrace of these happ; convic- Having cast my mind back over the decades tions. and found what appeared to be a tabula rasa, I Unless I am quite wrong about my young com- was moved to reject that finding, and to try to patriots, however, they approach Russian history remember what in fact had occupied that seeming- with something like the same cultural baggage. ly blank space. For I had been formed in a very They have no little consternation ahead, as Idid, typical American small town, and I had had some not least because Russians themselves typically devoted and thoughtful teachers, and I suspected (please note that "typically";itwill recur) do not that many of the predispositions with which Idid believe any of these comforting generalizations eventually approach Russian history were not un- nearly as firmly as we do, because the record of

9 Russia's history seems so often to provide justifica- Itshouldfirstbe mentionedthathistorya tion for their view, and because the culture of Rus- sense of history, of historicity, of their own history sian history, as practiced by both Russians and appears to be more important. somehow, to Rus- Americans, has a predilection for the contempla- sians than it is to many of their European cousins, tionof dysfunction. disorder, and morbidity(in and certainly to us There are many reasons for which the historical record is decidedly rich), an ob- this importance of historical self-image to the Rus- session with what Russians have said about them- sian sense of identity, and we can hardly mention selves- in and out of church-rather than what them all. Some part of Russians' sensitivity to his- they have done, and an unarticulated conviction torical modes of thought derives, certainly, from that history is somehow to blame for the lament- the fact that "history," by which here I mean events able condition in which Russians so often seem to themselves, seems to have played a rather large find themselves. number of bad tricks on the Russians (as it did on the similarly history-conscious ancient Hebrews) I put it to you. however, that the notions I have or so Russians believe characterized above as "American"naive and Pol- lyannish as they can be in their most extreme and A second factor that has somehow sensitized unexamined formcan in fact be helpful in dealing Russians to historical modes of explanation and with Russia's history Moreover. if indeed our stu self explanation may be the fact that the actor who dents have inherited these "American" notions, is so important in traditional histories- the national eing that they do not abandon them in the face leader,the monarch-seems so often, through of the traditional pathologies of Russian historical some mysteriously titanic force of will,to have thinking is as much a part of our task as is impart- wrenched Russia's history out of shape. This is ing knowledge of any particular facts or analytical how Russians think about Ivan the Terrible; about devices. We can bring students to the realization Peter the Great, the first modern national leader; that Russian history makes senseintheir own and about Stalin, the last traditional leader of an in- terms: a sobering sense, but sense nonetheless dustrialized state. That Russian history make sense is extraordinari- A third, little-noted factor (and one about which I ly important to Americans. Proceeding from our should say I have somewhat idiosyncratic views) Is hopeful notion that humans make sense and our that at the dawn of modern times and the begin- belief that nations are generally similar, students ning of their continuous national development, Rus- soon encounter arresting differences between them- siansby which I mean Muscovites of roughly the selves and Russians, being acculturated to look to 16th century- were a new nation, without much formative influenceschildhood experiences,so- sense of any history, including their own. They cial circumstances, historical national experience were challenged, by Reformation Europe, to come for both an explanation of the origins of the dif- up with one This they eventually did well enough ferences and a source of understanding of their es- no less well than many of their European neigh- sence, they turn to Russia's history. bors and rather better than, say, the Irish- but it was some time before they began to believe it was The problem lies in the fact that much of Rus- sian history- the teaching and writing of Russian really their own. historydoesn't make sense At least, itis difficult Now this last point really combines two separate for ow students to make sense ofitasitis matters. (1) the arguable but by no means general- presented. The fault,I hasten to add, is not entirely ly-accepted notion that Muscovites-"real" Rus- that of those of us who teach it. The problem is sians, sometimes infelicitously called "Great Rus- complex, and its roots are deep- in Russia's his- sians"- were in significant ways a new nation in tory and in the history of Russia's history. Renaissance times, and (2) the indisputable fact, as I see it. that the challenge of confrontationwith Much could be said, even to younger people, a very history-conscious Europe was the genera- about various kinds and theories of history, about tive moment of specifically Muscovite historical con- the uses and abuses of history, and the likeFor sciousness andlaid.upon it anineradicable our present purposes, however,I need only men- birthmark tion a few very general problems in the Russian historiographic tradition and in Western traditions of From thebeginningitwas Europeans who dealing with Russian history. Some of these will be brought modern scholarly history to the Russians:

familiar and Ifear, obvious, others will perhaps be tirst the Poles by translating late Renaissance com- unexpected. They should be mentioned together, pilations and humanistic world histories, later the the obvious and the arcane. the Russian and the French, English, and Germans It was Europeans Western, because they interact and feed upon one here primarily itinerant English and Dutch in the another 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries- who brought and generated vernacularhistoricalstereos -pes

2 1() and historical questions about the Russians them looked Persian, just as in Peter's time they looked selves. French or Dutch These early visitors quite naturally Studying the history of these stereotypes and assumed that the man makes the clothes, when questions is entertaining and even useful, as is such was not the case speculating upon how things might have been dif- Now I am not trying to say that Russia is not ferentfor Russians hadtheircontactwith cold, or that her position at the fringe of the great Westerners proceeded in some other fashion Let Central Asian culture zone had no effect upon her me give two examples of such stereotypes- very cultural development. What I am saying is that our familiar ones Russia as the land of ice and snow perceptions of Muscovy, which derive from these and Russia as a somehow "oriental" state. times, have their history. The historical questions Among theearliestWesterntravelerswere that we ask of Russians, and that Russians ask of Italians, who from early times, particularly in the themselves, have their history too, much of which 15th century, conducted a very lucrative trade in derives from this same periodPrincipal among the Black Sea area, including occasional sorties to these questionsthe question of questionsis that Moscow. (Indeed Italiansbuilt the most familiar of Russia and Europe, or, as Henry Higgins would parts of the Kremlin; if properly restored, it would put it, "Why can't a Russian be more like...me?" look very much likeafortified Northern Italian Europeans provided answers, too- characteristical- town.) The surviving accounts oftheseItalian ly European and post-Reformation answers: Rus- visitors are striking in that these two stereotypes sians are not like us because they are Orthodox are hardly mentioned. To be sure, the Italians felt and not Protestant or Catholic, because they have the cold in Moscow However, since they began had no Renaissance and no Reformation, because their journey late in summer in the Crimea, moved they are,well,...oriental. The classic formulation through the lush autumnal Ukrainian steppe to Mos- was crafted, it seems, in the witty French 18th-cen- cow, and on the return trip traveled through the tirry aphorism- "Scratch a Russian, and you will dramatic prairie spring, they were not overly im find a Tartar." pressed with the ice and snow. Moscow had a Now it matters little that, as I would be willing to cold winter, rather like the Tyrol argue, none of these generalizations about Mus- Nor did the Italianvisitors conceive of Mus- covy can be accepted without important qualifica- covites as "oriental," since, having dealt during cen- tions; what matters for our present purposes is that turies in the Levant trade with Mamlukes, Tatars, Russians, imitating Europeans In this as in so many Turks, and Persians, they immediately perceived other things. accepted these questions and even the differences between Muscovites and their east- many of these answers. They imitated European ernneighbors. They werenotparticularlyim- historical reasoning for the same reason that they pressed by any similarities. imitated wigs and portrait painting and ballet: because their own was, or seemed to them to be, As it happened, however, the accounts of these somehow deficient In particular they acquired, and well-informed and sober Italians did not shape developed, an obsession with the juxtaposition of Europeans' images of Muscovy and-ultimately- native and foreign culture that has distorted their Russians' conceptions of themselves. For it was perception of both. later travelers from a different quarter-the English and Dutch-whose 16th-century accounts, borne Of course theyresisted.too-justasthey upon the wave of wide use of European ver- resisted and eventually threw off many foreign naculars and the printing press, most deeply im- fashions. (My favorite example of this resistance is pressed the European imagination and particularly the riposte to the quip about scratching a Russian. that of English-speakers like ourselves As it hap- "Scratch a Frenchman and you will find...nothing.") pened, these English and Dutch voyagers came to Russians developed, primarily in the 19th cen- Russiabythemostnortherlyofallpossible tury,more complex forms ofrejectionof the routes-around t;-.9 North Cape in Norway, by sea European treatment of history, some of which are into the region of Murnbsraskand then in winter, very much with us today and can be as pernicious when the traveling was besr along frozen rivers, and unhelpful as our own stereotypes. Like other south to Moscow Ice and ccld they certainly en nations and groups in comparable circumstances, countered, neither they nor the rest of Europe ever they developed the elusive and unhelpful notion of forgot it. "soul" -the "Russian soul," the qualities of which Moreover. these travelers came to Moscow at a could riot be fully understood by foreigners and timethe late 16th and 17th centuries- when the whose mysteries are invoked to explain all manner Muscovite court was avidly emulating the styles of of historical and cultural differences between Rus- the great Persian court of Saffavid Isfahan. with sians and other. presumably soulless, folk Indeed, whichithad active trade relationsMuscovites they /vent so far ac to proclaim, in the words of

!1 3 one poet, that "Russia is not to be understood by of their historical identity is a different matter, and the mind," a phrase at least one of whose mean- should be considered alongside the ideas that 18th- ingsisthat Russia anditshistory cannot be century English and Americans had aboutthem- studiedby thepositivistic,secular,"scientific" selves as the heirs to various parts of the legacy of methods of Western historiographyThisisof Rome course nonsense that even Russian historians, in I leave open the unanswerable questir 3 of thc, their more sober moments, reject extent to which Muscovites were more or less These, then, are some of the impediments that pious than, say, the Englishbut in any case that confront us as we move with our students from our is a subject in which our students. alas, may have native conviction that Russians, like the rest of us. little interest make sense, toward some more articulated under- As afinaldelimitationofour undertaking. I standing of how and why they make sense the ob- propose that one can without detriment allocate session with historiosophic explanations: the preoc- very limited attention to the Mongol period and the cupation with Europe and with the Henry Higgins so- called "Tartar influence",itis tine, of course, question:historicalstereotypes: the lure ofthe that some critical features of Muscovite statecraft suspension of reason and military arts -- features far more important to But we cannot make tio with negations how are Muscovy's greatpolitical success than was Or- we to go about introducing young people to the thodoxy seem to have been borrowed from the historical experience of Russians so as to bring it equally impressive Tatar practices As in the case close enough to the realm of their reason and oftheByzantinecultural"package,"however, familiar understandings to be accessible to their these forms and practices were appropriated for own ways of making sense of things? specificandlimitedpurposes byatinyand hereditary professional elitebureaucrats and war- We can begin,I suggest, with some definitions and had little influence upon the and methodological explanations. As Isuggested riors in this case culture of the great mass of Russians. above, we should define Russia as specifically that Russian, Muscovite state and society that arose in What we should concentrate upon. I believe are the northeast part of the East Slavic territory, rather thefundamental formativeexperiencesofthis late in the recorded history of the East Slays and in modern Muscovite/Russiannation,itsmost sui rela'ave Isolation from the previous experience of generis native social structures, and the charac- other East Slays. This society becomes recognizab- teristic patterns of mind that were shape,. by these ly Russian from roughly the beginning of the 16th experiences and structures We should veat these century, much as our Anglo-American cultureis distinctive features comparatively, with generous recognizable to us from roughly Elizabethan times help from modern social-science and behavior- The preceding Kievan experience is,I believe, suffi- science methodology, which has become so impor- ciently different in essential features as to require tant to historians in the past few decades but has differentmodesofstudyandunderstanding. not yet enjoyed the popularity among historians of Moreover, the Kievan experience is only indirectly Russia that it merits relevant to later Muscovite historycomparable, What are these fundamental formative experien- perhaps. to the role of the Carolingian or Norman ces, thesesui generisnativesocial structures, experiences in the shaping of French and English these characteristic patterns of mind? Here Ishall nations. (I realize that this assertion is incompatible indulge in a few speculations of the type that my with the organization of this volume and I mean in teacher. Roman Jakobson, used to call "working no way to detract from readers' appreciation of the hypotheses," a term he applied to notions about fine essay prepared by my colleague Professor which he had already made up his mind and was Kaminskibut such is my view.) to spend the rest of his life defending. Similarly and more outrageously Ithink that First and foremostutterly essential in my view one can. as a practical matter, dispense with ex- among the formative experiences is the millennial tended discussionofRussia'salleged debt to experience of Russians ;n the cultural patterns of Byzantium Such a statement cannot avoid offend- communal subsistence agricultureThis environ- ing some and shockingothers. and I cannot ment, in my view, is the womb of Russian culture, defend ithere. But I consider entirely defensible and it was the context of Russiao life for nine- the proposition that a study of Byzantium and Or- tenths of all Russians until this century We must thodoxy is even less relevant to an understanding impress upon students the importance of the al- of Muscovy than, for example, knowledge of Classi- most indelible impressions left by this experience calor Early Christian Rome isto Elizabethan and tho virtues of considering the ways in which it England That Russians in later centuries thought shaped almost all spheres of Russian life We must their Orthodox tradition to be an important aspect get them to visualize and understand the achieve-

4 !2 ment of East Slays as they spread through the destructible structures of peasant life, much to the primeval northern forest, fighting the harsh condi- consternation of improving landlords and impatient tions of a territory almost all of which lay north of bureaucrats. One can learn a lot about these struc- the southern tip of Hudson's Pay, prospering and tures from books suchasthatoftherural multiplying with a demographic dynamism that sociologist Teodor Shanin, and we should en- swamped the aboriginal Baits and Finns, develop- courage students to consider them thoroughly. ing and perfecting land-extensive and cultivation Most Russians, of course, do not today live in techniques that made colonization one of the main agricultural households or village communes, but forces of their history. most observers agree that the groups that have There are proulems and traps here, which I replaced them -the so-called collective at work- should mention precisely because Ithink this mat- places of all kinds and in residential communes- ter so importantFirst, of course, is the fact that exercise many of the same functions, practically our students barely know that milk comes from and psychologically. Russians seem to feel and cows and certainly do not know when to turn hay function better, for the most part, within groups But we can be assisted by good new work, espe- more structured groups than we are familiar with, cially that of Robert Smith (Farming di Muscovy and groups with more significant powers over the and The Origins of Farming in Russia), which I individual -than we do. recommend to teachers, although it may be a bit In my own view, which I cannot elaborate here, dense for students. this characteristic relationship derives from A second problem isthe tendency of such profound convictions about the nature of the in- ecological approaches to slide into the ways of the dividual, which in turn are the product of a millen- 19th-century climatological explanations of history, nium of subsistence agriculture in a very harsh and or,forthatmatter,ofthe"iceand snow" unforgiving environmen'; typically, Russians have stereotype. To avoid these, we must adopt the less confidence in human nature and initsin- complex and interdisciplinary methods applied, for dividualarticulationsthan we do.Theyhave example,byBraude!,studyingsimultaneously learnedthattheindividualisvulnerableand agricultural methods, social adaptation, simple tech- fragile- a single person simply cannot survive for nologies, and interactions with outside forces We many seasons in that forest. Under the stressful must also stress the close interactions of group be- and demanding conditions of the long winter and havior with the inflexible demands of survival. If we short but frantic summer, the individual may fail to can bring our students to understand the matrix of take care of him/herself; this failure to accomplish East Slavic subsistence agricultureinallofits the necessary tasks of survival, whether through ill- manifestations, we she have brought them close ness or selfishness or laziness or drunkenness, is to seeing how Russians make sense. dangerous not only to that individual but to the The explanations that come from an under- group, which depends upon the labor Inputs of standing of these matters are sometimes striking: every member, just as it does upon every piece of let me give an inconsequential, but typical, ex- hay, every stick of firewood, and every little hump- ample: many of you inay have read the Russian backed horse. story Konek-gorbunok, "The Little Hump-backed Russians are typically less confident than we are Horse." Others who have traveled to Russia may that individuals, left to their own devices, can avoid have purchased the littleclay horses made in hurting themselves and damaging the prospects of

Fame villages on a traditional model-oddly long- the community. This pessimism, I believe, derives legged, short in the spine, and so thick in the neck from theformativeexperienceofsubsistence as to appear hump-backed But few know that the agriculture but seems to have been reinforced in nativeor adaptive -Russian horse was small and the turbulent events of recent generations. This pes- hump-backed becauseovercenturiesRussian simism is easy to demonstrate in any number of farmers, who brought theirlivestockintotheir cultural patterns and social practices. One could houses for the long cold winter and had to cut hay put it another way: Russians strike the balance of for an average of 120 days of snow cover, bred for good and evil in humans at a slightly more pes- smallness. They created thatlittle hump-backed simistic point than do Americans; they are skepti- horse,just as French and Belgian farmers,for cal about taking gambles on humans' moral virtue, other reasons, created their massive draft animals although they are rather more confused about how Russian farmers created other things as well such is to be measured. the sui generis social organizations of which I have Given this lower expectation. Russians are more spoken. These -the household, the village com- confident when the potentially harmful impulses of mune- are better known because they persisted the individualare curbed by group sanctions. into the 20th century as the resilient and almost in- which, though intrusivein some circumstances,

5 13 have been justified by a thousand years of survival types of 16th-century French noblemen that for against great odds, a thousand years of success in Margeret the total absence of dueling among a their conspiracy against the forces of naturea na- classofhonor-consciouschevaliersseemed ture that Russians see not as benign, but as hostile downright nasty Even more sordid, for Margeret, and dangerous, primarily becauseitisuncon- was the fact that when foreign mercenaries, with trollable and unpredictable. With some justification, whom Muscovy was teeming at this time, fell to they have come to see survival itself as the result dueling among themselves, they were punished of a successful group conspiracy against that hos- under Muscovite law for murder or attempted mur- tile environment. derwithout regard, as Margeret doesn't fail to point out, for the details of who challenged whom Muscovites, especially in the period after rough- and whose honor had been maligned. Strange ly 1450, developea sui generis structures quite different from the communes, but linked to them in practices, indeed! several important ways. Chief among these in the What Margeret failed to understand a'Jout his historicaldevelopmentofthecountry was a hosts was that, because kinship was at the base of remarkably sophisticatedpolitical system based Muscovite politics, honor inhered not in the in- upon strictly regulated power-sharing among clan dividual, but in his clan, and that blood spilt in and patronage organizations made up of hereditary anger called out for vengeance by kinsmen. In- cavalrymen with the mythically powerful Grand deed, blood feuds among the great faroilies con- Prince at its center, and the closely related but stitute much of the historical narrative of the 15th politically impotent bureaucracy. and 16th centuries. Moreover, since that venge- Like the organizations of the village, these struc- ance could lead to a chain reaction of vendettas, the danger that the system feared more than any tures were based upon kinship and tradition, rather than, say, competition or contract or law. They other, Muscovites were taught to consider a slight or insult to personal honor insufficient cause to risk were maintained by group sanctions that curbed in- turning loose such destructive forcesand the sys- dividual initiative but buffered individuals and clans even the less dangerc,Is against the risks inherent in the ambitions of proud tem suppressed firmed men. These structures performed with mar- proclivities of hotheaded foreigners. veloussuccessforcenturies,marshalingthe This unique Muscovite political system worked human and natural resources of this poorly en- so well, I think, because, like the political culture of dowed and sparsely settled land with an effective- the village,it was highly risk-averse and limited it- ness that repeatedly amazed observers from more self to a very few simple objectives: these can be fortunate lands with far more complex sociopoliti- called the organization of a successful conspiracy cal structures. against the natural state of society, which par- believed was chaos, and The memoirs of one such visitor to Russia (early ticipantsconfidently in the 17th century), a very astute and well-in- specifically the chaos of clan wars of all against all, of which Muscovy had a number sufficient to con- formed French soldier of fortune named Jacques firm this somber belief. The lengths to which Mus- Margeret. have recently been published in English covite politiciansthat is, the members of the tradi- in a well-annotated edition.I can recommend it as tional hereditary cavalry that was the government, a good early "Russia book," to be compared, for just as the government was the armywould go to example, with those periodically written by return- reduce the risk of uncontrollable conflict among ing New York Times Moscow correspondents. By and large, Margeret, who had the advantage of themselves were truly breathtaking They are perhaps best expressed in the staggering amount of having commanded the tsar's personal bodyguard, political centralization imposed in that vast, poorly was better informed than more recent commentators. However, since Russian politicians, then as developed, and often impassable country. now, were disinclined to "leak" information to non- Like the peasant commune, these politicians participants about the rules oftheir gamesor were willing to pay almost any cost for success in even names andnumbers,forthat matter their conspiracy against what they took to be the Margeret, like his successors, found some things dangers of catastrophe, and for the same reasons: quite puzzling. even bizarre. He concluded, like they had an aversion to risk, a low expectation rrndernobservers have, thatales_oddities about humans and their devices, and a fear of demonstrated just how inscrutable and unnatural elemental chaos.Theywere successfulas the Russians were. peasant agriculturalists wereprobably because in their circumstances of extraordinarily high mor- One thing abouthishoststhatparticularly bothered Margeret was that among Muscovite tality, very minimal development of social infrastructure, and the tensions of a military society held noble cavalrymen there was no dueling We can assume even after some correction for our stereo- together by notions of shame and honor, their gloomy expectations were confirmed by their ex-

6 14 perience The devices invented by the members of standing of how Russians imagine themselves and the hereditary military elite to preserve their basic how they struggle with their history. unitsthe clansfrom extinction were complex The folic,wing paragraphs are taken from the (and have only recently attracted the interest of recent English translation of Vassily Aksyonov's modern scholars) Among these were a strict sys- Ozhog (the Burn,`, a most entertaining novel that is tem assigning seniority and status, or "honor," at particularly rich in its evocation of recent social birth according to birth order (males only): a care- and intellrctual history. fully regulated pecking order among clans, depending primarily upon marriage relationships to the In Europe there are frivolous democra- Grand Princes,but including allowance for pre- cies with warm climates, where an intellec- vious status: rules requiring the performance of tual spends his lifeflitting from dentist's military and ritualcourt duties by those whose drill to the wheel of a Citroen, from a com- status entitled them to do so, etc. The complicated puter to an espresso bar, from the conduc- system of calculations and sanctions required to tor's podium to a woman's bed, and where makethissystemworkwascalled"mest- literatureis something almost as refined, nichestvo": it was officially abandoned in 1682. witty, and useful as a silver dish of oysters laid out on brown seaweed and garnished These, then, as I see it, were the formative cir- with cracked ice. cumstances, the sui generis structures, and the characteristic convictions that determined what it Russia,withitssix-month winter,its was to be Russian in the critical first centuries of tsarism, Marxism, and Stalinism, is not like their national experience, let us say until the end of that What we like is some heavy masochis- the 17th century. I believe that these features of tic problem, which we can prod with a "Russianness" have not, in their deepest founda- tired, exhausted, not very clean but very tions, changed radically in modern times. Rather, honest finger. That is what we need, and it they have combined and reintegrated themselves is not our fault. in new forms, reaffirmed by political and social Aksyonov begins with a wonderfully characteris- chaos and dizzying change. concentrated and per- tic sentence, in which he is ableperhaps unwit- haps purified by social mobility, homogeneity, and tinglyto express not only both the Russian intel- the democratization of societywhich has,in a lectuals' obsession with an idealized Europe and sense, brought masses of bearers of traditional cul- their cautious distrust of electoral politics, but also ture to critical positions in modern society. their conviction that somehow Europe had good Itis, for me, in the context of that traditional lucka warm climate but that Russia, withits society and its attitudes that Russiansthe very cold climateis somehow morally superior:"In Russian leaders and their critics and the broad Europe there are frivolous democracies with warm masses make sense even today Their attitudes climates,..." about the relation o: the individual and the group There follows a virtuo o inventory of images as- makesense; their particularly intellectuals' sociated with the fantasies Russian intellectuals preoccupation with the moral weakness of the in- have of their European and American counter- dividual makes sense; their striking risk-aversion partsitemsthatRussianintellectualsofAk- and the steadfast resistance to reform even to syonov's generation have never possessedor, revolutionmake sense: their intellectuals' fear of what is more poignant, have possessed in some the elemental power of the masses makes sense, deficient, debased, or unsatisfying form: the den- their authentic distrust of the unpredictable and risk- tist's drill, the Citroen, the computer, the espresso laden workingsofelectoral democracy makes bar, a woman's bed, a silver dish, oysters, cracked sense; their fear of the chaos-inriming power of ice... While revealing his envy of such imagined the word makes sense. delights, Aksyonov reaffirms his sense of moral su- All of these traits, seen mostly in contrast to periorityin hissarcastic characterizationof other industrial societies, make sense, I suggest, in European literature "Where literature is something the light of their unique historical experienceas almost as refined, witty, and useful as a silver dish do, as I suggested at the beginning of my remarks, of oysters theirattitudes toward historyitself,toward the Having thus banished and discredited his fan- Europe that made them think of themselves in his- tasies of Europe, he contrasts it with Russia: "Rus- torical terms, and towards us. sia, with its six-month winter, its tsarism, Marxism, I'd like to close with a bit of close reading that and Stalinism,isnotlikethat."Like the long might suggest how we can, if we put ourselves in winters, tsarism, Marxism, and Stalinism are some- mind of some of these Russian preoccupations how bracing and good for the character especial- and contoursofculture,gain a better underly for those heroic enough to survive them. He follows with an image antipodalto the dishof

7 1 5 ------IsimammizmillhirmiNallil oysters. "What we like is some heavy masochistic louse-ridden bed we are sleeping in we made our- problem (like a pile of lukewarm kasha, one sup- selves. poses), which we can prod with a tired, exhausted, One shculd not, of course, dwell upon these few not very clean but very honest finger " (He is sentences, characteristic and evocative as they saying, I assume, that the finger of the European may be, but they can serve as emblematic and tellectual is very clean, but not very honest) Ak- rather memorat.,:e evidence of certain deep cultural syonov concludes this passage with a most poig- structures that shape the world view not only of so nant and significant expression of the same sense gifted and sophisticated a man, but of millions of of moral superiority "That is what we need, and it Russians.Itis these deep structures thatI have is not our fault" Here, at once, he is answering tried to draw to your attention. a profound sense of both Henry HIgg,is' question (why can't a Russian the hostile role of nature; a morbid tendencyac- be more like me? Russians somehow are not sup- quired from Europeans themselves to compare posed to be like Europeans) and the Russian's themselves to an imagined Europe; a related and favorite historical question (Why'? Who is to blame'? equallyirrationalnotionof"soul," an ineffable Not us, he says). moral quality that makes Russians somehow moral- He doesn't believe it, however, because of the ly superior to other Europeans, despite their ac- social guilt that Russian intellectuals, since very knowledged iniquity; the abiding awareness that early modern times, have felt about their dual history,like the elemental forces of nature and relationship to Europe and the mass of uneducated society, is somehow an enemy. Russians,aguiltthatsuccessive governments Clearly, as one remembers the notions about have, for different reasons, reinforced: "Not our humans andsociallifethattypicalyoung fault? Really? But who let the genie out of the bot- Americans might be expected to bring to the study tle. who cut themselves off from the people, who of Russia, these deep structures of Russian history let the Tatars into the city, invited the Varangians to and self-awareness seem to present almost Insuper- come and rule over them, licked the boots of able barriers to understanding. Yet, as I have ar- Europe, isolated themselves from Europe, strug- gued, Russians do make sense, and we can, with gled madly against the government, submitted patience and imagination, convince young people obediently to dim-witted dictators? We did all that of this fact. At the very least, we must declare that, we, the Russian intelligentsia." if we are true to our own convictions and the It matters little that most of this is preposterous- methods of modern social and behavioral science, lyuntrue and unhistorical. What matters is the we can make Russians appear to mice as much moral statement: we, the hardy, heroic, frostbitten, sense as does American history, or as life itself honest Russian intellectuals are, despite our moral This we must believe, or we are not Americans and virtue, responsible for our own predicament; the post-industrial children of the Enlightenment.

6 8 PART 1 ESSAYS ON THEMES IN RUSSIAN AND SOVIET HISTORY PRE-PETRINE RUSSIA by Andrzej S. Kaminski

With some justice it may be said that only in the of tribute collection, in this case by a dynasty of 18th century did Russia become an integral part of Scandinavian origin, the Rurikids. The Rurikidssuc- Europe, as a result of the reform:, of Peter the ceeded, in the 9th and 10th centuries, in uniting Great and the increasing involvement of Russia in under their rule the lands along the trading routes the EuropeanstatesystemThe countrythat of the Dnieper, Western Dvina, Volkhov, andupper emerged, us it were, onto the stage of European Volga River basins, a region inhabited by East history at that time was marked bya number of Slavic, Finnic, and Baltic tribes. Centered in Kiev peculiar features that distinguished it in whole or in and growing rich from trade, tribute, and booty, the part from the other European powers of its day. principality reacheditszenith under therulers Itwas, to begin with, a centralized autocratic Vladimir (978-1015) and laroslav the Wise (1019- state whose ruler enjoyed authority and preroga- 1054) tives far exceeding even those of the rulers of ab- The Scandinavian origins of the state have been solutist France or Spain. It was, moreover, a state the source of a historiographic debate knownas in which no social group or institution could claim the "Normanist" controversy. revolving around the any autonomous corporate rights- all were bound relative role of Scandinavian and Slavic elements in by an obligation of obedience and service to the the birth of the Kievan Rus'. While the questionon autocrat. purely academic grounds would seem to merit only Russia was also distinguished by its adherence a certain limited degree of attention, it has in fact to the Orthodox Church, whose membersevery- generated much heat, if little light, exemplifying the where outside the borders of the tsar's statewere important role that official nationalism and "founda- subject to the rule of "unbelievers." Under Peter, tion myths" have played in both the Romanov em- the church was transformed intoa virtual depart- pire and the Soviet Union. ment of state, losing practically all of its institution- The controversy dates from 1749, whena mem- al independence ber of the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences, Finally, Russia was a vast empire, embracinga Gerhard Muller, delivered a lecture to colleagues in wide variety of languages, religions, and peoples,a which, on the basis of Russian chronicles and feature that did not, however, presentany sig- Greek and Latin sources, he argued that the Rus- nificant obstacle to the overwhelming centralization sian state had been founded, not by Slays, but by of political authority in the hands of the autocrat In Varangians, and that the name 'Rus- derived, not fact,this diversity made possible the skillfulex- from the tribe of Roxolani known to classical sour- ploitation of the services of members of various ces, but from the Finnish name for the Swedes, conquered peoples.(Ais worth noting that the Ruotsi. Muller never had a chance to finish his lec- Soviet Union today is the only survivingrepre- ture (which was delivered in Latin), as he was inter- sentative of several once-flourishing multinational rupted,not by a feilowhistorian,but by the European empires. continuing to exercise control astronomer N. Popov, whose exclamation would over a number of different states and nationalities be echoed by generations of opponents of the Nor- with an ancient historical tradition or at leasta long- manist theory: "Tu, clarissime auctor, nostrumgen- standing national consciousness of theirown tem infama afficis"[You, famous author,bring Georgia, Armenia, Estonia, Latvia,Lithuania, Uk- dishonor upon our nation]In the ensuing din, the raine, Crimea, Uzbekistan, the Tatars, etc.) scholar was unable to continue; he was sub- Our task here is to look back at the origins of sequently forbidden by the authorities to write on or even study the subject of Russian history. these various elements Specifically,we will focus on six topics- the origins of the state, the problem At least one other controversy surrounding the of the steppe, the autocracy, the structureof foundation of this state is worthy of attention here. society, the church, and the multinational character The political hr-rtland, centered around Kiev,is of the state. today part of the 'ne, not Russia (more precisely, Great Russia) is generally the view of Uk- The Origins of the State rainian historiography, most eloquently expressed by Myhailo Hrushevskyi, that the history of the In many respects, the beginnings of the state in Kievan state must be viewed as the beginning of medieval Rus' did not differ significantly from the Ukrainian. rather than Russian, iistory. Russian his- patternobservableelsewhere. Asinmuch of toriography, by contrast, has sought to emphasize medieval Europe, the state was the product ofcon- the continuity of Great Russia's inclusion in the quest and the imposition of a wide-ranging system Kievan state, the ethnic and cultural links between

11 18 the two regions, and the Rurikid dynastic origins of far southwest on the borders of Poland and Hun- the Great Russian princes of Vladimir-Suzdal and gary later Moscow But for contemporary politics, this Another major center of a somewhat different issue might also seem of more apparent than real character was Novgorod, the great commercial em- importance. porium in the north, which developed in this period Nonetheless, this controversy does draw atten- into a city-staterepublic dominated by a local tion to the need for precision of terminologyit boiarelite,withtheprincebeingincreasingly would seem most appropriate to apply the term reduced to an "invited"magistrate and military "Rus- to this earliest state, rather than "Russia," a leader realm whose origins can be more easily associated with the land of Great Russia to the east. The name The Problem of the Steppe and the Mongol "Rus came, as a result of early political and eth- Conquest nic expansion, to be applied to the whole region of East Slavic settlement and would continue to be A key element in the success of the early Kievan state and its control of tne north-to-south river road itfor several cen- the collective term applied to "from the Varangians [Vikings] to the Greeks" was turies. Only in the 17th century can we distinguish ability to contain,ifnot control, the potential fairly clearly two politically active and nationally self- its conscious groups who were heirs to Rus' the threat presented by the Pontic steppe, a broad ex- panse of open grassland north of the Black Sea Great Russians and the Ukrainiuns. that was home to a nomadic society very different The former group, its the form of tie Grand Prin- from that of the Slavic agriculturalists. The open cipality of Mosc ow, was tc, impose a new unity on plains adjacent to Rus' were but one part of a vast the region in th;) 15th to 18.;-. centuries, acting in corridor stretching from the Danube delta In the this role as much as a successor of the nomadic west all the way to Mongolia and the bordersof Golden Horde as a successor of Kievan Rus' In so Chinaintheeast(The enduringinternational doing, it would help to bring to an end a wide diver- character of this steppe corridor is aptly symbol- sityofpolitical and social formations that had ized by the fact that as late as the 18th century, evolved out of the early Kievan state. Ayuka Khan, chief of the nomadic Kalmuks, had on By the 12th century, the political unity of Kievan the one hand to pay taxes for the use of1,.., Rus' had begun to disintegrate. The resurgence of grasslands to Russian Emperor Peter the Great, instability on the southern steppe and the conse- while continuing on the other to pay a head-tax for quent interruption of the Dnieper trade were no his people to the emperor of China.) doubt important factors in this rrocess. However, The strength of emergent Kievan Rus' vis-a-vis the proliferation of members of the dynasty and a the steppe was evidenced not only by Its long hold change from broader-ranging methods of tribute on towns of the Crimean peninsula, but alsoby Its collection to more extensive and localized means successful challenge to the previous lords of the of extracting princely and noble incomes certainly steppe, the Khazars, whose capital ltil was sacked played a role as well. by the Kievan prince Sviatoslav in the 10th century. Some parallels can be drawn here with tile Some historians, in fact, argue for a kind of sym- evolution of the medieval East Central European biosis in this period between the societies of the monarchies, notably Poland. The Rurikid patrimony forest and the steppe, at least on the elite level. was divided among a number of smallerterritorial The activities of Sviatoslav and a surviving contem- principalities, each territory associated more or porary Byzantine description of him suggest that less exclusively with a particular branch of the he was very much at home in the political world of dynasty. Kiev maintain d a nominal seniority, and the steppe. As late as the 11th century, we find the the rulers of the leading principalities struggled to imperial steppe title of "Khagati" being ascribed to obtain control of itIn fact, however, the city and KievanprincelaroslavtheWisebyHilarion, itsadjacentterritoriesdeclinedinpower and metropolitan archbishop of Kiev. r osperity, a fact underlined by the devastating Itis worth noting that in the centuries that fol- sack ofKiev by the armies ofPrince Andrei lowed, two other such symbioses of the societies Bogoliubskii of Vladimir-Suzdal in 1169 of the agricultural north and nomadic south, forged Two other centers in the Dnieper basin that by conquest, would serve as the foundation for emerged as important contenders in the interprinr.e- great Eurasian imperial states based in this region ly struggles of this period were Smolensk and Cher- The first, created by the Mongol conquest of the nigov. These centers were eclipsed by the once- 13th century, existed into the 15th century. The remote Vladimir- Suzdai land in the upper Volga second, begun with the Muscovite conquest of the basin to the northeast and Halych-Volhynia in the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan in the mid-16th century and reinforced by the annexation of the

12 9 Crimean state in 1783. has survived, in a sense. threat, most clearly demonstrated in their leading until today. role in the upheavals of the Muscovite "Time of Whatever the source of the Kievan state's suc- Troubles" of the early17th century, the Khmel- cessful control of the steppe, it began to wane with nitsky uprising against Poland-Lithuaniain1648, the appearance of the new steppe coalition of the and thegreatrevoltsofRazin,Bulavin,and Polovtsians (Cumans) in the 11th century at the Pugachev in the 17th and 18th centuries same time as the growing fragmentation of dynas- The most dramatic period of confrontation, of tic unity was rendering Rus' less capable of effec- course, was the Mongol Conquest of 1239-40 and tive resistanceIncreasingly, the Polovtsians were the ensuing two-and-one-half centuries ofover- drawn into intradynastic strife or carried out their lordship by the Golden Horde, but the steppe was own raids against the territory of Rus' Agricultural a key element In the periods ucfcre and after as settlement began retreating backward again toward wellIt was not simply a question, moreover, of the the protecting forest cover. Not until the 18th cen- death and destruction inflicted by nomadic raids: tury was an East Slavic state again to exercise the nomads' human captives from Rus' also served genuinely effective control of the Pontic steppe. In as a major source of slaves for the markets of the the intervening period, the steppe had to be reck- Levant throughout this period. We can only guess oned with as a looming and unsettling presence, at the precise demographic costs of this process, one limiting the developmental potentialof the but they were no doubt very significant. Kievan and Muscovite states. In the 12th and 13th centuries, expansionism of Much is made in Russian historiography of the Vladimir-Suzdal andHalych-Volhynia indicates arduous push to colonize the lands to the north some movement toward reunification of the frag- and east of the original Kievan heartland, to eke a mented patrimony of Rus'; any such development, living out of the harsh climate and poor soil of the however, was brought to an abrupt halt by the forested north. An impressive achievement indeed, Mongol invasion of 1239-40. In the space of two and one that sheds much light on the limitations im- brief years, the armies of the expanding Chingisid posed by the proximity of the nomadic peoples of empire sweptfirstover the major centersof the steppe. After all, just to the south of the protec- Vladimir-Suzdal in the northeast and then over Kiev tive forest belt lay some of the richest soils in and Halych-Volhynia in the southwest, wreaking in- Europe, soils which could not really be exploited in credible havoc and destruction. For almost two any kind of extensive fashion until the 18th century. centuries (and formally until 1480), the khans of the Even in the 16th through 18th centuries, it was not Golden Horde would be the overlords of the lands simply the presence of the Ottoman Empire that they had conquered, demanding (though not al- hampered the southward movement of settlement, ways receiving) an enormous tribute from it but, equally importantly, the continued vitality of To be sure, the Mongol yoke did not apply nomadic society on these lands. equally to all parts of Rus', and the differences Tne persistent insecurity of the steppe helps to served to deepen the regional divergencies that explain why the Volga and Dnieper River routes. had emerged in the declining years of the Kievan once such major arteries of international trade, state. The "yoke" in the fullest sense applied to the were reduced in the last several centuries to a role old Vladimir-Suzdal land and adjacent territories, of such secondary importance. (In the 17th cen- since it was here that the rule of the Golden Horde tury, for example, transporting silk from Persia via was exercised most effectively and for the longest the long sea route around Africa or overland to the period of time. The Novgorodian republic in the far Mediterranean was quicker,cheaper, and safer northwest had escaped the ravages of invasion, al- than going by way of the Caspian Sea and Volga thoughitwas, through the intermediary of the River to the Baltic ports or Arkhangelsk.) grand princes of Vladimir, brought into the tribute- Much later, in the 16th and later centuries, the gathering network of the Horde. steppe would be the source of instability of another The other major areato have escaped the kind. Its frontier character made it a haven for a ravages of 1239-40 was the fairly extensive, though growing body of runaway peasants, adventurers, sparsely populated, region in the northwest that is and brigands known as the Cossacks Beyond the today known as Belorussia. Despite some sub- control of the state and resistant as well to the pres- sequent Tatar efforts to penetrate here, there is no sure of the nomads of the steppe, the Cossacks evidence that any real overlordship was ever exer- developed political and social organisms of their cised. (One theory even hasitthat the name own, centered on the lower Don and lower Dnieper Belorussia,"literally"WhiteRussia,"originates Rivers. While at times the Cossack hosts would act from the Old Russian use of the word "white" to in concert with the Russian (and Polish-Lithuanian) denote areas not subject to taxationin this case, state,at others they proved to be a powerful the Tatar tribute )This area was, in fact, already

13 20 coming under the rule of another power in the of local territorial administration inrural regions. region, Lithuania, a state which by the mid-14th This failure of the Great Russians to challenge their century was to control most of whatisnow ruler on an institutional basis made Muscovy one Belorussia and the Ukraine (including Kiev). along of the very few European lands with no full-fledged with some neighboring parts of Great Russia as experience cf medieval parliamentarism. well. Finally, while the Golden Horde was able to To be sure, even the later tsars found an oc- exercise its claimed lordship over the principality of casional need for some degree of societal coopera- Halych-Volhynia in the early years following the in- tion,a cooperation that was not so much re- vasion, the absorption of this region in the 14th quested as demanded (as was the case in the ear- century by Poland and Lithuania soon rendered lier stages of Western European parliamentarism). this control formal at best For this purpose, at intermittent intervals between Ultimately, beginning in the latter half of the 15th the middle of the 16th and 17th---,tunes,as- century, unified control of the scattered patrimony sembliesofrepresentativesof )ussocial of Kievan Rus' (and a much wider area as well) groups, known as zemskie sobory ',embIles of was reimposed by Moscow, one oftheprin- the land] were called to consult with the tsars and cipalities of the Vladimir-Suzdal land. It is with Mos- provide support for government actions. The prac- cow that the history of Russia (as distinct from the tice began under Ivan the Terrible, that paragon of history of Rus') must be seen as beginning. Itis despotism, and was used from time to time by his here, too, that we must see' the real origins of the successors, particularly the first two rulers of the autocratic system that later characterized the Rus- new Romanov dynasty in the 17th century, Michael sian Empire. and Alexis. The sobor, it is true, did provide in nascent form The Autocracy a representative organization of Russian society, with a conceivable potential for po(ng its own The societies of Europe display a wide variety of vision of the political and social order against that solutions to the ongoing struggle for power be- of the tsar. The high-water mark of its role may be tween government, society, and the Individual. The seen in its involvement in the establishment of a peculiarity of the Muscovite Russian experience new ruling dynasty in 1613 (discussed in greater was the longstanding predominance of the state detail below). Whatever its potential, however, this (government), not only over the individual but also consultative body was no longer summoned in the over society. Medieval Muscovite society, no less second half of the 17th century. (The declining role thanthesocietiesof stratifiedeconomically and virtual disappearance of medieval parliamen- not manage, Western Europe, nonetheless did tary assemblies was by no means unique to Russia throughout most of its history, to create an institu- during this period; the same is true, for example, in tion that could bring any of its component groups France.) together in common defense of their interests vis-à- vis the ruler. Instead. the Muscovite ruler proved The problor c of the origins of Russian autocracy on the whole successfulin avoiding the estab- is a complex one, but a major role was played by lishment of contractual relations with society (so the experience of the "Tatar Yoke." The princes typical of the medieval West), even with the petty under the rule of the khan were ultimately depend- military service class ent on his willfor their right to rule and were charged with the payment ofribute to the Horde In the earliest part of the Mongol period, some from their lands. Indeed, Moscow's success In mo- attempt to challenge the authority of the prince in nopolizing the position of chief tax collector for the particularly on thepartof the northeast Rus', whole of northeast Rus' explains its ultimate politi- towns, did take place. as evidenced by continual cal triumph in this region. references in the sources to the roles of the city assembly (veche) and the commander of its militia The pattern of political relations established by (tysiatskii), institutions dating back to the Kievan the period of Tatar sovereignty appears to have period.Nonetheless, these forces never proved had a profound impact on Muscovite political tradi- capable of creating strong, stable urban institutions tion. The authority of the khan, when it could be that could seriously challenge the power of the practically exercised, was a fierce and uncom- prince. During the 14th and 15th centuries, the promising one. Defiance was likely to lead to devas- veche system completely disappeared from the old tating raids of reprisal. At the same time, contrary Vladimir-Suzdal landIn contrast to the situation to some interpretations,it seems quite clear that prevailing in the West, as well as in Central Europe, the legitimacy of the khan's rule was recognized in no system of autonomous municipal self-govern- Rus'. Sources from the period ascribe the title of ment was ever established. Likewise, the military "tsar" (emperor) to the khan, the same word used service class did not succeed in acquiring control to describe the Byzantine emperor, who was, in

14 21 theory, the only legitimate world ruler fc r Orthodox terms The catalyst for the emergence of the new Christians. system was a bloody civil war within the Muscovite Itis interesting to note. too, that contemporary ruling family, in which the senior line succeeded in descriptions of the great victory of Moscow over overthrowing the traditional order that had regu- the Tatars at Kulikovo in 1380 wer., careful to em- lated relations between members of the dynasty for phasize that the enemy leader, Emir Mamai was the sharing of the common patrimony. The violent an illegitimae usurper of the khan:4e. and not a process proved to be amajor watershed. As true "tsar." the princes of Rus' were not averse to Alexander Presniakov, one of the most insightful using Tatar aid in their internal struggles or vying commentators on the rise of Moscow, has noted, for the khan's favor in order to obtain the senior "The stark methods of liquidation used by the title of grand prince Such help, or the potential for grand prince's government during that upheaval It. even seems to have played an important role in first introduced the spectre of the 'terrible' tsar Into the grand princes' victory over the veche during life in Great Russia; the true embodiment of this ter- this period Moreover, the lands and security of the ror came in the activities of Ivan ill(1462-1505), church were protected by the khan in return for his son Vasilii III (1505-1533) and the tsar who cul- prayers for his well-being, even after the disap- minated all these dramas, Ivan the Terrible (1533- pearance of Tatar suzerainty, the church was to ap- 1584)." peal to this tradition in an effort to defend the in- Already under Ivan III, there was not only an in- violability of :ts lands. creasing abrogation of the customary rules of inter- Finally, the adoption of the title of "tsar" by Mus- princely relations,but also thebeginningof a covite rulers in the 16th century can be seen in serious program for the "reconquest" of the Kievan part as an assumption of the authority once en- patrimony, starting with the important annexations joyed by the khan; it was explicitly linked with the of Tver and Novgorod. Ivan III's reign also saw the conquest of the Chingisid khanates of Kazan and eoci of the earlier freedom of boiarc to transfer their Astrakhan. Tatar princes of the old imperial dynasty service from one prince to another at .."!!!. Likewise, continued to occupy a special place of honor at it witnessed increasing control of the metropolitans the Muscovite courtin the 16th century.In a add hierarchy of the church by the grand prince, curious incident. Tsar Ivan the Terrible even placed now referred to by the new title of "sovereign" one of them briefly on the throne as "ruler" of Mus- 1osudar). covy in the late 16th century Michael Cherniaysky, These tendencies continued under Ivan's son speaking of Moscow's unseating of its former Tatar Vajlii III, whose famous dictum- "All are slaves" overlords, notes that "What takes place is not so expressed the rawing subordir of society to much the liberation of Russia as a change of dynas- its rulerIt wac' 'der Vasilii's surr Ivan IV, "the Ter- ty,theconquestofRussiafromitsformer rible," however, that the position of the ruler as ut- legitimate ruler by the new legitimatetsar, the terly transcendent and unlimitedin his authority grand prince of Moscow...RI here was a new foun.; its rnost vivid expression. Under Ivan IV, the khan..." instit,ifionalizatIonoftheautocracyproceeded At the same time, the image of Muscovite im- apace,important new conquests ofthe Tatar perial authority drew on the traditions of the other kharates of Kazan and Astrakhan were made; a "tsar"of themedieval sources,theByzantine bolo, though unsuccessful, attempt to conquer emperor(basileus), with iris claim tothe Livon'.) was undertaken; and a new imperial title, sovereignty over the whole Christian world, church that or "tsar," was assumed. as well as state, as the representative of God on His reign is best remembered, though, for the earth. The notion accorded well with the doctrine Oprichnina of 1565-72, in which the tsar, aided by of Muscovy as the only sovereign defender of true, a separate force of military servitors, imposed a orthodox Christianity, an idea that began to take reign cr terror on his land in a campaign against shape in the 15th century, particularly after the "traitors," who eventually came to embrace broad abortive and unpopular attempt of the Byzantines numbers of virtually every part of the Muscovite to effect a union of the Eastern and Western chur- elite. Various reasons have been advanced in an ef- ches In 1439 and the fall of Constantinople to the fort to explain this bizarre and bloody "purging," Turks in 1453. which resulted in the death or exile of courtless The actual emergence of the Muscovite autoc- numbers of the elite and even in the devastation of racy can be dated more or less to the middle of the city of Novgorod. Some would explain it as the the 15th century. a time when Moscow had already result of an inherent discrepancy between the vast established all but unchallenged primacy in the old political needs of the state, born of its great size Vladimir-Suzdal land and when Tatar control was and geographical position, and the actual resour- waning, thoughit was stillmaintained in formal ces at its disposal, born of the harsh climate and poor soils of the region: others, as the reflection of

0I2 15 particular stresses caused by the Livonian War, still ordained ruler, society itself was forced to inter- others, as an expression of the pathological per- vene. to act in the name of God. as it were, to or- sonality of Ivan dain another. Itis significant that much Soviet historiography It would be interesting at this point to look at the has portrayed these events as the inevitable strug- groups that were involved in the reconstitution of gle between a "progressive," centralizing state and the political order Surprisingly enough, it was not those "reactionary," "feudal" elements that sought the bows, the traditional political elite, whom one to hold it back. Whatever its cause, however, the might have expected to be the most capable of Oprichnina made clear the awesome ability of the guiding the destinies of the state (by their self- autocracy to use butal power as a superordinate destructive infighting they had demonstrated their authority vis-a-vis Muscovite societyResponding increasing ineffectiveness as a source of authority). to the denunciations of Prince Andrei Kurbsky, a As the conditions which they had presented to boiar who had fled to Lithuania, Ivan wrote, equat- potential pretenders to the throne suggested, they ing betrayal of himself to a betrayal of Christianity were well aware of and sought to obtain for them- .having raged against man, you have risen selves the same kindof narrowprivileges and against God If you are just as pious as you say. prerogatives enjoyed by the grandees of Lithuania why did you fear a guiltless death, which is no vis-à-vis their grand prince. For a time,ItIs true,

death but gain? . Why did you despise even the various boiar factions had been successful in their apostle Paul? for he said, 'Let every soul be sub- political maneuvering, so long as they were not ject unto the higher powers. For there is no power hinderedby somegreatermass movements. ordained that is not of God Whosoever, there- However, after widespread outbreak of social un- fore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of rest and by the time of extensive foreign (Polish- God ..'" Lithuanian and Swedish) Intervention, the boiars Ivan the Terrible's devastating attack on the had clearly lost control of the situation.It was left bases of all political and social authority other than to other groups of society to restore legitimate that of the tsar himself had a orofoundly unsettling authority. effect on Russian society, particularly in the con- On the one hand was the church, unwilling to text of the economic decline and hardship of the countenance the prospect of a ruler not fully Or- late 16th century These forces found expression. thodox On the other was the militia organized by after the extinction of the Rurikid dynasty in 1593, some of the provincial towns and supported by the in aperiodofimmense socialandpolitical provincial military service class. Alongside these upheavaltraditionallyknown as the"Timeof were the independent forces of the Cossacks, or- Troubles" (1598-1613) Marked by fierce rivalry for ganized on the principle of military democracy, the throne, peasant uprisings. brigandage, foreign who shifted their support from one pretender to intervention, and the virtual collapse of all central another and helped to radicalize the social stance authority, the crisis came to an end only with the of the masses of peasantry and city population. election of Michael Romanov as the tsar and the in- With the expulsion of the Polish-Lithuanian forces, auguration of a new dynasty in 1613. all of these elements were drawn together in the On one hand, the catastrophic results of the dis- zemskii sobor of 1613 that set out to elect a new appearanceoftheRurikiddynastyandthe monarchtraditional groups like the boiar Duma apocalyptic dimensions given by some contem- and ecclesiastical synod, but also, for the first time, porary commentators to the event bear witness to new, genuinely representative elements likethe the seeming essential role of the autocrat in the militiaand the Cossacks, groups which repre- political system as it had developed. Itis charac- sented real strength but lacked any clear blueprint teristic that during the Time of Troubles pretenders for the future. Their choice, the young Michael claiming to be members of the former dynasty Romanov, representative of an old boiar family proved quite successful in challenging the authority linked to Ivan IV by marriage, was essentially a More acceptable to the oftheion-Rurikidtsarsof boiar origin,Boris compromise candidate Godunov and Vasilii Shuiskiiif elsewhere in early traditional elements than the young child of the modern Europesociallydiscontentedgroups "Second Pretender," favored by some Cossacks, fought in the name of religion or of their corporate he was, by dint of his youth and the earlier connec- rights, in Muscovy it was in the name of the "true" tions of his father with the "Second Pretender" and tsar Cossacks. less objectionable to 'he revolutionary elements than one of the other boiar candidates On the other hand, by the very nature of the would have been(This support of "the people" situation. the Time of Troubles was also the mo- was reflected in the epithet "Cossack Tsar," ap- ment of a potentially serious challenge to the state plied to Michael by his rivals during this period.) on the part of society In the absence of a divinely

16 23 For a time. the new dynasty would feel the need collective name of dvorianstvo, a name derived to legitimize its rule by the continuing collaboration from the notion of service to the tsar's court (dvor). ofthe zemskii soborGradually.however,the Above them was a stratum of aristocrats, members Romanovs were able to dispense increasingly with of the tsar's council (boyar duma), who performed its services After 1653 the assembly was not called important services as military commanders, ad- again, except for a brief spate of activity between ministrators, and ambassadors. The members of 1612 and 1684 The seemingly incredible erosion the Duma, who numbered 29 in 1613 and 153 in of the role of the sobor, wnich had been respon- 1690, consisted of boiare,okolnichie, dumnye, sibleforthe reestablishment ofunifiedpolitical dvoriane, and dumnye d'iaki The old Russian aris- authority. is probably best explained by the deep tocracy,includingthetistislayskiis,Shuiskils, social divisions already apparent in 1613, divisions Belskiis. Golitsyns, Trube,lkois, Kurakins. which the autocracy could exploit to its own ad- Morozovs, Dolgorukovs, Sheremetevs, Obolenskiis, vantage Moreover, as Presniakov has suggested. Cherkasskiis, and Khovanskiis (to mention a few) the Time of Troubles, despite its seeming challenge were unquestionably the most powerful people of to centralized authority, in fact may nave resulted the realm. Their elevated position, however, was in its strengthening. as the social chaos convinced not based on extensive landholdings, but on their the townspeople and military service class of the hereditary service to the tsar in the most prominent need for a strong political authority as a guarantee positions of the state, army, and court.Ifone of security. wants to examine the most obvious reasons be- With the declining rot,. of the zemskir sobor. we hind the stratification of landowners, one should observe the increasing importance of the rapidly look not at the size of their landholdings or number developing bureaucracy, organized on the basis of of serfs, but rather at the degree of their closeness the system of prikazy (departments) The personnel to the throne When seen from this point of view, for this apparatus were drawn from children of the main cleavage within the dvorianstvo is be- bureaucrats, as well as from the children of taxpay- tween those who served from Moscow and those ing people (tiaglie liudi)it was. ;n fact, one of the who served from the provinces. The potential so- very few careers open to educated individuals. In a cial mobility of these two groups was decisively dif- like manner, the palace guard (streltsy), a group ferent. that bears certain strikingsimilarities to the Ot- The great difference between the dvorianstvo toman Janissary corps, w's of humble origin The and the nobility of Western Europe lay In the fact basing of the bureaucracy and palace guards in that the former was not only unable to win for Itself non-noble population was a means of providing control of its county and provincial administration, the autocracy with a greater sense of security but also that it failed to win for itself even such fun- (This practice was to be changed substantially by damental rights as habeas corpus or exemption Peter the Great, who would replace the streltsy from corporal punishment What it did share with with noble guards' regiments and open the road to its Western counterparts, unlike its Ottoman coun- ennoblement for the commoner bureaucrats ) terparts, was domination over its own peasantryIt is significant that for the 16th and much of the 17th Society century, an important determinant of r atus among military servitors was the system of precedence The society of Kievan Rus' in many respects (mestnichestvo), which sought to regulate the rela- bore a resemblance to that of the other early tive positions of servitors in specific contexts not monarchies of Eastern Europe, such as Poland. on the basis of their own place in the army or Hungary, and Bohemia These monarchies were court,but on the basis of the rank thattheir subsequently to evolve toward the social structure forebears had held in the service of the tsar. Yet of a monarchy of estates in which the church. another of the signs of the dependence of this nobility, and to a lesser extent the towns came to dominant class was the standard practice of enjoy privileges and rights vis-à-vis the monarch its members, like those of other social groups, to refer and other estates But the society of Muscovy was to themselves in petitions to the tsar in the 16th clearly made up of orders whose status and rule and 17th centuries as "your slave" (tvoi kholop). revolved around the notion of service to the tsar As in most European states, the landowning estate The picture was much the same fnr other social was socially dominant, although its position bore groups and institutions The ultimate Jependence greater similarity to the Ottoman sipahrs than to of the ecclesiastical hierarchy on the tsar's will was the nobility of France. Spain, Poland, or Hungary poignantly expressed by their customary self-appel- lation in communications with the ruler as "your The Russian petty military servitors, who held all supplicants to God" (Ivor bogomol'tsy). The popula- or most of their lands on the condition of military tions of the towns as a whole, as already sug- service to the monarch, came in time to bear the gested, were not protected by any body of preroga-

17 tives and privileges against their obligation to serve latter were interested in increasing the amount of the needs of their all-powerful ruler The Muscovite free labor (barshchma) due to them On the ter- towns- theantithesisofthe Novgorodianex- ritories with poor soil, landowners demanded from ampledid not achieve any measure of self-rule, their peasants payments in mone >r kind (obrok) so important for the development of Western and From the 16th century on, we can observe the Central European cities. The only self-governing steady growth of barshchina and a steady decline cities of pre-Petrine Russia existed in the territory of obrokIn the17thcentury, barshchina had of the Ukraine (annexedinthe17thcentury), grown to three days a week per familyIn short, where Magdeburg Law (protectingself-govern- the position of the peasantry in pre-Petrine Russia ment) was curtailed but not abolished after 1654 was constantly deteriorating In other areas, the town population was under the The peasantry's lack of any legal status was direct control of the tsar's officials and provided codified in the law of 1649It should be remem- the state with various types of taxes and services bered, however, thatthe worstperiodforthe Russian cities had their own "aristocracies." peasantry still lay ahead, in the 18th and early 19th composed of small groups of entrepreneurial finan- centuries. when its status would be reduced to little ciers and wholesale merchants (known as gostr), different than that of the slaves of the American whose financial resources were often used for the South Moreover, this worsening was to coincide state. inreturn, they were sometimes given the with the emergence of an unprecedented cultural right to collect taxes. Between these small groups gull between a Westernized nobility and a tradition- of individuals. who enjoyed the unheard-of right of alpeasantrythe creation,ina sense,of two foreign travel, and local merchants and craftsmen, separate "nations" within Russian society. Some- existed as much of a gap as between the great what less onerous were the obligations of peasants bankers (I e . Fuggers) and shoemakers in Western living on the landed estates of the church Easiest cities. However, while Western European financiers ofallwere thoseofthestateortsar's own often merged through marriage and service with peasants. who were responsible. via their own com- the local landed aristocracy. in Russia this divide mune (voiost), for the payment of taxes and the appears to have been unbridgeable. performance of required services The urban classes came in the course of the The territorialpeasant commune had existed late 16th century to be more fully organized for pur- from the beginning of Kievan Rus' In the 16th and poses of state service Legislation of the mid-17th 17th centuries. however, it was more a tool in the century, in an effort to prevent the flight of urban hands of the landowners and state than an instru- taxpayers, bound city dwellers to their town of ment for the defense of the peasantry Peasant residence, much as peasants were being bound to communes, for that matter, had a vital interest in the land in this period in the final imposition of ensuring that their members did not flee or shirk serfdom(inaccordance witha lawof1658, their obligations. Hence, they were not an agent for townspeople who fled their place of residence were enforcing the solidarity of the commune vis-a-vis to be punished by death) We should remember. the state, but rather for enforcing the solidarity of however, that the cities of Muscovy. whose popu- the commune in the interests of service to the lace on several occasions staged social and politi- stateIn medieval Europe, runaway serfs found cal uprisings, were able to gain some improvement freedom in the self-governing towns:inRussia, in their status by reducing the rights of churchmen desperate serfs coulti find relative safety from their and the aristocracy in the cities pursuing lords only by joining the Cossacks or moving to the borderlands of the steppe or Siberia The largest and lowest-ranking social group was the peasantry. Most difficult was the lot of those living on the lands of the military servitors While The Church their lords were bound by obligations of service to The decision of Prince Vladimir of Kiev to accept the autocrat, the peasants in turn were bound to conversion at the hands of the church of Constan- the service of their masters as a means of enabling tinople in 988 meant the inclusion of Kievan Rus' in the latter to perform their obligations In the course the cultural sphere of the old Eastern Roman em- of a long process, which reached its culmination in pire,the "Byzantine Commonwealth" as Dmitri 1649. the peasants of private landowners were Obolansky Las style:IitHowever. the access of bound to the land and to the labor services and Rus' to the heritage of classical antiquity was more rents whichthatentailedThey likewisewere restricted than that of its barbarian counterparts it: deprived of any status as legal persons Peasants Western Europe This was due in large part to the were obliged to provide landowners with a tax in medium of transmission, whit, is not the lan- kind. with money, or with unpaid labor On those guage of the culture metropolis (as in the Latin territories where it was profitable for landowners world) but Church SlavonicMost of the transla- (due to good soil, closeness to markets, etc ). the

25 18 tions into this language from the Greek were of an seek toprotect themselves by withdrawingto ecclesiastical character. leaving behind much of preserve theirpurity while awaiting the coming the secular and philosophical heritage of the Hel- apocalypse lenistic and Roman worldsFor that matter. the response of Rus' even to this narrower legacy. as The Multinational Character of the State George Florovsky has demonstrated, was long a remarkably passive. conservative one. aiming more The conception of authority inherited from the atpreservation thanspeculation(cfthegreat Golder Horde no doubt helps explain the expan- theological syntheses of the medieval West) sionism as much as does the notion of regaining the "patrimony" o: the Kievan state, which figured Nonetheless, the deeply religious character of so largely in the diplomatic statements of the Mus- Old Russian culture is particularly striking As al- covite autocracy Indeed, the autocracy in the 16th ready noted. an important part of Moscow's self century had already come to encompa' , a number consciousness was the notion that it alone had of states and national groups In later centuries, it remained true to genuine Christianity Even literary was to become even more of a multinational em- works of a secular character from this period seem to echo the language of the Bible pire, including not only the territories of Kievan Viewing Rus' Bus', but the lands once ruled by the Golden through the icon. one might be surprised by the ap- Horde as well parent weakness of the Russian church at the beginning of the 18th century. when it submitted There islittle doubt about the existence of a so meekly to the ecclesiastical reform of Peter the profound xenophobia on the partof Muscovite Great. This reform turned the church. in essence, society, so well documented in accounts left by into a department of the state. ruled by a mini- foreign travelers. While such a nr"tion was clearly sterial collegiurn rather than by a patriarch To un- related to the Idea of Muscovy as the only home of derstand this transformation, one roust examine "true" Orthodox Chrlstianitr, even ;o-religlonists the relation between church and state in Muscovite from other countries were not above suspicion. Rus' and the respective roles assigned to the while non-Christian peoples of the empire ("our church, believers, and ruler pagans") were generally leftin peace. What is more, however paradoxical It would be an oversimplification to merely note itmay seem,this suspicion of everything foreign went hand-in-hand that the Byzantine church was much more subser- with the systematic utilization vient to secular authority than the Western one of the skills and know-how of foreign specialists and representa- was- after all, subservience was not the only exist- tives of conquered populations. For example, the ing tradition in the Eastern r ;tian experience However, in the case of the majority of the professionals working in the most rch. it may secret and sensitive ministry of the 17th century be said that the tradition ,,.., .), wno gave un- state, Foreign Affairs, were foreigners. questioned priority to tri -q)eror in the gover- nance of the Christian con', ,city, was the prevail- The importance of the services of for,..Ign( fs and ing one, particularly after the break with Constan- conquered populations for strengthening the Mus- tinople in the mid-15th century and the beginning covite state is unquestionable At the end of the of local elections of the head of the Muscovite 15th century. for example, following the conquest church The latter procedure, in practice, gave the of the Novgorodian republic, merchants from that grand prince the deciding voice in the appointment city-statet'-areserledin Moscow and other of the leadership of the church The efforts of later towns of the realm with the aim of putting their hierarchs to challenge princely authority, such as professional know-how and connections with the Metropolitan Phillip's condemnation of the tyranny West to work for the enrichment of the state. their of Ivan the Terrible or Patriarch Nikon's more fun- personalfeelingstowardtheirconquer ernot- damental attempt to assert the prerogatives of the withstandingLikewise, merchants and craftsmen church vis-a-is secular authorityAll these efforts deported from Poland Lithuania to Muscovy in the ultimately ended in thedownfall of their mid-17th century populated a whole suburb of the proponents. capital,known asthePanskaiaorLitovskaia Sloboda,where,liketheNovgorodians A mass reaction to the increasing congruence of before them, they were made to serve the state against state and church may be seen in the schism of the theirwillSimilarly, a detachment of Polish and 17th century, in which a not - inconsiderable body of Lithuaniansoldiers.takenprisonerinthelate believers abandoned the officialk -h in reaction 1650s, were sent to fight on the Amur River in the against what they saw as its don , by the for- Far East ces of the antichristIt seems signii t. hov-wer, that the ad Believers, as these schismatics came Jildging from itstreatment of foreigners and to be known, found themselves powerless to chal- above all its own population. it would appear that lenge the forces they abhorred. Tht;y could only the rulers of the Muscovite state were guided by a

19 26 deer conviction about the unworthiness of human predominance of the great aristocratic families over nattoreWhile Machiavelli, for example, sought to both the sovereign and the lesser nobility, a situa- make ..se of the selfish side of human nature for tion on which the boiars of Muscovy could only the benefit of society, the Muscovite government gaze with envy was seemingly content to make use of human The region around Kiev, by the time of its Incor- weakness and fear to strengthen the power of the poration into Muscovy, likewise had come to dis- state. play its own unique pattern of political evolution. The characteristics of the Musccvite state came Ukraine, as it would henceforth be known, had in time to be exported to the territories brought evolved into a state in which, in contrast to the under its control, pushing out the earlier traditions situation prevailing in Great Russia, the interests of that had prevailed there and thereby impoverishing society were quite strongly represented. While the those native cultures. However, it needs to be em- society's deep sense of s rights and prerogatives phasized that the Middle Ages saw the develop- can be seen in the efforts of the townsof the ment of a wide variety of sociopolitical systems on region to assert their autonomy, the dominant fac- the former territories of Kievan Rus'. tors here were the nobility and army, in which duringthe17thcentury, one can witness a In Novgorod, for example, which by the begin- pronounced struggle between the supporters of ning of the 14th century controlled a vast region Cossack republicanism and the monarchism of the stretching from the borders of Livonia in the West to the Ural Mountains in the East, one can see the hetmans. evolution of a political system reminiscent in many Ukraine, by virtue of the culture and mentality of ways of that of the Italian city-states. Here the its elite, belonged much more to Latin than Or- veche traditions that had died out in the Vladimir- thodox Europe.It andto a lesser degreethe Suzdal land in the 14th century continued to thrive Eastern lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in a unique form until their abolition after the city- were thus in a position to serve as important chan- state's absorption by Moscow in the 1470s. In nels of Western learning and know-how into 17th Halych and Volhynia in the Southwest, on the other century Russia. One cannot overlook the substan- hand, one finds a system closer to that of the tialcontributionof Ukrainian churchmen-intcilec- kingdomsofCentralEurope,inwhichroyal tuals- bureaucrats andmilitarypersonnelinthe authority was challenged and shared by a powerful process of modernization initiated by TsarAlexis nobility. Mikhailovich; later, under Peter the Great as well, the role of learned Ukrainians continued to be of Yet another pattern was thatof the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, an enormous political forma- considerable significance. tion that came to occupy most of the western lands of Rus', including Kiev itself, in the 13th and Conclusion 14th centuries. Originally a loose confederation of While the reforms of Peter the Great have been principalities ruled by the Lithuanian Gedyminid characterized,andcorrectlyso,as aradical dynasty,in which localtraditions and customs changeinthedirectionofRussionhistorical remained largely untouched, this sate, afterits development, the patterns of relations between union with the Kingdom of Poland in 1385, came in- ruler, society, and individual developed during the creasingly to conform to the emerging institutional preceding centuries continue to be valid in times of model of the latter state. This evolution culminated Peter and his successors. In a curious way, these in the formation of a unified Polish-Lithuanian Com- links to the past become even more apparent after monwealth in the 16th century, characterized by a the revolution of 1917, with the formation of a politi- strongparliamentarytraditionandwell-defined cal system placing even greater emphasis on ser- prerogatives and rights of the nobility vis-a-vis the vice to the state and on the role of that state in the monarch. The peculiarity of Lithuania vis-à-vis the control and exploitation ofallthe resources of Polish Crown lands was, however, until the end of society, human as well as materia:. theperioddiscussedhere,theoverwhelming

20 27 RUSSIA FROM 1689 TO 1825/55 by Marc Raeff

The period from the late 17th century to the mid- social, and cultural functions in society, which they dle of the 19th is not only long, but also crowded carried out primarily outside the immediate super- with events. The only way we can do justice to it is vision and control of the centralized state. To bring to point out some broad themes that give some about the centralized monarchy, rulers in Western coherence to the period, although we shou'd al- and Central Europe had to enlistor force the ways be aware that overly neat coherence is very cooperation of these various "Intermediary misleadinghistory is never "neat"and we might bodies"pouvoirs intermediaires as Montesquieu want to guard against itStill,I think that for you as would call themwithout whose help the monarch we!! as for your students, some sense of coher- could not control and govern the state. Russia had ence is better than a chaotic jumble of facts and no counterpartof these WesternIntermediary events that may not be very meaningful in themsel- bodies, so that the autocratic power of the tsar ves. Obviously, I will be very selective. My focus operated in a vacuum, as it were. His was the only will be on developments in the 18th century, partly political authority: there was a tsar and there was a because Ihave done much of my work on them, people.Therewerenone(oronly invery but also because I think they were seminal and embryonic form) of the institutions (corporations, determined the shape of things in the 19th century guilds, estates, professions, ecclesiastical (and perhaps even beyond). authorities) that gave an identity to the social structures of Western Europe and assisted in the gover- The Political Culture Prior to Peter the Great nance of the polity. As indicated by Professor Keenan. the Russians A well-known theme inthe historyof early have certain notions about their own history, one modern Western and Central Europe was the strug- of the most crucial and permanent of which is a gle of the emerging monarchies against the power sense of breaks and discontinuities. Every nation of nobles and church. There had not been any has probably had a number of events that,in parallel phenomenon in Muscovy. Indeed, the Rus- retrospect, seem to have provided an element of sian nobility, by whatever definition, was also a discontinuity. I believe, however, that while Western military class, but it did not have the kind of strong European historical consciousness tends to stress local base that the various noble lords had in the continuity of historical experience, the Rus- Western medieval society. Nor was the church an sians' awareness of their own history emphasizes independent power that could oppose the state. breaks:there was a fundamentalbreak,itis From the very beginning, the church was in much believed, between Kiev and the subsequent period more of a subordinate positionit is partly a Byzan- of the Mongol/Tatar conquest and domination: tine heritagepolitically speaking. There may have another break occurred with the emergence of been brief moments when the Church of Moscow Moscow. Finally, one of the most important breaks tried to challenge the tsar, but It failed immediately. in pre-revolutionary Russian historical conscious- Finally, there were no towns in the sense that ness occurred at the end of the 17th century and Western Europe knew themthat is, able to sup- the beginning of the 18th. This break is associated port or oppose an absolute monarch. in conse- with the reign of Peter I(Peter the Great, 1689- quence, by the middle of the 17th century, Russian 1725) society was fully controlled by an autocratic tsar. His ways both the form of administration and its Professor Kaminski has described how the tsar symbolspartake greatly of the eastern model and his immediate advisors (in the boiar duma) (TatarorPersian),asProfessorKeenanhas emerged as an autocratic,centralizedpolitical pointed out power by the end of the 16th century.Inthis respect, the Russian development was similar, or What of the peasantry, who after all constituted parallel, to what took place in Western Europe be- 95 percent of the population?I am not sure that tween the end of the 15th and the beginning of the we know enough about the peasantry as a social 17th centuries. the emergence of centralized, ab- group However, we do know that until the middle solutist monarchies This development displayed in of the 17th century, the peasantry remained relative- Russia a feature thatdifferentiateditfromits ly free and was organized in village communes Western European counterpart. the Western Euro- whose exact nature and operating procedures we pean monarchies evolved against a background of still do not know adequately. in the 17th century, a large number of corporate and social institutions the gap between the peasantry and the central ad- or associations that had autonomous lives of their ministration, whose attention was concentrated on own. They performed certain economic, religious, military might and fiscal revenue, was great The

8 21 tsar and his court did not reach down to the village strument of antichrist To obey antichrist was to level,nor were theyinterestedindoingbo, jeopardize one's salvation provided the peasantry remained quiet With the ex- Muscovite society did not seem to possess the ceptions of some important rebellions, mainly on cultural or institutional means to overcome the the periphery of the state, law and order were main- crisis. With Moscow torn by manifold conflicts, the tained. Under the circumstances, the central ad- tsar's power, too, was put into question by the ministrative bodies preferred to work through the problems of succession and the rivalries of various mediation of the peasant commune. One might say court (and family) factions Contemporaries felt that that the peasant commune was one of the inter- the stability of Muscovy was nearly at an end; on mediary bodies whose absence, or weakness, we its own the polity could not generate the forces have noted earlier Like all peasant organizations in necessary for a change. That is where Peter I premodern times,however,the Russian village came inWhen he ascended the throne (more commune could not radiate its authority beyond precisely, when he was old enough to rule by him- the narrow confines of the village and have any self. ca. 1694), the necessity of resolving the crisis concerns that did not directly affect its members. had become more pressing; at the same time it ap- In the second half of the 17th century, the politi- peared that a set of ideas and practices about cal culture that had developed in Muscovy since governmentthatexistedoutsideofMuscovy the end of the 15th century entered a period of pointed to a way out. There seemed to be a way of crisis brought about by a variety of factors The restructuring the entire political life of the country, most visibleof these factors was theconflict while reinforcing Russia's position within the family among rival court parties that threatened chaos for of European states. the administration. For a number of economic and social reasons, there was also a great deal of tur- The Well-Ordered Police State frontier,peasant, and moilinthecountryside; The model that had been emerging in Central urban rebellions put in question Moscow's effective and Western Europe since the end of the 16th cen- control of its territory. tury and that had been successfully adopted In Of particular significance was the break in the practice in the majority of European states was the religious consensus that took place in the middle "well-ordered police state"; "police" was used not of the 17th century. At that time Patriarch Nikon inin the modern sense, but in the sense of orderly troduced a number of reforms: the ecclesiastical or- and effective administration. The significant charac- ganization was changed so as to effectively erode teristic of the new set of ideas and practices was parish autonomy (e.g., right to nominate the local the belief that the potential of economic, cultural, priest) and secure the absolute domination of the and social resources was far greater than had Patriarch and his staff in Moscow; the ritual (e.g., been assumed heretofore. In the Middle Ages, by manner of crossing oneself, singing the mass) was and large, people had believed that God had "cleansed" of practices that had developed over created the world as they knew it and that He had the centuries in Muscovy and brought in line with put a very definite limit to the resources available the contemporary Greek forms. Moreover, these to the creatures He had settled on this earth. The reforms were introduced so as to provoke the resis- only thing that humans could do was make use of tance of a significant minority of the populatior': these resources or be at the mercy of unknown about a quarter of the Russian people, and many and unknowable nature. members of the clergy and elite, refused to accept these reforms and stuck to what was to be called In the late 16th century partly stimulated by Renaissance modes of thought, partly as a conse- the "Old Belief." The church had I ecourse to the quence of discoveries and explorations of the New support of the state to enforce the reforms and to World and elsewhere, and partly also the result of put down the opposition, a split resulted the so- great advances made by science in unde.standing called Schism of the Old Believers, who were per- the forces of nature -a new notion arose: that na- secuted by the government. ture's potential was much greater and that with the Besides bringing untold hardships, the persecu- help ofscience one could know how nature tion of the Old Believers also shattered the consen- operates and thus discover new productive resour- sus on which the Muscovite state culture had ces. Applying reason and will, humans could ex- resteda consensus based on an acceptance of pand the store of resources that in the long run the religious foundation of society and harmonious would benefit them both materially and culturally. interworking between church and stateA large The task of government and of the educated elite, minority now came to be convinced that the state therefore. was to reorganize society so as to make had ceased to be the "Orthodox Moscow" that it more productive, to bring out latent resources to they could rely upon and that it had become an in benefit society and, naturally. the state To this

22 p 9 end, governors needed to use modern science to central government's officialdom. (Professor Kamin- discover and husband new resources, but they ski has used the word "bureaucracy" and has also had to organize the labor of society for in- shown that the administrative apparatus had al- creased productivity and efficiency people should ready expanded in the 17th century before Peter I not live from hand to mouth, or from year to year I prefer to use the word "officialdom," rather than as the peasant was wont to do, but should look "bureaucracy," because Ithink the latter has too ahead and invest for the future. modern a connotationbut that is a minor point of In the West, given the level of technology of disagreement ) Peter the Great was the first to use communications and transportation available at the the central official apparatus as the main driving time, this program could be implemented by the force toorganize,discipline,and educate the central government only if the latter obtained the country. collaboration, whether under duress or willingly, of I cannot go here into details of the structure of thevariousintermediaryassociations,corpora- Peter's modernized governmental apparatus Most tions. and institutions mentioned earlier Only with textbooks describe the various institutions Peter I theirhelp could the well-ordered police state's created, which served as a basic framework for the program of disciplining and educating a productive government of the empire until its demise in the society be carried out. We can also easily see that 20th century. Even while expanding the central an important role in this process would be played government,Peterstillconfrontedthedifficult by the military, the immediate beneficiary of an in- problem of having the will and orders of the govern- crease of productivity and a better harnessing of ment reach into the very L:epth of the Russian so- the forces of society, because it relied on the kind cial fabric. He had to increase the number of offi- of leadership and entrepreneurial skills that were cials, which involved an expansion of the service necessary to guide and educate society for ever- class. Peter sought candidates for service positions growing productivity. among foreigners and newly conqueredelites, Peter I,his advisors, and certain segments of among the urban classes, among tne clergy, and the Muscovite elite believed that they had to adopt so on. But there was a limit. The government did the Western model of the well-ordered police state not have enough money to reward or pay all these in order to get Muscovy out of its crisis and to en- new officials. Even more important, the pool of hance the authority and prosperity of the state and potential candidates was very limited. In fact, the the population. To this end, they had to build an ad- pool was limited to the traditional service class, ministrative and military apparatus that would be those who had constituted themilitary service on an equal footing with thatof Western and class in Muscovy and from whom the tsars had Central European states; the military establishment drawn their courtiers and helpmates. In order to was modernized and patterned after the existing make itpossible to draw from other sectors of European models (mainly Swedish and Prussian) society, Peter restructured the status and organiza- as was the administration. But the Russia of Peter tion of the service class. did not have those structures or links that would as- In the 17th century, the service group was main- sist the central government in carrying out this ly hereditaryIt was subdivided into several cate- program of modernization. The only thing Peter I gories.Itwas very difficultto move from one could do was expand the central government and category to the next higher one. The process usual- try to reach further into the fabric of society. ly took several generations of very serious efforts, The Muscovite tsars had generally been content of good service performance, of clever marriage ar- with a negative approach tc government; that is, rangements, of finding the right patron. Pater, in their task, as they saw it, was to keep law and need of personnel, decided to break the system order at home and defend the country against and make it more flexible by introducing the Table enemies (which did not preclude going on the of- of Ranks. By the terms of the Table, every noble fensiveifpossible)The governmentofPeter, had to serve for life, on a permanent basis, as the however, set itself the further goal of transforming government decided, and wherever he was sent Russian society ti) make it more productive, to Promotion would be on the basis of merit or length bring more wealth into circulation, and thereby in- of service; in principle it became possible for some- crease the benefits of both state and country one not of noble origin to acquire nobility for himself and his children by dint of meritorious service. The central administration was thus assigned more functions than in the past, not only to sup- Even more important than the small opening of pori a larger modern military establishment and to the class of state servitors to newcomers was the make sure that taxes were collected, but also to fact that rank (i e ,status in service) became the promote and organize manufacturing and trade In most important criterion of status in society Wealth Russia this had to be done with the help of the was secondary, though through rank (i e., service) one could also attain wealth For this reason, the

30 23 term "nobility" may be a little misleading Nobility monarch had always to be put into action not only in the context of 18th- and 19th-century Russia to resolve conflicts but also to give direction and only denotes status within the Table of Ranks, or Implement policy decisions. the fact of belonging to a family that had always As a result, from the time of Peter I and well into held a service position The economic situation of the 19th century, there was a constant strain be- the nobility was not a prime factor, there existed tween personal and institutionalized ("routinized" in very poor nobles who depended on service for Max Weber's terminology) authority. This was true their livelihood. On the other hand. even a rich of the central government, where all attempts at in- man did not enjoy the status of a nobleman unless stituting rule by "permanent laws" or basic regula- he also had a respectable service rank As a matter tions failed because both ruler and ruled preferred offact,the overwhelming number of Russian to leave latitude to the intervention of personal "nobles" were poor, possessing neither enough authority.Similarly, the pattern prevailed on the land nor serf labor to support them and thus lower levels of public life: governors and other offi- forced to stay permanently in the service of the cials acted as personal representatives of the ruler, state. True, service not only provided them with a exercising a personal type of authority and prevent- salary but could be the source of additional gifts, ing the elaboration of automatic, routine operation grants, and special favors on the part of the ruler of laws and regulations. This trait was carried far- or his collaborators. ther onto the very lowest level of the relationships Because the bulk of the ,nobility depended on of authority. The landlord, since the peasants had state service, it was an obedient tool of the govern- become his serfs, was like the emperor: he was the ment. This also accounts for the fact that noble "tsar" of his serfs and ruled them on the basis of status did not entail rights and privileges that the his personal authority exclusively (to what extent Crown couldnottouch,nor diditguarantee he acquiesced to customary law, as expressed and security of person or property eitherat least not implemented by the village commune and its as- until the end the 18th century,ifthen. Until the sembly, is a matter of controversy in the scholarly second half of the 18th century, a nobleman could literature). be subjectedtocorporalpunishment,justas Quite obviously, the personal nature of authority anyone else could. Deprivation of status was also or political power stands in opposition to govern- easy (and common) until the end of the 18th cen- ment by regulations and laws. Yet the latter was tury: even after that time it could be inflicted by ad- theunderlyingassumptionofthe well-ordered ministrative action. In short, the Russian nobility did police state, which aimed at having things run by not enjoy the economic and personal security and institutions along rational, routine lines so as to legal status of their counterparts in the West They maximize efficiency. The strain between the conflict- remained at the mercy of the government, whose ing attitudes of personal as contrasted to Institution- tools they had to be. alized (routinized) authority was never resolved in The impetus and guiding direction of the well-or imperial Russia.Itexplains why bureaucratization dered police state were given by the sovereign. In could never be carried to its logical consequences, the West, the ruler (monarch) had to take account as it was in Prussia in the 19th century. On the of balancing forcesthe church, associations of other hand, it also explains why autocracy survived provincial estates or towns, professional and trade for so long. guilds, and so on. The history of absolutism to the 19th century was largely one of conflicts between The Russian Peasantry monarch and these constituted bodies, of com- promises and arrangements made between govern- In any event, as the central state apparatus grew and took on more and more responsibilities, ment and the various orders of sociE:y In Russia, the emperor (Peter changed the title from tsar to its ability to reach the mass of the population, espe- remained embryonic. This emperor in 1721) and his advisors w9re not only ciallythepeasantry, the initiators and prodders in disciplining society, situation, which continued unchanged well into the they were also the forces that coordinated the ac- 19th century, explains the particular aspects of Rus- tivities of institutions and held the monopoly of ad- sia'speasantry andofitsfete.The Russian judicating whatever conflicts might arise between peasantry had become fixed to the soil over a government and society and also between mem- period of several generations, starting sometime in bers of the establishment. The emperor was the the 16th century. By the middle of the 17th, the last resort for settling all social and political con- pc.-cisantofcentral European Russia had been flicts as would arise in a society with clans or deprived of his mobility. He could not leave his vil- families constantly vying for greater power, or as lage without permission of the state or local land- newcomers tried to break into the circle ofin- owners His only way out was to run away and fluence and prestige The personal authority of the many peasants did escape to the frontier regions,

24 31 the steppes of the south and southeast or the Ural could not supervise his serfs closely either. It was Mountains and Siberia. convenient to appoint abailiff,a manager, or One of the tasks of Peter's government and ser- delegate a relative, but it was still more convenient viceelite was to see toitthat the peasantry to let the existing village institutions-the peasant remained fixed to the land so as to control it, col- commune in particular - supervise the fulfillment of lect revenue, and have a labor force at their dis- the serfs'obligations. This explains the survival posal. The peasantry not only paid money into the (some historians have argued thatit was even a treasury(eachmale peasant was assessed a strengthening) of the communal village arrange- capitation or poll tax payment), but also provided ments to which Professor Keenan referred. Another recruits for the army (a peasant recruit had to facet of the situation complicated matters still fur- serve for 25 years- virtually for life) and the labor ther: the "moral economy" of serfdom was not only force for public works and conveying military sup- a legal and economic arrangement by which the plies (e g., building of St Petersburg and of canals, peasant spent part of his labor time working for the carting, maintenance of postal relays). state and the landlord, it was also an institutional arrangement in which the interests of the landlord The imperialgovernment hadtoreach the and those of the peasants were inextricably inter- population in order to get its money and labor and twined. What do I mean by that? alsoin the hope of eventually disciplining and educating it for more productive habits. The central Let usfirsttake the situationof the noble government did not have the manpower or the landlord. He may have possessed a large estate technical means to accomplish this task unaided. granted by the emperor for services. The ruler, In the absense of such intervening institutional links however, was careful to avoid the servicemen's as existed in the West, the Russian government challenging his power. To preclude such a pos- concluded that the best solution was to leave con- sibility, the sovereign granted estates not In one trol of the peasantry to the landowners: rewarding piece but in scattered parcels, not in one district, noble servit3rs with estates and letting them dis- but in several. A wealthy landowner possessing pose of the peasants' labor. In this way, gradually, both much land and many peasants to work it did the peasantry already attached to the soil became not have, in fact, a single big estate on which he attached to the person of the landlord as well. would reign as ifit were his own kingdom; rather Serfdom of the medieval Western European type he had many holdings distributedallover the was transformed in Russia into a special type, country (or Central Russia). As a result, in one vil- similar to that prevailing in East Central Europe, lage there were quite often two or three (or even but the Russian peasant became a serf who was a more) landlords;consequently,inorder to ac- virtual chattel of the owner. By the end of the 18th complish anythingeffectively,they had toget century few differences distinguished the Russian together and agree on common action.This serf from the black slave in the antebellum South. proved very difficult because most landlords were absent, serving the state; in addition, they were Itshould be noted, however, that only a little suspicious of each other, so that agreement was over one-half of the peasants belonged toin- not easy (and that leaves out of account the un- dividual serf owners. The remainder (aside from a avoidable situations of conflict over boundaries, few special categories numbering a relatively small trespass, etc.). number of persons) were attached to the soil and "belonged" to the state; that is, they came under Furthermore, the Eastern Slays in general, and the control of government officials and institutions. the Russians in particular, had a tradition of divid- Sincethegovernmentapparatus wasunder- ing inheritances among all children, including un- developed on the local level, the so-called state married daughters, and making an allotment for the peasants enjoyed a degree of autonomy and per- widow. They knew neither primogeniture nor entail sonal freedom within the framework of their village (nor Majorat) with one son or child inheriting all of communes. They could, however, be given away the land and other immovables. Consequently, es- tc individual owners whom the ruler wished to tates were splintered; over several generations, a reward. In the course of the 18th century, close to large estateif not replenishedmight be broken 1 million souls (i.e., male peasants) were thus trans- up into several small ones. Moreover, every parcel formed intoprivateserfs,inthe same period of the original estate consisted of several units scat- 800,000 souls belonging to church institutions be- tered all over the map, so that each unit was very came state peasants (The practice of giving away small and economically not very profitable. In the state peasants to individLals ceased in the early majority of cases, Russian noblemen did not do years of the 19th century ) well. Of course there were exceptions of extremely wealthy landlords. but their wealth was the result of Because he had to serve the state and absent special favor shown by the rulerIn the country- himself from the estate, the landlord-serviceman side, some 90 perc- it of the nobility were too poor

:47 25 Russia tomodernize and improve their holdings they tury. In thinking about the transformation of lacked money, time, or skills to do so. initiated by Peter the Great, we must keep in mind that for the bulk of the Russian peasantry it was The landlord also had to operate in conjunction noteffectiveimmediately;onlygradually and with the peasant community The system of in- piecemeal, in selected areas, did the government's tothe heritanceandrepartitionalsoapplied Westernizing policies affect the peasant population peasants. The peasant community, which was by and large the rule in Central Russia, would peri- Westernization odically divide the land among the households, depending on the number of able-bodied men in From the time of Peter Iuntil the middle of the each household. In making thisrepartition, the 19th century, the state took the lead in the modern- community tried to be as fair as possible, allotting ization of the country. This was in contrast to a parcel each of very fertile,medium fertile, and England, France, and to a great extent Germany, forest (or meadow) land to every household The where society was the leader, with the government result was that the commune's land was split up or the state merely providing some meansto intostrips, and each household had to work facilitate the process. Insofar as the state had dif- several small strips that often were far apart. The ficulty in reaching the peasantry, it decided simply peasant thus had to spend considerable time walk- to leave it out. If the mass of the peasantry was not ing from one parcel to the other The yield was immediately affected, the noble service elite of Rus- very low: the peasant lived perilously close tothe sia certainly was. Itis remarkable that within two margin of starvation. generations at most, the Russian service class had It was difficult to persuade a whole community accepted and internalized the program of Europe- to introduce anything new First, everyone had to anization that had been forced on them by Peter I. agree to do it,for under conditions of extreme In other words, they had been successful In most splintering ofallotments the peasant could not respects in their efforts at becoming similar totheir work his furrow without trespassing on those of counterparts, the nobility of Western andCentral others,or seed and harvestatspecific times Europe. This internalization was primarily mani- without regard to his neighbors' work schedule. fested by their willingness, nay eagerness, to ac- Secondly, the very low yields made the peasant cept Western education as the very basis oftheir fearful of innovation, even when given the means identity. To be an educated person in the Euro- to introduce new techniques, tools, or cropsHe pean sense, one had to be able to read,under- was afraid that during the period oftransition he stand, and enjoy the culture, literature, and art of would be at the mercy of chance events whether the West; one also had to try to lead a life akin to natural or human- that could bring him to the that of nobility in Western Europe. This became the verge of starvation The traditionalism andcaution sine qua non, the necessary precondition for mem- of peasants all over the world were reinforcedby bership in the elite. If one did not serve the state or the Russian peasant's cruel dependence on his withdrew from service, one was deemed a member neighbors and fellow members of the village com- of the elite only to the extent that one had acquired mune. The intricate network ofdependence of the Western education. The reverse was also true. peasants on each other, and of the landlord on the Whatever one's origins,if one were fully Western peasant commune, resulted in a highly rigid situa- byeducation,outlook,and way oflife,one tion in which improvements and innovations were belonged naturally to the elite. very hard to bring about. The acceptance and absorptionof Western The form of economy based on serfdom that education meant also incorporation of the basic developed in the early 18th century remained a per- ideas andvaluesofEuropeProudoftheir manent feature of Russia for a long timeto the Europeanization, members of theelitefelt they theirin- abolition of serfdom in 1861It was very difficult to were owed respect and recognitionof reform (or break) and became a major handicap dividual dignity. Had they not, after all, succeeded for the economic development of the country.It in the difficult task of educating themselves and be- placed restraints on the state's and service elite's coming Europeans" Consequently, they deserved something effortsat"modernizing"orEuropeanizingthe to be treated like European noblemen, country. It required a change of mind on the part the insecure and poor Russian nobleman, as we of the government and society to abolish the sys- have seen, was not. This elite felt that the state tem in the middle of the 19th century ratherlate should be willingto accept them as partners, in the game Even after the abolition of serfdom, rather than just as servants and executors ofits many of the features that continued to handicap hill Now that they had implemented the program the development of Russia's economy and the that had been set for them by the state, they peasantry's access toEuropeanization can be should be tro:.,ted with respect, and their personal, traced to the pattern established in the 18th cen- cultural, and social needs should be recognized

26 This implied that they should be allowed to give implemented. This is the origin of that peculiarly themselves an institutional structure enabling them Russian phenomenon of the intelligentsia, a social not only to continue serving the state, which they type that has found Its Imitators elsewhere in the were quite willing to do in the majority of instances. 20th century. The Intelligentsia In its original sense, but also develop their own interests and enter- therefore,is that part of Russian societya tiny prises and lead private lives. minority at first but with growing membershipthat Inthe second halfof the 18th century, the had been educated in the Western spirit at the be- government of Catherine IIrealized that in order to hest of the state; because the state refused to attain the goals of the well-ordered police state it grant them the freedoms they believed were their was not enough to have an effective corps of offi- due, they turned against the establishment, first as cials at the center. Society (i e., the educated and a critical force and eventually as a radical op- experienced members of the elite) should be in- positionist one. volvedinthe process ofmaterial and cultural If this intelligentsia no longer wanted to serve a progress. Such an involvement, Catherine II(and statethatrefusedtorecognizeitsclaimsfor her advisors, of course) believed, would be real- autonomy, however, itstill wanted to be useful to ized by means of constituted bodies of society Russian society. Abandoning its exclusive loyalty Catherine made it her task to promote the forma- and service to the state, it turned to the peasantry: tion of such bodies by structuring more firmly and to serve the people, to help educate and enlighten clearly the upper echelons of Russian society. She the people so that it might accede to the Westerni- proceeded by giving a legal framework to the zation the intelligentsia had experienced earlier. nobility, recognizing its status as a "corporation" Itis fair at this point to add that while Euro- and guaranteeing its members full security of per- peanization and modernization In the 18th century son andproperty Shealsoinvolvedrepre- had primarily affected the noble service class, It did sentatives of the corporation of the nobility in the not leave the peasantry untouched either. Selected process of provincial and local administration, sub- elements of the peasantry were drawn into the stituting them for an officialdom that was not large process of Europeanization. Two classes played a and effective enough to reach down to the level of majorrole In associatingthepeasantryto the countryside. European culture. Atfirstitmight seem abit Similarly, the population of the towns was clas- paradoxical thatit was precisely these two that sified into several groups, each one given its spe- should play such a progressive role. One was the ciallegalstatus and a number ofprivileges army, which had already been a "modernizing" "Rights"is perhaps too strong a word for the force in 17th century Europe. Organized along ra- benefits bestowed uponnobilityandwealthier tional lines,it made use of advanced technology townspeople,forthesebenefitswereinfact and therefore needed a more sophisticated and privileges that could be taken away as easily as developed economy to support it. More important- they had been granted (and they were to be in- ly,the army was the Institution through which fringed upon by Catherl.ie's successors), rather many of the rank-and-file poor nobles had ex- than rights that could always be claimed. perienced their own exposure to the West. A boy The state was reluctant to give these corporate from the service nobility was expected to go into bodies and their members full rights of organiza- the army around the age of 15!f he had not action and association on a completely autonomous quired them at home or a special state school, he basis. The state was afraid that autonomous cor- would acquire the rudiments of a Western-type porate organizations would challenge its monopoly education and Western way oflifein the army. ofpowerandauthoritybyunderminingthe There he would be instructed in such things as autocracy. mathematics, administrative skills, leadership qualities; he might be associated with comrades By the second half of the 18th century, there who had been educated in Western fashion; and in were emerging groups of theeliteinRussian some instances he might even have the oppor- society who wanted to lead a life separate from the tunity to go abroad on assignment or in the course state, not determined by the latter's interests and of a military campaign. Having received this ex- commands. Such groups were formed on the basis posui c to European notions, values, and ways, of their members having acquired a Western type many a Russian noble serviceman triedtore- of lifethis was the Russian form of civil society create on his estate the Western type of life he had that demanded the right to organize its own social, become accustomed to in military service or the institutional, and culturallife.In so doing these capitals. groups were infactissuing a challenge to the state. implying that they would oppose the state if To do so, he had to rely on his peasants In this their demands for autonomy were not granted and fashion domestic serfs found themselves forced to acquire such skills as European-style cooking or

27 serving at tablein European fashion. Insofar as "goods" taken over by one society from another even the nobleman had limited cash resources, if are usually transmitted not by their originators but he wanted a Western environment, he had to have rather by their disciples and humble imitators. in the artifacts of Western life fabricated at home. it the 18th centuryitwas not Newton or other was too expensive to purchase much from abroad, prominent scientists and philosophers who went to and foreign craftsmen in Russia were also beyond Russia; it was their students and the second rank the reach of the average nobleman (be it only be- of professionals, academics, or intellectuals who cause they settled in the capitals). To produce the were willing to try their luck in remote and cold kind of things they wanted, noblemen trained their Russia, to impart their knowledge and skills to bar- own peasants.Serfs were trainedas cabinet- barous Muscovites. makers,painters,decorators,actors,dancers, The culture transmitted to and accepted by the singers, or musicians new society is often, therefore, a watered-down, In this way, albeit reluctantly and under duress, simplified -routinized or vulgarized -version of the select members of the peasantry became involved original. A process of selection takes place in the in the process of Westernization. Many of these transmission of ideas.In the early 18th century, skilled serfs were brought by their masters to the Russia was exposed not to Newton or Leibniz towns to work in their townhouses; they were also contemporaries of Peter I butrather to those frequently given free time to practice their skills for second-rankGermanacademicscientistsand others (friends and neighbors of the master) and scholars who were willing to go to Russia and who also for sale (usually for their own benefit). Most fre- themselves had bees trained a half generation ear- quently these serfs settled in the towns and be- lier. They brought to Russia 17th century deductive came part of an essentially Europeanized section German phiiosopny and science, neglecting of the population. English empiricism, which was to prove of greater While this aspect of Westernization was limited importance in the future development of natural science. Furthermore, the European ideas were in scope,itnonetheless shows that things were changing for many peasants. However adverse to presentedin watered-down versions, transmitted change the village community may have been, as they were in the form of adaptations and transla- over the long run even it did change; while we do tions rather than in the original texts. not have adequate documentation to trace this The Western ideas and discoveries that were process step by step, there is no doubt that the vil- brought to Russia originally, therefore, were not lage community in the mid-19th century was quite necessarily the most Important and innovative, but different from what it had been in the mid-18th. Al- ratherthosethathad become acceptedand though basic Institutional arrangements and traits routine. Vulgarization is one of the factors of selec- of peasant ways of life and thought remained unaf- tivity. The second aspect of selectivity derives from fected,developmentsweretakingplacethat the ability to receive, accept, and incorporate new gradually transformed serfdom and made its aboli- ideas.Afterall,new ideas are brought into a tion inevitable. framework that is different, or even alien, to the I would like to examine still further the process framework in which they had originated. For example, the 18th-century notions of natural law, aes- of Europeanization of the elite. ihave mentioned politicshadoriginatedin thatassociationwiththeWestandCentral thetics,ethics,and European education and ways was a major ele- Europe within the context of Western social struc- ment and hallmark in the history of the Russian turesandpoliticalinstitutions.Theywere a elite.It was also the foundation on which arose response to problems faced by these structures modern Russian culture: first literature (to which we and institutions. Brought to Russia, these same all have had some exposure) including fiction and ideas found themselves in a kind of vacuum: the poetry, and later on music, painting, and the other Russians, for example, had neither a parliament arts, as well as scholarship and science. All these nor corporate or professional traditions. Conse- were the result of Russia's Europeanization in the quently, not everything was really "under- 18th century. standable"- not in the ordinary intellectual sense, but in any truly essential sense. Nor was everything Itisin this respect that we f;nd the sharpest Western importanttotheRussians,and they break in the tradition; modern Russian high culture selected from the body of ideas made available to is almost totally different from the high culture of them only those that seemed relevant or interesting pre-PetrineMuscovy. When we examinethe to their experience and purpose. processofassimilationofaforeignculture literary, artistic, technical, scientific, and political The case of liberalism is interesting because it we must keep in mind certain important features had repercussions wellintothe19thcentury. English and French Enlightenment ideas of society thatareveryoftenneglected First,cultural al .politics were based on the notion of the in-

28 :45 dividual's autonomy, his ability to use his reason not so much Voltaire as Rousseau who attracted and his empirical experience as a basis of his con- the Russians and elicited a responsive chorus. ception of the world, and therefore his right to be Paradc' :cally,perhaps,theEnlightenmentthat treated as a free Individual; his Intellectual and so- came in with Europeanization led the Russians to cialidentityshouldbeintangibleandsecure embrace eagerly Romanticism for its emphasis on againstarbitraryactionortrespassbythe the spiritual ana communal, while also leading to a authorities. In the American Declaration of Indepen- revival of personal religious spiritualism. dence or the English Bill of Rights, the Individual is always the central figure. This was not readily un- The End of Serfdom derstandable to the Russians in the 18th century, nor much of immediate concern to them, possibly I mentioned earlier that the state's refusal to per- because they knew that they could not challenge mit full autonomy to the educated elite turned the the autocracy and were not thinking in political latter against the state. Still imbued with the values terms as yet. ofservice,theeliterebuffedby thestate decided to put their knowledge and talents to the An even more important reason, I think, was the service of the people. The task of the intelligentsia fact (as Professor Keenan has indicated) that Rus- became, then, to serve the peasantry, to free them sians found themselves embedded in an all-power- from serfdom while regenerating them materially ful social matrix, so that individuals were never con- and morally. ceived as separate from the group to which they belonged. Consequently, when presented with an This raised a question: Who were the people array of ideas about the individual's relationship to and what did the intelligentsia really know about society,the French(orEnglish)stress on In- them? in a sense, not much. The people were the dividualism did not prove particularly meaningful or peasants, about 95 percentof the population. attractive to the Russians. Neither the state nor the landlord had been eager to interfere with the ways and practices of the vil- On the other hand, the Germans had developed lage commune; they preferred to leave It in peace a conception of Enlightenment which, though shar- as long as there was order in the countryside and ing some of the concerns of the French and the Its members were performing their tasks and meet- English, was more firmly rooted in the notion that ing their obligations. The elite, busy appropriating the individual was inconceivable apart from society Western education and culture, found no time to and could not be separated from the group. The be ccncerned with the peasants. To find out what Germans agreed with the French and the English the peasantry was like, what were Its real condition that the in,:ividual does have rights, but the Ger- and true needs, was a taxing and not very reward- mans argued that these rights were entirely de- ing enterpr:se, they seemed to feel. Most ?nteilec- pendent on the individual's fulfilling obligations to tuals soon tired of the practical problems they en- the group, to the community, and to the society. In countered on their path of learning more about the the second place, the Germans maintained, the In- peasantry. dividuals acted not only on the basis of reason alone: they had also a religious, spiritual, and ethi- Instead of coming to know and to communicate cal dimension as well. This was something the Rus- with the peasantry, the elite preferred fantasizing sians could understand and accept. They never felt about themat least until the middle of the 19th that the individual meant anything alone; as the century. They transferred onto the people notions Russian proverb goes, "A single man is not a war- of their own, notions which they had found either rior in the field," he has to be with others to be real- in Western literature or had created themselves on ly a warrior. the basis of their own reflections on moral, intellectual, and spiritual questions. They came to believe The relationship of the individual to the group, limit to help the people, one really needed only to their mutual obligations, became the focal point of change the system, to overthrow the government the Russians' concern in social theory and deter- that prevented them from getting to know the mined what they chose to select among the no- people. Such attitudes, obviously, led to a lot of tions of the Enlightenment that came from the misunderstandings. First, the state grew suspicious West. At the same time,their concern for the oftheintelligentsia'sproposingchangeson spiritual and ethical dimensions of the individual ideological grounds rather than on the basis of em- was related to their experience with serfdom. They piricalknowledge andrealisticassessmentof noticed that serfdom was a threat to the ethical, as needs and possibilities. The people, on the other well as spiritual, integrity of both owners and serfs hand, could not respond to the intelligentsia's no- For this reason, the educated elites fought for a tions and propaganda because they did not under- moral and spiritual revival and reform rather than stand them for social or political change, as had been the case in England and in France. in French writing, it was

.fir)6 29 The government finally decided to put an end to Other Factors serfdom in 1861 because it was morally unaccept- I wou:d like to make two additions to the picture able to the West and the educated elite. because it I have traced. One relates to religion and the was an economic handicap, and because it was so- church. the other to the non-Russian populations cially dangerous. The government acted on the of the empire. basis of extensive study and empirical investigation of conditions in the countryside. Peter I eliminated the church as an independent institutionalforceHe didnot The emancipation initiated a process of develop- or autonomous abolish religion by any means, but the church was ment that was the reverse of what had been hap- integrated into the government establishment. This pening until then Up to 1861 (using the date sym- meant two things: first, the Old Believers who did bolically), the state had been the leader in the not accept the earlier reforms carried out by the Europeanization and modernization of the country, church in the middle of the 17th century were now crowning this role by the act of emancipation and seen as a danger to the state, and the government a series of other fundamental reforms (local govern- attempted to suppress them, persecuting them in a ment, justice, military). From this moment on. the gradually passedto number of ways. However, these efforts failed and initiativeofmodernization the Old Believers, about a quarter of the popula- society at large. With the abolition of serfdom, large numbers of peasants were free to take initia- tion, remained a hard-core minority that reluctantly the existenceofthestate,but tives and become masters of their own lives (in acquiesced to avoided associating with it, for fear of losing eter- spite of the many deficiencies and constraints of nalblissin the hereafter. The religious culture the emancipation settlement). prevailing amcng Russian people before PeterI A radical transformation in peasant culture was was carried on by the Old Believers, but it became initiated partly by the peasants themselves, partly frozen in its 17th-century state. As a result, not only under the stimulus of the educated eliteFor the was the Europeanized elite disassociatedfrom the first time, educated Russians were finding a way to mass of the population, as noted earlier, but ahard- be useful to the people by becoming professionals core minority of the population remainedrigidly in medicine, education, agriculture, and so on A rooted in preserving 17th-century culture. These lat- rapidly growing sector of Russian society was get- ter elements came to the fore again in the late 19th ting more and more involved in the professions of century when the imperialegime relaxed some- service. This aevelopment, however, was escaping what its repressive attitud',. What we often as- control by the state. which resisted and tried to sociate with Russian popular culture today isIn restrictit as much as possible. The consequence fact Old Believer culture, an adapted form of 17th- was a growing coi 'ict between the professionals century tradition. and the state. A second aspect of the church problem in im- After 1861, the autocracy retained control and perial Russia was the fact that the most active claimed to have the monopoly of political authority, spiritual and religious life of both the people and but it had lost the Initiative of modernization The educated elite took place outside the framework of pea3antty was undergoing transformations whose the institutional official church, although not against consequences Professor Ascher discusses in his it You may think of it as similar to the relationship chapter On the other hand. the educated class betweentheAnglicanChurchofHanoverian professionals and intelligentsiawas finding itself England and the various nonconforming churches more and more frustrated in its desire to serve the (Methodist,Presbyterian, etc.).InRussiathe people. religious and moral seekings were independent of Partly rejected by the people and partly stymied the official church: the church was primarily a tool by the various controls that the autocracy was en- of the state, with little moral and intellectual stand- deavoring to maintain, educated civil society was ing in Russian society The Russians did not stop becoming more and more radical There developed being religious, and their piety was never affected a struggle between two static poles, eachaiming at (they were diligent church-goers, for example), but thecompleteeliminationof theother. the they did not look to the official cht,:ch or its clergy autocracy wanted to eliminate the intelligentsia. the for guidance and the satisfaction of their inner intelligentsia strove to topple the autocracy No spiritual needs For this reason, too. the revival of compromise solution seemed possible When exter- religious and ecclesiastic concerns at the end of nal factors contributed to weakening the autocracy the 19th century became the business of the laity. to such an extent that it could no longer control The second additionalpoint I want to touch the situation, the whole system collapsed and the upon relates to the situation of thenon-Russian Old Regime disintegrated peoples of the empire When I spoke of the a:my as a central concern of Peter I and his successors,

30 :4 7 I did not mention that the modernized military force ment, of men capable of acquiring p.!: necessary wasnotdevelopedprimarilyforreasonsof skills and knowledge to this end. In Russia proper defense. Russia's security was not threatened in limits were set to the expansion of the estab- the 18th and 19th centuries, with the exception of lishment by the small number of Russians available the very short-lived Napoleonic invasion. no neigh- for service and by the restricted opportunities for bor could challenge the empire's security, national education. The peasantry couldnot be drawn survival, or even its territorial integrity from the end upon, and there were no other alternative sources of the 17th century until the 20th. Clearly Russia for recruitment But some elites of subject nations was not a beleaguered country needing a big might be used to control their fellow nationals and military establishment foritsdefense. Whatever secure outlying regions. To this end, they were may have been the case in the 15th and 16th cen- coopted into the Russian service establishment; tudes when Muscovy was asserting itself, it was no they were rewarded with ranks and decorations longer true of the empire in the 18th and 19th cen- and elevated to noble status turies. Even the war against Sweden (1700-21). From the 16th century on, Muscovy, and later which is very often described as a defensive estab- the Russian state, pursued a consistent policy of lishment also an agent for Westernization, as wt coopting the leadership of the subject peoples, recall was needed mainly for the ongoing expan- especially of those who could be readily attracted sion of the empire In the 18th century, Russia ac- by the Europeanized culture of modern Russia. It quired the Baltic provinces. Finland. the whole of was advantageous for them and their children to the modern Ukraine, and the Crimea and par- learn the Russian language and acquire Russian ticipated in the partitions of Poland, where itgot culture: gradually, these foreign elites were Rus- the lion's share.It conquered the Caucasus and sified and absorbed Into the Russian establishment Central Asia in 'he 19th century. and society. They did not have to become Russian After empire-building. the army's second mis- Orthodox, although it was desirable to do so in the sion was to keep domestic peace and order, espe- long run, nor did they have to abandon their lan- cially in the 18th century. when it was called upon guage and even some of their legal and social tradi- to suppress numerous revolts of Cossacks, nations. tives, and peasants In the 19th century. however. For the peoples on a much higher level of cul- domestic peace was threatened but occasionally, tural sophisticationnamely in the Baltic provin- and until the 20th century, the army did not have to ces. Finland, the Ukraine, and Polandthe Russian get much involved. empire had the inducements of fast promotion in From the middle of the 16th century and well the service establishments and economic rewards. into the 19th, Russia not only extended its boun- These elites, too, coopted and rewarded, gradually daries but conquered and absorbed non-Russian became Russifiedwithout, however, losing their peoples and their territory. How well did the im- original culture: as a consequence, the 19th cen- perial government deal with this situation as a tury witnessed the phenomenon of bilingual, bicul- colonial power? Quite successfully, at least until tural, and sometimes polytheistic imperial elites. the end of the 19th century, the colonial character For example, a prominent minister of the empire oftheRussianempirewasneverseriously could be of Protestant background and practice threatenedFirst,of course, the Russian estab- Greek Orthodoxy, speak German at home and Rus- lishment had overwhelming superiority of military sian in public. thus being both German and Rus- force. Secondly, we must remember that national- sian in his cultural life. To a lesser degree, this also ism as a form of feeling and thinking that entails in- happened among Poles, Finns, and others. This dependence orattheleasta.2cognoionof was one way of keeping the empire under control autonomous special status is a modern concep- so that the government forgot. or might ignore, the tion. Nationalism as we know itis a phenomenon dynamite hidden in the national const.,ousness of of the 19th century: earlier forms, which one of my the various subject per oles. colleaguescalled"pre-nationalconsciousness" It was only under the influence of Romanticism, were not nationalism in the modern sense. largely disseminated by the Russians themselves, Before Lie 19th century. Europeans, and Rus- that the national problem arose and became criti- sians too, were imperial subjects and did not think cal The imperial government proved incapable of in terms of ethnicity or nationality They may have coping with this new phenomenon in the traditional thought in terms of religious differences, or of cer- manner and had recourse to repression and Rus- tain historical rights and privileges that they wished sification by force Of course this policy boomer- to see recognized within a corporate or dynastic anged and the state lost the loyalty and obedience framework Moreover. Russia was an empire state of the non-Russian populationIt was another and in constant need of servitors to control the large significant factor in the collapse of the imperial sys- territory and maintain a powerful military establish- tem in the early 20th century

:18 31 RUSSIAN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY TO 1917: AN INTRODUCTION by Richard Wortman

The fieldof intellectual history is not easy to "By the will of fate,it may be that we are the last define, for its practitioners understand it '1 different country in the world that reads." ways Some approach it as the study of the evolu- To understand Russia,in this, as in so many tion of Important ideas through history They take other respects, we must make a conceptual leap what we call an "internalist" approachthat is. one to try to understand a cultore completely different that follows the development of ideas in connec- from our own in Russia, writers have been saints tion with each other rather than in relationship to and prophets, worshipped and followed. When changes inpolitics,society,or economy. The Soviets defend the limitations on thought and the scholar may examine the thought of Descartes, printed word, they often point to the fact that in Leibniz, Hume, Kant. and Hegel and trace con Russia thought is a challenge and even a menace troversies over major philosophical questions, say to authority. What I write, and what you read, is not the idea of reason Or he may seek to explain the of great significance to the governors of New Jer- meaning of certain important ideas, for example, ey or New York, or the leaders of the Democratic Kant's categorical imperative, or Marx's idea of or Republican Parties. What Russians read or write surplus value. is of enormous significance to the leadership of the This is not what I mean by intellectual history In- Communist Party. In Russia the printed word is a tellectual history as I understand itis the study of force. So itis today, soit was a century ago. the Interaction between thought and societyitis Alexander Herzen wrote in 1851: the study of how people have used ideas. Intellec- The camp hostile to official Russia con- tual historians examine how ideas affect, and how sists of a handful of men, ready to face they in turn are affected by, political and social anything, whoprotestagainstit,fight change. Ofcourse,intellectual historians must againstit,denounce and undermineit. have a sense of what Kant meant by the categori- These isolated champions are from time to cal imperative and Marx by surplus value. Their time thrown into dungeons, tortured and main concerns, however, will be how these ideas sent to Siberia, but their place is not long were understood and what rote they played in the vacant - fresh champions arise.Itis our great movements of the modern era-liberalism tradition, our inalienable inheritance. The and socialism terrible consequences of the human word Intellectual history isparticularly important for in Russia inevitably lend it a peculiar force the historian of RUSPI' In Russia, the social groups The voice of freedom is listened to with that dominated politics in the West -the nobility love and reverence, because only those and the bourgeoisie-were extremely weak and left who have something to say raiseit. One the realm of politics to thinkers and writers. As a does not so easily put one's thought into resit., thought payed a central role in Russian print when every page seems to conjure political life, shaping attitudes and the motivations up a vision of a gendarme, a troika, and to political action The study of Russian history some ToboiskorIrkutskinimmediate must include an examination of how the men pruspect.1 making that history thought and how they con- From the point of view of the intellectual his- ceived of the world torian, ideas assume historical meaning when they in this respect, as in so many others, Russia's enter particular settings They do not have histori- experience has been the opposite of our own cal meaning outside their settings in Russia, politi- Since the early 19th century, ideas have had rela- cal, social, and cultural settings defined how ideas tivelylittle influence on U S.politics, and writers were understood and used,I would like to begin ant'thinkershaveplayeda secondaryrole by characterizing each Politicians and businessmen have been the principal agents in our history. William Faulkner once The Political Setting said that Americans treat writers like pet dogs-- they are nice to have around, but do not deserve As Professor Raeff has shown inhis essay, great respect in Europe, writers play a great politi- Westernization was unposed upon Russia by Rus- cal role, especially in Eastern Europe, in Russia, sian emperors and empresses Peter the Great's the eastern extreme of Europe, their role has been ieform_ forced European dress and culture on the immense The poet Andrei Voznesenskii declared Russian social elite This does not mean that high at the June 1986 Congress of the Union of Writers, culture in Russia began only with Peter Historians and literary specialists now are well aware of the

33 rich cultural heritage of medieval Russia. However, was a European state governed Russian thought there was little Western culture in Russia before until the third decade of the 19th century In addi- Peter the Great Peter forcibly introduced Western tion to the Instruction. Catherine started her own governmental institutions, military techniques, and journal, wnich contained many of her own satirical manners Though he rebelled against the culture of articles,writtenin the manner of Addison and old Russia, he himself had little interest in the cul- Steele She wrote plays. educational primers, and ture ofthe West.Peter wrote laws,navigated even a history text. boats. practiced carpentry, even pulled teeth, but To summarize, the political setting of Russian in- he was little interested in literature and philosophy tellectual history in the late 18th and early 19th cen- The noted authority Dmitrij Tschizewskij wrote that turies was the court of the emperors and empres- inPeter'sreign,"Russianliteratureceased to sesWesternization was led by an enlightened exist "2 As for thought. the most interesting texts of monarch who served as both cultural model and Peter's reign are the government decrees. Isolated ruler. figures like Ivan Pososhkov. who wrote on political economy. theMetropolitan Feofem Protopopov, The Social Setting and the historian Vasilii Tatishchev deserve attention, but they were not men of significant stature Russian thought evolved primarily among the and hardly constituted an intellectual or cultural Russian nobility in this period Noblemen were the life first to receive a European education and the op- 1 he rulers of Russia after Peter worked to fill the portunity for cultural contacts with the West The cultural vacuum he had left. The Empress Elizabeth nobilitywouldcontinuetodominateRussian (1741-62) introduced Western theater and music thought and culture down to the Revolution of 1917 Her reign saw the beginning of a Russian theater at The Russian nobility, as we know it in the 19th the Noble Cadet's Corps, and Russia's first serious century, was broughtinto being by Peter the playwright,AlexanderSumarokov,whowrote Great It was defined by service to thestate tragedies in the neoclassical manner of Corneille Though nobility could be hereditary, all noblemen and Racine. Elizabeth ordered the translation of were obliged to serve either in the military or civil books, whose "use:fulness and amusing qualities service. Even after the abolition of obligatory ser- are combined wit' imoral teachings, suitable for vice in 1762, noblemen continued to serve, and publiclife."In her reign, Western novelsfirst their status, in most cases, continued to be deter- reachea Russ;:i in significant numbers mined by the level they had reached in the service The Empress Catherine(1762-96)extended hierarchy. Westernization to the realm of ideas. In the words Service shaped the nobility's view of me world of the poet Michael Kheraskov. "Peter gave Rus- Noblemen shared e service ethos that made the sians bodies. Catherinegave them souls state the purpose o their efforts, whether on the Catherine was a German princess who came to the battlefield or in government office. In this context, throneaftera coup against her husband, the pursuit of private profit was not a norm. The Rus Emperor Peter III, whom she quickly executed. Pos- sian nobleman Justifiedhimself as workingfor sessing no title to rule. she justified her authority something above himself, for a superordinate entity by claiming to rule through law. She convened a that strove for the good of all Of course, this does Legislative Commission in 1767 to codify the laws, not me:-An. that Russian noblemen were selfless or and her Instruction to the Commission, borrowed devoid of greedquite the contrary Many of them from Montesquieu and Beccaria, set forth the en- were bestial in their exploitation of their serfs and lightened principles she wished the delegates to extremely enterprising at enriching themselves at the Commission to follow. The Commission did not the expense of the treasury Yet private enrichment complete its task of codification, but Catherine's In- never came to be regarded as a social virtue, as it struction remained a major influence upon edu- did in the bourgeois West The Russian nobility in cated Russians for the next century the 18th century justified themselves by serving the Catherine's Instruction was a sweeping state- stateIn the 19th century, noblemen disenchanted with the autocracy would devote themselves in- ment of enlightened absolutism Itset forth the hope of a humane and equal system of justice and stead to the service of the people the abolition of torture One articleArticle Six Peter equated noble status with Western culture, was especially important for the definition of the just as he made nobility depend on service Before identity of the Russian state and educated Rus- Peter. there was little cultural distinction between sians in subsequent decades Article Six declared. the upper and lower 5 Peter introduced a "Russiais a European State So the Empress Western concept o.nobilityHe contrasted the ds,Jared. so the educated nobility thought of Rus- noble, well-born blagorodnyi with the base, pocity; sia and themselves The assumption that Russia The nobleman was supposedtoactlikea

34 4 fl ------iall=a22:=Ingiiminisimiimisimisiimmi41111111111111111 European aristocrat, not like a Russian peasant, of a private sphere lacKed a tradition of accep- the higher the nobleman stood in the social hierar- tance and moral viability in the Russian past chy, the more European he was supposed to be- Universities, too, came late to Russia and lacked have. There came into existence what Icallthe a tradition of independence from the state. The first Petrine equation,"Nobility = State Service =Euro- Russian university, Moscow University, was estab- peanization The Tables of Ranks, which Peter intro- lished in 1755. In its first decades, moreover. the duced in the various branches of imperial service, student body remained very small and did not rise attached the extent of luxury and Western ap- far above 100 students until the 19th century. Rus- pearance of the nobleman to the level he had sia's experience with higher education, as a result, reached in the service the best dressed and the was relatively recent. Most major European uni /er- most European stood highestin the state and sities date from the Middle Ages For comparison, closest to the emperor the University of Paris was founded in the 12th cen- Peter made it necessary for the nobleman to tury,Heidelbergin1386.InEasternEurope, dress as a European, tolivein European-style Prague was founded in 1348, and Cracow in 1365. houses with European furnishings, and to observe Since the European university had its origins in European etiquette. Catherine introduced an even the church, it enjoyed a tradition of independence greaterdemand: she insisted that Russian from secular authoritiesThe Russianuniversity noblemen begin to think and write like Europeans was founded under state auspices, with a secular IfPeter was the artisan-tsar, Catherine was the curriculum geared to producing Westernized ser- philosophe onthethrone Russian noblemen vants -4 the state During the 19th and 20th cen- wouldbegintoobserveEuropeanintellectual turies,ri ussian universities strove to achieve the fashion, just as they observed European fashions autonomy of their Western models, but they too in dress and furniture had to rely on the sufferance of political authorities and had no history of independence to justify their Cultural Setting claims Russia confronted the West in the 18th century The absence of a tradition of university educa- without experiencing the long culturalevolution tion in Russia had great importance for the recep- that produced European civilization Educated Rus- tion of Western thought When Russia turned to the sians lacked the background and many of the West in the 18th century, it was out of touch with centralassumptionsoftheculturethey were three major intellectual traditions of the West: embracing. As a result, they understood the values 1. The studyofphilosophy.IntheWest, and the heritage of the West guile differently from philosophy had developed among the fathers of those (eared within the Western tradition. The cul- the Roman Catholic Church and centered in the ture of the West came to Russia from abovefrom universities The Russian Orthodox Church did not the autocracyand it came suddenly, as an imposi- encourage philosophical speculation. As a result, tion, a command to adopt new attitudes and tas- Russia experienced nothing like the reception of tes, after a long period of isolation Aristotle in the Middle Ages, the spread of neo- When Russia turned to the West, Europe had al- Thomism and scholasticism. In the West, contact ready undergone the Renaissance, the Scientific with the Arab world brought knowledge of Aristotle Revolution, and extensive economic change that and a period of intellectual ferment. The Mongols, had not reached RussiaRussia approached the who themselves were more backward than Russia, West almost as a blank slate. The extent of Rus- could have no such impactIn Pushkin's words, sia's cultural isolation becomes clear from an ex The Mongols were Arabs without Aristotle or AI- amination of circumstances of the evolution of two gaebra." or the central institu.ions of European intellectual Russian thinkers started latein the study of development the printing press and the university philosophy and had to struggle to come to terms There had been printing presses in Russia since with the philosophical legacy of the West Many of the 16th century, but all had been state-owned, like themlackedanunderstandingofthebasic the present-day Soviet press In 1762, there was no philosophical presuppositions and modes of think- private printing press in Russia, and all publication ing of spe;,uiative philosophy This led Nicholas was under the jurisdiction of either the state or the Berdyaev to write of the "philosophical illiteracy" of church CatherinetheGreatallo?d Nicholas Russian thought. The state's domination of the Novikov to start a printing press at Moscow Univer- university also inhibited the growth of philosophical sity, beginning a late and weak tradition of private learningIn the 19th century, the leaders of the publication Independent publishing started late in autocratic state regarded philosophy as tl ie bearer Russia and would lead a parlous existence under a of subversive ideas and discouraged, and at times suspicious and powerful state The very existence prohibited. its teaching at the university Academic

35 .41 philosophy as a result had a troubled history in The silence of the East is transfo d Russia and began to flow,r only at the very end of into agreeable words, but words that do the 19th century. notusually penetratetothe depth of 2. The study of law. In the West, formal study of things...4 law also began in the universities, where scholars Mme de Steel's remark about Russian indif- studied the Roman law and particularly the Jus- ference to abstract thought may strikeus as tinian code. European monarchs drew upon their strange when we think of Russian intellectuals later expertise to provide the legal grounds to extend in the 19th century engaging in endless philosophi- their own authority against the obstacles of feudal cal discussions Yet in a sense, her characteriza- rightIn Russia, which had no tradition of feudal tionremainedcorrect.Russiansengaged in law, the tsar did not require extensive legal justifica- philosophical discussions later in the century, but tion of his authority. The study of the law came late theylackedthephilosophicalandintellectual toRussia, when18thcentury emperors and groundwork of Europe, and their philosophical dis- empresses tried to shape institutions on the basis cussions were about specificethicalproblems. of one or another notion of law. In Russia, law con- One of thestrikingcharacteristicsof Russian tinued to represent something distant, foreign, and thought in the 19th and 20th centuries was Its Russian thinkers would struggle to explain its mean- preeminently ethical orientationRussian thinkers ing for the Russian experience. In their writings, dealt predominantly with problems of human ac- law took on abstract, often-utopian meanings The tion: how one should act, or what one should do. historianofRussianreligion,George Fedotov Abstract and academic questions, of epistemology wrote, "The Russian is either above law or below and metaphysics, were almost ignored until the it never or rarely capable of appreciating law for end of the 19th century. This explains why such its own value, as an ethical minimum, or as a philosophers as Kant and Hume had little following necessary mediation between the kingdom of God in Russia until the early 20th century, while others and the animal struggle for life."3 like Hegel and Marx, who provided prescriptions 3 The study of Western literature. Study of for action, wielded enormous influence. Western literature,and particularly the classical Thought was expectedtogive answers,to heritage, began in Russia during the 18th century reveal the truth "Truth" was a favorite word of 19th- The great works of antiquity came from Europe, century Russian Intellectuals. The Russian word for often in French or German translations Their mean- truth is, of course, pravda. Pravda also means jus- ing and importance were understood within the tice Itcarries some of the ambiguities of the European cultural context. The classics were ap- English noun "right." Truth was the equivalent of preciated within the framework of European neo- anethicalabsolute,andRussianintellectuals classicisi, and then sentimentalism, receiving the believed that what was cognitively right was neces- social andpoliticalovertonesof theseliterary sarilylinked with what was ethicallyright. The schcols. Adopted as one aspect of Westernization, populist writer Nicholas Mikhailovskii wrote, "Every literaturebecame a partofthenobleman's time I think of the word pravda I cannot help admir- E. woman self-definition.He embraced Western ing its striking inner beauty. Apparently there Is no literary forms and feeling but never felt quite at word like it in any European language. Only in Rus- ease with them. Madame de Steel sensed this un- sian, it seems, are truth and justice designated by certainty on her visit to Russia during the early the same word and fused, as itwere, Into one 19th century: great whole."5 SeveralRussiangentlementriedto Thought in Russia had existential significance: it shine in literature and have shown some provided answers to personal as well a. political talent in this career; but the light has not predicaments by giving intellectuals answers to the spread so far that there is a public judg- questions of who they were and why they lived. ment formed out of the opinion of each. Western thought became a replacement for or- The character of the Russians is too pas- thodox religion, which after the Westernization of sionate to like thoughts that are in the least the 18th century lost much of its influence among abstract;only facts amuse themThey the nobility. Russian intellectuals in the 19th cen- have not yet had the time or the taste to tury became involved in a search for religion-sub- reduce facts to general ideas Besides all stitutes, doctrines that showed them the way to vir- significant thought is more or less dan- tue and redemption This orientation led writers like gerous in the midst of a court where one Nicholas Berdyaev to write of the messianic charac- observesandisbeingobservedand ter of Russian thought, which became a search for where, most often, one is simply covetous salvation on earth in the realm of thought

36 2 The writings of Russian intellectuals describe a ferent from the West and that the emperor no quest for Hefinition, whether personal, social, or na- longer could be looked to as the leader of progres- tional self-definition. This quest involved the great sive change. figures of19th-centuryliterature Writerslike The Decembrist Rebellion dealt the first blow to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky become comprehensible the old way of thinking After their victorious strug- only within this historical context; to read their gleagainstNapoleon,liberalguardsofficers works for purely literary or philosophical values is returned to find a period of reaction in Russia. Tsar to disregard the questions they were addressing Alexander had raised their hopes for constitutional and the intellectual ambience that was their main reforms early in his reign. After 1815, however, he point of reference Indeed. their readers among the adopted increasingly obscurantist policies. The of- Russianintelligentsialookedfortheauthors' ficers first organized secret groups, then planned answers to these questions, for they believed that an uprising, following the example of the insurrec- literature as well as thought had to deal in ethical tions in Naples and Spain in1820. On December imperatives. The notion of "art for art's sake" had 14, 1825, in the midst of the confusion following few followers in Russia. The Russian public sought Alexander l's death, a group of officers led their sol- in literature both a description of fife as it was and diers out onto the Ser ite square in St. Petersburg a prescription for life as it should be. The charac- and demanded a constitution. The new emperor, ters of Russian drama and fiction became models Nicholas I, crushed the rebellion and ushered in a they tried to emulate. period of political conservatism and police repres- Russian intellectuals sought answers to these sion. Russia became the policeman of Europe, the questions in the thought of the West. They did not hated foe ofallliberal forces, the defender of create new doctrines but tried to apply the domi- thrones. nant doctrines of Europe to Russian reality. They At this point, the emperor ceased to lead the na- made few truly significant contributions to the his- tion in Westernization, which now implied constitu- tory of thought Their achievement rather was to tional reform. Beginning with Nicholas I, all Russian adapt European doctrines to Russian needsItis emperors intransigently opposed constitutional con- for this reason that we speak of the highly deriva- cessions. Once the emperor ceased to be the ethi- tive character of Russian thought. cal leader of the Westernized nobility, ideas began This is not to suggest that their contributions to work against, rather than for, the autocracy. Intel- were unoriginal.Russian thinkers used Western lectuals began to look for new leaders and guides doctrines to answer the specific ethical questions who could return Russia to the path of progress. troubling them and in so doing transformed these The second major development of the early 19th doctrines to suit purposes quite different from their century was the reception of philosophical idealism original intent. Terms, concepts, goals, and feelings from Germany German philosophy, particularly the changed in the process of borrowing. Idealism, writings of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegei, spread the positivism, Marxism, Nietzschianism. were refash- notion that each country had its own esser-e, its ioned in a way that made the Russian versions al- ownideathatinformeditsidentity.Idealistic most unrecognizable variants of the original, similar philosophy posed the question of Russia's national in form, but transformed in spirit identity. The failure of the DecembriC revolution, in addition, broke the easy identification between Rus- New Currents sia and Europe in the minds of many liberal Rus- By the end of the 18th century. the culture of sians. European ideas did not seem so easily ap- Russia'srulingelitehad become Europeanin plicable to Russiaif Article Six of Catherine's In- character. Two premises ruled this culture. First struction was mistaken,ifRussia was not a was that Russia was a European state to which European state, then what was Russia? European theories were applicaole. Differences ob- This question was posed in what was probably served between Russia and the West,itwas the most important document of 19th-century Rus thought,reflecteddifferentstagesofhistorical sian intellectualhistory, Peter Chaadaev's Phi lc- development and woulddisappearasRussia sophical Letter. Chaadaev himself was an elegant progressed. The second premise was that the nobleman, a guards officer and adjutant of the tsar monarch, the champion of Westernization,the He was a friendof Pushkin and many of the most European of the elite, would lead the political Decembrists At a certain point, he underwent a and economic development of the nation conversion. He went to Europe and studied Schell- During the first decades of the 19th century. ing and became deeply involved in questions 1 these premises lost their force Two occurrences, theology and historical destinyHis letter articu- both traumatic in their impact. made clear to many lated two questions thatall Russian intellectuals educated Russians that Russia was essentially dif- would struggle to answer.

1'3 37 1 The question of Russia's nationalidentity. The members of the intelligentsia themselves Was Russia, anditshistoricaldestiny,like the sought to replace the tsar by becoming the collec- West. or did Russia have a distinctive past, and tive leader of the nation They based their title to therefore future?Since Chaadaev's presupposi- this role on their possession of the truth, their con- tions were drawn fromidealistphilosophy, he sciousness of the laws taught by reason and the sought answers in ideas, in thought. After him, Rus direction of historical change Influenced by the sian intellectuals would continue to seek answers philosophy of Hegel, they believed that the idea un- in thought in Western journals and books folded through history and that the current system 2. The question of ethically acceptable action, of tyranny and injustice was bound to give way to once conduct could no longer be validated by the the triumph of the idea. principle of state service. If obedience to the tsarist They found the key to these ideas in books and state no longer fit the imperative of service to a journals, which they received from the West They higher goal and the principle of the West, what engaged in fierce controversies about the lessons courseofaction was justifiable?The Russian of Western thought for Russia. These debates nobleman'srolehad been definedinpolitical shaped Russian political life down to the revolution terms, by his service to the state. Those who threw of 1917. Politics in pre-revolutionary Russia took off that role continued to seek political definitions ideological forms; the principalpoliticalleaders ofethicalbehavior: they endeavored to serve until the revolution of 1905 were intellectuals Rus- society by working to change the political order. sian politicallife represented the extreme of the ideological politics characteristic of the continent. The Intelligentsia Wein see this process at work in the two major controversies that dominated Russian intellectual In the 18305 and 1840s, the group we refer to as life in 19th- and early 20th-century Russia "the Russian intelligentsia" was bornIts members stroveto answer thesecrucial,so-called"ac- Slavophiles and Westernizers cursed" questions Students at Moscow University, most of them noblemen, began to struggle with The Slavophile-Westernizer debate took place in these questions and to engage in interminable intel- the Moscow of the 1840s among the young inteller.- lectual debates about the nature of Russia's des- tuals we gen rally refer to as the first generation of tiny.It was a period of discovery an.] awakening, the Russian intelligentsiaMost of these intelln- of trying to determine what in the Western heritage tuals were noblemen who frequented thearis- could be relevant to Russia, and what in Russia's tocratic salons of Moscow and engaged inthe heritage should be salvaged for the future. lengthy discussions of plii:osophy and literature so How can we define the term "intelliv,ritsie9 beautifully described tr9 works of Turgenev. This is a difficult problem, since itis a Russian They addressed themselves first to the c tidal ques- word that came into usage to designate a specific tionc'Russia'snationalidentityanddestiny historical group We can point to its most impor- originally raised by Chaadaev. What path would tantdistinguishingfeature:theRussianintel- Russia follow? ligentsia was a group made up of individuals who The Westernizers, who included such leading repudiated their social and political backgrounds figures of Russian radical thought as Alexander Her- and defined their future roles in terms of ideas. zen, Vissarion Belinskii, Michaei Bakunin, and Ivan They found nothing in the existing system accept- Turgenev, were convinced that Russia's path would able in terms of the ideas they had absorbed from converge with the West's. Tt ?,y did not hold the their education. 18th-century notion that Russia was qualitatively the same as the West. Rather, they believed that 1 They Identified toe state, which most of them hadexpectedtoserve,withabureaucratic Russia had the capacity to realize the most ad- despotism and the loss of all impulse to progres- vanced ideas produced by Western thinkers. They were convinced that Russia's backwardness would sive political change permit its intellectual leaders to transform Russian 2 They condemned the nobility, to which most reality according to the most advanced ideas of of them belonged by birth, for living off the serfs European social thought. They looked to socialist and serving the state that maintained the system of doctrines to free the individual from the despotism serfdom of the state, superstition, and injustice This view- 3 They placed little hope in the small and weak point receives an eloquent statement in Belinskii's Russian bourgeoisie. which was backward and de Letter to Gogol, which expresses the faith in the pendent upon the state and, until the 20th century, progressive nature of the Russian people and the did not represent a force for change role its writers could play as leaders

38 TheSlavophilesfound Russia'sdistinctive forts to introduce even limited forms of pubiic par- character not in its susceptibility to Western ideas, ticipation but in a national identity rooted in Russia's past. At this time the noble members of the intel- Chaadaev had denied that Russia had its own ligentsia were joined by large numbers of intellec- spiritualheritage,its own idea; the Slavophiles tual youths from other classes .,te raznochintsy, found the Russian idea in orthodox religion and the or persons of different ranks. The raznochintsy Russian Orthodox Church Influenced by the teach- usually came from poe; backgrounds; they were ings of Schelling, they sought an original historical sons of priests, petty bureaucrats, artisans, even era when the national idea was revealed in 17th peasants who had lefttheir hereditary estates to century Muscovy They imagined a unity of the Rus- sian people with their tsar before Westernization seek th-ir fortunes in the cities of Russia. Many of them joined tilt ranks of the intelligentsia. Some of had divided the nation. While the Westernizers their number, like looked toward increasing freedom of the individual Nicholas Chernyshevsky and Nicholas Dobroliubov, became important figures in in Russia. the Slavophiles idealized the collective the history of Russian radicalism. spirit of the Russian people. which they thought resided in the Orthodox Church and the peasant The dominant ideologyoftheradicalIntel- commune. Yet like the Westernizers, they believed ligentsia from the 1860s was populismEvolving that Russia's national identity was only a poten- out of the writings of the Westernizers, Herzen. tiality. They believed that the Russians of their time, Belinskii, and Bakunin, populism was an effort to like themselves. had been alienated from their trLi devise a socialism suitable for Russia, a peasant nature by the influence of the West. They looked socialism The word populism is a literal translation toward a historical evolution that would enable Rus- of the word narodnichestvo "people-ism." Russian sia to recapture her true collective, orthodox spirit populism did not closely resemble the populism of the West. which usually referred to a popular, We can summarize their attitudes in the chart at the bottom of the page agrarian movement. Russian populism was a movement of members of the intelligentsia, who turned to the peasantry for a source of hope and support Populists and Marxists in the future. The debates of the Slavophiles arid the Western- Thoughmostofthecentralprecepts of izers remained very much in the realm of theory. populism came from the Westernizer scheme, Action in behalf of ideas became possible only with populist ideology was an amalgam of Westernlzer the reign of Alexander II (1855-81) and the era of and Slavophileideas.Thissynthesis was the the Great Reforms The reforms, accompanied by achievement of Alexander Herzen at the beginning unprecedented freedom to express varied view- of the 1850s. Herzen, like all of the Westernizers, points, awakened hopes fob far-reaching transfor- had believed in the leading role of the intelligentsia mat:ons ofRussiaSlavophileideasinfluenced in bringing progressive European Ideas to Russia. ma.iy of the liberal movements for change at this After leaving Russia for Europe. he witnessed his time The impact of the Westernizers was evident hopesfora democraticandsocialistfuture in both liberal and radical thought and particularly crushed during the revolution of 1848. The ex- the ideology of the populist movement. perience undermined his faith in the revolutionary The greatest and most significant of Alexander potentialities of Western society and at tin same reforms, the emancipation of the serfs from time led him to look back more fondly on his native bondage. disappointed the more radical members land of the intelligentsia The emancipation settlement The stimulus to formulate his views came from deprived the peasants of much of the land they the famous French democratichistorian,Jules had farmed before 1861 and burdened them with MicheletMic.helet had attacked hussia for sup- heavy redemption payments that were used to pressing progressive movements everywherein compensate theirlords Inaddition,autocratic Europe For Michelet, Russia was no more than the government persisted. and the tsar resisted all ef-

Influence History Philosophical Principle Society

Westernizers Heoel Progress Rationalism Liberal ur Socialist Slavophiles Schelling National Past Religious Faith Collectivist

39 policeman of Europe "Russians are not human," bourgeois stage of historyLiberal thought was he wroteThe lack any moral sense weakly developed in Russia and did not become a serious force until the early 20th century. As a Such words aroused the national pride of Her- result, in the 1870s, the revolutionary populists vir- zen, who answered with an indignant open letter to tually ignored the existence of the tsariststate, Michelet. Her ;en's 1851 letter drew a distinction be- which they expected to topple of its own weight tween Sussia and the Russian people The Russian once the social structure supporting it was over- people we-e no represented by the Russian state, which oppressed them as well as the peoples of tio own. Europe. Herzen pointed to two vital political forces .'-opulism thus provided one solution to the ques- in Russia (1) the intelligentsia, who fought with the tion raised by Chaadaev. It presented a Western weapon of the word, and (2) the Russian ...ople perspectiveonRussia'snationaldevelopment. or, more specifically, the peasantry. Herzen took a Populist theorists and their followers envisioned the leaf from the Slavophile's book In looking to the realization of the highest ideals of European social peasant commune, the mir, as a source of Russia's development by uniting with the peasantry and or- rejuvenation. While the Slavophiles discovered a ganizing a social revolution. Once the revolution moral and religiousaal in the commune, Herzen was achieved, Russia would no longer be regarded saw itas an embryo of a socialist society He as more backward than the West or be alienated wrote to Michelet: from the course of Western historical development, which Chaadaev feared was Russia's national iden- The Russian peasant has no morality ex- tityBy assuming me leadership of the political ceptthatwhichnaturally,instinctively, filledthe positionleft derives from his communism. This morality movement, the populists is deeply rooted in the people; the little vacant by the emperor. They lea a movement they believed destined by history to culminate in Rus- they know of the Gospel supports it;the flagrant injustice of the landowner binds sia's progress towards the most advanced stage of the peasant still more closely to his prin- civilization. ciples and to the communal system. Thouah these ideas may have been visionary and unrealistic, they were scarcely the result of saved the Russiz,,n The commune psychological abnormalities or juvenile dreams, as people from Mang .1barbarism and im- believe.They perial civilization, from the Europeanized some historians would have us resulted from the delegitirnization of the existing landlords and the German bureaucracy. political system, when the Russian emperor ap- The communal system. though shattered, peared to betray his purported role as leader of interferenceofthe haswithstoodthe Westernization end defender of the well-being of it has successfully survived to authorities; Inthe1870s,young in the people as a whole. see t4 developmentofsocialism populist intellectuals tried to put their ideas into Europe.° practice. The famous "goirg to the people" took The unity of the intelligentsia and the people place during the "mad summer" of 1872, when was the central principle of Russian populism By hundreds of young intellectuals, Inspired by the joining with the people. the Intelligentsia hoped to writing of Peter Lavrov and Michael Bakunln, left be able to proceed Orectly to socialism, which, the cities and the universities to br;ng socialism to they expected, would toon triumph in the West the peasantry. Their experience was sobering. The Russia would thus bypass the stage of capitalism, peasants were wary, even hostile; many reported avoiding what they regarded as the injustice of a the intellectuals to the police. The tsarist police system that subjected man to the exploitation and proved more ruthless and effective than they had dehumanization of factory lifeBut Russia could expected, and great numbers of the revolutionaries bypass capitalism only if the social revolution took ended theirpilgrimageintothe countrysidein place before capitalism became the dominant sys- tsarist prisons Nevertheless. they continued their tem of production there as well These ideas, set efforts to incite a peasant revolution. Later in the forth by Herzen and Nicholas Chernysnevsky, thus decade, the firstnational revolutionary organiza- had a sense of urgency that led members of the tion. "Land and Freedom," agitated among the radicalintelligentsia to seek to unleash a social peasantry, though also with little success revolution quickly in Russia. The frustrations experienced by the members of Note that the populists expected a social rather "Land and Freedom" and the depredations of the than political revolution in Russia They were radi- police finally turned the populists against the tsarist cals eager to proceed to a socialist society and did government itselfIn 1879, the The People's Will not trouble themselves with the attainr.-ent of pol;ti- party" was foundedIts avowed goal was to cal liberties and constitutional forms of govern destroy the tsarist state by means of terrorist at- ment, which they associated with the discredited tacks on its officials.The People's Will" issued a

40 6

--Nr...6====.1:111=EMEMMENEMINIENNIMMEIMMINElj death sentence on the tsar Its members expected ary force that could bring Russia to socialism. "The that the tsar's assassination would bring the col- decomposition of the commune," Plekhanov wrote, lapse of the tsarist state and an era of political "is creating a new class among us, that of the in- freedom that would permit populists to organize dustrialproletariat. More receptive, zealous and the peasantry for a socialist revolution evolved, this class will respond more easily to the summons of the revolutionaries than the backward The Marxists rural population."7 By the early 1880s, the two great hopes of the The Russian Marxists thus insisted that Russia populists had been shattered. The peasants failed had to follow Europe's path of economic develop- to rebel. The tsarist state had not crumbled. In- ment and not a short-cut to socialism. They also steaditregatheredits forces, as the new tsar, recognized the importance of political freedom to Alexander III, introduced a new period of political the future of the revolutionary movement. "Every oppression During the 1880s, revolutionary circles class struggle is a politica: struggle," Marx's dic- were weak and disunited, and hopes for a heroic tum, appeared as an epigraph to Plekhanov's tract, struggle against the existing order ebbed. Yet the "Socialism and the Political Struggle." The revolu- populist dream lived on and wouldinspire a tionary movement first had to conquer political broad and more successful movement at the freedom and constitutional government. Theyan- beginning of the 20th century, when neo-populist ticipated two revolutions in Russia. First,a bour- groups united into the Russian Socialist-Revolution- geoisrevolution,whichwouldoverthrowthe ary party. autocracy and introduce democratic government In the early 1880s the alternative revolutionary and political rights. The second, the socialist revolu- doctrine of Marxism began to attract members of tion, would presumably come only afteran extended period of capitalist development swelled the theradicalintelligentsia Asmallgroupof populists in exile in Switzerland formed the first ranks of the proletariat and the revolutionary movement. Russian Marxist group, The Liberation of Labor Their leading theorist, Georg', Plekhanov,a former The Marxists er .)yed a relatively small following leader of "Land and Freedom." set forth thecon- until the late 1890s, when two factors changed the clusions that had led them to break from their social and intellectual landscape of Russia. First, populist orthodoxy While still_ populist, Plekhanov the famine of 1891 prompted large numbers of intel- had observed that industrial workers responded to lectuals to go to the countryside to help the revolutionary propagandamore readilythan peasants. When theyarrived,they found the peasants. Like other populists, he had explained peasants hostile, and suspicious of efforts to assist this as the response of peasants in the city who them, even me0^al treatment. The Russian intel- happened tobe more accessioletosocialist ligentsia encountered ample evidence of what Marx propaganda Now Plekhanov began to lookupon called "the idiocy of rural life." the peasants as a conservative, and the industrial Secondly, Russian industry began to develop workers as a revolutionary, force rapidly, as a result of governmental efforts. The Secondly, Plekhanov could not accept the no- working classinthe city also grew. With the tion advanced by "The People's Will" that a politi- growthofindustry,strikesincreased,sharply calblow against tsaristauthorities could bring mounting through the 1890s. The sight of effec, e meaningful change in itself; in this respect he ad- action on behalf of social interests heartened intel- hered to his "populist" view that change could only lectuals, who looked back on a past devoid of so- come about from social revolution cial forces capable of opposing the autocracy. The Finally, autocracy, moreover, had more difficulty coping Plekhanov concluded fromstatistical with urban than rural unrest. Peasant disturbances studies of the Russian countryside that capitalist in- could be quelled by the army, but the government fluences were already making inroads in thecommune in fact, he argued that the commune was be- was more hesitant to use armed force against large numbers of workers in highly conspicuous coming a hot-b(A of capitalism. urban settings. The movement culminated in the These observatioi.: ,-...4 conclusions led Plek- great General Strike of 1896 in St Petersburg, in hanov to reformulate radical hopes in terms of his which Marxist revolutionaries and Marxist propa- own understanding of Marx's ideas He and his fol- ganda played an important role lowers presented a view of historical change that In the 1890s, Marxist attitudes extenued beyond gave ,lembers of the intelligentsia a new approacl- to political action. They believed that capitalism the revolutionaries. Members of the intelligentsia began to adopt the Marxist faith was a progressive force that encouraged Russia's in the positive value of economic change Industrial development political and economic development They saw the now came to be regarded not as a process of proletariat, not the peasantry, as the true revolution-

(i.7 41 degradation and breakdown, but as a liberating Lenin's classic argument for the role of the partyof professional revolutionaries in guiding the workers development that would destroy the traditions and role of superstitions of the past and bring Russia into con- to the revolution. The party assumed the tact with the advancements and progress of the guardianof the workers'classconsciousness, West. In the words of Peter Struve, "We must go to educating them and directing them along the path school to capitalism." dictated by history at the moment of the forthcoming revolution Marxism was an inspiring and liberating doctrine all the for the Russian intelligentsia At the end of the cen- At first, Lenin's answer was accepted by tury. despite bitter police persecutions, theMarx- orthodox Marxists, though a few voiced certain ists formed the Russian Social Democratic Party, reservations. Disagreements about the role of this Congress which helditsfirst congress in1898. But the party erupted a year later, at the Second propositions of Marxism had to be adapted to the of the Russian Social Democratic Partyin 1903. distinctive features of Russia in the 19th century. The disagreement culminated in the momentous Marxist writers struggled to determine the lessons splitintheparty. The factionsthatresulted of Marxist doctrine for Russian reality and, atthe remained committed to Marxist doctrine, buttheir same time, recast it in Russian terms.There were conceptions of how to apply Marxist ideas to Rus- certain notable difficulties in applying Marxist ideas sian reality differed sharply. to Russian con,,itions The Mensheviks, or minority group (they werein First, the proletariat in Russia at the end rf the the minority only temporarily), saw the answerto 19th century was tiny only 1.5-2 percent of the theproblemsof the backwardnessof the EvenifRussianworkerswerea proletariat and the stages of political development population. of dynamic element,it was hard to see how they in a long process of raising the consciousness could take the leadership of a country that was still workers. To this end, they organized a mass pnr-tv, preponderantly agricultural and where the peas- includingallthose who subscribed toMarxist well antry accounted for about 85 percent of the popula- goals. The party was a means to educate as emphasized democratic tion. as to lead the workers; it principles of organization. Leading Mensheviks,in Second,how couldMarxistsclaimthata addition to Plekhanov. were Paul Axelrod,Lev workers' party would lead the struggle forbour- Deutsch, Vera Zasulich (ell from the original"Libera- historical geois freedoms. when Marx's doctrine of tion of Labor" group), and lulil Martov. materialism taught that such freedoms came from their Lenin succeeded in winning a majority ofthe the struggle of the middle class to protect fol- proprietary interests? dc,.egates to the Second Congress; hence, his lowing came to be called Bolsheviks. FollowingWe Third,apracticalquestionhow couldthe principles of "What Is To Be Done?" moreliterally workers' movement, which had largely economic than his former allies, he insisted on a tightly or- andshorterhours be goals higherwages gal zedeliteparty,consisting only offull-time directed at he political goal of transforming the sys- professional revolutionaries. The members of the tem of government? In short, how couldworkers party were to be only those who hadachieved a consciousness and be inculcated withpolitical high level of political consciousness (i.e., trainingin learn to assume the leadership of the revolutionary Marxist ideology) and who understood thetechni- cause? ques of underground conspiratorialwork. Lenin set One answer to these problems came in theform forth his answer to the Mensheviks in his pamphlet, c. the so-called "economist" program.The "econo- One Step Forward, Two Steps Back demands mists" sought to stimulate the workers' We note that despite their Marxist affiliation and for higher wages, shorter hours, and so on,with presumably materialist beliefs, both groups con- the expectation that the economic strugglewould, tinued to emphasize the role of tcli;ology, and con- over the long run, breed thepolitical conscious- sequently the intelligentsia in the movement.They ness of the proletariat This kindof thinking had its followed the tradition of seeking he answers tothe greatest following in the Marxist circleswithin the distinctiveness of Russia's social lnd political sys- empire. tem and the weakness of political movementin the The orthodox Marxists abroad reacted strongly realm ofideas.Capitalism might move Russia against what they called 'The economistheresy," along the rails of progress, butit was the intel- which they feared would weaken the role ofMarxist ligentsia who continued to try to steer the course ideology and divert the workers from the political struggle. Their answer was presented in a tract Ideological Politics "What Is To Be Done?" written in 1902 by a young Marxist recently arrived from Russia, Vladimir Ilich At the beginning of the 20th century, on the eve Lenin. "W it Is To Be Done" stated what became of the revolution of 1905, Russian p)1itical life was

42 d8 dor''riatedby intellectualswho weredeeply pursue their divergent programs. Their schemes divided over basic questions of Russia's political fu- were totalistic, demanding complete commitment. ture. These intellectuals were: Those who embraced them showed extraordinary heroism and self-sacrifice in their devotion to their 1. Neo-Populists,whoin1905 formedthe Socialist-Revolutionary Party. They continued to en- ideals. On the other hand, ideological politics of vision a peasant revolution leading to a system of thistypepermittedneithercompromise,nor agrarian socialism. Now they acknowledged a lead- tolerance, two of the basic principles of our politi- ing role for the urban workers, who together with cal system. the peasantry constituted the narod, the people Such totalistic commitment c iaracterizednot They continued the tactic of terror, now with con- onlyBolshevism,but allradicalandliberal siaerable success, throwing governmental circles programs of the early 20th century. To understana into confusion and disarray. the revolution, one must understand the motivation 2. The Marxists, the two branches of the Social- and thought of those involved in it. After the revolu- Democratic Party, both of which looked forward to tion of 1905, the only force preventing a fight to the rapid industrialization of Russia that would lead to finish among the various participants In Russia's a democratic revolution. The ensuing bourgeois political life was the Russian autocracy. When the phase would prepare the way for a future workers' autocracy fell away in February 1917, it was only a revolution that would bring industrial socialism to matter of time before civil strife erupted. Russia. Notes 3. The Liberals, who in 1905 formed the Constitu- tional Democrat, or Cadet. party. They also based lAlexander Herzen, "Letter to Michele: Septem- their programs on the writings of members of the ber 22, 1851," in Basil Dmytryshyn, Impdrial Rus- intelligentsia and looked forward to a system that sia: A Source Book, 1700-1917 (Hinsdale, IL. The would combine political freedom with political jus- Dryden Press, 1974), p. 247. tice.Russian liberalism had no significant bour- 2Dmitrij Tschizewskij, Russian Intellectual Kis- geois component The liberals comprised moder- tory (Ann Arbor, MI. Ardis, 1978), p. 163. ate noble intellectuals, who led the institutions of self-government, the zemstva, and educated profes- 3George P.Fedotov, The Russian Religious sionalslawyers, doctors, teachers, and so on, Mind (Belmont, MA: Nordiano, 1975), I, pp. 278-79 many of whom worked in the zemstva administra- 4Madame de Steel,Dix annees d'exil(Paris, tions. Note also that the liberal movement gained 1904), pp 321-22. strength inRussia after the ris3ofradicalism, 5James M. Edie, James P. Scanlan, Mary Bar- reversingthesequenceof Westernpolitical bara Zeldin, eds., Russian Philosophy (Chicago development. Quadrangle, 1965), II, p. 175. These groups held views that were mutually ex- 6Herzen, op. cit., p 243. clusive and sought mutually incompatible goals In 1905, as Professor Ascher shows, they united to 7Quoted in Theodore Dan, The Origins of Bol- combat the autocracy. After the October Manifesto, shevism (New York. Harper and Row, 1964), p. 177. their common form broke down a,id the/ began to

9 43 REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA, 1861-1921 by Abraham Ascher

The period from 1861 to 1921 in Russia might Modernization aptly be cailed the age of modernization and revolution, to use the title of an excellent book recently A recurring theme in the history of Russia from published by Professor Hans Rogger. During this 1861 to 1917 was the attempt by members of the period Russia underwent fundamental economic, political elite to modernize the country without Intro- political, and social changes at a remarkably fast ducing concomitant ,^hanges in political and social pace. An exploration of those changes must touch institutions. As was made clear itearlier papers, on a question that is bound to arise in any course this had occurred on !previous occasions in Russia, on modern Western history or world history taught but the various forms of modernization of the insecondary schools:Why wastheleast second half of the 19th century were unique In one developed of the major European nationsleast very important respect. They produced or gave developed economically, socially, and politically prominence to social groups such as the intel- the first to undergo a revolution in which a Marxist ligentsia, rr'Jdle class, and industrial proletariat, all movement assumed power? Afterall.this is not of whom became politically articulate and effective what radical thinkers In Russia or the loaders of the at political mobillzatior of sizable sectors of the Marxist movement expected. population. This is anotner way of making a noint already emphasized by Professor Raeff. by the end As Professor Wortman has ,nted out, many of the 19th century, the role of the state as the Russian radicals argued that their country would fol- predominant force in shaping the affairs cf the em- lowits towardsocialism own path Marxists pire had declinedsubstantially. Increasingly, believed that the socialist revolution would take societythat is, forces or groups than the place firstin the most developed countries; Ger- autocracy and bureaucracyexerts. strong in- many was geneially singled out as the pathfinder fluence on the country's course of development. on the road to socialism. During the past six-and-a- half decades, however, it has become evident that In launching programs of modernization, Russia's turn io revolutionary Marxism was not a whether the liberation of the serfs or industrializa- historical aberration but rather the beginning of a tion, the primary, though not sole, concern of the "pattern" of historical change. Revolutionary ',love- political elite was to strengthen the cower of the -lents of the left have t ump:ied only in under- state. At the same time, the elite was determined to c.../eiopedc-,unties,whereas industrializedna- retain Its privileged position in society and to make tions have beettransfo, into welfare states of as few changes as possible in the country's politi- one form or ano her. cal and social Institutions. This created a critical problem, for a growing number of citizens refused Thus, in examining the background to the Marx- to accept the proposition that Russia could remain ist revolution in early 20th century Russia, we are a powerful state only If the autocracy and the spe- considering a question that touc les on develop- cial privileges of the nobility were retained. Discuss- ments in many parts of the cor.emporary world ing the prerogatives o, 'he autocrat In detail is not This is not to say that conditions in China, Cuba, necessary, but one irK,nt will reveal how power- and othercountriesthathave adopted Com- ful he still was early In the 20th century. In Septem- munism were identical to those in Russia at the ber 1905, at the height of the revolutionary tur- turn of the century. What I am suggesting is that bulence, the rector of the University of Moscow circumstances inall those countries were similar wanted to make a relatively minor concession to enough to dictate that anyone who wants to under- students in the hope of restoring calm. The rector stand the contemporary world must pay special at- proposed to the Mirister of Education that he be tention to events inRussiain the six decades permitted to increase the number of Jews admitted preceding the Revolt, on of 1917 into the university by 62 (At the Universities of Mos- Itis also true,of course, that the Bolshevik cow and St. Petersburg, no more than 3 percent of seizure of power came to have a significant impact the student body could be Jewish.) The minister in- on the domestic affairs of severai major European formed the rector that the request could not be countries and on international affairsIn fact, the acted upon until the tsar had an opportunity to ex- Revolution of 1917 marked a sharp break not only amine the matter and reach a decision. in the history of Russia but in world historyIt can The politicai crises in Russia early in our century be argued thatit was the single most important had deep roots in Russian historyFor our pur- event in our century poses it will suffice to begin with 1861, the year in which the Era of Refoims began The single most

45 50 important reform was the freeing of the peasants, reserve The advantages would be a lower military who composed Aim, three-fourths of the roughly budget and a larger, better trained army In time of 74 million people in the empire To appreciate the war So long as masses of peasants remal.led dimensions of the problem posed by emancipation, serfs,however, the plan was unrealistic,forit consider that in the United States at the time about would mean the release each year of large num- 11percent of the population was enslaved. Of bers of peasants trained in the use of firearms and course, the racial factor added to the complexity of military tactics in a society that could not absorb the probleminthe United States,but the:ar them Under such circumstances, the maintenance greater numbers that the Russian government had of public order would have been extremely difficult to deal with necessarily meant that emancipation It seemed clear, then, that without emancipation would entail a fundamental reordering of several of of the serfs, the military reforms and the revitaliza- the country's institi tion of Russia would not be feasible. Aft6' much The lot of the landlord serfs (about 55 percent of deliberation, the government decided to abolish an the peasant population) was, in fact, riot much dif- institution that had existed for at least two cen- ferent from that of chattel. The landlord could sell turies, butit devised the emancipation decree In his serfs without land to another landlord, he could such a way as to maintain as much as possible of sell entire families or individual members of a fami- the old order. ly of serfs; he could decide whether or not a serf Still. the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 was might marry; except for the most serious criminal an extremely important reform,iffor no other offenses, the lardlord was the only judge in his reason than that it changed the legal condition of domain, and he could order serfs to be flogged, im- the peasants. Men were no longer permitted to sell prisoned, or exiled to Siberia. Unlike slaves, the other men or to transfer men arbitrarily from field serfs worked parcels of land to procure their own work to house work, peasants were now free to subsistence, but they owed either labor services or marry, to acquire property, to become traders, and an annual payment to the state or landlord. The to bring actions to court. state peasants were better off than the landlord serfs, but even they were in bondage to the state A principal drawback, however, was that the and were the defenseless prey of petty officials peasants did not receive enough land; at best, they The common feature of the state peasants and the were given as much land as they had worked prior landlord serfs was that all were tied to the land; to the reform. That had not been very ample. The peasants were also forced to pay redemption dues they couldriot,reely move from their place of for49years.The commune wasnotonly abode. preserved but strengthened; for administrative and The Russiangovernment embarkedon a political purposes, every peasant was to be a mem- momentous anddangerouscoursewhen it ber of the commune, which exercised vast powers decided to emancipate the serfs. Only the most For example. a peasant who wished to 'eve his pressing concerns induced it to do so There was area of residence even for a temporary period had a growing recognition among some sectors of the to acquire a passport from the administration of elite that treating human beings as chattel was im- the commune. The assembly of the commune took moral. To others, it had become clear that serfdom over the bulk of the public law powers previously was a drag on the economy, n.r.kiner it difficult for exercised by landlords;italso supervised and Russia to modernize its economy, to industrialize guaranteed the redemption payments. In the repar- There was also the fear of serious unrest if the in- titional communc.,s, by far the most common, the stitution of serfdom were not eliminated As Tsar land was periodically reallocated, a practice that Alexander IIput itin 1856 Itis better to abolish hampered modernization. Few peasants were will- serfdom from above than to wait until the serfs ing to make improvements on land that was not begin to liberate themselves from below permanently under their control Apparently, the single most important considera- When the peasants became aware of the details tion for the government was military Even though of the emancipation decree, they were incensed. Russia had a larger standing army (two and a They had believed that they would be granted "full quarter million men) than any other state,the freedom," which to them meant that they would be country was humiliated during the Crimean War given. free of charge. all the land held by landlords (1853 56) The Russian army could not defeat poor- The peasants, it must be stressed, had long been ly organized foreign troops far removed from their convincethat all the land belonged to those who source of suppliesConsequently, after the war worked itThey also believed that the tsar, their ended, the government decided to restructure its "father," wanted them to have the land and that militaryforcesFollowingtheexampleofthe only the self-serving landlords and bureaucrats had European powers. it planned to reduce the size of prevented the tsar's will from being carried out Sig- the standing army and form a trained strategic S! 46 nificantly, there were more peasant disturbances movement that emerged in the late 19th and early after emancipation than in the years preceding the 20th centuries. reform. Without question. the reforms of the 1860s and Over the next few decades. the situation of most 1870s produced fundamental changes in Russie:1 peasants deter;orated One reason for this was the society, but they did not satisfy the expectations sharp rise in the peasant pcpulation. which grew raised by the discussions of reform In the 1850s from 50 to 79 million in the years from 1860 -97 Nor did they create institutions that might have pro- The result was that the size of land allotments vided adequate opportunities for emerging social shrank from an average of 13 2 desiatinas (one groups to play a significant role in public affairs. desiatina equals 2 7 acres) in 1877 to 10.4 in 1905 Neither the middle class nor the working class The average tax on the peasant's land. moreover, could find adequate legs. outlets for self-expres- was ten times as high as on the noble's land sion. Consequently. members of these classes in- Agriculture rem. extrem yard, in large creasingly turned to illegal political activities. part oecause of the periodic Nast. .f the land in Germany, for example, one desiatina yielded Industrialization 128 pow'.: (one pood equals 36 ibs )of wheat in the summer and 104 poods inthe winter;in Against all odds,theindustrial proletariat European Russia, the comparable figures were 64 developed into a powerful force by the early 20th and 41 poods. Periodic famines, caused by inclem- century.This group significantlyinfluencedthe entweather, only added tothe woes ofthe course of events during the three revolutions that peasantry. Russia underwent in 1905 and 1917. Even though the proletariat constituted only about 2.4 percent (3 By the early 20th century, the peasantry was million people) of the total population in1900, a profoundly disaffected, unrest in the countryside partythatclaimedtobeits representative came to be a serious problem This is not to sug- managed co take control of the state in less than gest that the peasants were to any large extent two decades. This raises some intriguing ques- conscious revolutionaries or even that they were tions. Why was the Russian proletariat, absolutely hostile to the monarchy as such On the contrary, and relatively much smaller than, say, the German many of them believed that the tsar was "God's proletariat, so much more radical than the German vicar on earth," who had their interests at heart workers? Why was the Marxist movement in Russia Much of the time, peasant unrest was directed not politioally so much more effective than its counter- at the government but at the manor liaises; the part in Germany? A bribe discussion of the charac- peasants' aim was to secure land, not to change ter of Russian Industrialization and of government the political system The crucial pointis that at policies toward the workerswillsuggest some times of political crisis, the peasantry could not be answers to these questions. counted upon to serve as a bulwark of the existing order. Modern industrialization began in the 1880s and gained momentum a decade later under the im- A few words should be said about the other petus of the dynamic Sergei Witte, who was Mini- reforms of the 1860s and 1870s.In1864 the ster of Finance from 1894 to 1903 Witte promoted government introduced a series of judicial reforms, industrializationnotbecause hebelievedthat which provided for open and pubik.: trials and a economic modernization was desirable initself or jury system and eliminated the worst forms of cor- because he wished to raise the standard of living poral punishment The judicial reforms may be con- of the Russian people. He wanted to transform the sidered a first step toward the establishment of the economy because he knew that if Russia did not rule of law, but they were not rigorously applied become industrialized, the country would inevitably and were often superseded, especially after 1881, lose its status as a great power Witte had also con- byvariousemergencydecrees Thei ditary vinced himself that Russia could undergo econom- reforms of 1874 reduced the period of service from ic modernization and yet retain her ancient political 25 to 6 years, created a reservE. and and in- and social institutions. Late in 1905, when the Em- troduced a more humane system of discipline pire was in revolutionary turmoil, Witte realized that Finally, the government introduce?in 186e, i sys- he had miscalculated He now favoredpolitical tem of local self-government Elected by a compli- change, but only grudgingly"I have a constitution cated, weighted suffrage, the zemstvos neverthe- in my head," he said, "but in by heart I spit on it less were quite effective in such areas as the building of roads and the administration of schuc,lo, In part because Russia was a latecomer to in- hospitals, and philanthropicinstitutionsThe ac- dustrialization,thestateplayed aninordinately tivistsin the zemstvos, many of them from the large role in the national economy. For one thine gentry class. played an important role .n the liberal the government placed extremely high f3riffs on foreign commodities and encouraged foreignin-

47 vestments and loans to Russian industrialistsIt 1917. their lists of g; ..:vances almost invariably in- also became directly involved in the economy by cluded demands for polite treatment by factory offi- 1912. the state owned 68 percent of all railways: by cials 1899, almost one-third of all metallurgical produc- By the late 19th century,it became apparent tion was bought by the state, from 1903 to 1913 that Russian workers would not indefinitely accept the government received over 25 percent of its intheir status of inferiority and that they would not come from its various holdings, rather than from remain docile. The growth in the number of strikes taxes. Another important characteristic of Russian clearly indicated a changing mood among the industrialization was the prevalence of very large proletariat. Between 1862 and 1869. only 6 strikes enterprises. In 1866, 43 percent of the workers in and 29 disturbances in factories were recorded. By the cotton industry were employed at plants with 1885, the annual number of strikes had risen to 20, more than 100 employees. in 1877, 51 percent. in between 189:; and 1904, that rumber was about 184, 72percent Theproportionofworkers 176 in 1903 alone, there were 550 strikes Involving employedinfactorieswithmorethan 1,000 138,877 workers. Most of the strikes were caused employees was three times as large in Russia as in by disputes over economic issues or general condi- Germany, generally considered the leader inin- tionsinthe factories.Yetevery time workers dustrial concentration engaged in a work stoppage, they contravened the The concentration of industry facilitated both the law and were thus also making a political state- formation of trade unions and the growth of politi- mentIn 1905 a large number of them began to cal activism by workers The government's policies agitate explicitly for changes in the political system governingtherelationsbetween workers and employers alsostimulated these developments. Revolutionof1905 From the beginning of industrialization, the government made clear its determination to maintain the In the meantime, liberalism had emerged as an values of the autocratic regime in the new sector of organized force.Initially, people associated with the economyIndeed,until1905 the authorities the zemstvos advocated a liberal program for Rus- denied that there was any labor problem atall sia. They were Joined in the late 1890s by such and They claimed thatrelations between employers professionals as lawyers,doctors,writers, and their workers were patriarchal in character, no professorsHighly articulate, the latter soon ex- erted an influence on the national scene out of all differentfrom the assumedrelationsbetween Significantly,In- landlords and peasants. Many senior officials knew proportiontotheirnumbers dustrialists and businessmen in general were slow better,but any public acknowledgment that the patriarchal relationship might not be applicable to to take up the liberal cause; their economic de- the modern Industrial setting was considered, in pendence on the state made them politically very the words of one historian. "a denial of the validity cautious. of the social order on which the tsarist regime was The liberals favored a fundamental reordering of based." society They advocated the rule of law, the grant- ing of civil liberties to all citizens, a sharp curtail- The systemofdisciplinarypaternalismthat prevailed inthe factories was harshThe Penal ment in the powers of the monarch, and the crea- Code of 1845, for example. branded collective resis- tion of a legislative body to be elected by the tance to employers as tantamount to an uprising peopic:In 1902 liberals founded a Journal (Os- against the state, punishable by 15 to 20 years of vobozhdenie): two years later they created an un- hard labor, Organizations of workers that might fo- derground organization, the Union of Liberation ment strikes were illegal. Conditions in factories Within another two years, liberals hdu mobilized public opinion to such a degree that they were were grimuntil 1897 a working day of 13 hours was the norm Thereafter, the workday was short- able to galvanize the opposition to the old order and thus set the stage for the first Russian revolu- ened to 11-1/2 hoursSince many laborersstill returned (or part of the year to their villages for tion field work, they were generally housed in large, un- Russia's unexpected military defeats in 1904 and sanitary barracks durinr, those months of the year 1905 at the hands of the Japanese strengthened that they worked in factories Within the plant. the and emboldened the liberals Although the charge managers and owners treated the workers conde that the Russian government del,'-eraiely provoked scendinglythey addressed them intha familial Japan in order to stave off re,c.iution has never "thou," searched them for stolen goods when they been proven and is almost certainly unfounded, left the factory for the day, and imposed a series of there can be no doubt that elements within the tines on them for infractions, of the strict 'Rules of tsarist government mindlessly pursued a foreign Internal Order Workers deeply resented these policyinthe Far East that was bound to be humiliationsDuring the revolutions of 1905 and regarded as provocative by the JapaneseStill,

48 F; 3 when the Japanese attacked the Russians at Port promises or its claims to absolute power Had the Arthur in January 1905, Tsar NicholasIIcould government made some far-reach!ng concessions. count on general support for the war effort As one such as the establishment of the rule of law and report after another of military incompetence by the creation of a legislative mon with real powers, theRussians reachedSt.Peterburg and other itmight well have succeeded in separating the centers of the empire, the public turned against the moderates and the centrists from the revolutionary war. For about eight months, the liberals held their left within the opposition movement. The tsar was fire, but in the fall and winter of 1904-05 they un- i:nwillingtotamperwiththe institutionof leashed an extensive campaign (the so-called ban- autocracy. however, and the result was a deepen- quet campaign) for constitutional changeIt was a ing of the revolution remarkably effective campaign, which the govern- The high point came in October, when a general ment, having lost self-confidence as a result of the strike brought the government to its knees. Again. military defeats, could not stop.Itmarked the thestrike was aspontaneousaffair;no one beginning of the Revolution of 1905 and in many plannedit,no one organizedit. Once itbegan, ways determined the agenda for the second phase however, it attracted wide support from various sec- of the revolution. which began with Brody Sunday tors of society. Although workers took the lead, on January 9, 1905 they quickly received the support of the middle A detailed account of the revolution is not pos- classes, who viewed thestrikeprimarily as a sible within the confines of this r but a few weapon to wrest political concessions from the general comments would seem to be appropriate. tsar. The opposition could act in unison t-:ause After the senseless massacre of 130 peaceful mar- the political issue, the elimination of the at..craft chers, who merely wished to present a petition of rerilme, had assumed center stage. One city after grievances to the autocrat, the industrial proletariat arta ,erliterally came to astandstill,and the for the first time became a social force to be reck- govE.ilent had no choice but to yield, especially oned with At first, they engaged in massive strikes since it was not sure thatit could count on the through' the empire in support of wide-ranging army to obey orders to crush the strikers by force. economic demands Indeed, itis noteworthy that On October 17 the tsar reluctantly accepted Witte's none of the political parties of the left had played advice and issued the October Margesto, which any significant role in preparing the procession of promised civi' liberties and the establishment of a the tsar, which was organizeed by a priest, Father legislature (duma) with substantial powers. Gapon Bolshevikagitators who appearedat It was a great victory for the opposition. Had it preparatory meetings for the purpose of radicaliz- been consolidated, the Russian Empire would have ing the crowds were shouted down and occasional- been on the road toward a Western-style constitu- ly even hauled off the platform Not until the spring tional state. But the new order faco enormous and summer of 1905 did large numbers of workers problems. the tsar did his best to undo the conces- become politicized; they now began to demand an sion; large numbers of people, enraged at the end to the war and an end to autocratic rule Even government's surrender to the opposition, violently then, however, political activists exertedlittlein- and indiscriminately attacked Jews and anyone fluence over the mass protest movements, which else presumec: to have been hostile to the olo were essentially spontaneous expressions of out- regime: and the PetersburgSoviet(councilof rage against the authorities. workers' deputies) grew increasingly militant. The Within weeks of Blor4y Sunday, virtually every upshot was that the C..tys of Liberty, the period of segment of society was caught up in thetur- :cedom after the issuance of the October Manifes- bulence: students at universities and high schools to. came to an end within two months in a torrent wen. on strike. disorders erupted in the border- of government repression. lands, peasants staged attacks on local landlords' The last gasp of the revolution took place In estates, middle-class people ignored the govern- December 1905, when the workers in Moscow, ment's regulations on public meetings and press under the leadership of the Bolsheviks and other censorship On several occasions, soldiers and revolutionaries,stagedan uprisingthatwas sailorsmutiniedTo disinterestedobservrgs. it quashed within ten days For about 15 months, the seemed as though the entire structure of society political struggle between the forces of change and was on the verge of collapse the forces of the old order continued, but the op- The government was incapable of coping with position failed to regain the strength thatithad the growing unrestinstead of settling on a firm commanded from late1904 untillate1905 On course of action,italternated between strident June 3,1907. Peter Stolypin, the Prime Minister, reassertions of the autocratic principle and vague staged a coup d'etat that effectively ended the pr "mises of reform Large numbers of people simp- revolution, he arbitrarily changed the electoral law ly refused to take seriously either the government's

49 so as to assure the election of a duma dominated which it used effectively in 1917 This interpretation by conservatives of the linkage between 1905 and 1917 has become On the surface. the failure of the revolution the stock in trade of Soviet historians and Marxist seems puzzling. Never before in any European historians generally r ?volution had four popular movementsthe mid- Non-Marxist historians. whose views predomi- dle class, the industrial proletariat, the peasantry, nated in Western scholarship from the 1930s to the and natic lal minorities challenged the established 1960s, have contended that for seven years (1907- order Never before had the working class played 14) the future of the empire was open-ended The so dynamic a role during a revolution. If the opposi- Revolution of 1905 is seen not as a precursor of tion was so pervasive, why was the government 1917, but rather as an event that exposed the weak- able to survive'? One important reason was that the nesses of the old order and enabled competing so- opposition did not simultaneously attack the old cial forces to become active in the political arena order. Each one cthe rebellious groups acted to an extent unprecedented in Russia. These his- more or less independently, which meant that most torians alsopoint to various trends that were of the time the government was confronted with favorable to a peaceful modernization of Russia cne protest movement at a time. When several The economy was on an upswing, for at least five movements (workers,professionalgroups,and years, labor militancy was in decline. The govern- some industrialists) did coalesce in October 1905, ment launched a major campaign against illiteracy, the government had to make far-reaching conces- recording some impressive achievements. sions But these groups acted as a unified force for Most important, Stolypin introduced a series of only a very short period, a few weeks at best The reforms in the countryside designed to turn the disagreements between liberals and socialists, to peasants into a conservative force by transforming mention only one source of conflict, were simply them into private landowners. In thus undermining too deep The liberals by and large did not favor a thecommune,Stolypinreversedthedeeply republic or socialism, nor did they support violent entrenched policy of Russian governments. For a methods of struggle against tsarism When radicals variety of reasons, the process of implementing the took up arms latein1905, the army, though agrarian reforms was slow. but by 1917, 40 percent plagued by disorder, in the end 9roved to be a reli- of the peasants possessed title to the land they able instrument for repressing the leftFinally, in worked However, much of the land waa stillin 1906 foreign governments strengthened the tsarist strips, which was a drag on efficiency, and 40 per- regime by advancing substantial loans to it cent of the peasant holdings were still subject to Although the revolution had been defeated, the periodic repartitionNonetheless, important chan- Russia of 1907 was different in some important ges were under way and, so the argument runs, respects from the Russia of 1904. With the exist- had the war not intervened, the country would ence of an elected legislature, the powers of the have developed along lines uncongenial to revolu- tsar and bureaucracy were slightly :educed, for the tion wishes of the duma could not be completely ig- Since the 1960s a growing number of historians nored by the government The landed gentry, the in the WecL have questioned the plausibility of this business class, and the upper stratum of the line of reasoning. They contend that during the two peasantry, all of whom participated in the elections years preceding the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, of the duma, now exercised some influence in social and political tensions in Russia bent, ^ 'n- public affairs Moreover. trade unions and various creasingly acute. The brutal massacre by troops of associations of cooperatives remained active, and 200 strikers at the Lena Gold Mines in 1912 trig- censorship over the press and other publications gered increased militancy in the labor movement, was much lessstringentInshort,Russia had which manifesteditselfinvictories by the Bol- taken a modest step away from autocratic ab- sheviks over the more moderate Mensheviks in solutism. several important labor union elections.In 1914 there was also an upsurge of industrialstrikes. Revolution of 1917 Severalgroupswithin thy; liberalmovement launched a new and vigorous campaign for politi- Lenin referred to the Revolution of 1905 as the cal reform. The historians who emphasize these "dress rehearsal" for 1917, by which he meant that developments insisttha'the world war merely the turbulence of that year was part of a predeter- delayed the onset of a new political crisis, which mined course of Russian history toward socialism wr..ki most likely have evolved into a major con- Lenin also held that the experiences of 1905, includ- t,ontation between the autocracy and society. ing the devastating defeat of the workers in Mos- -owinDecember ofthatyear,provided the The scholarly dispute over the background to proletariat essential political and military training. theRevolutionof1917cannot be definitively

50 5. 1

resolvedItis a fact that the tsarist regime col- the crowds, many even gave arms to the people in lapsedafter three yearsofterriblebloodshed. the streets. Tsar Nicholas II, realizing t le hopeless- which once again exposed the backwardness. in- ness of his position abdicated competence, and callousness of the old orderIt Eight months later, toward the end of October, a turned out that the senior officers in the army were secondrevolutiontookplace not capable of running a vast military machine or Thisone was planned and organized by the leadership of the Bol- of devising sound strategy in the battles against shevik party. whose membership consisted at most the troops of the Central Powers. in 1916 alone, of 400,000 people out of a total population of 160 more than 2 million Russian soldiers were killed million The Bolsheviks could take power without and wounded and 350,000 were taken prisoner much difficulty because the Provisional Govern- Economic conditions worsened appreciably, and ment, created in February, simply collapsed. the political leadership failed to maintain public support for the war effort Nothing demonstrates more In truth, the Provisional Government, consisting vividly the crisis of leadership than the fact that a at first primarily of liberals, never succeeded in es- depraved priest (Rasputin) was able to exert enor- tablishingitsauthority over thecountry,even mous influence on the tsarist family and over politi- though it introduced civil liberties and promised to cal and military matters of the greatest importance. hold an election for a constituent assembly, which In November 1916, members of the royal family. was to produce a constitutionfor Russia. The thoroughly demoralized by the state of affairs, took problem was that at the very moment that the it upon themselves to assassinate Rasputin. Many Provisional Government came into being, a rival people in the upper reaches of Russian society centerofauthority,theSoviets,appearedin had concluded that the country was heading for Petrograd and soon thereafter in many other areas the abyss of the empire. Chosen haphazardly by workers and soldiers, the Soviets, dominated by Mensheviks Although itis common to speak of the Revolu- andSocialist-Revolutionaries.enjoyedthecon- tion of 1917. there were actually two revolutions fidence of the politically active masses. The leader that year. the two upheavals were quite different in of the Petrograd Soviet acknowledged the Provi- the way they developed in their mass support, and sional Government as the legitimate authority, but in their ultimate goals The first revolution, late in did so half-heartedly and would not accept any February, broke out spontaneously, without prior posts in the cabinetIt soon became evident, how- planning or organization. Indeed, in a speech to ever. tri,without the full support of the Soviets, working youth in Zurich in January 1917. Lenin the government could not enforce itswillAs a made it clear that he did not anticipate an upheaval result, there emerged what came to be known as in the near future "We of the older generation may "dual power." On the one hand, the government not live to see the decisive battles cf this coming was formally charged with running the country, but revolution ButI can,Ibelieve, express the confi- it could not by itself exercise power On the other dent hope that the youth which is working so splen- hand, the Soviets, the repository of political power didly in the socieilst movement of Switzerland, and because the masses had conf anceinthem, of the whole in orld,will be fortunate enough not refused to assume any responsibility of govern- only to fight, rut to win, in the coming proletariat ment. revolution." The leaders of t' Soviets, all of them socialists, Yet once masses of workers began demonstrat- had plausible reas 3 for refusing to participate in ing in the streets of Petrograd, it became clear that governing the couotry they believed that Russia the opposition embraced virtually all segments of was ripe only for a bourgeois revo' don, feared socie" The monarchist duma deputy V V Shur that their assumption of power would push moder- gin, friend of the demonstrators, described the ates into the counterrevolutionary camp, and lack- MLRJri accurately. "The trouble was that in that ed confidence intheir ability to administer the large city [Petrograd] it was impossible to End a machinery of government Although the leaders of few hy dred people who feltkindly toward the the Soviets did not intend to cripple the govern- Goverrumant That's not allThe Government did inent, their overall stance inevitably produced a not feel kindly toward itself There was not a single situation that can only be described as political Minister who believed in himself or in what he was paralysis Effective government is not possible in a doing " The people had simply lost -onfidence in country where there ere two foci of authority, each the existing government, under such circumstan- with its own concerns and aims ces,thetsaristregime couldnot surviveNo amount of repression can maintain in power a Clashes between the Petrograd Soviet the government that is so thoroughly devoid of popular Provisional Government broke out soon eh,' the support After four days of street demonstraticAs, collapse of tsarism The principal source of conflict growing numbers of soldiers refusec; to disperse was the war, which by now was extremely un-

51 popular and which profoundly affected all major soon became evident that the country was disin- facets of national lifeIndeed,itincreasingly be- tegrating The peasants, impatient with the immobi- came evident that if the war could not be brought lism of the government, seized landIn the cities, to an end quickly, the government would not be workers took over factoriesafterexpelling the able to cope with any of the pressing problems owners and managers. Local Soviets assumed con- facing the country. redistribution of the land, crea- trolover localgovernment.Nationalminorities tion of a constitutional order, restoration of a viable broke away from the central authorities, either by economy. So long as the government failed to proclaiming autonomy or independence.Finally, make progress in these critical areas,it was not the army was breaking up. soldiers, eager to end likely to gain foritselfthe popular supportit the war and to return to their villages to take part in needed to survive. land seizures, deserted en masse (some two million men in the course of 1917). The Provisional Yet the government failed to take adequate Government promised reform and appealed to the measures to extricate Russia from the war One population not to support these mass movements, may questionthe wisdomoftheProvisional but not many people took seriously the promises Government's conduct of affairs, butit must be or the appeals By October, the government was recognized that it faced difficult choices. It feared capable of little more than marking time. that abandonment of the allies and the conclusion of a separate peace would ensure the dominance Prodded by Lenin, the Bolsheviks came to sup- over Europe of the Central Powers, all of which port all the mass movements that were breaking were ruled by mosiarchs who surely would have down society, even though the land seizures by destroyed the democratic order established in Rus- peasants and the general breakdown of authority siain February of1917. The government also ran counter 'o their long-range goals of a state-con- believed that it had a moral commitment to France trolled economy and a highly centralized political and England to continue the military struggle until order Lenin's immediate goal was to seize power, the enemy had been defeated Some members of and he could achieve that only if his party was at- the Provisional Government (most notably Pavel tuned to the mood of the rebellious masses His Miliukov, the Foreign Minister) also wanted Russia strategy was brilliant, and it worked to perfection. to remain in the war for less lofty reasons: they When the Bolsheviks staged their coup on October wanted to annex Constantinople at the conclusion 25. they encountered very little resistance. Neither of a victorious war. the military nor the people at large were prepared to come to the help of a government that had The Soviets and their supporters, distressed in tackiing any ofthe stand, favored deter- provenitselfincapableof particular over Miliukov's country's major problems. The real test for Lenin mined action by Russia to bring the war to an end and his followers came during the next four yt 'rs, They urged all the belligerent powers to enter into when they had to consolidate their power in the negotiations for peace on the basis of the formula face of enormous economic difficulties as well as "No indemnities. no annov?:ions." The Provisional military and political opposition to their rule. Government could not be budged from its position This proved to be its most costly mistake. One day after taking power, Lenin lnnounced a series of policies he knew would receive wide ac- Lenin sensed,before anyone else,thatthe claimFirst, he came out in favor of the Socialist- revolution had not yet run itsfull course To be Revolutionary land program: the property rights of sure, when he arrived in Petrograd (from Switzer- the nobility would be eliminated, and lands in rural land) on April 9, even his party followed a policy of regions would be placed at the disposal of Land forthe Provisional Govern- conditional support districtSovietsofPeasants' ment, combined with pressure upon it to extricate Committeesarid Deputies Lenin justified this abandonment of the Russia from the war Lenin found it extremely dif- Bolshevik land program of nationalization on the ficult to persuade his own colleagues to adopt his ground that it was now necessary to demonstrate program, which amounted to a complete repudia- to the peasants that they were no ionger subser- tion of the Soviet's policies. Lenin called for an end vient to the landlords. With this one move, Lenin as- of any support for the government, urged troops at sured himself of at least the temporary support or the front to fraternize with Austrian and German sol- neutrality of the peasants,stil, the overwhelming proclaimedtheimminenceofthe diers,and majority of the population. proletarian stage of the revolutionLenin wanted the Bolsheviks to commit themselves publicly to Lenin also introduced workers' controlinin- the creation in the very near future of a "commune dustry and in commercial and agricultural enter- state" based on the Soviets prises, abolished distinctions and special privileges based on class, eliminated titles in the army, and is- Lenin's program, which seemed utterly unrealis- sued a decree outlawing inequality in wages Per- ticin April, attracted support largely because it haps most important, he took immediate steps to

5 ? 52 endthewar Thenegotiationswith Germany cated that the constituent assembly, which was to dragged on for a few months, but in March 1918 meet early in January 1918, would have to accept theBolsheviksextricatedRussia from the war "Soviet power the Sc iet constitution." Otherwise, against the wishes of the Allies The Treaty of Brest- "a crisis in connection with the constituent assemb- Litovsk imposed extraordinarily harsh conditions ly can be solved only by revolutionary means." The on Russia. but Lenin nevertheless insisted on its ac- assembly was permitted to meet, but when itbe- ceptance He was convinced that the treaty would came clear that the delegates were not we:i dis- not remain in force for long, for he expected the posed towards the new regime, Bolshevik sailors proletariatin other countries to emulate his ex- dissolved it by force. This was, in the words of his- ample. Once the revolution had triumphed torian E. H. Carr. the final "tearing asunder of the throughout Europe, relations between states would veil of bourgeois constitudonalism." be harmonious. and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk For the next four years,it was by no means would be abrogated clear that the Leninists would be able to retain This was the idealisticperiod of the Russian power,forthey faced an arrayofIntractable Revolution the Bolshevik leadership proclaimed problems. The economy collapsed: from 1913 to that equality and popular rule would be their guid- 1917. industrial output declined by two-thirds; In ingprinciples.But some actions taken by that 1920 industrial output had declined even further, to leadership raised doubts in people's minds about 12.8 percent of the 1913 level. Agricultural produc- the direction of the revolution. For one thing. Lenin tion in 1921 was 54 percent of what it had been in made clear that he wanted a monopoly of power 1913. It has been estimated that between 1918 and for his party, even though it represented a small 1920, more than 7 million people died of malnutri- minority of the Russian people. Newspapers op- tion Also during that period, Moscow lost about posed to the government were suppressed; this one-half of its population and Petrograd los' an was ostensibly a temporary measure. to be dis- even larger proportion. carded as soon as the new order was firmly con- By the spring of1918, the government was solidated. engaged in a civil war against several armies repre- On December 20. 1917, the Cheka, the security senting diversepoliticalgroupings,allof them police, was established to guard the revolution. determined to overthrow the Bolsheviks. Finally, in The Cheka proceeded to arrest opponents of the 1918 several foreign armies began to operate on Bolsheviks without regard to due process When Russian soilCzech, French, British, and United members of his own party protested the actions of States troops sought to reopen the eastern front the Cheka, Lenin attacked them as "narrowminded against Germany. In addition, the Japanese sent irtelligentsia" who "sob and fuss" over the security troops into Russia for expansionist reasons. To one police's "mistakesHe further declared that "When degree or another, all the foreign armies helped we are reproached with cruelty, we wonder how the Whites, who were trying to overthrow the Bol- people can forget the most elementary Marxism." sheviks Nikolai Bukharin. a leading figure in the Bolshevik Some historianscontendthatitwas these party, justified the terror during the early years of general circumstances that drove the Bolsheviks Communist rule with a quotation from St. Just, one into adopting harsh measures of rule and the one- of the militants of the French Revolution of 1789* party state The Bolsheviks,itis argued, had no "One mu.)1 rule with iron, when one cannot rule choice; any party replacing the Provisional Govern- with law ment would have followed more or less the same Still. the elections to the constituent assembly, policies. Thus,it was not so much ideology as planned by the Provisional Government, were al- necessity that prompted Lenin to initiate,in June lowed to proceed late in November 1917 The Bol- 1918, the economic program known as War Com- sheviks received 25 percent of the total votes, 9 mil- munism All grain was now declared to be a state lion out of 36 millionItis true that the lists of monopoly, and committees of poor peasants were delegates for the constituent assembly had been organizedtorequisitiongrainfromwell-to-do drawn up before the Bolshevik seizure of power peasants. Some of the grain was distributed to and may therefore not have fully represented the poor peasants, and the rest was handed over to will of the people the state In November 1918. all trade was national- Itis also true that Lenin was not an admirer of ized, which meant that by now the economy was democratic proceduresOn December 26,he effectively under state control. published an article in Pravda in which he declared It may be that Lenin believed he had to take that "A republic of sovietsis a higher form [of draconian measures to overcome the economic government] than the customary bourgeois crisis. but there is no doubt that he also believed republic with its constituent assemblyHe indi- that he was implementing Marxist ideas He spoke

53 openly of bringing the "class war" into the villages revolution, and several years of economic depriva- Even after '"ar Communism had proven to be a tion, succumbed to indifference, which inevitably failure, he referred to it as an admirable attempt to helped the regime in power. introduce socialism quickly The peasants staunch- It should also be noted that the patriotism of the ly opposed the government's policies and, as al- Russian people worked in favor of the Bolsheviks, ready noted, agricultural production continued to which isironic,since the Leninists had always decline sharply decriednationalismasabourgeoisideology In 1921. by which time the Whites had been designedtoevokepopularsupportforthe defeated and the foreign intervention had ended, capitalist stateIt was a fact that the White armies Lenin decided to abandon War CC.TIMUlliSMin were linked to the foreign interventionists and that favor of the so-called New Economic Policy, a par- the Bolsheviks were leading the struggle against tial retreat to capitalism The main provision of the the foreign invaders. The Bolsheviks also benefited new policy was quite simple. Instead of having to from the deep divisions among their opponents, yield to the state their entire surplus, the peasants which prevented the formationof an effective, had to pay a tax They could sell the rest of their unified campaign against the revolutionary regime surplus on the free market On the other hand, the Bolsheviks controlled a compact area during the civil war and succeeded It is significant that at the moment of economic building up a strongmilitaryforce.Finally, relaxation. the Bolsheviks took a major step toward in Lenin's consolidation of his party's rule owed much the creation of what t historian Leonard Schapiro called the "Communist Autocracy" At the Tenth to his success in creating within a relatively short Party Congress, meeting in the spring of 1921. the period of time an effective state apparatus. delegates, following the recommendation of Lenin, Yet it must be kept in mind that when Lenin took outlawed "all groups with separate platforms" (or power in 1917, he did not expect to be able to factions) within the Communist Party. This meant bring the revolution to a successful conclusion that free discussion ofissues within the party without help from comrades in the West In seizing would now be severely curtailed the reins of government in backward Russia, he had modified the traditional Marxist scenario of Lenin also took steps to outlaw all non-Com- revolution, but he had not completely abandoned munist political movements He particularly wanted to eliminate the Mensheviks as a poiitical force For it For him, the triumph of socialism on a worldwide basis still depended on the proletariat in the in- three years, the Mensheviks had calledfor the dustrialized countries. Western countries, however, abolition of War Communism and the introduction proved to be far more resistant to revolution than of -measures akin to those of the New Economic Marxists had anticipated. In the immediate post- Policy. Since they were also an avowedly Marxist World War iperiod. there was considerable social party whose support came from the working class it now turned out. that had been right all and political unrest in Central and Western Europe, (a party, but nowhere did a revolutionary Marxist party take along in arguing that Russia was not yet ready for power and hold it for any length of time. Indeed, it socialism), the Leninists feared that people might in be tempted to raise an awkward question. Why can be said that the revolutionary experiment should a party with such a record not be given Russia bac.stired in the sense that it frightened off people in other countries Certainly, the dread of power? Unwilling to face that question, the Bol- having to endure the "Russian chaos" was an im- sheviks proceeded to outlaw the Mensheviks and portant factor in encouraging many socialists in all other parties that still had a mass following The Germany to shun the Soviet °xperiment during the measureagainstfactionsandthecampaign against non-Communist parties proved to be a turn- Revolution of 1918-19. ing point in the development of the authoritarian, The left throughout the Western world became one-party state in Soviet Russia. sharply divided cave: the "Russian question." caus- Lenin's retention of power in face of all the dif- ing deep splits in radical movements The break-up of the German socialist party is especially Impor- ficulties he confronted was surely his most impres- tant because Germany had always been regarded sive achievement as a political leader In part, he by Marxists as pivotal for the advance of socialism owed his success to his tacti-al flexibility he had To be sure. the revolutionary left in Germany (and little compunction about adopting measures that elsewhere) joined the newly created Communist ran counter to his ideology so long as they were party, which unquestioningly defended the social popular and strengthened his movement politically and political system in Russia But the right-wing Even so, it is very doubtful that the Bolsheviks ever ,sectorinthe enjoyed the active support of anywhere near a Social Democrats, the dominant party. strongly opposed the Soviet experiment as majority of the populationBut the masses, exhausted from three years of war, ten months of utopian and as a perversion of democratic ideals The centrists, the mainstay of the Independent So-

54 cial Democratic Party (in existence fi m 1917 to tain the new order, foster its growth, and attempt 1922), adopted an ambivalent attitude toward the to improve its "health. Soviet experiment, which is worth considering in This is a line of reasoning that still appeals to some detail because in one form or anotherit many radicals in the West, though the object of has had wide currency among intellectuals over their attentions is not so much the Soviet Union as the past seven decades. the countries of the Third World that have under- The centrists conceded that socialism in Russia gone revolutions. It is noteworthy, however, that in was not what they had expected or hoped for Yet several important respects these countries have fol- they insisted that the new order was more humane lowed an historical path similar to that of Russia. than the old one At bottom, the centrists were Underdeveloped or "backward," they fell prey to psychologically incapable of disavowing a system socialist revolution after the elites embarked on a of rule that they considered to be "their offspring process of modernization, the driving force has This attitude was most cogently expressed in 1930 been a numerically small party under the control of by Friedrich Adler, the leader of Austrian socialism, a radical intelligentsia that could count on the sup- in a long debate over the Russian experiment with port or political indifference of the peasantry, con- Karl Kautsky, the most eminent exponent of or- stituting the vast majority of the population. Of thodox Marxism from about 1890 to 1914 who course, some countries, such as Iran, have under- nevertheless repudiated Lenin's revolutionAdler gone revolutions of a different kind, though even in drew an analogy between the birth of the Com- Iran the elite's attempt to modernize the country munist system of rule in Russia and the birth of a was a critical factor in producing the preconditions defective child. Adler contended that if a mother is for revolution. Still, most successful revolutions in carryingachildthateveryone knows willbe recent decades have been closer to the "Russian seriously crippled, then one must do allin one's model," which, in fact, exercised an important in- power to prevent the birth of that baby If the child fluence, ideologically and psychologically, on the is nevertheless brought into the world, its develop- elites in less-developed countries. This is by no ,,t should be fostered despite the weaknesses of means the only reason for studying the revolution- its constitution and the doubts about its healthy ary era in Russia, but it does demonstrate that the growth Similarly, it was right for socialists to have subjecthasacertainimmediacy.Incourses argued against a Bolshevik seizure of power in designed to introduce high school students to the 1917, but once the Bolsheviks had led a successful discipline of history, that is a point of some cons,- revolution, socialists everywhere must help main- quence

6 il 55 SOVIET RUSSIA UNDER LENIN AND STALIN: 1921-1953 by Robert C. Tucker

Itis hardly possible to understand the situation Lenin's Leadership of Soviet Russia today without knowing what happened under Lenin and Stalin. The Lenin period, Bolshevism or Communisminitsprepower but especially the Stalin period which overlaid it in stage, whenitwas just one illegh, movement time,stilllivesin past institutions and in older among others in the early years of the century, al- leaders Faulkner somewhere says, "The past isn't ready had a Russian flavor Although the relatively dead, itisn't even past I think that would be a small number of revolutionaries who took Leninas good epigraph for a monograph on1 ,iy theme. their leader were believing Marxists and in that My point of view is only one of a number of con- sense gave their allegiance to a theory of revolution that came from the West, the Russian flavor tending points of view in the ongoing debate in the was visible West about Russia's history under Lenin and Stalin. in the movement's founding docu- I believe this position is gaining ground, little by lit- ment a pamphlet written by Lenin under the title tle,as research gives rise to interpretation and "What Is To Be Done?" He deliberately took as his reinterpretation of what happened in Russia be- title that of a novel written in the 1860s by a Rus- tween 1929, when Stalin rose to supreme power, sian non-Marxist revolutionary forebear, Nicholas and 1953, when he died What I would like to do is Chernyshevsky, who was imprisoned for his revolu- present some highlights of this interpretation tionary thoughts and acti ms.In the Peter-Paul Fortress in Petersburg in the 1860s Chernyshevsky The thrust of this interpretation is to put the wrote a revolutionary tract in the form of a novel, Soviet Union into Russia, its history into Russia's What Is To Be Done? This work greatly influenced This is not to deny the importance of the revolution- Lenin. ary break that occurred in 1917 as a result of the taking of power by Lenin and his Bolshevik Party His own "What Is To Be Done?," written in 1902, However, this interpretation is in line with what has drew on Russian pre-Marxist lore of revolutionary underground organization. Its theme was how to or- been said by some of my colleaguesintheir ganize an underground party of committed, dedi- papers.Forexample,itfitswithProfessor Kaminski's conclusion in his bibliographical essay cated revolutionaries aimed at overthrowing the that the pattern of relations between rulers, society, hated system of tsarism. What was Marxist about and the individual that had developed in Russia this party? It took Marxism as its ideology. But the before Peter the Great's reign in the 18th century way in which it should be organized undergre;And tray be said to have reemerged in an even more with like-minded, dedicated revolutionaries o'iserv- ing all the rules of underground conspiratcdal be- apparent manner after the Revolution of 1917. havior in order not to be exposed by the tsarist To put the Soviet Union's history into a Russian secret police, arrested, and exiledall ties came frame is my aim. ifI had to name a single thinker from the lore of thr.'. ;ssian revolutiona -y move- and a single short volume that charted the way to ment that had existed in the 1860s and 1f 70s. That this emerging interpretation,itis the emigre Rus- movement was called the narodnik o,populist sian philosopher and historian Nicholas Berdyaev. revolutionary movement. In his book, The Origins of Russian Communism, published in_trope in 1937, he said that in order Lenin was a Marxist narodnik. Both tie West and Russia existed in him He was quite conscious to understand the phenomenon of Communism, or Bolshevism, the name by which it became known of this in writing "What Is To Be Done?" It is not an around 1904 among those who adhered to it, we easy pamphlet to read, not a well-organized tract, have to see it as two-sided On the one hand was but arguably the most important single piece of the internationalist aspect coming from Marxism, writing in the 20th century in terms of its impact upon history He argued initthat the Marxists which was a European currentofthought,a European current of radicalism imported into Rus- should take the "magnificent organization" that the sia in the latter part of the 19th century There was Russian revolutionaries had in the 1870s as their model alsoaRussiansideThese two sides came together in the mind of the founder of the Bol- Lenin also put forth the idea that the revolution shevik Party, Vladimir Ulyanov, who tool( the name that was going to overthrow the tsar in backward Lenin as his revolutionary pseudonym Russia would be made possible by building up a mass movement under the aegis of this "vanguard party," which would engage in Marxist propaganda and agitation in small circles These groups of factory workers, peasants, and students would little by

57 61 little be imbued with Marxist ideas. The party was pressed all other politihe! parti,,s, even the Men- thought of as a teacher This party would come to sheviks, who were the Russian Social Democrats) power in backward Russia; and therevolution and through it the whole party to adopt what was would spark the way to socialist proletarian rc solu- called theNew Economic Policy," or NEP. This tions in countries of Western Europe. which, on meant the legalization of small-scale entert;iise in Marxist principles, were already ripe for socialist industry and the service trades The state kept con- revolution. Thus the Russian Revolution and the trol of the banks, transport, mineral r,)sources, and party leading it could be a vanguard for the whole such heavy industry as existedBut the NEP re- international revolution stored a market economy and gave 25 million peasant proprietors the right to till their plots on na- In 1919, the Third or Cummunist International. surplus produce to the Comintern, was tionalized land and sell which became known as the state contracting organizations or at market in near- formed in Moscow. In a sense, this Comintern in- by towns stitutionalized the old idea of the religious, mission- ary character of Russia as an orthodox state, the Under these conditions something like idea that had been expressed by a 15th-century prosperity very quickly came about, so that the monk inhis concept of Moscow as the "Third Russia of 1925-26 was a far bettor-off country than RomeTwo Romes had fallen, the original Rome had been in the critical time of 1918-21 The goal and the second Rome in Constantinople, the capi- rermined transforming "NEP Russia," which was tal of the eastern Roman empire Now there only considered to be Soviet but not socialist, into a stood orthodox Muscovy, the third Rome, which "socialist Russia." The Soviets, the worker councils would not fall. This idea of Muscovy as a model to thathad arisenspontaneouslyin1917,were be emulated by other countries Is taken by Ber- preserved, but controlled by the party members In dyeav, and Ithink quite rightly, as a forerunner of their executive organs These Soviets now existed official the tion of Moscow as the center of the world in towns and regions and as national revolutionary movement institutionalized by Lenin governing bodies, but they were party-controlled. in the Comintern Russia was Soviet in its political orgenization but Marxist parties all over Europe thereafter split not yet socialist as Marx and Engels 'tad defined into two groups (1) those that adhered to the Com- socialism, much less in that still further, more ad- intern, which became known as Communist par- vanced stage that they called communism Lenin, ties,(2) and those Marxist parties called social in articles he wrote in the last two years of his life Democratic parties, the moderate and democratic (he died in January 1924 at the age of 53), left a socialis't parties 'hat lett-came to power in places political testamentadvice to tne party on the like post-war C many i:nder Willy Brandt and still dirh.tion to be taken. Inithe said that building exist in Italy, Germany, and elsewhere. socialism in Russia would mean creating a country based on cooperative torms of labor, especially In The expected European socialist revolutions did the countryside. In order to persuadeand it had not materialize, and the Bolsheviks found themsel- to be done by persuasion,not coercionthe ves fighting a very bloody civil war from which they inthe towns to work emerged victorious in 1920 They then ruled an iso- peasantry and people cooperatively, the advantages of cooperation lad a"hostile latedRussiainwhatLenincalled to be proved to them. Thus, the early mission of capitalistencirclement." The country wasstill the party, propaganda and agitation, set forth in agrarian. 85 percent or more of its population were "What Is To Be Done?," came back in his final ar- peasants, many of whom could not read or write ticles as the new mission of the partya pedagogi- Its economic backwardness had been aggravated cal mission that he called "cultural revolution.' by the ruination of industry in the devastating civil war between the Whites and the Reds One ofthe What Lenin meant by this was a long, slow, resulting misfortunes was a very bad famine, par- gradual process. he emphasized the woad "reform- ticularly in the Volga area in 1921-22, in which help ismThe political revolution that baught the party came from an AmericanReliefAdministration and the Soviets to power was a necessary prereq- headed by Herbert Hoover uisite for this rise of cooperative forms of labor In- dustrialization, particularly producing tractors, was In 1921, Lenin recognized that there was no also an important part of itIn one of his articles in direct way under existing conditions to the socialist 1919, Lenin had said, "If we had 100,000 tractors, or communist society that had been forecastin the peasant would say 'I'mfor the commune'." Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto of 1848 What did he mean by this'? There were 25 million and that no help was going to be forthcoming from peasant households, if there were 100,000 tractors, revolutions in the advanced countries of Western theycoulaonlybeusedcooperatively The Europe He then persuaded the party oligarchy in peasants would have to get together and sharethe charge of the country (the Bolsheviks had sup-

58 tractors, imbuing them with the idea, and giving patriotism," as a delegate to the Tenth Party Con- them the experience, of working cooperatively gressin1921 protestinglyreferredtoit This But how to get the 100.000 tractors? For that, it delegatefromtheUkrainianRepublic,V P wasnecessarytorebuildindustryin Russia Zatonsky, died in Stalin's Terror of the later 1930s Lenin's conception of industrialization was heavily Zatonsky protested that some of the Bolshevik based upon the notion of electric power develop- emissaries in the outlying republics, the minority na- ment, which he called "electrification." He became tions mainly living in the borderlands, were infected such an enthusiast of electrification that he once with the spirit of Russian Red patriotism and were spelled it out in a slogan: "Communism Equals the acting, he said, like the tsarist viceroys who had Soviet Power Plus the Electrification of the Whole ruled those areas before 1917. Country." These events show thatMarxismor Com- munism can be fused witn a Russian national out- Stalin's Rise to Power look. That is a point of such great importance that I cannot stress it too strongly. There has long been In the wake o' Lenin's death, the fight for leader- a belief in many minds, both Western and Russian ship succession was not just ove. power but over émigré, that Communism and nationalism are com- basic directions in policy at home and abroad The pletely incompatible. This notion is mistaken. His- internationalism/Russianism duality reappeared, tory has shown that these two things can be com- causing a split in the party. The left opposition ad- bined not only in Russia, but also in China, where hered to Marxist internationalism, while he rest of Mao and his party came to power in a revolution in the party leadership went in what might be called a 1949 and fused Communism with Chinese nation- "Russia-first" direction alism, and in other countries. The left-Marxist internationalists found their fore- In the Russian case, the left opposition was van- most leader in Leon Trotsky. The Russia-first posi- quished politically and expelled from the party In tion found leading represeMativesin ahetero- 1927. Trotsky wls banished first to a distant place geneous group that included Stalin, Alecei Rykov, in Soviet Russia and then to Turkey in 1929. The who was Lenin's successor as head of the govern- Russia-firsters prevailed, only to become involved ment or Council of People's Commissars: Nicholas almost immediately in a terrible new internecine Bukharin, a leading theorist and editor o the party fight over the direction to be taken. newspaper Pravda; and Mikhail Tomsky, who was chief of the Soviet trade unions They did not jet- The Rykov/Bukharin/Tomsky faction, now stig- tison the idea of world Communist revolution or dis- matized as "Right deviationists," were the moder- solve the Comintern, but they did preach Russia- ates among the Russia-first Bolsheviks. The nation- firstism in the slogan "Sncialism in One Country" alism with which they fused their Marxism was a the idea of building socialism in an isolated Soviet benign Russianism which saw in the age-old village Russia This idea originated not with Stalin, who commune (the mir, as it was called in Russia) a lid a great deal to popularize it,but with Rykov nucleusaroundwhichtheycouldbuildan ilnd BukharinIt meant that Russia, while awaiting 'agrarian-cooperative socialism," as Bukharin further development of the international revolution. calledit. They also thought industrialization was which was assumed to be inevitable at some point, very important, as Lenin had said. They felt, how- should and could go it alone in building a socialist e\.er, thatit had to be a gradual process because societyinisolation.Trotsky agreedthatthey they did not h-we the wherewithal to industrialize should try to do this but, as a Marxist, held that no speedily. They also believed it was particularly im- final success could be achieved without further portant to develop light industry along with heavy progress of revolution abroad After all, Marx had industry. This would allow them to provide con- foreseen the revolution as a global, or at least an sumer goods to the peasants, thereby giving them all-European, development. Trotsky was thus in the incentive to turn over their produce to the state position of seeming to advocate an adventurous Consequently, the moderate Russia-firsters went course of fomenting revolutions in other countries along the lines of the articles that Lenin wrot although in fact he was not an adventurist but a towards the end of his life They did not discard prudent politician. the idea of world revolution, but they played down The Russia-firsters prevailed in the mid-20s. in fomenting revolution abroad because they wanted large part because their approach seemed more materialaid from the Western democracies to persuasive to a younger generation of party mem- develop backward Russia They knew that pressing bers who had never been revolutionaries before world revolution in practical politics would result in 1917 and were linking their rising careers to a such bad relations that no help would be forthcom- Soviet Russian regime that was securely in power. ing Some of them even had a spirit of "Russian Red

643 59 Stalin, who echoed these moderate positions in At this point, Lenin was concerned about the the common fight against the Trotskyist opposition, succession problem and was writing a letter to the now began to show his true colors He was not party congress that was to be held in April 1923 really a rightist, orifhe was, he was a radical While writing it(in December 1922), he was going rightist. 11!s Bolshevik revolutionism was fused with over various possible candidates for the leadership a different kind of Russianism, a Great Russian of the partyTrotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Buk- chauvinist outlookIn contrast to the benign Rus- harin, Stalin (who had become powerful already in sian nationalism of Rykov, Bukharin, Tomsky, and an administrative post as General Secretary of the others, Stalin's form of nationalism was a strident, Central Committee) Lenin decided that Stalin was, chauvinistic Russian outlook I call this fusion Rus- as he put it in a postscript to this letter, "too rude." sian National Bolshevism, which in my view is the Thisquality,thepostscriptsaidfurther,isin- phrase that best describes what Stalinism meant in tolerable in a man who has such power as the his time General Secretary doesThe comrades should therefore remove Comrade Stalin from this position Many foreign observers and some scholars, then and later, have thought Stalin's preaching of In other words, Lenin wanted to shift Stalin to a socialism in one coun..y was a purely pragmatic lesser post. Before he could see to this, he had an political tactic. It did have pragmatic political uses incapacitating stroke in March 1923. He could not inmobilizingsupport,particularlyamong the attend the party congress, and his letter was not younger party cohort, but it was also a Russian disclosed to the party leadership until after he died Red patriotism in which Stalin believed. As a biog- in1924.His widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, dis- rapher of Stalin,I think that it expressed his actual closed the letter to top party leaders, who decided outlook as a man of non-Russian (Georgian) ethnic to disregard Lenin's postscript on the advisability origin with a sense of pride in his Russian identity of removing Stalin. Party leaders were already In- Once, in Moscow in 1946, I heard Stalin's voice volved in a factional struggle. Grigory Zinoviev and transmitted over the radio. Icould hear the Geor- Liev Kamenev, who were afraid of Trotsky's becom- gian accent of his Russian he could not open his ing th' chief leader, teamed up with Stalin to force mouth without revealing that he was notsally a the leadership to disregard Lenin's warning. It was Russian. Yet Ithink he desperately neec J to feel one of the great mistakes of the 20th century. himself to be Russian and for others to see him so Stalin's Revolution from Above How did this happen? When Stalin read Lenin's "What Is to Be Done?" in 1903 or 1904, he became Stalin's Great Russian chauvinism was historical- completely converted to Lenin, who was for him an ly momentous. It led him to a conception of policy identity figure. Lenin was a quintessential Russian that prevailed in the 1930s, after he had defeated radical type, who represented all that Stalin, who the moderates and expelled them from positions of was about 24 years old in 1904, wanted to beIf powerIt was momentous because the program- Lenin was Russian, Stalin wanted to be Russian, matic idea of building socialism took on for him the and he thought of himself all his life long as a Rus- meaning ofbuilding up Russia into amilitarily sian like Lenin. When it came time to take a revolu- powerful state able to fend for itself in a hostile in- tionary pseudonym, as everybody did, he (losif ternational encirclement and eventually export its Djugashvili) adopted a Russian name, "Stalin "It system to neighboring countries during a war that was not a usual Russian name: interestingly, it is a he took to be historically imminent. hprnonym of "Lenin." It also comes from the word !n developing this line of thought, Stalin took stal (steel), so "man of steel." leaves from the book of Russian history. My re- Lenin was genuinely an internationalist as well search has led me to the conclusion that Stalin as a Russian. He discovered the reality of Stalin's was something of a reader, not just the nuts-and- Grr"lussian chauvinism too late He had thought bolts poirucian he was and is widely perceived as that Stalin, as a person of minority origin, would be having been. He was particularly interested in Rus- a good man to head the new Commissariat of sian history He saw from his reading that old Mus- Nationalay Affairs, whose task was to work out covy, also isolated in an international setting, had policy toward the non-Russian nationalitiesIn this built up its military power through centralizing the role, Stalin dealt with the non-Russian nationalities, state, developing an autocracy. and taking com- particularly his own Georgian nation, in a crude mand of its human resources through the obliga- and even brutal we)!n 1921 Georgia was forcibly tions of ths different orders of society to render ser- incorporated into the Union by the Red Army vice t.-_, tie state Thus, the nobility had to render Stalin supervised this incorporation, handling mat- service in the armed forces or the bureaucracy ters in Georgia so roughly that when it came to The peasantry, which became enserfed in the 17th Lenin's attention (Georgians wrote to him about it), century,hadtorenderservicebyproviding he became incensed

60 P 4 produc' for their landowners They were tied to the hire a few people seasonally to help them and their land, they could not move from the village where families work the few hectares of land that they they owed service obligations. As each ofthe possessed The kulaks were a small minority, 3 per- population groups had its form of state service. it cent at most The slogan made them out to be the was a compulsory-service society that developed "village bourgeoisie," and efforts were made to inin Muscovy in the period from the 15th to me 18th cite the poor and middle peasants against them centuries The middlepeasantslivedwiththekulaks,

This state- building process, as one may call:1, however, and many were little distinguished from struck Stalin as intensely relevant to the needs of them, so it was hard tc tell who were kulaks. The Soviet Russia in the 1930s. It is a remarkable idea party-state sent In police detachments tacked up that a process that enfolded In history over a num- by army detachments They obtained lists of those ber of centuries could and should be repeated in often arbitrarily classified as kulaks. Anybody, poor the period of a decadebut that was Stalin's idea or middle peasant, who showed reluctance to join He believed that Russia needed to industrialize in a the kolkhozy was labeled a "kulak accomplice." great hurry. Being poor as well as isolated, it could The peasants were ordered to turn over their Im- only do that, Stalin thought, by bringing peasant plements, livestockeverything except their huts Russia into collectives from which the state could and clothingto the collective They did not want extract grain and other produce for the needs of to do this, seeing it as a revival of serfdom, which the army and for export to pay for the foreign tech- is essentially what it was. To terrorize the peasants nology that would be imported in the service of a into submission, those classified as "kulaks" and war-oriented industrialization emphasizing the build- their families were herded Into boxcars and sent off ing of heavy Industryiron, steel, coal, tanks, trac- on journeys of a month or longer to dist,- nt places tors, trucksSince this bringing of the peasantry In the east, In '3Iberla, or in the far north to fell Into collectives needed to be done in a hurry,it trees to be exposed as timber or to build plants. would be a revolutionary process: a revolution Since the industrialization was war oriented,it from above under state auspices. sought to build up the eastern part of the country This Stalin conceived of as his "October," his oecause the western part was more vulnerable in way of emulating and even outdoing Lenin as a the event of war Because Siberia had a lot of coal revolutionary leader Whereas Lenin was a revolu- and the Urals had a lot of Iron, these places be- tionary from below, he would be a revolutionary came focal areas for industrialization. Few people from above Meanwhile, foreign policy would en- wanted to go to these inclement regions, however. courage division of Europe into hostile coalitions of So about two million ''kulaks" plus family members, states in preparation for the new world war that many of whom died en route, were sent tc build Stalin took to be historically inevitable He hoped it barracks for themselves and start work building would be one in which a militarily strong Soviet plants. Russia would remain neutral while opposing coali- The deportation scenes were so horrifying that tions of states were engaged in a long and bloody the other peasants in the vill,:ges agreed to sign up struggle similar to the World War of 1914-18 At a for the kolkhozy. Then they did something Stalin time of Soviet choosing, he said in a speech cf had failed to foreseeThe peasants joined the 1925(firstpublishedinhis collected works in kolkhozy,but before entering,they slaughtered 1947), it would enter much of their livestockVhy should peasants turn Late in 1929. Stalin acted on his policy concep- over their pigs, sheep, cows, and chickens to the tion by pressuring the peasants into joining the col hated institution they were being terrorized into join- lectives, the kolkhozy rte set out to do it not ;n the ing'? space of a decade, as outlined in the five-year pian That slaughter of livestock, which destroyed a approved by the party earlier that year The plan large percentage of Russia's total stock. and a bad called for collectivization of 17 percent of the sown crop year in 1931 led to a famine from 1932-34, the area at the end of the fiveyears. arelatively worst in Russia's famine-plagued history.Itis es- moderate pace Stalin decided that much ofcollec- timated that at least four to five million people, and tivization would be done between the gathering of possibly many more, died inthat famine They the harvest in 1929 and the spring sowing in 1930 were village people many in the agriculturally rich He would use the winter months of 1929-30 to Ukraine. where resistance to collectivization was brea:: the back of resistance to collectivization very strong, in the agriculturally rich Kuban region, How was this done? A slogan was n;oclaimed and in the Volga and other rural areas The grain "Liquidation of the kulaks as a classWho were that was produced was appropriated by the state the kulaks9 They were therelativelybetter off authorities and turned over to the needs ofin- neasants in the villages who managed, perhaps. to dustrializationMillions of tons were exported, this

1:5 61 during the Depression when world grain prices rationing when people were living more poorly than were very low theyhad inthe 1930sStalindeclaredthat The Soviet government obtained foreign curren- socialism had been achieved cy by selling grain, timber. and other goods The To the Lenin generation of old revolutionaries, foreign currency so obtained was used to import this new society was not a socialist one, properly foreigntechnicians.engineers.aridmachinery speaking, because socialism connotedtotheir Machines were bought from Germany. the United minds a modicum of prosperity, relative equality of States, France. Italy. from all over Foreign tech- its distribution.andless. ratherthanmore, nicians, including some Americans, were willing to bureaucracy Soviet history under Stalin had gone go to Russia where there Nere jobs. they received in the opposite directionCriticism of Stalin was good pay. largely via sale of grain taken away from therefore rife in party circles around 1933. especial- starving peasants. Consequently,Stalin's regime ly during the famine tried to keep the famine a secret, and there was no In early 1934 came the Seventy Party Con- Herbert Hoover and no American Relief Administra- gress. at the end of which a n ' Commit- tion as there had been during the famine of 1921- tee would be electedThe committee 22 The controlled Soviet press did not report on would then form a new Politburo and confirm a the famine, However, foreign workers who left Rus- General Secretary Some local party leaders who sia acid later wrote their memoirs described the came to Moscow to take partinthe congress starving people coming in from the countryside decided the time had come to carry out Lenin's tes- and begging for food on the streets of the cities tament and remove Stalin as General Secretary The authorities tried to keep the peasants off the streets. They died in the villages by the hundreds These leaders had c candidate for Stalin's replacement, an extremely popularfigure,Sergei ofthousandsUnfortunately, some foreigncor- Kirov. the party boss in Leningrad Leningrad was respondents in Russia failed to report conditions in All over the the villages that they knew about, even they one of the great industrial centers country. party secretaries were aware of receiving didn't know about them in detail, machines and parts fromLeningradIndustries. By 1933-34 collectivization had succeeded, but Kirov, who was an excellent speaker. a tough Bol- at such a fearful human cost that the country was shevik but not a tyrannical Stalk type, therefore be- deeply weakened in ways that r ifected the drive to came a very important figure nationwide. Conse- prepare for war, peasant morale, for example, was quently, the party leaders wanting to unseat Stalin abysmally lowMeanwhile,industrializationpro- thought of Kirov as his replacement. But Kirov, to ceeded at so rapid a pace that vast waste resulted whom they spoke privately on the eve of the con- There was a huge expansion of the concentration gress, refused to g ) along, and the cabal came to camp empire populated primarily by the so-called nothingStalin,however. leaned aboutIt His kulaks Hence, the Gulag empire was a mushroom- response was to plan a terroristic great purge, ing development oftheStalinist1930sInthe which was touched off by the assassination of 19203, there were relatively few political prisoners Kirov in his Leningrad headquarters on December in Russia and no sizeable concentration camp sys- 1, 1934 tem The mass use of prisoners as forced laborers On that event not allhistorians are in ac :- was part of Stalin's revolution from above meritMany ofus,myselfincluded,feelthat Some Soviet historians and some of our eco- evidence on record makesitpos ?ibleto say nomic historians have come to the conclusion that beyond reasonable doubt that Stalin himself, via the entire war-preparation effort that Sta'r staged his agents in the secret police.vas responsible for in the 1930s was a gigantic mistake Economic his Kirov's murder. He then accused erstwhile party op- torians have concluded that balanced economic ponents, notably Zinoviev, Kamenev and the ex- growth, more or less along the lines that the Bol- iled Trotsky. of having conspired to murder Kirov shevik moderates had advocated following Lenin's as preparation for the murder of Stalin himself and juidelines, would haveresultedincomparable the overthrow of the Soviet regime economic development without the terrible trage- Then the Great Purge of 1934-39 was onMil- dies that Stalin's policies caused Nevertheless, by lions of Communists and others were victimized. the mid-1930s. Stalin was boasting that socialism Scholars still dispute the exact numbers Some es- had now been achieved However. Russians, save timates are that between four and five million were for lb.a privileged stratum of bureaucrats at the top, arrested, including up to two million party mem- were lining far more poorly than they had under the bers and previously expelled party members Of NEP Under NEP, there was no food rationing in those arrested, something like five or six hundred It was reintroduced in 1930, as it had been Russia thousand were shot Those who weren't shot (with during the civil war, and was not ended until 1935 ofa smallnumber who were Yet at this very timejust after the end of food theexception

62 released) were sentto work camps indistant World War II areas. While this was going on inside the country, Conditions for the prisoners in the camps were Stalin was actively pursuing a foreign policy alined worsensd by orders from Stalin, who by this time at helping the new world war break out between was reigning autocratically No one could or did op- two coalitions. with Russia remaining neutral pose him Prisoners received 500 grams of bread le or gruel for a ten- to twelve-hour working day of path to his goal was laid through secret diplomacy with Hitler's Germany, as a result, in August 1939, heavy physical labor, seven days a week, often in he and Hitler concluded a non-aggression pact to temperatures of -30' F As you might guess, the which was attached, although the world did not average life of a camp inmate under those condi- know it at the time, a secret accord on the division tions has been estimated by a forme, inmate who of Eastern Europe The secret accord was found survived at something like six months The camps among German documents at the end of World in 1937-39 became death camps for many Only a War II, and toe materials were published by the small proportion of those arrested and sent to U S State Department in 1947 in a booklet called camps survived to be rehabilitated after Stalin died Nazi-Soviet Relations When Khrushchev denounced Stalin The non - aggression agree- ;11 his secret ment provided Hitler with a guarantee against the speech of 1956 these people were found to have spectre of a two-front war. Knowing that there been innocent all along There never was a con- would be no war yet in the east, he opened World spiracy WarIIby invading Polandin September 1939; At the time, Stalin's serve functionaries rewrote Stalin's army subseq.:.;ntly marched into eastern party history The new version depicted the vic- Polandunder the terms of the secret accord timized people as anti-party, anti-state conspira- and took it over Later Stalin took over the three tors, and Stalin himself as the modern Lenin he small Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, believed himself to beHence, although a great took Bessarabia from Romania, and embarked on break occurred in the continuity of development of a war against Finland afteritrefused to comply Soviet Russia in the 1930s,it was not admitted with his demands for territorial and other conces- Stalin was portrayed as the man who had realized sions The Winter War of 1939-40 with little Finland LP.Iill..t: designs, who had built the socialism that was a bitter one. Stalin's forces had been gravely Lenin merely envisaged He was portrayed in the weakened by the bloodbath in the Red Army that arts and itthe media as a genius leader. in what theGreatPurgeincluded.Atlength,Russia has come to be Lolled the "cult of personality," prevailed meaning 11.,e Stalin cult What upset Stalin's calculations was France's What in iatA happened? Some scholars look at swiftcollapseundertheonslaughtofHitler's Stalin as a great modernizer who used barbaric Blitzkrieg in May '1940 This made Hitler the master methods to bring Russia into the 20th century He of the European continent, with a friendly Spain sent the nation to schoolDuring the 19303 in- under Franco (whom he had supported in the dustrialization and urbanization took place. these Spanish Civil War) and an ally in Mussolini's t:ly were forms of modernizing There is another point Thereupon, Hitler prepared for the invasion of Rus- of view, of which I am an adherent Certainly, the sia, which took place in late June 1941Stalin, for nation was sent to school, especially vocational whom all this was an unexpected development of school for technical training Certainly, industry ex- the most fearful proportion, had evidently counted panded, and many peasants came into the cityAll on France -which was thoughttohavethe these processes did occur, but they occurred in a strongest army in the world as well as the Maginot reversionto astate-building.autocracy-building Linebeing able to hold out for three or four years process reminiscent of what occurred much earlier while Russia recovered from the ravages of the in Russia's history From this standpoint, Stalin is GreatPurgeThe new generationofpeople not rightly seen as a modernizer Not only was his promoted to take the places of highly placed vic- policy line a reversion to the past. but in some tims of the purge was still relatively young and inex- ways he can be seen as a counterrevolutionary Vir perienced Hence, the country was not well pre- Wally an entire political generation. Lenin's genera- pared for war tion of Old Bolsheviks, was wiped out in Stalin's Stalin went into a panic, a virtual nervous break- Great Purge Yet he never admitted, probably not down, for a short time The Soviet people were even to himself. that there were counterrevolution- kept in ignorance of this until Khrushchev brought ary aspects of the revolution from above over it up in February 1956, in his initially secret speech which he presided He seems to have considered to the Soviet Party Congress (The speech soon be- himself the real Bolshevik and fulfiller of Lenin's came widely known in the Soviet Union, although it designs that his court flatterers proclaimed him to has never been published there A copy smuggled be

..,,-_.....-,=.21112211:111111111IMMIN out via one of the East European countries was kolkhozy as means of extracting peasant produce published in The New York Times on June 5. cheaply 1956 ) :.,othe Russians and people of other Soviet The Soviet people were also kept in ignorance nationalities, many of whom were fed up with the of the fact that Stalin made monumental blunders "socialism' that Stalin stood for, finally went to war as commander-in-chief Above all, his troopdisposi- under new, younger commanders They went to tions on the war's eve were catastrophic He or- war for their countr/. not for socialism, as many dereddestructionofstrong.fortifiedlinesof thought abroad One of their reasons for support- defense that had been built at great cost and effort ing the war was that they were initwith two along the pre-1939 frontier 5efore he moved into western democracle- Great Britain and America eastern. Poland He moved a large proportion of his The Russians cherished good will toward both the U Slend-lease 170divisions Intoborder zones50to 100 these nations.Inaddition, kilometres east of this new line, which was largely program provided them with not only munitions, unfortified Studebaker trucks, military equipment, and jeeps, which they called "willys," but also canned food Germany invaded on June 22. 1941 with 190 called "Spam." which kept a great many civilians divisions (153 of them German divisions, including as well as soldiers z,,ive during a timeof great priva- 17 tank divisions and 13 motorized ones), about tion 5.000 airplanes, and 3,200 tanks To make matters still worse. Stalin insisted for the first day or so that In December 1941. the first Rus ian counterof- his local commanders' reports that the Germans fensive finally stopped the Germans, who were by were making war on Russia were a provocation. he then near the outskirts cl Moscow Stalin drew on refused to give orders to fight bark Germany in- Siberian troops who had been held in reserve east vaded Rus and the Russian Army did not get in- of Moscow Some of these troops were older men tent orde 0 resist' who had fought in World War i and remembered what it was to fight the Germans. They were expert By then,itwas too latetopreventmilitary '., e men from Siberia So the Ger- thousands were en- marksmen, catastropheHundreds of mans were driven back in earlyDecember 1941, circled, cut off, and taken prisoner by the fast-ad- suffering their first significant defeat in World War vancing GermansWhen some survivors were IIWhile they came close to taking Leningrad, they returned to Russia after the war, they were sent to failed. The most they could do was surround and The realculprit was Stalin, camps as traitors blockade itGreat numbers of people starved in whose blunders led to the mass surrender When, the city during the 900-day seige. The battleof finally, this "man of steel"who was a coward as Stalingrad on the Volga in 1942 was the turning well as a sickly, self-adulating murderous tyrant point in the war. The Allies' invasion of southern .echarge of came tohimselfsufficientlytot Europe in 1943 and the second front In France In military operations, he called on the people to 1944 made the outcome a foregone conclusion. resist the invasion as 'heir patriotic duty He did not summon them to fignt for Soviet socialism. but During the war,tosolidify popular support, for mother Russia The war itself was officially chris- Stalin and his regime gave the people to under- tened the "Great Patriotic War"a deliberate use stand that when the war was over, things were of the name that had been given to the war against going to oe better They did this not by statements Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, the "Father- inthepress,butbyputting rumorsintothe land War grapevine, which is the way Russians get their real nevs The Americans, according to these rumors, And the people? According to the research of would he invited after the war to open department historian Alexander Delhi), based on captured Ger- stores in Russian cities Farmers would be allowed the United man documents that were brought to to leave the collectives Meanwhile, during the war Mates after the war, the popular attitude was one they were allowed surreptitiously to expand their of watchful waiting as the Germans penetrated into private garden plots, which helped to feed Russia the country, aiming to take Moscow and Leningrad This produce they cow' use for their families, any before the onset of winter and to drive the remain- surplus they could sellStudents,it was further ing Soviet forces back to the Ural Mountains Many rumored, would be allowed to study abroad, and Russians had not believed propaganda about the the atmosphere for writers and other artists would Nazis being barbarians because they had always be freer People thought these things would hap- thought of Europeans, including Germans, as "cul- pen when the war was overand the"hostile tured" people Many on collective farms were wait- capitalist encirclement" was a thing of the past ing to be liberated from them Hitler and his Nazi Relations with the Allies, they also thought would helpers treated the Russians as Untermenschen, remain close in a post-war period of growingabun- They even preservedthe slavesof Germany dance and greater freedom

64 May 1945 was for Russia the real end of the Instead of the promised liberty in a world of war,bc,snlisethesubsequentbriefcampaign danger over, with no more hostile encirclement, against Japan in Manchuria was undertaken when there came, in Russia, a renewed period of tension Japan, struck by the atom bombs, was reeling and and growing terrorThose postwar years saw capitulatingWhen the German capitulation was rising,officially inspired anti-Semitism; the rebri- signedinBerlin on May 9,1945,Russia was dling of literature and the arts under the aegis of jubilant Red Square was aswirt with happy people. Stalin's lieutenant, Zhdanov, the return to privation milling around, smiling, congratulating one another as consumer goods were again slighted in favor of and anyone in uniform.I was an attache at the heavy industry's growth, and a new program to American Embassy in Moscow then. Our embassy overtake the United States on the atom-bomb stood right across the street from Red Square I front. The Gulag empire further expanded as Stalin walked into Red Square and heard a young Red deported into the interior entire small nationalities Army officer saying exultantly to nobody in par- because a few of their members in occupied Ger- ticular, "Now it's time to live." Russians by the man territory had collaborated with the occupiers thousands came to our embassy Great throngs of According to Khrushchev in the secret speech of them stood outside, just looking up (it was a six- 1956, Stalin would have deported the entire Uk- story building)They didn't shout slogans, there rainian people, who had provided some collabor- weren't any placards or posters; it wasn't an official ators, but for the fact that there were too many event Itwas something almost unthinkablein 25,000,000of them and there was no place to Stalin's Russia a spontaneous demonstration, a which they could be deported demonstration of gratitude to this country that had In all this, Ihave depicted Stalin as a sort of stood by Russia's side at its darkest hour and monster, a vicious tyrant, and in various ways a ter- provided food and munitions to help it survive rible blunderer in policy.Ibelieve he was those I have never forgotten that sight and the feelings things, but he was something else besides. He was aroused in me and all of us then in the embassy, a genius in the art of power politics, a genius of as well as those feelings demonstrated toward us I manipulation, a great political actor who knew liOw remember how our minister-counselor, George Ken- to twist opponents around his fingers by deceiving nan, who spoke Russian quite fluently, stepped out them as to his intentions He did this before the onto a window pedestal and addressed the huge war with his internal politics of combatting the op- crowd in Russian, congratulating them on our composition. He did it during the war in his dip'omacy mon victory. with the Allies. He was a genius at the art of powe: politics for The Cold War his state as well as for himself. He managed to Then what? Then nothingAll the hopes were deceive Franklin D. Roosevelt and, to a lesser ex- dashed. It was back to Stalinism as usual. It wasn't tent, Churchill about his post-war IntentiorQ They time to live."It was a time to prepare all over assumed, as had the public, that what he needed again for the possibility of another great war which, was wt- it they were prepared to grant: a security as Stalin saidinhis major post-war speech of zone, an environment of small Finlands allowed to February 9. 1946, was an inevitable likelihood given be free internally, not menacing Russia as before the continued existence of what he called "im- World War itThey were ready to cede Stalin a perialism At least three or four more five-year security sphere in Eastern Europe They were not plans were needed, he said, to guarantee against prepared for what happened, which was the ruth- "all contingencies." A Russian of the older genera- less Gleichschaltung (to use the Nazi word), the tion, in whose apartment I sat as this speech was bringing into Soviet shape the Russian - occupied being transmitted, put his head down on his folned land in Eastern Europe: Poland, East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria,andsoon arms on the table as he heard those words I Hungaryand believe thatallover Russia people,figuratively C7,...--...h:,slovakiaOn them were imposed Soviet- speaking, were doing the same. It was the end of managec; satellite states called "people's democ- hope!, for a better post-war period racies."strong -arm methods were usedinthe process. 15e effect was to strengthen the forces of That speech signaled the beginning of the Cold anti-Sovietism in the West. The behavior of Stalin War against the erstwhile allies in the West It is in- after the war,ulminating in the Berlin Blockade of teresting that Winston Churchill's speech at Fulton, 1948-49 and the, Korean War, which was begun by Missouri, in which he spoke of the "Iron Curtain" North K irea wi'h Stalin's assistance in June 1950, coming down across the middie of Europe and greatly wo:0 xl the growing tension of the time which has been taken by some scholars as a declaration of the Cold '.tar, occurred a month later, in How can we explain Stalin's post-war expan- March 1946 sionism into neighboring lands? As I seeit, we must go hack to the understanding of the Stalin

r:) 65 phenomenonas RussianNationalBolshevism ward with afull-scale Communist revolutionin Stalin was a Russian nationalist, but also a Bol- ChinaStalin wanted replicasofSoviet Russia shevik revolutionist of a special kind He didn't just under his firm control elsewhere His Russian Na- intend to have a security sphere in the countries oc- tional Bolshevism, in my view, was a major underly- cupied by the Red Army after the wa. He wanted ing cause of the Cold War Some scholars believe an expanded Russo-Communist empire. and that is that he was moderating his course around 1950, as what he built things were getting terribly tense in East-West rela- Others. myself included, disagree. As one Westerners, not understanding the Stalin phe- tions American who was in Moscow at the time, I can nomenon as Russian National Bolshevism, were Lai testify that we felt no lessening of tension, either in- prepared for this Some thought that pristine Bol- side Russia or in Russia's 1 elations with the West. shevik revolutionism was reviving, but it was not during the awful last period of Stalin's life. For example.Stalin.the Russian National Bol- shevik, did not want a Communist revolution to When he died on March 5, 1053. a whole period rake place in independent Yugoslavia, which it did of history, in Russia and the world, died with him because the Yugoslav Communist partisans came Today his malignant Stalinismis deadYet the to power on their own Communist Yugoslavia great structure of centralized, party-state bureau- under Josef Tito was resolved to rule itself As a cratic rule that he built and the imperial sphere that result,Stalin broke with Tito in 1948, subjecting he forged in neighboring ;andsstiilstand. As a Yugoslavia to a little cold war that lasted until Stalin result, the country that he ruled is in a critical inter- died. He did not want China to have a Communist nal condition that goes back, in many ways, to the revolution because he knew that Russia could not events we have discussed. Yet, under the reform control such a huge country as China for very leadership of an able younger leader Mikhail Gor- long So in 1945. according to Mao Ze Dong's now- bachev. Russia's history is again on tt e move this published diary. Stalin advised him not to go for- time in a hopeful direction.

66 71) THE SOVIET UNION SINCE 1953 by Vojtech Mastny

For mostSovietcitizens,theperiodsince institutions that the system has created have in- Stalin's deathin1953isstillmore theirliving deed been quite unique present than history. History implies finality, and much of what has happened during the three The Role of Ideology decades since the end of the Stalin era remains open-ended This isnot to say merely that too No other question has been more vexing for for- much has been happening and that events are in eigners than whether Soviet behavior is determined flux. At issue rather is tile viewing of the change by the regime's professed commitment to the that has taken place in a proper historical perspec- ideological goals of Marxism-Leninism or by more tive, a task that has been difficult for Western inter- realistic considerations derived from the pursuit of preters of the Soviet scene power For the Soviets, the question itself is false: in their opinion. there is no dichotomy between 'he An outside observer with a conservative bent is reality and the ideology which, on the contrary, apt to emphasize the persistence of the past. thus provides the only "scientific" basis for the conduct making the present seem hardly less gri n and of policy. Yet history has shown that the difficulty menacing than the situation was under Stalin The of reconciling the tenets of Marxism-Leninism with Soviet Union has remained, after all, an oppressive therealitiesof the modern world hasin authoritarian state,ruled by a regime ostensibly fact repeatedlycompelled Moscowto dedicated to the militant Marxist-Leninist ideology modifythe doctrine, the policies, or both and aggressively hostile to the West Moreover, the Soviet leaders themselves have always been in- Two generations since the Bolshevik revolution, clined to seek reassurance in insisting upon the the ideology n i longer provides the fiery inspiration continuity and constancy of their system Yet too that set the goals of policy during the revolutionary much emphasis on the continuity of development infancy of the Soviet state. It continues to perform risks underestimating the extent to which changes other vital functions. however Firs` by positing the that elsewhere might seem trivial have influenced historicalinevitabilityof"socialism,"itbestows the actual functioning of that rigid system legitimacy on a government that calls itself socialist but refuses to submit its performance to the judg- In contrast, an interpreter of liberal persuasion is ment ofitspeople.Second, Marxism-Leninism likely to underestimate how much the Soviet Union, provides the Soviet leaders with a toady-made con- despite all' departures from Stalinism that have ceptual framework through which they analyze and occurred, continues dill todifferfromother interpret their political environment The coherence countriesIt is comforting to presume, but difficult and simplicity of the doctrine are great assets; its to prove, that the differences have been diminish- rigidityand presumptiousness areliabilitiesin ing, as the advocates of the "convergence theory" trying to understand correctly anything that does believe Nor is it very enlightening to proceed from not fit easily into the narrow Marxist categories that the premise t..at the Russians, regardless of their exaggerate the role of material interests and con- regime, are first and foremost human beings, with flicts Finally,ideologicalprr ,iceplionshave the same fundamental aspirations as everyone shaped some of the key institi.ins on which the else Such a truism marks merely the beginning. Soviet system has been resting the single ruling but hardly the end. of a serious scholarly inquiry party, the secret police. collective agriculture. For For historians, who are more attuned than political all these reasons. even if the Marxist ideology has scientists to the uniqueness of social phenomena. ceased to be the dynamic force it had once been, the differences. rather than the similarities. among the developments since Stalin's death suggest that nations provide the often-critical clues for the unit cannot be discarded without putting into ques- derstanding of what happened and why tion the very survival of the Soviet state in its estab- In the last analysis. the fundamental differences lished form concern the politicsthe manner in which social. economic, intellectual. and other conditions ,..eter- The Stalinist Legacy mine the power relations within and between organized societies The Soviets, too, see in their par- More than a thirdof a century after;:talin's ticular, presumably superior. sociopolitical system death, the main Soviet institutions are still 11-se .1- the crucial distinction that. sets their country apart [tented from himWhat has changed a:-the from any other Even those who may disagree with policies and procedures.aswellas theper- this value judgment must at least admit that both sonalities Evidently. once the tyrant was gone, no the ideology that has inspired the system and the one else could possibly manage in the same way

67 the system of terror he had created and tailored ForeignMinister Viacheslav MMolotov,Party closely to his personality Nor did his successors, Secretary Nikita S Khrustithev, and Premier Geor- having had firsthand experience with the mur- giiM Malenkov,wasinitiallyStalin'sformer derous effects of the system on those nearest to security chief and fellow Georgian.Lavrentii P him. have a desire to keep it intact Yet neither did Beria, linked by significant though circumstantial they wish to dismantle it in a mariner that might en- evidence with a possibie conspiracy aimed at danger their own power precipitating Stalin's death The desirability and limitations of reform have Fragmentary but plausible allusions y Beria's been the central themes of Soviet politics since rivals, particularly Khrushchev, also associated him Stalin Changingtnepoliciesandprocedures retrospectivelywithattemptedpolicyInitiatives without altering fundamenta: institutions made any which,ifimplemented, could have amounted to reform reversible. This enabled the Soviet Union's radica, departures from Stalin's legacy Most notab- self-appointed and self-perpetuating elite to mainly, they concerned possible accommodation with tain its power. In the meantime. however, the world the V\ est in F.....,rope by means of concessions in around it has changed. sharpening the dilemma of Germany and a transformation of the Soviet Union reform for eery successive generation. into more of a genuine federation, in which the different non-Russian nationalities would have greater The adaptation of the Stalinist legacy to changing times has peen complicated by the Soviet say than before. Union's passage to a higher, qualitatively different It is uncertain whether there were any significant stage of economic development, paralleled by its clashes over these issues; what is certain is that growth as a superpower aspiring not oniy to its em- any further enhancement of the arbitrary powersof pire in Eastern Europe but to global primacy as a man already in command of the secretpolice well The state of the Z.-k-,sviet economy, while of cru- who. moreover. had been instrumental in perpetrat- cial significarze for the domestic functioning of the ing some of the worst excesses of Stalinism, was regime. has been of relatively little import to other intolerable to the rest of the Soviet leadership. The nations because of Moscow's exceedingly modest accounts of Beria's disappearance range from a share in the overall world trade. The international shoot-out in the Kremlin to secret execution in the behavior of the Soviet superpower, however, has cellar of the Moscow police headquarters. In any become a paramount concern of our time. Accord- case, by the end of 1953 he had beensummarily ingly, foreign policy topics also loom much larger liquidated the last in the long procession of promi- in the history of the post-Stalin ara than they pre- nent Soviet personalities whose portical deroise .iously did. meant physical death as well. The era may be divided into three periods, each Malenkov. The dispos" of Beria heralded the in- marked by the ascendancy of particular leaders cipient. though slow and always reversible, repudia- After the transitional years of leadership struggle tion of Stalinist practices. These still characterized from 1953-55. the decade of 1955-64 came to be the suppression of the first significant disturbances dominated by the forceful personality of Nikita S that followed Stalin's death as early as the summer Khrushchev,themost prominentreformerthe of 1953: revolts in the slave labor camp of Vorkuta. Soviet Union had produced so far. His overthrow in the Czechoslovak city of Pilsen, and, on the was followed by a period of consolidationunder largest scale, in East Germany. Ail these events tes- General Secretary LeonidI. ezhnev. Although tify to how vulnerable the Stalinist system had be- Brezhnev lived until 1983, important new develop- coma to pent-up pressures by theoppressed ments. including his progressing incapacitation, jus- populace once the tyrant was gone tify the choice of 1975 as n watershed indicating The "new course" of Premier Malenkov sought the onset of a third period, which future historians to allay the pressures by proclaiming greater con- are likely to view as that of the SovietUnion's in- cern for the needs of the consumer. Abroad,Mos- cipient decline The period began with an unprece- cow signaled a new willingness to reducethe ten- dented and protracted leadership weakness in the sions of the Cold War by facilitating the conziusion Kremlin, which was terminated only in 1985 after of an armistice in the Korean WarIn a notable theappointmentofMikhailS Gorbachev as reversal of the previous Soviet posture. Malenkov General Secretary also declared that a nuclear war, far from precipitating the vic ory ofsocialism over capitalism as The Period of Reform (1953-1964) Stalin had posited, would rather bring about a disaster for all humankind that must be avoided. Beria The first few months Jter Stalin's end witnessed an intense struggle among his heirs, the However. Malenkov's position in a ruling group particuiars of which still remain obscure The most steepedinintrigue andstillunaccustomed to prominent among the contestants, who included governing collectively rerr.ed precarious, as the

68 PI2 problems he faced proved too overwhelming for At the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Com- him to handle Even modest departures from the munistPart} in February 1956, Khrushchev traditional emphasis on heavy industry and a tenta- denounced S :lin'slegacy far more vehemently tive initiative toward accommodation in Europe than was prudentHis famous secret speech, again vaguely hinting at possible concessions on which remained secretonlybrieflybefore the Germany made Malenkov vulnerable. In February United States government published its smuggled- 1955. he was removed from premiership though out t it full, described most of Soviet history as not expelled from the party or the Politburo by a acriminalaberration.Although Khrushchevat- coalition headed by Khrushchev and Molotov, who tributed the faults to Stalin rather than to the sys- critic;zed Malenkov's shortcomings from Stalinist tem over which he had presided, the criticism had premises The coalition soon fell apart, as Khrush- a devastating impact on the morale of the com- chevoutmaneuvered Molotovwhile MON, ii ig munist establishment and the stability of the Soviet graduallytowardpositionspreviouslyheldby empire Widely interpreted as a sign of Soviet weak- Malenkov In important ways, he was ready to go ness rather than strength, Khrushchev's revelations farther in promoting both reform at home and ac- of Stalin's crimes encouraged especially the Poles commodation abroad. and the Hungarians to challenge their pro-Soviet Khrushchev and the First Détente. The surpris- regimes While in Poland an explosion was avoided ing foreign policy debut of the new regime, still im- at the last moment thanks to Khrushchev's reluc- plemented by Molotov, was Moscow's agreement tant acceptance of a nationalist party leadership totheestablishmentofneutralAustria.This loyal to Moscow, in Hungary a popular revolution reve ;ed longstanding Soviet opposition to such a destroyedCommunist power Thesubsequent solution. which resulted in the withdrawal of hoth Soviet military intervention restored it by installing a Soviet and Western armed forces from a part of nek puppet regime, at the cost of burying the "first Europe they had occupied since World War II.In détente." response to the perceived threat of an incorpora- Reform and Demilitarization. Although the Hun- tion of the Western-controlled parts of Austria into garians had been crushed by Stalinist methods the NATO defense system. which was about to be and the rest.,:ting increase in East-West tensions strengthened by the newly rearmed West Ger- evoked the darkest years of the Cold War, the Fl- many, the substantive and precipitous Soviet con- pearances of a relapse into the pas were decep- cession set the stage for a "first détente." In July tive.Ir.1958, Khrushchev, with the help of the 1955, this culminated in the Geneva oreat powers army, crushed a conspiracy against him led by summit, the first such meeting since the onset of Molotov and other members of the Stalinist Old the Cold War. Guard. The powers of the secretpolice were Raising the 'estion of not only military but also curbed. While the Soviet people received no rights political disengagement in Europe, the advent of that cculd not b, taken away again from them, the Austrian neutrality coincided with the signing of the all-pervasive fear characterk,tic of the Stalin era Warsaw Pact alliance one y before the Austrian was gone. The relaxation of ideological controls en- State Treaty was finalized. A political rather than a gendered great hopes among intellectuals, leading military act at the time of its conclusial the crea- to new creativity in literature and the arts. Khrush- tion of the alliance served to strengthen the in- chev's ebullient optimism and populist stele distin- tegrityof the Sovietbloc while Moscow was guished him markedly from the grim aloofness of engagedin promotingneutralityelsewherein Stalin His accessibility and folksiness generated af- Europe in an effort to weaken NATO. fection, though not necessarily respect, among the rank and file of the Soviet people. Equally. significant was Khrishchev's accommodation inJune 1955 withTito'sYugoslavia, Encouraged by the Soviet Union's impressive which Stalin had ousted from the Soviet bloc in growth and technologicalfeats, which included 1948 Aside from luring Yugoslavia away from the especially the 1957 launching of the first artificial West, the gesture of reconciliation during Khrush- satellite, "Sputnik," Khrushchev was a true belie'. :r chev's visit to Belgrade was a prelude to the refor- in the superiority of the Soviet system and its ul- mist policies he was about to inaugurate in the timate triumph over "capitalism This beliefin- Soviet Union itselfTito, who had "de-Stalinized" spitednotonlyhiscombativenessbestex- yet preserved his power and even gained popular emplified by his famous :mark. "we shall bury support, had performed the very feat that Khrush- you," Airing his visit to the t.:. liieti States but also his dispos:tion to reduce the military dimension of chev himself hoped to accomplishinhis own country. His resistance to Tito's claim for a greater the East-WestrivalryThat isposition was not tole in the Soviet bloc set definite limits to a./ readily apparent inhis often-threatening rhetoric genuinerapprochementbetweenthesestrong and the new emphasis he placed on the develop- leaders of the two very unequal countries ment of strategic nuclear forces Yet the expansion

69 of Soviet nuclear capability was not neariy so vast "virgin lands" in Siberia and Central Asia to agricul- as he led the world to believe while the Soviet con- tural use proved a costly mistake ventional forcesthe ones more useable as an in- Khrushchev's Downfall. In th^ aftermath of the strumentofpolicyactually decreased Drastic Cuban missile crisis, Khrushchev seemed to have reductions in the size of the arr ed forces and cuts drawn lessons from his failure Embattled at home, in the defense budget strained the relations be- he went farther than any other Soviet leader before tween Khrushchev and the military, regardless of him in laying foundations for a more genuine ac- the debt he owed them for helping him to defeat commodation with the West. The Soviet Union the conspiracy in 1957 e% aged in substantive arms control negotiations, Berlin, Cuba, and China. Khrushchev tried, at which quickly produced the Nuclear Test Ban one and the same time, to channel the competition Treaty of 1963 In 1964. Khrushchev was apparent- with the West increasingly into areas other than ly preparing a new initiative toward a European set- military and to intensify itpartly by expanding its tlement during his planned state visit to West Ger- scope,partly by shiftingitto the Third World many, the first such visit by a supreme Soviet There the Soviet Union enjoyed a psychological leader Before it cou;c1 take place, however, he was edge over the West. which was handicapped by its deposed amidst chargesofrecklessness and association with the former colonial powers. His in- "hare-brained schemingWhile such charges were novative foreign policy,predicated on the con- a fair description of some of his earlier policies, tinued successful performance of the Soviet sys- notably those that had created the Berlin and tem, rested on precarious foundations, however Cuban crises, at the time of his overthrow Khrush- Moreover, it had to be defended aciainst those who chev was actuallymoving fromconfront: tion would have preferred cashing in on the real or toward accommodation in foreign policy In domes- presumed weakness 1 the capitalist world The ad- tic affairs. he continued the course of moderate visability of such a course, even at the risk of war, ratherthanradicalreform,aiming atmore was a major point of disagreement in the evolving decentralization in the management of the econ- Sino-Soviet conflict. omy. That such policies nevertheless triggered the action against him was an indication of the anxiety To hamperChina'sacquisitionofnuclear capability, the Soviets withdrew their advisors to Its with which the conservative majority of the Pclit- nuclear program, incurring the wrath of Mao Ze buio viewed both the prospect of a rapprochement with the West and anything that might impinge on Dong Yet Moscow was being increasingly drawn toward a more aggressive international posture to the vested interests of the bureaucracy. The' failure of Khrushchev, despite all his faults the rare Soviet protect its policies from criticism from the leftIn leader with a human touch and concern for the 1958 -61. Khrushchev fight a diplomatic victory in apersonal Germany by trying to oust the Western powers common people, was more than from West Berlin with threats to terminate their tragedyIt was also a tragedy of an obsolescent resistantto rights of access to the city When the crisis he politicalsystemthat,increasingly change, destroyed a man of courage and vision sir created proved counterproductive, generating in- cerely dedicated to improving it stabilityinEast Germany which prompted the decisiontobuildtheBerlinWall,Khrushchev resorted to an even bolder challenge by secretly The Era of Consolidation (1964-1975) tryingtoinstallnuclearmissiles aimedatthe The new regime,presided over by General United States in Cuba Their discovery in 1962 Secretary Leonid IBrezhnev and Premier Aleksei brought the two superpowers closest to the brink Kosygin,didnotabruptlyreversethe course. of war -an ironic turn of events for a Soviet state' Criticizing the style ratifier than the substance of man who had started from the assumption that he Khrushchev's policies, the regime neither turned could prevail in the competition with the West by more hostile to the West nor stepped up internal diminishing his reliance on military instruments repression.Itencouraged, though never imple- Khrushchev's humiliation when '''amissiles had mented.ProfessorEvseiLiberman'splansfor to be withdrawn from Cuba under American pres- economic reform favoring a limited introduction of surecoincidedwiththeproliferationofother mark_ incentives into the centralized planning sys problems. Relations with China, which he handled temIt also tolerated growing diversity in Eastern with asingular lackofsensitivity,deteriorated Europe.highlighted by Romania's semi-autono- precipitously, leading to an open break. tiny Al- mous foreign policy and the incipient liberalization bania also defected from the Soviet bloc, while in Czechoslovakia Romania took an increasingly independent line in In the latter partof the 1960s. however, the its foreign policy Meanwhile. Soviet economic per- West s mounting social and economic crisis, ag- formance declined, and Khrushchev suffered a loss gravated by the American embroilment in the v let- of prestige when his ambitious program to put the

70 74 nam War,provides. Moscow with incentives 'or tion of forces" in their f .vor under the condition of more aggressive, rather than more accommodat- low rather than highelision. The expansion of ing, policies In particular, the Soviet Union tried to military Power player, a key rolein the Soviet cultivate discord within the Western alliance by pur- détente calculationsIf Khrushchev had hoped that suing the protect for a European security con- the presumablyirresistibleascendancyofthe ference from which the United States would be ex- Soviet system would enable him to reduce his cluded The internationalsituation differed from reliance on military force in the competition with that during the early Khrushchev years in that both the West. his less sanguine successors reversed power blocs were now facing growing internal the calculus by regarding the expansion of their problems, at issue was the question of which one military power as the main precondition of the sys- would do better ii managing what Pierre Hassner, tem'sascendancy Internally,concentration on a French political scientist. aptly labeled their "com- military might was to compensate for the shortcom- petitive decadence ings of Soviet performar'ce in nearly every other Crises in Czechoslovakia and the Far East. Jeld Internationally,the attainment ofstrategic The 1968 crisis in Czechoslovakia hightighted the parity with the United States was to create a decline of ideology as an inspiration for the Krem- respect 'or Soviet power that would enable Mos- lin's policies The Czechoslovak reform sts sought cow to both develop its economic strength and bet- to revitalize communism by givingit a "human ter wage its struggle for political supremacy as well. face" and reconciling it with democracy Their ex- The Economic Accomplishment. Khrushchev's periment, whatever its chances of success. was successors departed from the traditional Soviet in- not given an opportunity to succeed when Mos- sistenceon economicself-sufficiency,seeking cow, albeit after considerable hesitation. intervened Western credits and importing Western technology, to stop it by military force As Brezhnev explained as well as grain, on a massive scale. Assuming that to his Czechoslovak comrades whom lie sought to their détente calculations would work to their ad- depose, at issue was power rather than the future vantage, they evidently hoped to gain easier ac- of communism His statement was suggestive of cess to Western goods needed to spur Soviet the distance that the Soviet leadership had traveled economic growth, without a political price to pay. from the ideological commitment of Khrushchev At least during the first half of the 1970s, Moscow's and of the extent to which concern for power pure expectations seemed to be materializing. and simple had come to dominate the conduct of The adverse effects of the Arab oil embargo on the ruling elite Western economies contrasted with the apparent On the one handMoscow's declining moral economic health of the Soviet Union. the world's authority as the cent ,r of international communism largest oil producer and foremost beneficiary of the gaverisetoEurocommunism which,likethe quadrupledoilprices. Although modest by the Czechoslovak reformers, bought to reconcile com- standards of the Stalin and early Khrushchev eras, munism with democracy while seeking also inde- Soviet economic growth at that time allowed for pendence from Soviet control On the other hand both guns and butter.Itnot only enabled the the trendaccentuated theconflict with China, regime to sustain the massive expansion of the which under Mao Ze Dong replaced the Soviet Soviet rnilitary machine on which Moscow's con- Union as the world's revolutionary vanguard In the ception Jf détente hinged, the relative yosperity year following the intervention in Czechoslovakia, also made possible improvements in the standard the conflict erupted in the worst military clash be- of living that gave Soviet citizens, as well as their tween the two communist giants along their dis- counterparts in Eastern Europe, a greater measure puted oorder at the Usuri River Against the back- of material well-being than before groundofthe still-imperfect"normalization"in The improvement enhanced thestability and Eastern Europe. the crisis in the Far East gave the cohesionoftheSovietempire.Thisinturn Sovietleadershipadecisiveimpetustoseek facilitated the subordination of the Comecon, tne détente with the West Sovietbloc'ssupreme agencyforeconomic Détente. For Moscow, détente entailed calcu- cooperation, to Moscow's needs In particular, the lated risks and expectations quite different from Soviet Union's East European dependencies were those prevalent in the West As Brezhnev himself made to supply an increasing share of both the stated,itdid not preclude but, on the contrary, material and the manpower investment required to necessitated more strenuous political and ideologi- open up new sources of energy and raw materials calcompetitionbetweenthe two systemsof in remote parts of Siberia. The East Europeans values Presupposing internal consolidation of the also shouldered much of the burden of subsidizing Soviet bloc despite its greater opening to the West. the growing number of Soviet clients in the Third détente as theSoviets understooditmeant a World gradual, but irreversible. shift in the global "correla-

71 The Military Buildup. An expansio.of Soviet complex Soviet hierarchy and making full use of armed forces, including the construction of a large, the power of patronage. modernnavy,began almostimmediatelyafter The nation's relative material prosperity made it Kh Lishchev'sCuban fiasco,presumablyunder easier for the egime to strengthen its control over pressure from his critics. Only during the Blezhnev thesocietybyfurthercurtailingthelimited °ra, however, did the military buildup assume its freedoms surviving from the Khrushchev era The articular political significance as the key domestic once-turbulent Eastern Europe, so important for and international lever Although the Soviet military the Soviet sense of security, appeared to have never became an independent political force within calmed down, becoming what a contemporary the power hierarchy,theirinfluence on policy- American observer described "thc world's forgot. making increased as the economy and the society ten region" the optimal condition for Moscow. at large became more and more militarized Gone Even the outcome of the 1971 disturbances in were the days of Khrushchev's cuts of the defense Poland, where a peacefultransitionto a new budget and his reduction of armed forces person- government was accomplished without Soviet inter- nel. The most productive sectors of the economy vention, could be interpreted as a sign of the em- were subordinated to military needs Regardless of pire's stabilization regimentation of the populationin the detente, In foreign affairs. gains far outweighed losses. name of civil defense increased. With much self-satisfaction, Foreign Minister Andrei By theearly1970s,theSovietUnion was A. Gromyko observed that there was no important generally believed to have achieved strategic parity issue in the world that could be decided without withtheUnitedStatesinnuclear armaments, the Soviet Union anymore In the Third World, the having enjoyed conventional superiority for many Soviet Union had suffered some setbacks, most years. Moreover, the United States under the Nixon notably the expulsion in 1972 of its advisors from administration was finally prepared to satisfy the Egypt, the country where it had invested more than Soviet yearning to be treated as an equal, not only anywhere else. Even this humiliation paled in com- inmilitary but also political mattersDuring the parison with America's catastrophe in Vietnam. In Nixon-Brezhnev summit in May 1972, when the two Europe, the Soviets achieved a long-sought solu- governments adopted the general principles that tion of the German question very much on their were to guide their mutual relations, the United terms after West Germany had concluded formal States even endorsed the dubious Soviet claim to treaties acquiescing to the loss of its eastern ter- "equal security"as if the sources of Moscow's in- ritories and recognizing the GDR. The treaties security were military rather than political and large- prepared the ground forthe conveningofa ly independent of anything Way ington could do Europeansecurityconference,anoldSoviet At the same time, the conclusion of the SALT I project aimed at giving Moscow a privi;eged status arms control treaty codified the military parity of as the main arbiter of Europe's security. In 1975, the superpowers by setting limits on the levels c the signing of the conference's Final Act in Hel- theirstrategic armaments.It seemed thatthe sinki, which the Soviet Union regarded as the sub- priority Moscow had assigned to building up its stitute for the European peace settlement, was a tri- military strength was finally payinc off umphant occasion for Brezhnev.Itmarked the Brezhnev at His Peak. The Nixon-Brezhnev peak of his power and prestige, overshadowing the summitof1972 was thehigh-water markof onsetofhiscountry'sat-first-imperceptiblebut detente; already in 1973. the Soviet-American con- nevertheless irresistible decline. frontation during the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East foreshadowed a renewal (3! tensions between The Era of Stagnation the superpowers Yet despite signals that détente UnfulfilledExpectations. The longer the might not last, the period of consolidation under perspective, the more does the year 1975 stand Brezhnev's rule extended at least until the middle out in Soviet history as a major watershed between of the decade. good times and bad Already the effects of the Hel- Thestabilityof the Soviet government con- sinki agreements, which Moscow had expected trastedwiththeturmoilthathandicapped the would sanctify the status quo and make th. con- policies of the United States at the timeWhile solidation ofitshold on Eastern Europeirre- Nixon became mired in the Watergate scandal and versible, produced the opposite results. Invoking was eventuallyforcedtoresignindisgrace, the Final Act's human rights provisions, dissidents Brezhnev maintained a firm grip on power in the became more active in different countries of the Politburo He did so less by trying to impose his region and the Soviet Union itself.precipitating will upon its other members than by arbitrating skill- new political ferment there Nor did the growing fully the different interests witnin the increasingly economic interdependence with the West bring the

72 4

anticipated benefits In the Soviet Union. economic proceeded amidst growing signs ofitsinternal growth slowed down and productivity declined df cayMore than 60 years after the Bolshevik The economic, as well as politic?'stability of Mos- revolution, the regime's commitment to the lofty cow's East European allies becal,.e endangeredas tenets of communism had become largely empty they were forced to absorb in a variety of ways the posturingFor the entrenched and complacent impact of the Western recession The Soviet Union bureaucracy. the Soviet system was above alla compounded their problems when, after 1975, it in- vehicle for the perpetuation ofitsprerogatives, creased substantially the pricesit was charging which insulated the privileged from the rest of the them for its vital deliveries -f oil and raw materials. society. The special stores where only they could The turn for the worse was gradual rather than obtain the scarce consumer goods, the special sudden and was not obvious enough to call for im- schools where only their children could embark on mediate action Nor was the prospect of suchan promising careers, or the special resorts where action made any more likely by the rapid deteriora- only they could vacation at subsidized prices were tion of Brezhnev's physical and mental condition some of the vivid symbols of status in the sup- during the second half of the decade. The growing posedly classlessbutinreality highlystratified accumulation of Soviet internal problems coincided society. Under the Brezhnev rule, committed to with, but was not directly related to, the downturn keeping the elite satisfied and secure, the gap be- in Soviet-American relations. In foreign affairs the tween the privileged and underprivileged widened, Soviet Union took several important new initia- while bribery, profiteering, and other forms ofcor- tivesinitiatives which in the long run sealed the :uption came to permeate all strata of society. fate of détente without contributing anything to the The improvements inthe standardofliving solution of the nation's growing domestic malaise. during the first half of the Brezhnev era were not Arms End Politics. The massive Soviet arma- enough to instill in the people confidence In the menteffort,whichproceededwhiledétente present, much less in the future. Such a loss of flourished, continued as détente was declining No confidence seemed indicated in the alarming rise conclusive explanation of the trend has been ofin the consumption of alcoholalready the highest fered: however, even without clear evidence ofa in the world per capitawhich sociologists linked Soviet design for military superiority, the seemingly with the decline in life expectancy and the rise In in- irresistible momentum of the Soviet military buildup fantmortality-both unparalleled In industrial in the absence of a decision to curtailitwas societies The deterioration of Soviet public health profoundly disturbing. Not only did Moscowex- services compounded the problem. pand dramatically its nuclear arsenal, in particular These negative social phenomena were more the deployment of its SS-20 intermediate-range mis- pronounced among Russians than among other siles targeted on Western Europe was unmatched ethnic groups. Moreover, the Russians-along with by anything availablto the NATO alliance The other inhabitants of the European part of the Soviet Kremlin aiso showed a new disposition to use its in- Union-suffered declining birth rates, while the op- creasinglyavailableconventionalcapabilityfor posite was truewiththebirthratesofthe poi'al purposes- by expanding its arms trade nationalities of Central Asia. Apart from the growing diplomacy and by using arms for outright interven- labor shortage and the changing structure of the tion in pang of the world where no vital Soviet inter- conscript armed forces, these demographic trends ests were v, stake threatened to undermine the numerical prepon- More than any other single factor,this new derance on which privileged status of Russians as Soviet military adventurism dealt a death blow to the Soviet Union's ruling nationality had been rest- détente Unlike its behavior in the first half of the ingEven though the trends did not create im- 1970s, Moscow showed a growing readiness to mediately explosive situations, they added to the support radical. rather than moderate, regimes in pervasive social malaise that became the hallmark the Third World- -South Yemen, Uganda, Libya.It of Brezhnev's declining years ubed Cubanproxiestoforciblyinstallclient The Crisis of the Empire. The crisis came into regimes in Angola and Ethiopia Finally, in 1979 it the open in the key country of the empire-Poland took the unprecedented step of actually using Vihile the form the criois took -the rise of an inde- Soviet forces to subjugate a Third World nation by pendent labor union challenging the party monopo- invading neighboring AfghanistanSoviet' ..xpan- ly of power-was largely determined by indigenous sionism affected adversely the progress of arms factors, at issue were some of the fundamental fea- control, precluding especiclly the ratification of the tures of the system common to both the Soviet SALT II agreement by the U.S Senate Union and its dependencies' bankruptcy of the offi- The Decaying SocietyThe SovietUnion's cialideology,corruptionoftherulingclass, evolution into the world's nremier military power economicmismanagementaggravatedby increased exposure tothe West,curbs or the

73 freedomofexpressionSignificantly,theover- TheconservativemajorityofthePolitburo whelming military power the Coviet Union pos- secured the succession of Konstantin Chernenko, sessed proved irrelevant to the course E out- also aged and illbut, unlike Andropov, seemingly come of the crisis, which was eventually contained, devoid of both skill and ideas Under his leader- though not resolved, only because of the %,,,ming- ship,theprestigeoftheGeneralSecretariat ness of the Polish military to restore order im- declined toitslowest level,generating doubts posing martial law in 1981 At the same timE.rie re- about the future role of the office as the center of placement of the ineffective party rule by a military effective government. Under such circumstances, regime in Poland had ominous implications for the the absence of any signs of unrest among the management of the Soviet Union's own problems. pliantSovietpopulace boretestimonytothe remarkable stability of the regime, resting more on The Polish developments highlighted the unpre- the all-pervasive bureaucracy than on a strong dictaVityofeventsinMoscow'sincreasingly heterogeneous East European empire and the leaderIt augured ill for the ability of the system to respond to change. Soviet difficulty of rulingitarbitrarily. They were suggestive of the growing burden of an empire The same constraints did not apply in Eastern which Stalin had originally acquired as the main Europe, where some of the governments were ex- safeguard of Soviet security as he understood it ploring new alternatives precisely at the time of but which had since evolved into a major source of weakness and uncertainty in the Kremlin. Not cast- Soviet insecurity. Its political stability necessitated ing doubt on their loyalty to Moscow, such dif- regular Soviet economic subsidies at the very time ferent regimes ; hose of East Germany andlun- when Moscow could ill afford them. The strain of gary were nevertheless raising,indirectlyrather overextension was magnified by the cost of its over- than directly,claimsfor a greater measure of seas ventures, including the staggering expend partnership with the hegemonial power instead of ture required to keep afloat the economy of Cuba mere subordination to it They were demonstrating and to pursue the seemingly endless war in Af- a better capacity to address the problems of the ghanistan. Soviet system of government that had been im- Andropov and Chernenko. Need for bold and posed on them than the Soviet Union's own leader- imaginative action became topical at a time when ship seemed capable of doing. such action could least be expected from a Krem- TheAdventofGorbachev.Thepolitical lin leadership weakened by a crisis of succession. bankruptcy of the Politburo's Old Guard facilitated During the last five years of Brezhnev's tenure, his the rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, in his early physical infirmity further underlined the regime's fifties the youngest member of the ruling group, tendency to sidetrack decision. The aged Politburo who became General Secretary after the death of seemed both unable and unwilling to take a long- Chem-Inko in March 1985. For the first time in 30 term view of affairs and act accordingly Having ap- years, the Soviet leader projected the image of parently miscalculated in the expectation of a quick youthfuldynamism,competence, andlackof victory in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union since 1979 pretense pursued a more cautious course also in its foreign Gorbachev proved more adept than any of his policy, whose lack of dynamism contrasted with predecessors at quickly installing his supporters in the opposite trendcharacteristicof the United key position_ and out-maneuvering all those on the States under the Reagan administration highest level who might conceivably oppose him. Afterhis deathin1983, Brezhnev was suc- He reaffirmed party control over the military and ceeded by Yuri Andropov, the chief of the KGB, took grip of foreign affairs after rewarding the long- the Soviet secret police and intelligence agency In- time executor ofSovietforeignpolicy,Andrei telligent and presumably best informed about the Gromyko, with the largely ceremonial post of the realities of the situation, Andropov attempted to President of the Supreme Soviet, the official head overcome the pattern of stagnation by enforcing of stateIn the provincial party apparatus, Gor- stricter discipline on the rank and file of the Soviet bachev effected personnel changes on a scale un- )opulation Pursuing a hard line toward the United nrecedented since the times of Stalin's purges in States, the Soviet government in 1983 broke off the the 1930s Yet, unlike Stalin, he generated an at- strategic arms control negotiations in Geneva after mosphere of trust rather than of 'oar having failed in its campaign to prevent the deploy- Despite his impressive debut,however. Gor- ment of NATO's new intermediate-range missiles in bachev gave scant indication of what he intended Western Europe Andropov's illness and eventual to do with the immense power he concentrated in death in 1984 frustrated any new initiative by his ad- his hands. His innovations in foreign policy were ministration, leading merely a memory, scarcely jus more apparent than real. He implemented a radical tified, of a well-meaning reformer reversal by returning to arms control negotiations

74 8 with the United States and engendered hopes for a Soviet Union, like its tsarist predecessor, could jus- better superpower relationship by holding a sum- tifiably be called a "colossus on earthen' legs mit meeting with President Reagan in 1985 But In a long-term prospectus, the period of Soviet Gorbachev's initiative seemed ill-suited to produce rule in Russia's experience may well prove some- notable results He particularly failed to thwart con- thing of a historical curiosity. Rooted in the 19th- tinued American developmentoftheStrategic century Marxist doctrine,as adapted by Lenin Defense Initiative. which Moscow abhorred less for amidst a revolution that has long since ceased to its purely military implications than as a program inspire, the Soviet system has created toward the likely to sharpen and make irrevocable the Soviet end of the 20th century an anachronistic mon- Union's technological and economic backward- strosity in the shape of an empire incapable of or- ne^,s ganic growth Having forced Russia to become an Evidently concerned more with internal than with industrial nation by extraordinarily cruel and waste- internationalpriorities,Gorbachevinvokedthe fulmethods, the regime has failed to generate quasi- refrrmist legacy of Andropov He seemed no ways and means adequate to enable the country more willing than his mentor to proceed beyond to prosper once more advanced stages of develop- mere tinkering and streamlining Blaming faults on ment have been reached Moreover, the Soviet ac- people rather than on the system, he inaugurated a complishments have been too much dependent on vigorous campaign against alcoholisman idea un- the performance of exceptional individuals Lenin. likely to endear him to many Russians. But during Stalin, KhruGhchev. Such individuals by definition his first year in office, Gorbachev failed to produce cannot be expIed to be available indefinitely to any clear and inspiring domestic program operate a system of government ill-suited to accom- The initial image of Gorbachev as a reluctant modate mediocrity at the highest level. reformer proved deceptive during his second year. Future historians are likely to differ less in their however Apparentlyconvincedthateconomic description. of the Soviet Union in the 1980s as a means alone were not sufficient to bring about the declining power that has already passed its peak coveted "acceleration," he turned his attention to than in their opinions about when exactly the turn- politicalreformGlasnc31-Cie policyof greater ing point was reached. They will have to account opennPss in public lifewas calculated to promote forthefascinatingcontrastbetweenoutward trust between the government and the people A strength, still enabling Moscow to overwhelm other flood of new legislation ensued, laying the Runde- nations, and the inner weakness of a rich country tions of a rule of law that would set clear lir tits to which has even ceased being able to feed itself both arbitrary power and individual freedom A They will be likely to quote Richard Loewenthal, the campaign against corruption proceeded to under- German politicalscientist who as early as the mine the very foundations of the sv:;,111 inherited 1960s discerned what he called an "external expan- from Brezhnev. There was also eiidence of new sionism of an internally decaying power." They thinking in foreign policy, the main result of ithich may assign to the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Uk- was progress toward substan' ? arms control rainianpowerstationatChernobyl e similar agreements with the the Unites' States As almost ominous significance for the future of the Soviet each day brought examples of changes thought in- Union as the defeat in the battle of Tsushima in conceivable but a few months earlier, there was no 1904 had for the future of tsarist Russia. For on no more question about the seriousness of the leader other occasion did so many critical weaknesses of ship's commitment to genuine reform, its feasibility, the regime, each of them all but insuperable, con- however, remained in doubt verge so extensivelyits excessive reliance on pres- At the Crossroads of History. By thelate tigious F.tributes of power that failed to give true 1980s, tie Soviet Union had become a nation of im- security: its inability to handle advanced technol- mense power whose influence extended further ogy, including military technology, in the absence than ever before Ruled by an oligarchy account- of an adequate infrastructure: its fear of admitting able only to itself,it was one of only two countries setbacks, its incapacity to forge links of trust be- possessing the means to destroy humankind On a tween the rulers and the ruled None of th^^e weak- more positive side, it is a natinn that had advanced nesses by itselfislikely to be recorc;eu 3s the from backwardness to industrial modernity rapidly, cause of the regime's eventual demise, but taken largely on its own, and against formidable odd:, As together, they are apt to be judged by future his- a result,iteventually enabled its people to live a torians as the ultimate reason for itsinability to better life than they had lived at most previous adapt itself to changing times timesYet. despiteallthese achievements, the

75 PART 2 BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAYS

311 PRE-PETRINE RUSSIA by Andrzej S. Kaminski

One cannot seriously contemplate presenting, in centralism or of a s.rong state have preferred to a short a: say. an evaluation of the very rich his- search for instances of the beneficial and creative toriography covering eight centuries of pre-Petrine role of the government There is,however. one PJssian history A bare list of titles of the published biasinRussian historiography (echoed far too sources, monographs, and articles treating such often by Anglo-Saxon historians) that is characteris- topics as the origins of Rus', Christianization, or tic of the whole fieldI am referring to a preoccupa- the reign of Ivan the Terrible would take dozens of tion with the role of Moscow as "gatherer of the pages Presenting the most important debates on Russian lands" and shaper of the Russian state even a small number of key events would likewise This preoccupation with "manifest destiny" has callfor a very extensive article and would not helped make both Russian and Soviet historiog- necessarily serve as a useful introduction to the his- raphy strikingly imperialistic in their presentation of torical literature on this long period the history of this multinational, multicultural state Hence, I have decided to offer here not a critical In other words, the basic point of reference is al- historiographicessay,butrather abriefbiblio- ways Muscovy or Russia and its government His- graphic survey that may be of use to teachers in tories of nations and cultures incorporated into the locating, as quickly as possible, materials that they old Russian empire are either neglected or Judged might want to use in their coverage of this sub -,ct in terms of their relationship to the Kremiln. To this end, all works other than textbooks, ger lal Itis true that Muscovite-style institutions and historieF and published sources are listed under regulations were slowly imposed or proclaimed sub-sections corresponding to those used in my dominant over a vast area extending from the essay ("Origins of the State." "Problems of the Pacific to the Dnieper (and later. Vistula) River, but Steppe," etc ) This survey will,it is true, provide a on most of that enormous territory, even until the rather slanted perception of the historiography as a present day. local, national, end cultural traditions whole, since itwill appear that the lion's share of have been struggling to free themselves from the the literature is written in EnglishNaturally, quite Muscovite bed of Procrustes the opposite is the case;I have been obliged to Even in today's Soviet state, nfter a long period omit from this list some of the most brillia.1t and in- of Russification, Russian nationals do not amount sightful Russian historians, whose only "fault" lies to even half of the population, but many of the in the fact that they have not yet been translated country's other nationalities, with Interesting his- intoEnglish, Likewise,linguisticconsiderations tories and cultures of their own, all too often are have forced me to pass over many important neglected by scholars, An examination of works writtenit German, Polish, their Swedish, and past, unfortunately, is considered by too many his- French To be sure, the situation has improved torians to be non-essential for the "objective" study greatly in the past two decades, thanks both to in- of thhistory of the Russian empire and the Soviet creased research by scholars in this country and in Union Such an attitude is reinforced by school England and to widespread efforts to translate textbooks and popular literature. rhus, we cannot some of the CIFSSiC works of medieval Russian his- be surprised that while many know the Russian folk toriography (A bibliographic essay ofthis kind song, "Volga. Volga, mat' rodnaia" (Volga, Volga. would have been much more difficult to produce mother mi.le), they oftenfail to realize that the some 20 years ago ) lands along this classically "Russian" river were Before turning to the guide Iwill permit myself a and are the home to many other nationalities as fewmoregeneralobservationsthat,however well Bulgars, Khazars, Tatars, and countless other banal, need to be constantly borne in mind To Finnic and Turkic minorities, several of them repre- begin with, historians never write in a vacuum of sented today in autonomous Soviet republics that timeless objectivity What is more, the best of them are the shadowy descendants of once-powerful have very often been quite involved with the press tribes and states LiPowise, the river that symbol- ingproblemsoftheirday Nomatterhow izes Russia's origins, the Dnieper, flows for the scrupulous their use of sources or how careful largest part through the lands populated by two their conclusions, by their sheer choice of topics other peoples, the Belorussians and Ukrainians, the they have subtly predetermined the outcome of latter characterized, at many point', in their history, theirresearchObviously,liberal minded Russian by a fierce struggle for independent statehood historians have sought, as much as possible, to em- Often, when using the word "1 issia," we forget phasize the activism of society as embodied in the this other reality and too easily apply the social veche, meanwhile, the supporters ofautocratic categories and political patterns that took shape on

81 79 the banks of the Kliazma and Moskva Rivers to dis- Pendent traditions of ovgarodian historical writing tant borderlands of the future empire are represented by The Chronicle of Novgorod, The temptation to view history in teleological 1016-1471 (New York AMS Press, 1970) Finally, a project is underway to translate the major Mus- terms. from the perspective of hindsight, is always covite chronicle compilation of the 16th century, great, it is reinforced in this case by a Russian his- The Nikonian Chronicle. S and B J Zenkovsky, hasoften been as toriographictraditionthat ed and trans (Princeton The Kingston Press); to centralizing as the stateit has sought to depict However, by surrendering to this temptation we date, only the first two of five projected volumes, covering the years up to 1240, have appeal -sd lose the ability to fully understand the process that has led to our seemingly inevitable vantage point Another source of valuable information about We also deprive ourselves of the richness and com- the society and culture of medieval Rus' is religious plexity of the past. A reductionist. deterministic ap- literature Of particular interest is hagiographic writ- prnach must ultimately drain histL of its essential- ing, represented. most notably perhaps, by the col- ly human ccntent lectionoflivesof the monks ofKiev's Caves Monastery (Pecherskaia Lavra) and the great com- Sources pilation of saints' lives drawn ill) under the direction of Metropolitan Macarius in the 16th century Arguably, history, with its emphasis on a specir.; (The use of hagiography as an historical source, it rather than theoretical reality,is more dependent is worth noting, was the subject of the published than any other discipline on its source materials doctoral thesis of ;he classic prerevolutionary Rus- Regrettably, fewer of these raw materials are avail- sian historian. Vat m Kiluchevskii )In addition, one able in Big lish than the secondary works that are can mention here a vast homiletic and liturgical ultimately based upon them What is available is. literature and a body of canon law of which, not not surprisingly, biased in the direction of narrative surprisingly, only tiny fragments are available in ratherthan documentary sources. The survey translation. below only scratches the surtace of the kinds of While, as in the medieval Wes:. secular literature is sources on which pre-Petrine historiography is vastly outweighed by religious writing, one can- based, noting some of the highlights and some of not overlook such important genres as the military the most accessible materials in translation. epic, whose best known examples are The Lay of A rich and not yet fully utilized source of insight the Host of Igoriescribing a campaign against into medieval R is' is its chronicle literature, an inter- the Polovtsians its the 12th century, and locking corpus of annalistic writing that begins with Zadonshchine, an of:count of the famous victory of the Kievan periDd and continues to be ofsig- Prince Dmitrii Doriskoi of Moscow over the Tat,:tr nificanceuntilthe period ofIvan the Terrible Emir Mamai in 1380. In addition, we should men- Despite their richness, the chronicles are often a tion the shorter, more author-orientedhistorical problematic Kurco. like any narrative document, works that came to replace inpart the earlier they filter the past through the self-conscious eyes chronicles in the late 16th and 17th centuries. Final- of one or more writers and editors A whole school ly, in the 17th century we begin to see the emer- of textology. associated partic,,ly with the name gence of an independent belles-lettres that also of A. A Shakhmatov, has gro on uo around study can provide valuable insight into the lifeof the of the chronicles. While mist of this interpretive period and analytical literature has not been translated,it A brief survey of all of these literary genres can has left its inark on works that have By now, some be found in D SMirsky, A History of Russian texts have foundtheir ofthemajorchronicle Literature from Its Beginnings to 1908 (New York English transators The best .Knovn of these is Vintage, 1958,. For a more detailed treatment, see Samuel Cross and 0 P Sherbowitz, trans ,The Dmitrij Tschizewskij. A History of Russian Literature LaurentianText Russian Primary Cronical, (The Hague' Mouton, 1960). and especially John (Cambridge. MA Medieval Academy, 1953), which Fennell and Anthony Stoke;. Early Russian Litera- presents the chief redaction of the Kievan period ture (Berkeley, CA. University of California Press, that served as the starting point for most of the 1974) The best sin 'e-volume collection of transla- major annalistic writing of later periods The Halych- tions from all g as continues to be Serge A thiswork,providing Volhynian continuationof Zenkovsky, Medieval Russia's Epics, C tronicles, much information on developments in the southern and Tales (New York Dutton, 1963), which offers of aswellasearly aid western lands Rus' complete texts of ol at least selections from many ithuania up t') the beginning of the 14th century. of the most important literary worksFor some 's been translated in G Perfecky, trans ,The translations of works by or about a tew leading ec- Galician-Volynian Chronicle An Annotated Transla- clesiastical figures. seeGeorge Fedotov,A tion (MunichFink, 1973) The vigorous and inde- Treasuiyof RussianSpirituality(Belmont, MA

80 2 Nord land, 1975) Anothermajorecclesiastical short volume by George Vernad,,ky, Medieval Rus- source, the work of a leading monastic figure of sian Laws (New York. Hippocene, 194/), contains, the late 15th century, has been translated by David among other things, a text of the Russkaia pravda, Goldfrank, The Monastic Rule of Joseph Volotskii the great codification of the Kievan period, which (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1983). served as the basis for legal practice throughout Inaddition,thefollowingtranslationsofin- Rus' until the reemergence of more centralized dividual texts are worthy of note. They include two political authority in Moscow ard Lithuania in the of the main sources for the stormy reign of Ivan 'ate 15th century. A translation of the Muscovite the Terrible: John Fennell, ed, The Correspon- codes of the 15th and 16th centuries, the so-called dence Between Prince A M Kurosky and Tsar Sudebniki, can be found in Horace Dewey, Mus- Ivan IV (Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, covite Judicial Texts,1488-1556, Michigan Slavic 1955), and John Fennell, ed., Kurbsky's History of Materials 7 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Ivan IV (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Press, 1966). As for the last great legal monument 1965). The authenticity of the Kurbsky writings,it of pre-Petrire Russia, the Ulozhenie of 1649, ex- should be noted, has been challenged in Edward cerpts may be found in several of the sourcebooks L. Keenan, The Kurbsky-Grozny Apocrypha (Cam- cited above, notably the Hellie volume. One of the bridge Harvard University Press, 1971). while the first great juridical complications of the Western balance of scholarly opinion would probably not ac- lands of Rus', the First Lithuanian Statute of 1529, cept !.eenan's thesis that these works were actual- has likewise been translated in Karl von Loewe, ed. ly produced later,in the 17th century, the book and trans., The Lithuanian Statute of 1529 (Leiden: provides a rare and interesting look at the kind of Brill,1976). A legal source of a slightly different textological problems that are central to so much kind, one that enables the reader to trace the rise of medieval Russian historiography. Two translated of Muscovy from a tiny patrimonial principality to a sources relating to Muscovite expansion eastward major political power is Robert Howes, ed., The Into Siberia and beyond in the 1eth and 17th cen- Testaments of the Grand Princes of Moscow turies are Yermak's Campaign in Siberia (London: (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967), which Haklyut Society, 1975) and The Voyage of Semen covers the period from the early 14th to late 16th Dezhnev in 1648: Bering's Precursor (London: Hak- centuriesA rarelookattranslateddiplomatic lyutS )ciety,1981). For the 17th century, one material is provided by the reports of Muscovite should note the fascinating autobiography of Av- embassies to the Courts of the kings of Georgia in vakum, one of the leaders of the religious schism the late 16th and early 17th centuries, published in translated with considerablecommentary in W.E D Allen, ed., Russian Embassies to the Geor- Archpriest Avvakum, The Life, Written by Himsel' gian Kings, Haklyut Society Publications, Series 2, (Ann Arbor,MI:University of Michigan,1979) voi 138-139 (London: Haklyut Society, 1969). Another Important source for the period is a kind of An important complement to Internal Russian handbook on the Muscovite state, written by a Mus- sources, providing observations on many impor- covite emigre: Grigorii Karpovich Kotoshikhin, Or tant social phenomena that are simply taken for Russia in the Reigii of Aleksei Mikhailovich, G granted or passed over in silence by local writers, Uroff, trar-and ed. (Ann Arbor, MIUniversity are the numerous accounts of foreign travelers, Microfilms, 1971). some of them originally writtenInEnglish and Naturally, only a tiny portion of the documentary others available in translation. We mention only a sources that provide the most reliable foundation few of the most prominent here. One of the ear- for the historian's work are available in English liest, providing a look at Rus' in the wake tit the translation Three collections that do provide a rich Mongol conquest, is the account of two Franciscan sampling of these kinds of materials (as well as ex- fria-s sent by the Pope to the Court of the Khan tracts from narrative sources)arr. George Ver- (see John de Plano Carpini in the Publications of nadsky and Ralph Fischer eds., A Source Book for the HaklyutSociety, London, Series2,vol.4, Russian History from the Early Times to 1917, vol 1900). Another early account describing two trips 1 (New Haven, CT. Yale University Press, 1972), made by the Burgundian knight Ghillebert de Lan- Richard Hellie,ed., Readings for Introduction to noy to Novgorod and Lithuania in the early 15th Russian Civilization, Muscovite Society (Chicago. century is translated in part in Petras Klimas, Ghil- SyllabusDivision theCollege,University of lebert de Lannoy in Medieval Lithuania (New York: ChicagoPress,1967);andBasilDmytryshyn, Lithuanian American InformationCenter,1945). Medieval Russia. A Sourcebook, 900-1700 (New Descriptions of Rus' by two Italian visitors to the York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1967). northern Black Sea coast in the 15th century can be found in Travels to Tana and Persia. by Josafa Most of the major law codes of medieval Rus'. Barbaroand AmbrogioContarini(NewYork: an invaluable source of socioeconomic as well as Franklin, 1964) institutionaldata,are availableintranslation A

k3 81 In the 16th century, the number of foreign ob- The multi-volume course of Russian history by servers took a quantum leap Perhaps the Angle Vasilii Kliuchevskii. A History of Russia, is also avail- best-known is the memoir of the Holy Roman Im- able in an older, rather poorly translated edition, perial ambassador to the court of Vasihi III,Sigis- (New YorkHassell and Russell,1960, 5 vols ) rnund Herberstein, see. for example, Sigismund However, a good, more recent translation is avail- Herberstein, Description of Moscow and Muscovy, able of the volume relating to the 17th century, A 1557 (New York Barnes and Noble, 1969) or R H Course in Russian History The Seventeenth Cen- Major, trans Notes Upon Russia. 2 vols (London tury. N Duddington. trans(Chicago Quadrangle 1851-52)Interesting accounts by English mer- Books, 1968) Of particular interest to English-lan- chants and ambassadors in the 16th century are guage readers are the five volumes on pre-Petrine found in Lloyd Berry and Robert Crummey. eds , history written by George Vernadsky. unquestionab- Rude and Barbarous Kingdom(Madison.Wl ly the most outstanding Russian emigre historian, University of Wisconsin Press. 1968). Another ac- see G. Vernadsky and M Karpovich, A History of count from this period, written by a German mer- Russia (New Haven. CTYale University Press, cenary who served in the Oprichnina, is Heinrich 1948-1969) Aslightlydifferentperspectiveis voll Staden, The Land and Government of Mus- provided by James Billington's general culture; sur- covy. transby T Esper (Stanford, C. Stanford vey. The Icon and the Axn- An Interpretive History University Press, 1967). of Russian Culture (New York: Random House, A major source for the period of the Time of 1966), which also includes an extensive bibliog- Troubles is the work of a Dutch traveller, Isaac raphyThe period 1304-1613 was recently weil Mena, A Short History of the Beginnings and presented by Robert Crummey, The Formation of Origins of the Wars in Moscow 'own to the Year Muscovy, '304-1613 (London and New York: 1610, E Orchard, trans. and eL kioronto and Buf- Longman, 1987). falo University of Toronto Press, 1982). An impor- Also of use are a numbci of collections of ar- tant foreign observer later in the 17th century is the ticles by specialists in the field, especially Michael ambassadoroftheDukeofHolstein,Adam Cherniaysky, ed., The Structure of Russian History Olearius; see Samuel H Baron. trans. and ed.. The (New YorkRandom House. 1970) and Donald Travels of Olearius in 17th Century Russia (Stan- Treadgold, ed. The Development of the USSR ford. CA Stanford University Press, 1967) Another (Seattle, WA University of Washington, 1964), as is the Syriac clergyman, Paul of Aleppo, whose well as three other volumes of "readings": Sidney Diary of the Travels of Patriarch Macarius of An- Harcave, Readings in Russian History, vol1 (New tioch (Oxford 1829) offers a more unusual oppor- York Crowell, 1962); Warren Walsh, Readings in tunity to see Muscovy through the eyes of the Or- Russian History, vol 1 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse thodox world. An interesting view of the expanding University Press, 1963); and Thomas Riha, Read- Russian empire from the point of view of Jesuit mis- ings in Russian Civilization, vol1 (Chicago: Univer- sionaries in China is included in Joseph Sebes, sity of Chicago Press, 1964)in addition, articles Th 'esuits and the Sino-Russian Treaty of Ner- on medieval Rus' may be foun,, in a variety of peri- chinsk (Rome: 1961) odical publications, notably Slavic Reviews, Har- vard Ukrainian Studies. Canadian-American Slavic Surveys, Textbooks, and Collections of Articles Studies,Russian History, and Oxford Slavonic Papers. English-language articles in the field may A useful overview of the medieval period can be likewise often be found in Jahrbucher fur Ges- found in Nicholas P'asanovsky, A History of Russia chichte Osteuropas, Cahiers du Monde russe et (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982)Another sovietique, and Russia Medievalis treatment,providingaconsiderable amoun of detailfor a survey,is Michael Florinsky's three- Origins of the State and the Kievan Period volume Russia. A History and an Irterpretation (New York. Macmillan, 1964-1968). Longer, more The best single volume available on the period, ambitous surveys by some of the masters of Rus- despite its somewhat forced attempt to overem- sian historiography are now also available in trans- phasize the "democratic" character of thrilitical lation.A translationofthe monumental,multi- system during the period. is Vernadsky s hvan volume work of Sergei Soloviev. History of Russia Rus' (New Haven, CT Yale University Press, 1948), (Gulf Breeze, FL Academic International Press, the second volume in his monumental study The 1276 `is underway, to date, at least seven of the classic Sovie woi.< on the period. with all that that projected 50 volumes have appeared. This massive implies, Boris Grekov's Kiev Rus' (Moscow 1959), work,with an almost overwhelming amount of is also available in English translation One of the detail, can give the reader a good sense of the classic statements of the Normanist position is Vil- flavor of the sources and events with which the his helm Thomsen, The Relations Between Ancient torian of the period has to deal Russia and Scandinavia and the Origins of the Rus-

'2 s4 star? State (Oxford1877) The question of origins The ideological aspects of the emergence of the is addressed as well in another volume by Ver- autocracy in the. late 15th and 16th centuries are nadsky, The Origins of Russia (Oxford Clarendon, discussed in Presnialiov's short essay, The Tsar- 1959) A new interpretation of the genesis of the dom of Moscow (Gulf Breeze. FL Academic Inter- Kievan state is being spellec. out in a monumental national Press. 1978), which attempts to synthesize work by Omeljan Pritsak, The Origins of Rus'. un- the soc )1 and legal sides of the problem as well ,rtunately. only the first volume, devoted to Scan- Two seminal articles on important aspects of the dinavian sources other than the sagas, has thus far problemareMichael Cherniaysky,"Khanor appeared(Cambridge, MA HarvardUniversity Basileus An Aspect of Russian Medieval Political Press, 1981; Theory," and lhor Sev6enko, "A Neglected Byzan- tine Source of Muscovite Political Theory," both

The Problem of the Steppe and the Mongol reprinted in M Chemiaysky. ed, The Structure of Conquest Russian History For a recent examination of the im- plicationsof the conquests of the Tatar Volga The general problem of the steppe is discussed. Khanatesforimperialideoiogy. seeJaroslaw albeit in a somewhat pop.;!:Ir and broad fashion, in Pelenski, Russia and KazanConquest and Im- William McNeill, Europe's Steppe Frontiers perial Ideology, 1438-1560 (The Hague: Mouton, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1964) A 1974) For an extremist view, which sees the Mus- standard study of the Mongol Empire is Bertold coviteautocracy as the reembodiment ofthe Smiler. History of the Mongols, based on Eastern ;,-.1r.aul[ empires of antiquity, see Karl Wittfogel, and Western accounts of the 13th and 14th cen- Russia arid the East A Comparison and Con- turies (Berkeley, CA University of California Press, trast,'i;Treadgold. The Development of the USSR 1972)A good, comprehensive account of the problems related to the Mongol conquest al ti the The development of autocracy is the subject of period following can be found in Vernadsky s tiiird the last part (two volumes in one) of George Ver- volume. The Mongols and Russ': (New Haven, CT nadsky's history. entitled The Tsardom of Moscow, Yale University Press, 1953) A more concise and 1547-1682 (New Haven. CT. Yale University Press, recent study that brings me scholarship up to date 1969). The reign of Ivan the Terrible is the subject is Charles Halperin, Russia ? 'id the Golden Horde. oftwo translatedPussianstudies,one bya The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History prerevolutionaryauthor, the other by arecent (Bloomington. IN. Indiana University Press, 1985) Soviet historian whose own conceptual scheme Also of value are John Fennell, Russia in the Thir- draws in part on that of the fort-clef. Both are en- teenth Century, 1200-1304 (London and New York. titled Ivan the Terrible, the earlier of them written Longman Press, 1980). and J L Wieczynski, The oy Sergei Platonov (Gulf Breeze. FL: Academic In- ternational Press, 1974), the latter by R.G. Skrvn Russian Frontie The Impact of Borderlands Upon the Course of Early Russian History (Charlottes- nikov(GulfBreeze.FL. Ac ,emit Internationa ville, VA University Press of Virginia, 1976) Press, 1981) Another work on the same theme is Bjarne Norretranders, The Shaping of Czardom The Muscovite Autocracy Under Ivan Groznyi (London: Variorum Reprints, 1971). Two of Platonov's works on the period fol- A particularly large lmount of wo,k has been lowing Ivan Boris Godunov (GulfBreeze,FL. published on the rise and d elopment of Mus- Academic International Press, 1973) and The Tinie covy The inital stages of this process are covered of Troubles (Lawrence, KS University of Kansa° in John Fennell, The Emergence of Moscow (Lon- Prr,'s, 1970) are also available in English Among don. Seeker and Warburg, 1968), which deals with thrs ,nore general treatments of the 17th cent! my the principality's seizure of the initiative in the strug- ar VasiliiKliuchevskii'sSeventeenthCentury gle for hegemony in the old Vladimir-Suzdal land in volume cited le and the first parts of the some- the 14th century. A more comprehensive overview what more popular work of Bruce Lincoln, The up to the end of the 15th century is provided by a Romanovs (New York DialPress,1981).Ina translation of Alexander Presniakov's important,if similarly popular veinisPhilip Longworth, Alexis somewhat dense. The Formation of the Great Rus- Tsar of All the Russians (London Seeker and War- sian State (Chicago Quadrangle Books, 1970). The burg, 1984), a biography of the mid-17th century fine stages of this process. in the reign of Ivan Ill, tsar. whose reformingefforts may be seen as are discussed in greater detail in another book by precursors in some respects to those of Peter the John Fennell, Ivan the Great (New YorkSt Mar- Great An account of the short reign of Peter the tin's Press, 1961) Also of importance here is Ver- Great'ssisterSophia,ontheeveofPeter's nadsky's fourth volume, Russia at the Dawn Df the majority, is C Bickford O'B'ien, Russia Under Two Modern Age, which covers the reigns of Ivan Ili Tsars.1682-1689The Regency' of Sophia Alek- and Vasilii Ill

83 seevna(Berkeley.CA University California prouuced another major study onadifferent Press, 1952) aspect of social bondage. Slavery in Russia, 1450- 1725 (Chicago University o; Chicago Press. 1982). The Church and Byzantine Relations A study of the major Cossack/peasant upheavals of the 17th century can be found in Paul Avrlch, Since the church was far and away the most im- Russian Rebels, 1600 180C (New York Schocken, portant conduit Byzantine influence inRus', 1972) these problems must be treated jointly. The Chris- On the boiar cite of the late 15th century. see tianization of Au:: is discussed at length in A P Gustave Aief, "Reflections on the Boyar Duma in Vlasto. The Entry of fly; Slays into Christendom 197n) the reign of Ivan Ill," Slavonic and East European (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Review. vol 101 (1967) A major study of the ame Two important works that intertwine a trocIment of group in the 17th century is Robert Crummey, Aris- inRus'with the broader ecclesiasticalaffairs tocrats and Servitors: The Boyar Elite in Russia, problem of Byzantine relations are Dmitri NJ:PrincetonUniversity Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth (New 1613-1689(Princeton. York: Praeger. 1971), which seeks to outline a Press, 1983) An older, but interesting article in the same theme is John Keep, "The Muscovite Elite zone ofinfluence of ConstantinopleinEastern Europe comparable io that of Rome in the West. and the Approach to Pluralism," Slavic Review, vol. studyofthegrowing and John Meyendorff, Byzantium and the Rise of 48 (1970). Arecent bureaucratic component of the elite is Borivoj Piav- Russia (New York: Cambridge University Press, sic, "Seventeenth Century Chancelleries and Their 1981), which focuses on relations between Mos- Staffs," William M. F Ater and al< Rowney, eds., cow, Lithuania, and Constantinople in the 14th cen- Russian Officialdom. The Bureaucratiziation of Rus- tury and has much to say about the general role of the metropolitanate of Kiev and the legacy of sian Society from the 17th to the 20th Century Hill,NC: UniversityofNorth Carolina B)cantium in Rus'. A substantive treatment of Rus- (Chapel sian Orthodox theology can kte found in George Press, 1980) Florovsky's The Ways of Russian Theology (Bel- The classic work on the urban component of mont,MA- Nordland,1979);see also George medieval Rus' is Mikhail Tikhomirov, The Towns of Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind (Cambridge, Ancient Rus' (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publish- MA Harvard University Press, 1944-1966). ing House, 1959). A recent study of the Muscovite merchant class in the 16th and 17th centuries is The 17th-century schism and its political implica- Paul Bushkovitch, The Merchants of Moscow, 1580- Lions are provocatively analyzed in Michael Cher- 1650(Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, niaysky, The Old Believers and the Ne.v Religion," 1980). Problems of urban society are also dis- Slavic Review, vol. 44 (1966), pp 1-39 (reprinted in Hittle, The Service City, State, and Cherniaysky, ed., The Structure of Russian His- cussed in J. Townsmen in Russia, 1600-1800 (Cambridge, MA- tory)The later development of the schismatic movement in the early 18th century is treated in Harvard University Press, 1979) Robert Crummey, Tne Old Believers and the World Multinational Empire of the Anti-Christ: The t'yg Community and the Rus- sian State, 1694-1855 (Madison, WI. University of As suggested above, the somewhat spottier Wisconsin Press, 1970) Finally, a discussion of the coverage of the non-Russian nationalities of the problem of relations between the Orthodox church late Russian empire reflects the Moscow - centric, in P,us' and Rome is found in Oskar Haiecki, From character of much of the historiography, English- Florence to Brest. Sacrae Poloniae Millenium, vol language as well as Russian. It is characteristic, for 5 (Rome- Arden, 1958) example, that there is no good synthetic study of the problem of non-Rn :sian minorities within the Society Muscovite state. A r. fl..:tion of new interest in the problem. however, is a very interesting work by L. Problemsofthelandednobilityandthe The Great Friendsh'l(ChapelHill,NC. requireda combined Tillet, peasantry have generally University of North Carolina Press, 1969), which treatment, as for example in Jerome Blunt, Lord presents Soviet methods of falsification of history and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth,tothe of Russian and Soviet relations with conquered na- NineteenthCentury(Princeton, NJ.Princeton thecollectivevolume,Taras University Press, 1961) The standard work on the tions. Seealso Hunczak, ed , Russian Imperialism From Ivan the problem of enserfment. whicn also deals extensive- Great to the Revolution (New Brunswick, NJ' Rut- ly with the m:qtary service class in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, is Richard Hellie, Enserfment gers University Press, 1974) and Military Change in M"scovy (Chicago Univer- Relatively well covered are the western lands of sity of Chicago Press, 1971)Hellie has recently Rus', home of the Belorussian, Lithuanian, and Uk-

84 6 rainian peoples Oskar Halecki's The Borderlands GreatEssays inthe History and Cu Itor of a of Western Civilization (New York. Wiley,1952) Medieval City-State (Columbus. OH. Slavica, .981) covers the political history of this region in outline seems worthy of attentionAlso of interestis J form, with particular attention to the influence of Ra '3a, "The Fate of the Novgorodian Republic," Westernculture andinstitutionshereAnother Slavic Review, 45 (: "tz7) general discussion can be found in the section on On Russian expansion into Siberia and the east, "Russia's Western Borderlands" in Treadgold's The see George V Lantzeff and A Pierce. Eastward to Development of the USSR A survey of the so, Empire: Exploration and Conquest on the Russian and institutions of the Grand Duchy o' Lithuania Open Frontier to 1750 (Montreal- McGill, 1973) The can be found in Oswald Backus, Motives West problem of the Cossacks is discussed in McNeill's Russian Nobles in Deserting Lithuania for Moscow Europe's Steppe Frontier, cited above, and in a (Lawrence, KS. Kansas University Press,1957) popular survey by Philip Longsworth, the Cos- Finally, an English translation is available of The sacks (New York, Chicago, and San Francisco: Histry of the Ukraine, by Michael Hrushevsky, the Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969). For a more father of modern Ykrainian historiography (New scholarly study of the most important leader of the Haven. CT: Yale University Press, 1943) 17th-centuryCossackstate,seeGeorgeVer- While there is much material on the Mongol em- nadsky, Bohdan, Hetman of the Ukraine (New pire and its successor ;n the Golden Horde in'le Haven. CT. Yale University Press. 1941). Informa- material discussed in the section on the problen3f tion on the importance of the Ukraine for 17th-cen- the steppe, there is much less on the eventual ab- tury Russia and Poland-Lithuania can be found in sorption of the peoples of the Volga and steppe aninterestingbookofFrank Sysyn, Between into the Muscovite state One work of interest here Poland and the Ukraire: The Dilemma of Adam- is the study of Jaroslaw Pelenski cited above See kisil,1600-1653 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uk- also the discussion between lhorev6enko, Ed- rainian Research Institute, 1985) and in an inspiring ward Keenan, Jaroslaw PelensV and Omeljan Prit- article by L R. Lewitter, 'Poland, The U' Caine and sak on "Muscovy's Conquest of Kazan," Slavic Russia,"Slavonic and East European Review Review, vol 45 (1967) Also worthy of note is A S (December 1948)For additional information on Donne ly, The Russian Conquest of Bashkiria, 1552- Cossacks and their influence on Russia, see also 1740 (New Haven, CT Yale University Press, 1968) the above-cited work of Wieczynski, The Russian Among the works dealing specifically with Nov- Frontier gorod.HenrykBirnbaum.Lord Novgorod the RUSSIA FROM 1689 TO '825/56 by Marc Raeff

History, like an oriental carpet, has no seams It a serf one About one-half belonged to the state is colorful and multipatterned As in some of the (which gave them some degree of autonomy and most beautiful and interesting carpets, the detail leeway in managing their own affairs) and one-half overwhelms the broader and repetitive patterns to private owners. If a trend can be discerned in Yet.inorder to make history meaningful and the 18th century,itis that the condition of the relevant to us. we must discover and analyze the private serfs deteriorated so that they virtually be- essential configurations that give particular charac- came the chattel of their owners. Cr, the other ter and tonality to a period In so doing. we have el- hand, at the end of the 18th and throughout the ways tokeepin mindthatsomepatterns, firsthalf of the 19th centuries, some peasant in- tonalities, and features may be carried over from dividuals and groups managed to diversify their one period into the next, while new elements and economic activities I become more mobile, un- figuresappearalongsideA period isnever derscoring the moral, economic, and legal unac- monolithic. the nature and rate of change the com- ceptability of serfdom Europeanization was fir.11y ponent elements undergo vary from aspect to seeping down to the village level. The next great aspect. as well as over a period of time. task was toresolve the peasant question by In Russia, from 1689 to 1825/55 the dominant abolishing serfdom without overturning the political theme or pattern derived from the country's in- or social balance This was the assignment for the creasingly closer association with and involvement reign of Alex....der H. in Western (including Central) European civiliza- The economic and sociolegal deveiopments of tion.politics, andculture.Thisprocessof theRussianpeasantryarewelldescribedin Europeanization (or modernization. if you will) was Jerome Blum's classic Lord and Peasant in Russia not only an objective fact we can appreciate and from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (Prin- assess in retrospect: it also cc stituted the major ceton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 11). These aspect of the Russians' self-perception -whether monographs dealing with emancipation Jf the serfs seen in positive light by most of the elites or meet- in1861also devote theirfirstchapters to an ingwithdistrust or outfight opposition by the analysis of the nature and last stage of the serf people atlargeWhileitistrue thatin some economy: Terence Emmons, The Russian Landed respects the process of Eurcn...aanizaticn had been Gentry and the Peasant Emancipation of 1861 initiated in the 17th century (or perhaps even in the (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,19681, 16th), the reign of Peter r(1689-1725) marked the and Daniel Field, The End of Serfdom: Nobility and most significant and dramatic turning point, primari- Bureaucracy in Russia 1855-1861 (Cambridge, MA: ly due to the :,peed and violence with which Per Harvard University Press,1976). The survival of reoriented the goals and practices of government serfdom into the middle ofhe 19th century not and redefined the ways of the elites 3ecause he only constituted a significant factor in restrictinc had little success in transforming basic features of the rate of economic growth, but also resulted in Russian society and popular culture. however, his the peculiar features displayed by urban life and policies brought new elements of conflict and ten progress The conflict between social classes and sion to the social and political fabric of the empire economic intereststo secure the laborof the During the remainder of the 18th century. the peasantry enabled the state to retain full control legacy of false starts, innovation, and errors of im- over society and to perpetuate a juridic ily static plementation left by the Tsar Transformer had to situation that precluded a geographically rational be worked outIn tlis process, new patterns and distribution of the population. new problems arose to confront both government The existence of underpopulated frontier areas and sock,When the aspirations of Peter I were points to another feature the 18th and early 19th finally realized in the second quarter of the 19th centuries inherited from the past -the multinational century, social, economic, cu'tt -31, and political cir- character of the Russian empire. In addition, the cumstances had changed so much that radical empire was constantly expanding, the litth century readjustment and the striking out into new direc- witnessing pert,ups the greatest acquisition of new tions became not only possible but imperative territories(including the actualincorporation of L et us first note those aspects of Russian civiliza- large areas inSiberia thatunti' then had only tion and culture that Peter I inherited from nominallybeenunderMuscovitesovereignty) the Muscovite past and which his reforming ener- Most of today's Ukraine came under the effective gies neither eliminated n )r changed e,..sentially To control of the empire in the last quarter of the 18th begin with, the peasantry was and remained largely century, and its energetic settlement by Russian

87 landowners and peasants soon turneditinto the tions of Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Bal- most dynamic economic region of the empire First timore, MD Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970) steps In learning more about settlement of the Uk- Two crucial Muscovite insti,utions- church and raine may be W E D Allen, The Ukraine A History autocracymaintained their primary role through- (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1940) or outourperiod Unlikeserfdom andempire, M Hrushevsky, .4 History of the Ukraine (New however, they underwent greater formal transforma- Haven, CT. Yale University Press, 1941) The pat- tion that, in the long run, affected their very nature ternofconquestandsettlementwasgiven PeterI demoted the church from its original posi- renewed impetus by the partitions of Poland, in tion of coeval of autocracy and made it into an ofwhich Russia took a leading part, the annexation of fice of the centralstate administration.Further- the Crimea; and the incorporation of '.ne Caucasus more, the clergy became the salaried employees of Whatever the benefits, this expansion brought in the government when Catherine II secularized the its wake serious new proLlems in connection with properties of monasteries and diocese. The office therelationship and treatmentofnon-Russian of the Patriarch was abolished and replaced by a populations of greatly diversified religious, cultural, college of clerics whose policies and administrative and ethnic character. This was partit..ularly true of work was directed and controlled by a lay official those peoples that had a sophisticated social struc- (Ober prokuror) appointed by the rulerStill more ture and an old political and cultural tradition (e.g., important,the clergyevolvedinto a wall -nigh the Baltic provinces and Finland acquired frr,rn separate caste of the populationimpoverished Sweden, the lands of the former Lithuanian-Polish and bereftof much ofitsspiritual and moral Commonwealth, and the ancient Caucasian prin- authority Two important monographs on the cler- cipalities of Georgia, Armenia, t...)khazia). gy, both by Gregory L Freeze, have changed our The modus vivendi developed in these areas view and interpretation of the church under the im- listed until the late 19th century; the local elites ac- perial regime. The Russian Levites: Parish Clergy cepted a agree of Russification in retain for the in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Har- preservation of their economic and social status. In vard University Press, 1977) and The Parish Clergy the case of the less developed peoples on the in Nineteenth Century Russia: Crisis, Reform, and Uralo-Caspian frontier and in the steppes bordering Counter-Reform (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer- on southern Siberia, imperial expansion and Rus- sity Press, 1983). sianagriculturalsettlementledtorevolts and As a consequence of these changes, the truly colonial wars. On the process of imperial expan- dynamic religious life began to tE:lie place outside sion and relationship with the minorities, see M the framework of the established church institu- Raeff,"PatternsofImperialPolicy Toward the tions This accounts for the importance and direct Nationalities" in EdwardAllworth, ed.,Soviet contribution made by religious thought to Russian Nationality Problems (New York Columbia Univer- literature and cultureinthe19thcentury. No sity Pic. 1971) wonder, too, that the church offered littleresis- DisaffectedelementsofRussian society- in- tance to the growing secularism and radicalism of dustrial serf labor of the Urals, formerly privileged the educated elites. In fact, children of the clergy Cossack hosts on the Don and Ural Rivers, serfs of played a dominant role in the development of the the Church in the Ural Mountains, and religious dis- profession:. :n the second half of the 19th century. senters(OldBelievers)took advantageof the The discontented and constricted offspring of the fluid situation on the frontier to join (or even to priesthood also furnished a numerous and par- lead) the revolts in a vain effort at preventing im- ticularly active and extremist contingent of potential perial regulation of their ways of life. This explains revolutionaries. the large scale reached by popular revolts in the The autocracy remained intact. but the form of Ukraine, the Don and Volga, the Urals, and western its government was transformed by Peter IIn Mus- Siberia, these revolts plagued the imperial govern- covite times the purpose and role of government ment throughout the 18th century. Most serious had been primarily negativepreservation of the and dramatic was the rebellion that took place in state from foreign attacks, maintenance of law and 1773-75 under the leadership of Pugachev and ex- order, and levying of taxes and services to this tended into Central Russia as well. The suppres- endIn line with the notions and goals of the sion of the revolt led to the reorganization of the Central European 'wet, ordered police state," Peter local administration and stimulated tne revival of I and his successorsendowed government with provincial life that was to provide the foundation of apositivemissionto promote the productive Russia's economic and social progress in the 19th society The central administration endeavored to century Ageneralanalyticalaccountofthe regulate as many areas c' public life as possible in Pugachev revoltis M Raeff. "Pugachev's Rebel- order to foster, promote, and direct the people s lion," in R Forster andP Green, eds, Precondi- economic and cultural creative activity

88 H9 Of course, given the technological limitations of autocrat to manipulate them to retain full control the time, the rural population, the far-flung frontiers, fcr himself. While authority (on all levels) remained and the religious and ethnic minorities to the ex- very personal, the task of administration required tent that they did not _ ertly resist or interfere with greaterinstitutionalizationandroutinizationto the state's policieswere left to their own devices, break away fromindividual ad hoc decisions. preserving a good deal of their traditional ways Failure to resolve this basic antinomy was the and autonomySimilarly, the state preferred to prime irason for the inability to draft an effective, havelandlordsdealwiththeir own peasants, adequately modern code of law The task of record- restrain them, control them, and,ifpossible, or- ing and systematizing all laws in force was not car- ganize them for greater productivity; this was a ried out until the reign of Nicholas I. major cause for the peculiar form and harshness taken by serfdom. The second big problem was to coordinate central and local institutions. As the government The one thing that all segments of society in the triE,I to stimulate and direct the maximization of empire felt very distinctly was the greater cost of productivity, it was assuming more new tasks and government and the heavier burden of services ex- involving itself in more areas of social life. Western acted by itTaxes, mainly indirect ones, increased and Central European states had resolved this to maintain a much-expanded administration and problem by enlisting the assistance of uganized court, while the obliga'ion to furnish recruits to the social institutions and corporate bodies. In Russia army andlabor services(thebuildingofSt. these were embryonic e best;to have them Petersburg, for example) laid a heavy burden on develop rapidly and independently might become a the people threat to the autocrat's monopoly ofauthority. Autocracythat is,the principle and practice Hence, Peter I did very little along these lines. that made the ruler the ultimate source of all politi- Catherine II took the first effective steps to help cal and judiciary authoritywas preserved intact promote and organize society along well-defined, throughout our period At no point was there any legallyguaranteedestatelinesthatalso gave serious questioning of this principle or any serious security of person and property to the non-serf effort to circumscribe its practice Naturally, the ef- population Yet she did not dare to allow the es- fectiveness of individual rulers varied, depending tates - organize themselves on a fully autono- on Cieir personalities, the constellation at court, mou., oasis, though she did lay the groundwork for and the ability of their subordinates to carry on :he development of a civil society separate from their tasks. the state. In the course of the first half of the 19h In modernizingthe central administration, century, the central administration was streamlined however, Peter Ihad left unresolved the question and became more profession:lazed,whilecivil of long-term )olicy direction and control; he had society in the provinces developed Into an elite also neglected to adjust the local administrative ap- eager and able to take on an independent political paratus to the demands of the central authorities role, as well as to provide leadership and guidance Resolving the resulting tensions and inefficiencies to the peasantry on the path of modernization. became an important aspect of government activity "chr, most visible and most revolutionary innova- leading to the elaboration and more or less suc- tions of Peter I were the transformationnay even cessful implementation, of a number of plans and creationof the cultural elite. To launch and main- reform projectsIt would be impossibleand un- tain Russia on the path of Europeanization, Peter necessary to recount these endeavors here; a transfm- .ed the upper class, the service nobility. It ratherdetaileddiscu' sion can be foundin M is still nool question to what extent this was a Raeff, Plans for Political Reform in Imperial Russia, genuine socialtransformation;Brenda Meehan- 1730-1905 (EnglewoodCliffs,NJ.Prentice-Hall, Waters's Autocracy and Aristocracy. The Russian 1966) Here we will look at only two major aspects Service Elite of 1730 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers First, more consistent policy planning and super- University Press, 1983) traces the careers and fami- vision was needed to guarantee the prcper follow- ly connections of the top layer of the Petrine ser- ing through of directives The various changes in vice-class throughout the whole century. There is the central governmentestablishing and reform- no question, however, that the elite's outlook, way ing such institutions as the Senate, the Supreme of life, and public and private behavior underwent a Privy Council, the Cabinet of Ministers, and the radical transcormation. The elites adopted the ways Council of State and the eventual creation of mini- and civility of the Western and Central European str;e;, in 1802 (under one head directly responsible nobilities;theyalsoaccepted aWestern-style to the tsar) all fared to resolve the problem The education as a basic criterion of belonging. Thus, groupings of the top elite vied for power and in- the service nobility of the empire was in a position fluence without allowino any one faction or group to partake fully of the literary, intellectual, and artis- to remain dominantft,.long,this enabled the tic 'ife of Europe and to initiate the elaboration of a

89 Is modernEurope-inspired, Russian culture(litera- telligentsia was born and launched on the path of ture, art, philosophy) This process came to a cul- first criticizing and then advocating the destruction mination in the first quarter of the 19th century in of the imperial system For a detailed chronicle of the works of A S. Pushkin, when the contemporary the process of "separation" with an idiosyncratic, literary Russian language received its final shape but challenging,inte.pretation.see Nicholas V and Russia's literary and artistic creations obtained Riasanovsky, A Parting of Ways Government and recognition both at home and abroad the Educated Public in Russia, 1801-1855 (Oxford. atite naturally, such a new de,,arture did not Oxford University Press,1976). This separation occur without friction There arose the question of gave modern Russian culture (especially its litera- continuity in national identiti. Did Peter Icreate a ture)itspeculiar cachet;italso served as the seedbed for the emergence of the revolutionary iew Russian culture or merely transformit'?In either case there was a need to restate the defini- movements that eventually succeeded in toppling tion of national identity This entailed what Hans the imperial regime. Rogger, in National Consciousness in Eighteenth- Strangely enough, our period has suffered from Century Russia (Cambridge, MA Harvard Univer- much historiographical neglect This is true of Rus- sity Press, 1960), has aptly called the development sian -both pre-Soviet and Soviet -and Western his- of a national consciousnessIn this process. the toriography One reason, perhaps, is that the most very orientation and results of Peter's reign were colorful rulers (Peter I, Catherine II) and the most put in question. Had he bee., ber;erjal or harmful unbalanced ones (Peter III. Paul I) have generated to Russia'? Was he continuing the work of his alibraryfullofsensationalist,unreliable,and predecessors, or, by radically wrenching Russia prejudice-riddenpopularbiographies(ofwhich out of its normal path of historical evolution, did he R K.Massie's successful Peter the GreatIsa make for a or break in Russian culture'? Did recent example) Numerous prim..,y sources have he dig the seemingly unpassable gulf betwe .i the been published since the 19th century, so there Is elite and the people'? The debate begun in the no dearth of documentation, although some sig- second half of the 18th century did not end even nificant gaps remain (more particularly for the by the time our period comes to a close. As a mat- reigns of Peter I and Elisabeth). ter of fact, it provided the major stimulation to his- Over the past two decades, the situation has toric reflection and philosophic speculation beenchanging, asimportantandinnovative throughout the 19th century and even into the studies have been published by Western, especial- 20th lyAmerican,historians.A number ofdetailed Onceinitiated,theprocessofassimilating monographs provide the English-language reader Western culture and values could not stop.It be- with novel interpretations and fresh descriptions of came impossible for the government to control many trends and problems (especially insocial what aspects of Europe were brouc,it to Russia and intellectualhistory).Unfortunately. the con- and developed further. From mere imitation of what clusions of this scholarship have not yet been fully Europe had already achieved, Russia's cultural elite absorbed and integrated into general syntheses of went on to give its own expression and form to Russian and European history. Western European spiritual and intellectual values In most cases, the focus of these studies Is nar- Among these was the entire corpus of the critical ruwly Russian, with the comparative dimension and philosophies and stances of the Enlightenment Af- the broader European setting receiving rather short firniat:onoftheworthanddignityofthe shrift This is a great pity, for the history of Russia autonomous individual and of his rights and duties in our period cannot be properly understood in was accompanied by ever-louder and more ener- isolation from eventsinEurope (andAsiaor getic demands for freedom ofexpression and America); many trendsnd developments of Rus- security of person and opinion Inevitably-espe- sian social, political, and cultural life are best seen ciallyinthelightoftheexperiencesofthe in an all-European perspective Bringing out these American and French Revolutionsthe more active connections in presentation and class discussion is an'' radical members of the educated elite found the challenge that faces the teacher. themselves in conflict with the autocrat and his ap- For a general orientation to the period, teachers paratus of control and rep. ession For more information on this subject, see M Raeff, Origins of the r ught begin -ith the relevant chapters of the following textbooks Robert Auty and Dmitri Obolensky, Russian Intelligentsiainthe Eighteenth Century eds., Companion to Russian Studies, volI. An In- Nobility (New York Harcourt, 1966) troduction to Russian History (Cambridge Eventually, following the failure of the Cambridge University Press, 1976); M.T Florinsky, Decembrist movement and the successful imposi Russia A History and an Interpretation New York tion of harsh censorship controls by Nicholas I, the Macmillan, 1954). and H Seton-Watson, The Rus- educated elites and the establishment broke: the in-

90 sian Emoirr., 1801-1917 (Oxford Clarendon Press, The period 1725 -62 is the stepchild of Russian 1967). historiography. The belles lettres in Segel's anthol- A general interpretation of one I,asic aspect of ogy are our only worthwhile source The emer- Russian history from the 17th century to 1917 is gence among the Westernized educated ruling elite provided in M Raeff, Understanding Imperial Rus- of "dissidents," who eventually were to define them- siaState and Society in the Old Regime (New selves as the intelligentsia, has been chronicled York:ColumbiaUniversityPress. 1984) The and its driving forces analyzed by M Raeffin diplomatic and broader European context is usual- Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia: The ly treated in the better general histories of Europe Eighteenth Century Nobility (New York. Harcourt, for example, the relevant volumes and chapters of 1966). the Cambridge History of Modern Europe or of the The period 1762-96 coincides with the reign of so-called Langer series. Catherine IIA reliable, well-documented overview Belles lettresdrama. historical novels, fiction, of practically all facets of the policies and condi- poetry however, give a stimulating and revealing tions of that reign is Isabel de Madarlaga's, Russia picture of Russian society and of the problems it in the Age of Catherine the Great (New Haven, CT: encounteredinthe course ofEuropeanization, Yale University Press, 1981). A collection of articles most of the best works are available in translation. by several historians dealing with selected aspects The two-volume anthology by Harold B gel, The ofthereignand periodcomplementsthe Literature of Eighteenth Century RussiaA History Madariagasynthesis.CatherinetheGreat:A and Anthology (New York E.P. Dutton, 1967), not Profi M. Raeff, ed. (New York: Hill and Wang, only pi °vides a panorama of the development of 197.41 The revealing and provocative fictionalized 18th-century literature under the impact of its ac- account by Alexander Pushkin of the peasant rebel- quaintance with French and German models, but lion led by Pugachev, The Captain's Daughter, also also affords many a glimpse into the mores, educa- points to the psychological and moral dilemmas tional patterns, social conditions, and moral con- faced by Russian society under Catherine II. flicts in Russian society Some important texts of The period 1796-1825, essentially the reign of representatives of social and political thought are AlexanderI,has three major foci:First was the also available in M Raeff, Russian Intellectual His- government's efforts at reforming the central ad- tory An Anthology (AtlanticHighland,NJ: The ministration to bringitinto greater consonance Humanities Press, 1978.) with the pace ofsociety'smodernization. The The epoch 1689-1825/55 may be subdivided into avatarsofthisendeavor,anditsambiguous shorter periods, each one dominated by the out- results, are well described and plausibly analyzed look and orientation of the ruler and his chosen ad- in theshortandreadablestudybyAllen visors. The reign of Peter Iset the pattern for most McConnell, Tsar Alexander I: Paternalistic of the social, political. and cultural transformations Reformer (New 'ir,rk: Thomas Y Crowell, 1970). of the 18th and curly 19th centuries Unfortunately, The second focus was Russia's Involvement in the the only serious and comprehensive monographic revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, more particular- treatment is in German (Reinhard Wittrarn, Peter I, ly the French invasion of 1812. There is no better Czar and Kaiser: Peter der Grosse in Seiner Zeit, description of what these wars meant to Russia Gottingen, 1964). However, a reliable English trans- than Leo Toistoy's War and Peace. Those inter- lation of relevant lectures from the r,sic Course ested in the military and diplomatic events can con- of Russian History by Russia's motJistinguished sult E V. Tarle's Napoleon's Invasion of Russia. historian, V.O. Kliuchevsky, is availt,L,leIn spite of The third focus was the dissatisfaction of Russian the fact that it was written almost a century ago, educated rites with Alexander l's failure to reform this work remains the most readable, psychological- rapidly and thoroughly and to give society greater lyinsightful account ofboth the tsar and his freedom of action. This led to the foundation of country: Vasilii Kliuchevsky. Peter the Great, L. Ar- secret societies that staged an abortive military chibald, trans. (New York Russellanc:Russell, revolt in Decehlber 182F The story is recounted 1961). Selected aspects of the reign and per- along with excerpts from the basic documents in sonality from different historiogiaphic perspectives M Raeff, The Decembrist Movement (Englewood are presented in a volume of the D C Heath series Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, 196) Problems in European Civil,,ation. Peter the Great The reign of Nicholas I, 1825-55, was not only a Changes Russia, MRaett, ed(Lexington, MA period of oppressive control over all expressions of D C Heath, 1972)Lively fictionalized frescoes of opinion but also a time of gestation and prepara- the period are to be found in the novels of D S tion for the sweeping transformation of Russia's Merezhkovsky, Peter and Alexis, A Tolstoy, Peter economy, society, and administration in the follow- the First, and A S Pushkin. The Negro of Peter the ing reign The stimulating and revisionist book by Great W BruceLincoln,Nicholas Emperor and

91 92 Autocrat of All the Russias (London Allen Land 1978), is a full, up-to-date, readable, and balanced and Bloomington,IN IndianaUniversity Press, treatment of a much-misunderstood reign.

92 :3 RUSSIAN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY, 1;25-1917: A BIBLIOGRAPHIC INTRODUCTION by Richard Wortman

The study of intellectual history has played a cru- Many excellen works r'e general perspectives cial role in the understanding and explanation on Russian intelli-Ltua: hi, though one must be the Russian past. Ideas were a major force in fit-- careful to distinguish the author's, sometimes In- sian political evolution. shaping political attitudes ired, insights from the subjects discussed Fran far more than they did here or even in Western cu Venturi's Roots of Revolution (Chicago: Univer- Europe This was partly the result a! the political sityof Chicago Press,1960)is arich,heavily system of autocracy, which precluded open politi- detailed account of developments up to 1881, with cal activity and made thought the only possible a focus on the evolution of Russian populism realmforpolitics EducatedRussianssought Fedor Dan's The Origins or Bolshevism (New York: answers in booksin social doctrines, literature, Harper and Row, 1964)is an intellectual history and philosophy, The weakness of independent so- devoted to explaining the inception and nature of cial groups in Russia the absence of a strong, in- Russian Marxism, written by a leading Menshevik dependent aristocracy or bourgeoisiealso en- Paul Miliukov's Russia and Its Crisis (New York. couraged intense absorption with political ideas Collier,1962) gives a liberal perspective on the Since social classes did not provide a dynamic for development of Russian thought political change, intellectuals looked to the perspec- Other general works have a more philosophical tives of European thought and experience When character. Thomas Masaryk's Spirit of Russia (New political activity finally became possible In the early York: Macmillan, 1919). though dated,still offers 20th century, ideology gave impetus to the revolu- valuable discussions of Russian thought from a tionary movement and the formation of political par- neo-Kantian viewpoint. Fo; a brilliant neo- ties. The clash between ideas and the realities of Slavophile (Russian soul). existentialist interpreta- early 20th-century political life is a central theme of tion, one can turn to Nicholas Berdyaev's The Rus- the drama of the Russian Revolution sian Idea (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1948) or his The importance of ideas inRussianpolitical briefer and simpler The Origin of Russian Com- development has prompted historians to devote munism (Ann Arbor, MI.University of Michigan cor :siderable attention to Russian intellectual his- Press, 1960). Andrzej Walicki provides a neo-Marx- tory The body of literature on the subject is large, ist survey of Russian thought. in the vein of "sociol- and key documents are available in English transla- ogy oc mileage," inhis A History of Russian tion. This does not mean, however, that it is easy Thougl Mord, CA: Stanford University Press, to teach. Ideas have played a relatively minor role 1979). F, seatment of Russian ideas in the con- 11 our own political development since the 18th text of a .'ic iroerprstation of cultural history, century, and American students, est_ecially in the see James tc The Icon and the Axe (New *i980s, find it difficult to believe that people acted York. Rando; .g70). on the basis of what they read rather than what The s^cono .nature on specific periods of they could gain The content and goals of the Russian inteliec, !s- also rich and abundant. ideas are also difficult for American studer,tq The approach,i! rt cases,isbiographical, grasp, though most of the thought discussed is not which enables the author to integrate the ideas of inherently complex or profound the time with the subject's life, often in an entertain- The principal goal in teaching Russian intellec- ing manner. The colorful scene of the intellectual tual history, then, should be to convey the framl of salons of "the first generation of the intelligentsia mind, the mentality of Russian intellectuals in the the 1830s and 1840s,has been describedin 19th and early 20th centuriesIt is no accident that numerous excellent studies To mention only a few, "intelligentsia" is a Russian word that describes a IsaiahBerlin's Russian Thinkers,especially the social formation and way of thinking that in many essay "The Remarkable Decade" (New York: Pen- respects are unique to the Russian experience guin Books, 1974), AU tin Melia's, Alexander Her- Two articles are useful in describing the mental zen and the Birt1 of Russian Socialism world of 19th-century Russian intellectualsIsaiah (Cambridge, MA Han, 31c1 University Press, 1961), Berlin's brief introduction to Russian Intellectual Herbert Bowman's Beliqsky (Cambridge, MA Fidr- History. An Anthology, M Raeff, ed(Atlantic High- yard University Press, 1954), E H Carr's Michael lands, NJHumanities Press,1986) and Martin Bakunin and The Romantic Exiles(New York Malia's "What Is the intelligentsia?" in Daedalus. Stokes, 1933) On theSlavophilesthereare vol 89, no 3 Nicholas Riasanovsky's Russia and the West in the Teaching of the Slavophiles (Magnolia, MA Peter

(11 93 Smith, 1952) and Andrzej Walicki's more detailed 1962). the best introduction ("ter pertinent works TheSlavophileContrkersy(OxfordUniversity are Leonard Shapiro's artic' 'n the Vekhi group Press, 1975), in addition to valuable biographies by (intellectuals who denounced theintelligentsia's Peter Christoff and Abbott Gleason traditions of revolutionary activism). Slavonic and The early,populist period of the revolutionary East European Review, vol34, (December 1955): movement, always of great interest to students, Christopher Read's Religion, Revolution and the has produced a large literature. William Woehrlin's Russian Intelligentsia, 1900-1912 (London: Macmil- lan, Chernyshevskii (Cambridge, MA: Harvardt 1979), and Nicholas Zernov's The Russian sity Press, 1971) gives a good general sena, of Religious Renaissance of the 20th Century (Lon- populism's chief ideologist. Other useful biographi- don Darwin, 1963)Biographical studies include calworks arePhillipPomper'sPeterLavrov Richard Pipes' two-volume work on Peter Struve, (Chicago University of Chica-Press, 1972). Mar- Bernice Rosil ,thal's Dmlrril Seraeevich tinMiller'sKropotkin go.Universityof Merezhkovsky and the Silver Age (The Hague. Mat- Chicago Press, 1979). and....torah Hardy's Peter tinusNijhoft. 1975)andMartinRice'sValery Tkachev (Seattle, WA biliversityof Washington Briusov and the Rise of Symbolism (Ann Arbor, MI: Press, 1977). BarbaraEngel'sMothersand Ardis, 1975) The fine arts played an important role Daughters. Women of the Intelligentsia in in the intellectual life of this period For this, one Nineteenth Century Russia (Cambridge: may consult Camilla Gray's The Russian Experi- Cambridge University Press.1983) characterizes ment in Art (London. Thames and Hudson, 1986), the crucial role women played in the movement Alain Besancon's article, "The Dissidence of Rus- My own Crisis of Russian Populism (Cambridge sian Painting, 1860-1922," The Structure of Russian Cambridge University Press, 1967) deals with the History, Michael Cherniaysky, ed (New York. Ran- populist writers and thinkers and the moment of dom House, 1970); John Bowlt's The Silver Age: defeat and reevaluation of ideals. Russian Art of the Early Twentieth Century and the World of Art Group(Newtonville, MA:Oriental Materials on Marxist thinkers are particularly rich Researcn Partners, 1982); and Robert William's Ar- and are often the first to attract the students' inter- tists in Revolution (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univer- est Dan's Originsof Bolshevismisthebest sity Press, 1978). general introduction and in the latter sections offers a detailed,thoughoccasionallydifficult, These secondary works will be of use principally analysis of the evolution of Lenin's ideas. Among for teachers and for students writing papers. I have the excellent biographical studies are Abraham As- found that the most effective means of conveying cher's Pavel Axelrod and the Development of Men- Russian thought in the classroom is to assign the shevism(Cambridge, MA Harvaid University work of the leading thinkers: to let them speak for Press, 1972), Sarnuel Baron's Plekhanov (Stanford, themselves Primary sources in English are easily CA. StanfordUniversityPress. 1963). Israel available, once the teacher provides suflicient his- Getzler's Martov (Cambridge Cambridge University torical background, these sources can be interest- Press, 1967), and Leopold Haimson's The Russian ing for the student to read. We are fortunate to Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism have at our disposal a number of excelIent paper- (Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press. 1955) back anthologies Two of these are M FIaeff's Rus- Strangely, we still do not have a serviceable intel- sianIntellectualHistory. An Anthology (Atlantic lectualbiographyofLenin, who must be ap- Highlands, NJ. Humanities Press, 1986) and Robert proached on the basis of the above-mentioned C Tucker's, A Lenin Anthology (New York. Norton, 1975)Many useful documents and introductions works and his own writings Indeed, I still find the section in Elmund Wilson's To the Finland Station can also be found in James Edie et al , A History of (New York. Farrar, Strauss and Giraux, 1972) to be Russian Philosophy (Independence, MO: Interna- the best brief introduction to Lenin's thought. tional University Press, 1969), which deals with writings of a more speculatve natureThe disad- The intellectual history of the early 20th century vantages of this three-volume collection are its size is especially varied and interesting New intellectual and its topical organization, which make itdifficult tendencies broke with the heavily political and so- to find a single volume to assign to students cial orientation ofearlier thought and produced great philosophical and artistic ferment Mysticism, The readingr1the principal documents of Rus- philosophical idealism, aestheticism, and sian thought iiitiouuces the students to the texts Nietzscheanistn contributed to a c eat cultural ef- that influenced educated Russians in the 19th cen- florescence thatRussianintellectGIs stilldraw tury and expressed the way they understood the upon today.Thisperiod,however, has drawn world These texts fall into three major categories serious scholarly attention only recently and has (1)discussions of Russia's nationalidentity.(2) prescriptions for political action, and (3) reflections received fewer general studies. I find Berdyaev's memoir, Dream and Reality (New YorkCollier. on the philosophical grounds for political action

94 The themes are closely intertwined, sinceit was Hi re, we can get a sense of the new mood from one's understanding of the nature of Russia that the Blok selections in the Raeff anthology determined the type of political or social system The memoir is another important primary source Russia could achieve, and the desirability or pos- for the study of Russian intellectual history Most sibilityofthatsystemhadtobnrootedin Russian thinkers regarded ideas as something im- philosophical truths mediately relevant to their personal li1, and many The key document on nationalidentity was left accounts of their quandaries a: search for Peter Chaadaev's "Letter," from which one can per- commitments in memoir form Alexander Herzen's ceive the two diverging viewpoints of the Wester- My Past and Thoughts (Berkeley, CA. University of nizers (Belinskii) and the Slavophiles (Kireevsky. California Press.1981)is a literary masterpiece, etc ), see the Raeff collection The most important selections from it can give a wonderful sense of works for the populist revolutiona,s were the writ- the drama of the intelligentsia in the 1830s and ingof Nicholas Chernyshevsky and theliterary 1840s Peter Kropotkin's Memoir of a Revolutionist criticism of his protege, Nicholas Dobroliubov We (Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1930) describes vivid'y can gain a sensa of the basic radical conceptions how the young count became arevolutionary of reality, literature, and social action from Cher- leader in the 1860s and 1870s. Barbara Engel and nyshevsky's literary criticism and the selection from Clifford Rosenthal's Five Sisters. Women Against What Is To Be Done? provided in the back of the tn9 Tsar (New York Knopf, 1975) provides a selec- editionof Notes from Underground editedby tion of memoirs of populist women Maxim. r--.fkv's Ralph Mat law (New York Dutton, 1960) My Universities (New York F pin, 19 Many writings of the leading theorists of the Trotsky's My Life (New York: Pathfinder, &Al) revolutionary movement are also available in trans- describe the appeal and spread of Marxism at the lation There are English translations of works of endofthe19thcenturyNicholas Berdyaev's Bakunin, Lavrov, and Kropotkin, though few have Dream and Realityis a philosophical autobiog- been anthologized Of the Russian Marxists, only raphy of a thinker who passed from Marxism Lenin's writings are easily available, and the instruc- through philosophicalidealism toexistertlallsm tor must tP' on the necessary, but often futile, These are only a few examples of the large corpus task of sh,gig that Lenin's Marxism was not the of intelligentsia memoirs. only --oreventhedominant Marxist viewpoint Literatiire is indispensaJle source for study- before 1917 Yet an understanding of Lenin's ap- ing the development of ideas in Fissia The line be- plication of Marxism to Russiahis views on such tween thought and literature was never claw In Rus- issues as the revolutionary party, the two-stage sian culture, ano literary works often contained revolution, and the resulting po!itical system's es- major statements of belief that passed into the Intel- sential for an understanding of the course of the ligentsia tradition. Every major writer in the century Russian Revolution and the policies of the early before 1917 became involved in some way in the in- SovietstateA collectionofarticlesof1..eon tellectual controversies of the time. Indeed, the Trotsky. The Age of Permanent Revolution (New abundance of relevant works of literature is so enor- YorkDell, 1964), can give the student a different mous that one must be car ?ful to avoid a reading Marxist perspective, which Lenin in part adopted in list made up predominantly of novels and stories. 1917, Works byPushkin,Gorl, Turgenev,Dos- Primary sources on the new me, -ments of the toevsky,Tolstoy,andBelymay berelevant, early 20th century are less plentiful, but more have depending on the emphasis of the teaching Tur- become available recently The Silver Age, edited gent. 'sSportman's Sketches and Fathers and by Carl and Elenda Proffer (Ann Arbor, M!Ardis. Sons are crucial to the understanding of the intel- 1975), has works of literary criticir n germane to lectual life of the pre- and post-reform era Chernys- the intellectual developments of the period, but it is kevsky's What Is To Be Done?, though not a great now out of print and may be hard to find Bernice work. was undoubtedly the most influential novel Rosenthal and'artha Bohachevskii-Chomiak have for the revolutionary intelligentsiaIt was a favorite recently publi ,c.1 a collection under the title, A of Lenin's, and the source of the title of his 'amous Revolution of the Spirit Crisis of Values in Russia, tract Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground is his 18w? /9/R(Newtonville, MA OrientPlResearch conservative answer to What Is To Be Dene9 and Partners, 1982) John Bowlt provides useful docu together with the selection in the Raeff collection ,vents on the modernist movement in art in his Rus- gives god sense ofhis view of the world sian Art of the Avant-Garde (New YorkViking, Tr' -try's writings in the late 1870s and 1880s, The 1976) The works of such philosophers as Vladimir Co,.SSi011, "The Death of Ivan Mich," andThe Solovievwho inspired many of these currents Kreutzer Sonata,"presentedhisnew Christian and Vasilii Rozanov are availableintranslation religious teaching. which enjoyed great popularity in Russia as well as abroad The works of Cilekhoy

95 and Gorky are effective in evoking the personal instructor can use primary sources to show how so- quandaries and social issues besetting the intel- cial and political issues suffused the intelligentsia's ligentsia at the turn of the century. Andrei Bely's world and to acquaint the student with the most im- proseworks, and especiallyhis novel St. portant viewpoints and philosophies. The instructor Petersburg (New York: Grove, 1959), capture the should strive to convey the intellectual seriousness mystical symbolic spirit of the early 20th-century in- of these thinkers, to emphasize the life-and-death tellectual scene. The best general survey of Rus- quality of their intellectual quests. Russian intellec- sian literature remains Prince Mirsky's History of tuals did not -ead principally for pleasure. With this Russian Literature (New York: Random, 1958). understood, the student can begin to connect (The paperback version lacks the sections on the ideas with political events in Russia and to com- period after 1905.) prehendthemotivationsofRussianpolitical Materials to acquaint students with the intellec- leaders, both before and after the Revolution of tual life of prerevolutionary Russia are plentiful. The 1917.

97 96 THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS OF 1905 AND 1917 by Abraham Ascher

A revolution is so cataclysmic an event that it in- According to this interpretation, Bloody Sunday variably provokes the most intense, diverse, and marked the beginning of the revolution. The high- bizarre explorations of its causes, evolution, and point was not the general strike of October, which results. Consciously or subconsciously, every com- almost toppled the autocracy and impelled the mentator takessides;eachinterpretation then government to grant a major political concession necessarily reflects an individual assessment of the (the October Manifesto), but rather the armed upris- final outcome. The task of students who seek to un- ing in December, inspired and led by Bolsheviks. derstand the three revolutionsin Russia (1905, Soviet historians claim that the uprising, though March 1917, and November 1917) is further compli- brutally suppressed by the tsarist government, was cated by the fact that the ultimate victors, the Bol- critical in impressing upon the proletariat the neces- sheviks,subscribed to afairlycomprehensive sity of armed struggle against the old order and in doctrine, if not quite a blueprint, of how the revolu- providing the masses with the necessary ex- tion was to proceed and how the new society was perience to stage a socialist revolution. Since the to be organized. Students of Russian history must early 1930s, when party control over historical therefore examine not only the details of political scholarship rigidified, many works published in the and social struggles but also the impact of the Soviet Union have ascribed hegemony over the doctrine, Marxism modified by Lenin, on those revolutionary process not simply to the proletariat, struggles. Moreover, because the doctrine origi- but to the proletariat under the "guidance of the nated in the West and inspired the formation of in- Bolshevik party." it is no exaggeration to state that fluentialpoliticalparties,therevolutionswere Soviet scholars view the history of the Revolution bound to have a powerful resonance beyond the of 1905 as a vehicle for indoctrinating the public in borders of Russia, another factor that helps to ex- the inevitability of Bolshevism's triumph and the plain the interest and passions aroused by those correctness of Bolshevik policies, in 1905 and ever upheavals. since. in short, the function of the doctrine of Although the events of 1917 wereir, many proletarian hegemony, to whichallSoviethis- respects linked to those of 1905, for reasons of torians wriZIng on the 20th century pay obeisance, pedagogical clarity it seems best to discuss the his- is to buttress the Communist party's claim to toriographyof the two periodsofturbulence legitimacy in ruling the Soviet Union. separately. in any case, the issues are sufficiently Aside from a four-volume study of the Revolu- distinctive to justify such an approach. tion of 1905 written in Russian by Mensheviks and Sovietscholarshavebeenremarkablyin- published in the years from 1909 to 1914, non-Bol- dustrious in exploring the Revolution of 1905. While shevik scholars (with the exception of Anweiler and they have not always been monolithic in their con- Harcave) have concentrated on specialized clusions, they have been guided by the general monographs rather than on comprehensive ac- pronouncements of Lenin, who viewed the first counts. While there are important differences in em- upheaval as the "dress rehearsal" for 1917. Soviet phasis, approach, and interpretation among them, scholars tend to ignore or downplay the role of they tend to reject most of the conclusions of Russian liberals, in 1904 and during the first nine Soviet scholars. Some place special stress on the months of 1905, in stimulating popular opposition liberals' campaigns in 1904 in igniting the political to the tsarist regime. They claim, as did Lenin, that turbulence; for example, see Shmuel Galai's The although 1905 was a bourgeois-democratic revolu- Liberation Movement in Russia, 1900-1905 (New tion in its social content, in its methods of struggle York: Cambridge University Press, 1973), Terence it was proletarian because the strike was the chief Emmons' The Formation of Political Parties and weapon in the endeavors to overthrow the existing the First National Elections in Russia (Cambridge, order. The working class is said to have con- MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), and Richard stituted the "leading force, the vanguard" of the en- E. Pipes' Strive: Liberal on the Left (Cambridge, tire opposition movement. Both by example and MA: Harvard University Press, 1970). Others have thro'igh agitation, the striking workers stirred up explored the role of the industrial workers; here, large numbers of peasants,confirming Lenin's see Waiter Sabiinsky's The Road to Bloody Sunday thesis that the revolution in Russia would be ef- (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), fectedby theproletariatinalliancewiththe Victoria E. Bonneli's Roots of Rebellion: Workers' peasantry rather than with the middle class, whom Politics and Organization in St. Petersburg and the Bolshevik leader by 1905 dismissed as weak Moscow, 1900-1914 (Berkeley, CA: University of and politically untrustworthy. California Press, 1983), and Laura Engelstein's Mos-

98 97 cow, 1905: Working-Class Organization and Politi- For several decades after 1917, the dominant calConflict(Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity view among non-Soviet scholars was that in the Press, 1982). Yet others have examined the reac- years from 1906 to 1914 Russia was well on the tion of governmental leaders or of the gentry to the way to being transformed into a polity along the disordersof1905; among the worksinthis Western model. Industrialization proceeded at a category are Howard D. Mehlinger and John M. rapid pace; working conditions in urban centers im- Thompson, Count Witte and the Tsarist Govern- proved and the government took steps to ease the ment in the 1905 Revolution (Bloomington, IN: In- burdens on the peasantry; workers increasingly diana University Press, 1972); Theodore H. Von abandoned political extremism for trade union ac- Laue, "Count Witte and the Russian Revolution of tivities. The government, though authoritarian, had 1905,"in American Slavic and East European discarded some of the most extreme forms of ar- Review, vol. 23 (February 1958); and Roberta M. bitrary rule. While the powers of the legislature es- Manning, The Crisis-of the Old Order in Russia: tablished in 1906 were rigidly circumscribed, that Gentry and Government (Princeton, NJ: Princeton body nevertheless evolved into an institution with University Press, 1982). substantial political influence, so that it cannot be The picture that emerges in the non-Bolshevik dismissed as a negligible factor in the political studies is that the first revolution was an event of arena.It served as a public forum from which enormouscomplexity. No onespecialgroup policies of the autocracy and cabinet ministers dominatedtheoppositiontotheautocracy could be criticized, and it played a far from Insig- throughout the years from 1904 to 1907, which ac- nificant role in passing legislation generally con- tually comprise the full span of the upheaval. sidered progressive. For example,it enacted a Moreover, it emerges in these writings that there scheme for universal education that proved to be were several shifts in attitude on political issues remarkably successful: by the mid-1920s illiteracy among the forces pressing for changes and even would have been eliminated even if no revolution among the tsar's advisers most determined to main- had occurred. tainthe status quo.In sum, the revolutionis All in all, according to this optimistic view of pre- generally viewed by non-Communist historians not World War I developments, the deepest conflicts in as one phase in a predetermined course of Rus- Russian society were being muted. Serious social sian history toward socialism, but rather as an and political conflicts persisted, but had the war event that opened up several paths for Russia. not broken out, they could have been resolved The Revolutions of 1917 have generated so without violence in the political arena. In time, the much controversy among scholars outside the duma's sphere of activity would have been ex- Soviet Union that it may be best to focus primarily panded, and thepoliticalsystem would most on their interpretations. In any case, many of the probably have evolved along genuinely constitution- histories of 1917 written in the Soviet Union are allines. Two works that represent .:iis view are highly tendentious andrepetitious;their more Alexander Gershenkron's Economic Backwardness plausible conclusions have found supporters in the in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard West, who often substantiate their conclusions with University Press, 1966) and Michael Karpovich's Im- more intellectual rigor and sophistication. perial Russia, 1801-1917 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1932). Writers on 1917 have debated the following broadquestions: Was arevolutioninRussia Inthe1960s Westernscholarsbeganto avoidable? Was the March revolution a spon- reexamine this optimistic assessment of the state taneous affair or can the collapse of the tsarist of affairs in Russia and concluded that the war, far regime beconsideredtheresultofvarious from having created the precondition for revolution, maneuvers and plots by groups hostile to the old actually caused its postponement by rallying the na- order? Was the Bolshevik success in taking power tion to a defense of the fatherland. The new school a consequence of Lenin's remarkable abilities as a of historians contends that in the two years from leader or the outcome of the Provisional Govern- 1912 to 1914internalconflictsintensified and ment's incompetence or, perhaps, even treachery? deepened. At the same time, a substantial number Did the Bolsheviks stage a coup d'etat favored by of increasingly class-conscious workers switched a relatively small sector of the Russian people or their allegiance from the relatively moderate Men- did they lead a revolution supported by vast mas- sheviks to the extremist Bolsheviks. In the broader ses of Russians? Were the Bolsheviks able to con- political arena, an unprecedented polarization oc- solidate their power because they followed policies curred between the privileged sectors of society favored by the people at large or because they and the tsarist regime that, in the last analysis, was proved to be adept manipulators of the masses? related to conflicting conceptions of how O'e polity should be structured. The conjuncture of.)litical polarization and radicalization of the urban masses

98 99 made likely a new test of strength betweenthe streets of Petrograd were class-conscious activists defenders of the old order and the forces pressing driven by firmly-held convictions. Not much hard for political change. Leopold H. Halmsonargues evidence can be marshalled in support of Trotsky's this contention in his article, "The Problem of So- thesis. To be sure, after the strikes and demonstra- cial StabilityinUruan Russia, 1905-1917," tions had gained momentum, activists fromall published in Slavic Review, vol.23, (December socialist parties (including about 3,000 Bolsheviks) 1964) and vol. 24 (March 1965). played a part in organizing the marches, but itwas Like most debates over the "might have beens" the women of Petrograd and the soldiers ofthe in history, the question of whether the Russian capital's garrison who constituted the backbone of Revolutions of 1917 could have been avoided is in- the anti-government drive. Neither of thesetwo teresting, challenging, and important, but cannot groups was known to be sympathetic to Bolshevik be definitely resolved. All thatcan be expected of ideas. historians is that they sift the evidence at hand and On theright,theleading opponent of the reach plausible conclusions. "theory of spontaneity" has been George Katkov,a That is the approach used by William Henry learned historian fervently attached to the monarchi- Chamberlin in what is still the most comprehensive cal principle and to the Romanov dynasty. In Kat- and balanced account of1917,The Russian kov's view, presented in Russia 1917: The February Revolution, 1917-1921 (New York:Macmillan, Revolution(New York:Longmans,1967),the 1935). He concluded that the threeyears of war, blame for the autocracy's collapse must be placed characterized by unexpected military defeats,enor- on the liberals and, even more so, on the machina- mous losses in human lives, and shortages of food tions of the German government. The liberals, Kat- and industrial goods, dramatically exposed the in- kov contends, were motivated bya lust for power; competence of the tsarist regime and heightened they feared more than anything else thata military discontent with the government among allsectors victory by Russia would consolidate theautocracy of the population. Early in March 1917masses of for decades to come. Katkov finds the activities of people, composed initially of civilians but joined the domestic critics of the governmentincom- within five days by large numbers of soldiers, prehensible because the "shortcomings ofthe decided to take action over grievances they had tsaristadministration...werecomparable tothe long endured in silence. The outpouring oftens muddles and abuses of wartime administrations in and eventually hundreds of thousands of people other countries." into the streets of Petrograd and their refusalto be Katkov's charge against the German authorities cowed by gcvemmental pleas or threats provedto is even more far-reaching. He assertsthat German be an avalanche that the autocracy couldnot money was a decisive factor in causing the wave withstand. The tsar, stunned and incredulous, abdi- of strikes in Russia in 1916 and the laborunrest in cated when he realized on the eighth day ofthe February 1917, which evolved into the revolution- demonstrations that his support inallstrata of ary upheaval. If his thesis is correct, it would force society had melted away. Althougli numerous in- an abandonmentoftheinterpretationofthe dustrial strikes had taken place in January and February revolution as an unplanned, unorganized, February of 1917, no one had expected themto elemental outburst. culminate in an assault on tht autocratic system of Katkov's thesisis a radical rule. In Chamberli-'s view, the demonstrationsthat extensionof a led to the collapse of the old orderwere unex- charge widely made in 1917 and for which there is pected, leaderless, spontaneous. now a considerable amount of proof, discovered by Mr. Katkov himself:that Lenin's Bolsheviks Ironically, both the radical left and the radical received substantial sums of money in 1917 from right have rejected an explanation ofso monumen- the German Foreign Office, which sought to help tal an event that stresses its spontaneous nature. It theradicalMarxists conduct a campaignof makes the historical process too prosaic and lack- propaganda against the Provisional Government in ing in purposefulness. Thus, Leon Trotsky,whose order to cripple its ability to wagewar. German three-volume The History of the Russian Revolution money may indeed have benefited the Bolsheviks, (New York: Macmillan, 1965) isa stirring account whose aims in 1917 temporarily coincided with by a participant in the second half of the upheaval, those of the German govemment, but there isno contends that although no Bolshevik leaders of the evidence that foreign money playeda role in caus- first rank were in Petrograd earlyin1917, the ing the strikes in 1916 and early 1917. workers who staged the demonstrations had been Lenin's strategy and tactics in the months from schooled in the ideology of Bolshevism andhad gained revolutionary experience in 1905 under April to November 1917 have also beena source the ofcontroversy among guidance of Lenin's party. There was nothingspon- historians.Forseveral taneous about their conduct; the workers in the decades, Western scholars viewed the Lenin of

1 000 99 1917 as a supreme opportunist who formulated his Norton, 1976): Ronald G. Suny's "Towards a Social policies to achieve power without much regard to History of the October Revolution," American His- the doctrines of Marxism; see for example, the pre- torical Review,vol.88 (February 1983);Diane viouslycited work of Chamberlin, Bertram K Koenker's Moscow Workers and the 1917 Revolu- Wolfe'sThree Who Made a Revolution:A tion(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress, Biographical History (New York: Dial Press, 1948), 1981); Donald J. Raleigh's Revolution on the Volga: Merle Fainsod's How Russia Is Ruled (Cambridge, 1917 in Saratov (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University MA: Harva-d University Press, 1963), and Adam B. Press, 1986); and David Mandel's The Petrograd Ulam's The Bolsheviks (New York:Macmillan, Workers and the Fall of the Old Regime: From the 1965). He urged peasants to seize land not already February Revolution to the July Days, 1917 (New in their possession, which contradicted his pre- York:St.Martin,1983). These social historians vious stand In favor of its nationalization. He en- reject the view that Lenin triumphed in 1917 be- couraged workers to take control of the factories, cause he exploited popular discontents by chang- which smacked more of anarchism than Marxism. ing positions on critical issues. They contend that He came out in favor of local control over govern- "In large part" his party emerged victorious from mental functions by the Soviets, although his ideal the struggle for power because in the words of was a highly centralized state (this became abun- Rabinowitch, its "chief goals (as the masses and dantly evidentsubsequently when he wasin most party members understood them) transfer power). He argued for an immediate end to the ofstatepower toademocratic,exclusively war, In keeping with the masses' yearning fo a halt socialist,Soviet government, Immediatepeace, to hatilities. Lenin's advocacy of a separate peace etc.corresponded to popular aspirations." with Germany did not conflict with his Marxist out- These social historians also reject the notion look, but the crucial point is that all his policies in that because the Bolsheviks in 1917 constituted an 1917 were calculated to foster powerful mass move- authoritarian,conspiratorialpartyfirmlyunder ments that were already in progress and that were Lenin's control, they were capable of staging a literally disintegrating the Russian Empire. Such dis- "well-executed coup d'etat without significant mass integration, Lenin realized, would create the precon- support." They do not deny Lenin's role as a ditions for the seizure of power by a small, deter- strong leader who persuaded the party to embark mined group of revolutionary activists. on a revolutionary course, but they consider other The Provisional Govemmeat, on the other hand, factors to have been much more important for the Insisted on staying in the war (for a "democratic Bolsheviks' ultimate success in overthrowing the peace"), not ohly out of loyalty to the Allies but Provisional Government: "the relative flexibility of also out of a conviction that a separate peace with the party" and Its "responsiveness to the prevailing Germany would lead to the domination of Europe mood," which gained the Bolshevik movement by the Central Powers. The Provisional Govern- "strong popular support." ment also shied away from decisive actions on Itis noteworthy that on this last issue the dif- other crucial issues (land, control over factories, ference between the social historians and the tradi- autonomy for the borderlands) because it believed tional historians hinges on divergent characteriza- thatthesemattersshouldbehandledby a tions of Lenin's tacticsin1917. The social his- democratically chosen constituent assembly, the torians designate Lenin's maneuvers as "flexibility" election of which was planned but the date for and "responsiveness" to the wishes of the masses, which was postponed several times. The govern- whereas the traditional view is that they constituted ment therefore lacked a popular mandate; in fact, "manipulation." Thus, Ronald Suny has argued that by the fall of 1917 it was thoroughly isolated, in- to the social historians "the victorious Bolsheviks capable of marshalling support from any significant have appeared less like Machiavellian manipulators sector of society. In the words of one historian or willful conspirators and more like alert politicians (Ulam), the Bolsheviks "did not seize power in this with an acute sensitivity to popular moods and year of revolutions. They picked it up." Or, as Lenin desires." Rabinowitch in one of his works claimed put It, the taking of power by the Bolsheviks was that it was the "democratic character" of the Bol- as easy as "lifting a feather." shevik party that explains, as much as any other Since the late 1960s, a number of scholars abjur- factor, its ability to take and hold power in 1917. ing the study of high politics in favor of social his- That the masses had become disillusioned with tory, have challenged the standard interpretation in the immobilisme of the Provisional Government is such works as Alexander Rabinowitch's Prelude to indisputable. Nor can there be any doubt that vast Revolution: The Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July numbers of Russians wanted an end to the war 1917 Uprising (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University and favored distribution to the peasantry of lands Press, 1968) and The Bolsheviks Come to Power: held by thenobility,government, and church. The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd (New York: Whether these sentiments made a substantial num-

100 1 01 ber of the Russian people sympathetic to the ul- cipal mass organizations thatarose after the col- timate goals of the Bolsheviks is anotherquestion, iapse of tsarism. His concern is to show how the however. All that can be said with confidenceis factory committees, workers' militia, trade unions, that the masses' opposition or indifference to the and urban as well as rural Soviets fell underSoviet Provisional Government undermined itsability to control. Had this not occurred, the Bolsheviks rule with any degree of effectiveness. Its collapse would not have had the necessarymass support to was merely a matter of time. seize or retain power. There wasno one pattern The usefulness of referring to the"democratic that explains the "bolshevization of the masses." character" of the Bolshevik party has also been To some extent,it was a spontaneous process. questioned. To be sure, in 1917 the Leninists did People moved to the left because theywere ap- not constitute a monolithic movement. It is hardto palled by the ineptitude of the Provisional Govern- imagine how in the turoulence of thatyear rigid ment and the non-Bolshevikparties and were control could have been imposedon the party frightened by the social and economic disintegra- from above. Yet the party had attractedonly a tionof the country. No less importantinthe small portion of the population into its ranks andin process of radicalization were the political skill and the only free election ever heldinRussia(in ruthlessness of the Bolsheviks, who "alonewere November 1917),it received about one-fourth of schooled inthetechniquesoforganizational the votes. One must therefore be cautiousin at- manipulation and knew more or less what they tributing toitthe status of the voice of "the wanted to achieve "Inone organizationafter people." In any case, a political party will becon- another, the Bolsheviks outmaneuvered theirop- cerned with democracy only if it containsa sizable ponents and, where necessary, resorted to physi- number of convinced democrats and if it is led by cal coercion. Once they had brought themass or- democrats.It would be exceedingly difficultto ganizations into line (by the spring of 1918), the demonstrate that this was true of the Bolshevik Leninists were in a position to ward off the opposi- party. Lenin, who did more than anyone elseto tion during the civil war and to createan institution- shape the philosophy and practice of Bolshevism, al framework that enabled their party to rulefor was preoccupied from the early 1900s with ideas decades to come. that were distinctly hostile to the concept of politi- This review of the literature on the Revolutions cal democracy. He was an avowed Marxist benton of 1905 and 1917 is, of course, not exhaustive. achieving power. This is not to say that he lusted Numerous specialized studies on the collapse of for power for its own sake or that his rule was no the army, the conduct of Individual parties, andthe different from Stalin's. Lenin undoubtedly believed role of political leaders and social groups havealso that by staging a proletarian revolution the Bol- appeared, not to mention the large number of sheviks would create a better society in Russia, but eyewitness accounts, some of whichare remarkab- political democracy as the term had generally ly vivid and insightful. We should also note themas- come to be understood by the early 20th century sive work by E.H. Carr, The Russian Revolution, was not part of Lenin's vision. 1917-1921 (NewYork: Macmillan, 1951-61). The subject of the early political development of Despite itstale,this three-volume work is much the Soviet state has been most exhaustivelyex- less an account of the events and conflicts of 1917 amined by John Keep. In his study of the period than a history of institutions and decrees, based from February 1917 to the late spring of 1918, The heavily on Soviet sources. Carr considered it futile Russian Revolution: A Study in Mass Mobilization to explore the "might have beens" in history. The (New York: Norton, 1976), Keep sought "to show crucial point for him was that the Bolshevikswon, how and why" inthat year and a half there and his primary concern was therefore to describe emerged "the twentieth century's most durable dic- their achievements. tatorship." Keep is not a historical determinist and Even ifall the works published on the Russian readiiy concedes that during the early period of the revolutions were analyzed in depth, itis doubtful Soviet Union leaders might have selected policies that the brief survey of the historicalliterature that would have prevented the development ofa presented in this essay would require extensive monolithic dictatorship. He also acknowledges that revision. To be sure, some studies placegreater many factors after 1918 contributed to the emer- emphasis on one or another factoror offer fresh gence of totalitarianism in Russia. Stilt, he argues details, but few are very far from the major lines of that the groundwork for the Soviet system of rule interpretation formulated by scholars by the mid- was laid during the months he has examined. As 1970s. Certainly, for anyone who wishes to deepen he puts it, "there does seem to bea certain logic his /her understanding of the evolution of the Soviet to the unfolding of events." system of rule, familiarity with these major inter- The core of Keep's book consists ofan explora- pretations will serve as a good starting point. tion of the composition and activities of the prin.

I f12 101 SOVIET RUSSIA'S HISTORY UNDER LENINAND STALIN, 1921-1953: SOURCES AND ISSUES by Robert C. Tucker

After the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and theen- Life in Soviet Russia New York: 1928), Nicholas suing three years of civil strife, foreign intervention, Berdyaev's The Origins of Russian Communism and the draconian Bolshevik policies labeled "war (London: 1937), Boris Souvarine's Stalin: A Critical communism," the country's history under Lenin Survey of Bolshevism (Salem, NH: Ager, 1939), and Stalin divides into two periods: (1) the relative- and such Journalistic classics as Eugene Lyons' As- ly stable and prosperous post-revolutionaryyears, signment in Utopia (Westport, CT: Greenwood, which started with the proclamation of the New 1937), Maurice Hindus' Red Bread (New York: Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, and (2) the long 1931) and Humanity Uprooted(Westport,CT: Stalinera,which began withStalin'sriseto Greenwood, 1929), John Scott's Behind the Urals supreme leadership after defeating the Left and (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1942), Right oppositions in 1927-29. The Stalinera divides and William Henry Chamberlin's Russia's Iron Age into three subperiods. First was the "second revolu- (Salem, NH: Ayers, 1934). To this first era also tion" or "revolution from above" of 1929-39, which belong Trotsky's writings in exile after 1929, includ- started with the abolition of the NEP, the forcible ing My Life (New York: Pathfinder,1930), The collectivizingofRussia's25 millionpeasant Revolution Betrayed (New York: Pathfinder, 1937), farmsteads, and the war-oriented industrialization and Stalin (New York: Stein and Day, 1967) that he drive under the first Five-Year Plan (1928-33) and was completing when Stalin had him murdered in proceeded to the Great Purge. The Great Purge 1940.Also,memoirs by Sovietofficialswho was signaled by the assassination of the Leningrad defected,including W.G.Krlvltsky'sInStalin's party leader Sergei Kirov in December 1934 and Secret Service (Westport, CT: Hyperion, 1939) and raged until1939, accompanied by many political Alexander Barmine's One Who Survived (New and cultural changes. The second subperiod of the York: Putnams, 1945). Stalin era was World War II, which began with the Stalin-Hitler accords of August 1939 and sub- The second history-writing era came with the riseof academic Sovietstudiesinthe West, sequent partition of Eastern Europe by the two dic- America tators. Hitler's armies invaded Russia on June 22, inparticular,after World WarII.An opener,in 1941, initiating the Soviet-German or, as it is official- 1945, was The Great Retreat: The ly known in Russia, the "Great Patriotic War," in Growth and Decline of Communism in Russia which Russia, with the help of Great Britain and the (Salem, NY: Ayers, 1946), by the Russian émigré United States and at a cost of more than 20 million and Harvard sociologist Nicholas Timasheff, who lives, prevailed by May 1945. The final subperiod was influenced by some of Trotsky's above-men- was the postwar years of Stalin's autocratic rule tionedwork.More characteristicofthisera, and the East-West Cold War. Stalin's death however, was the partly historical How Russia Is on Ruled (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, March5, 1953,abruptly endedhisera,but memories of it, along with habits and institutions 1953), by the Harvard political scientist Merle Fain- born of it, live on to this day. sod, who later produced Smolensk Under Soviet Rule (New York: Vintage, 1958). The latter sum- The1921-53periodisunderintense new marizes the contents of a regional party archive scrutiny at present; few other eras of Russia's his- covering the years 1917-37; the archive was taken tory generate so much controversy. One reason is out of Russia by the German army during World that important new materials on events of Stalin's War II and appropriated by the American army in time that became known during Khrushchev'ssuc- Berlin afterwards. ceeding period in power have raised questions about earlier views about the Revolution's historical Other notable works of the second era are The development and the meaning of what happened Origin of the Communist Autocracy (Cambridge, in Stalin's time. MA: Harvard University Press, 1955) and The Com- munist Party of the Soviet Union (New York: Ran- History-writing on the 1921-53 period divides dom House, 1959). both by the late dean of British into three eras. From the late 1920sto the early RussianstudiesLeonardSchapiro;RobertV. 1940s, various individuals, usually on the basis of Daniels' Conscience of the Revolution: Communist long Russian experience, produced works of impor- Opposition in Soviet Russia (Cambridge, MA: Har- tance,including Louis Fischer's The Soviets in vard University Press, 1960); John Armstrong's The World Affairs (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Politics of Totalitarianism.' The Communist Party of Press, 1960), Rene Mop-Miler's The Mind and the Soviet Union from 1934 to the Present (New Face of Bolshevism: An Examination of Cultural York: Random House, 1961); Frederick C. Bar-

103 j 0.3 ghoorn's Soviet Russian Nationalism (Westport, and contended that the Great Purge, in which the CT: Greenwood, 1956); Forced Labor in Soviet Rus- bulk of surviving Lenin-era Communists were vic- sia by David Dallin and Boris Nicolaevsky (New timized, separated Stalinism from Bolshevism by a Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1947); Zbigniew "river of blood." What most Western historians saw Brzezinski's The Permanent Purge:Politicsin as the Stalinist culmination of Bolshevism In the Soviet Totalitarianism(Cambridge, MA: Harvard "second revolution" (which Stalin himself described University Press, 1956); E.H. Carr's multi-volumed in 1936 Ps having created a "socialist" society in History of Soviet Russia in the 1920's including the main), Trotsky saw as its betrayal, with counter- three volumes on Socialism in One Country (New revolutionary features clearly in evidence; he at- York:Macmillan,1951-64);A.A.Avtorkhanov's tributed the betrayal to a conservative bureaucracy Stalin and the Soviet Communist Party (New York: of which Stalin was only a "personification," not a Praeger, 1959); Alexander Dallin's German Rule in driving force in his own right. Trotsky's interpreta- Russia, 1941-1945 (London: 1957); and the U.S. tion was, however, outside the mainstream of State Department's two collections of diplomatic Western historiography. The mainstream position papers, The Soviet Union 1933-1939 (1952) in the was more inline withofficialhistoriographyin Foreign Relations of the United States series and Stalin's Russia in that, while the latter rejected the Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-1941 (1948), which is labei"totalitarian,"bothtreated the eventsof based on captured documents. More memoiristic Stalin'stime as the fulfillmentofLenin'sBol- works of this period include Markoosha Fischer's shevism. In the Soviet slogan of that time, Stalin My Lives in Russia (New York: 1944); Alexander was "Lenin today" and the genius/builder of the Orlov's The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes (New socialist Russia that Lenin had designed as a goal. York: Random House, 1953);F. Beck and W. For Trotsky the totalitarian state that had come Godin, Russian Purge and the Extraction of Confes- aboutinStalin's revolution from above was a sion (NewYork: Viking, 1951); Alexander monstrous historical aberration from the guidelines Weissberg's The Accused (New York: Schuster, of Lenin's Bolshevism and was unsocialist, even 1951); Joseph Scholmer's Vorkuta (New York: Holt, anti-socialist, in its bureaucratic mode of rule by a Rinehart and Winston, 1954); and G. Hilger and A. privileged elite and its oppression of the worker- Meyer, The Incompatible Allies: A Memoir-History peasant majority. Yet Russia, he thought, remained of German-Soviet Relations 1918-1941 (New York: a "workers' state"inits system of nationalized Haffner, 1953). An influential historical and ownership of the means of production. biographical study in its time was Isaac The third history-writing era began in the early Deutscher's Stalin: A Political Biography (New 1960s and extends to the present. Revelations of York: Oxford University Press, 1967). Deutscher's the earlypost-Stalinperiod,particularlyinthe subsequent three-volume biography of Trotsky "secret speech" on Stalin that Khrushchev gave The Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed, and before the Twentieth Soviet Party Congressin The Prophet Outcast (New York: Oxford University February 1956 (it did not remain secret for long, al- Press, 1954-63) remains the standard work today thoughithas never been published inRussia), on Stalin's great foe. On the Soviet side, various spurred a rethinking in Russian as well as Western source materials came out in English, including minds. "Lenin today" proved on the factual tes- Lenin's Selected Works (Moscow: 1946)in two timony of Khrushchev's speech to have been a volumes, Stalin's Problems of Leninism (Moscow: sickly self-adulating murderous tyrant. His Great 1947), and the Stalin period's official History of the Purge displaced single-party rule and created an Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): absolute autocracy based on his personal control Short Course (New York: 1939). of the secret police. It gravely weakened Russia in The theory of totalitarianism, fashioned mainly the face of oncoming war, in which Stalin repeated- by German émigré scholars in the 1940s, greatly in- ly showed himself a bungler as commander-in- fluencedWesterninterpretivehistoriesinthe chief;his clearly marked paranoidal tendencies second era. Soviet Communism initsStalinist (grandiosity,vindictiveness, conspiracymania, phase and Hitler's German National Socialism were etc.)brought on theconflictwithTito'sinde- seen as similar species of the genus totalitarianism, pendently Communist state in 1948. a dictatorial and terroristic "total state" novel in the A consequence of Khrushchev's expose and fur- 20th century. Such studies as those by Fainsod ther official testimony in subsequent years was that andBrzezinskimentionedaboveviewedthe Russia itself,in part via free-thinking intellectuals Stalinist totalitarian state as the logical outcome of and samizdat (uncensored writings circulatedin tendencies inherentinBolshevism's single-party typescript),reenteredhistoriographyinthe no state founded by Lenin. longer terrorized post-Stalin society, in which mil- On the other hand, Trotsky, while calling, Stalin's lions of survivors were released from forced-labor state totalitarian, denied this historical continuity camps and exile, among them Aleksandr Solzhenit-

104 1 0 4 syn, who would write the history of Russia under for the opposite viewthat Stalinismwent against Lenin and Stalin as a concentration-campsaga in much or most of what Lenin's Bolshevism three volumes, The Gulag Archipelago stood (New York: for. Western scholars raised the questionthat one Harper, 1973-75). Still another free-thinkingRussian of them, the economic historian Alec Intellectual's work of importance, in part Nove, formu- an interpre- lated in an article's title, "Was Stalin ReallyNeces- tive history and in part a body of organizedoral-his- sary?" His answer not beyond the early tory testimony by survivors of Stalin's 1930s terror, was dld not satisfy still others, suchas the economic Roy A. Medvedev's Let History Judge:The Origins historians James Millar and Holland and Consequences of Stalinism (New Hunter, who York: Ran- addressed the further questionwascollectiviza- dom, 1971). His subsequent works, includedOn tion really necessary? and found that it Stalin and Stalinism (New York:' Random, was not 1979), All for the needs of feasibleindustrialization. That Stalin's Men (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday,1984), there wererealisticallypossiblealternativesto and Niko lai Bukharin (New York:Norton, 1980); Stalin's policies in the early 1930s, notably none have yet been published the nor- inRussia. For revolutionary, gradualist line of development Western students of Russia, these writings had en- the visaged by Lenin in his last articles andespoused same interest, as the dissident historian Andrei after his death by Bukharin and his Amalrik said in his samizdat associates on essay Will the Soviet the moderate party Right, was argued by Union SurviveUntil 1984? (New York: Harper, Stephen Cohen in his Bukharin and the BolshevikRevolu- 1971), "that a fish would have for theichthyologist tion (New York: Oxford University Press, Ifit suddenly began to talk." More 1973). In such "talk," general Western historiansare divided in their inter- which made its way West after emerging in samiz- pretations of the Lenin-Stalin periodas a whole, dat, included Eugenia Ginzburg's Journeyinto the some tending to come down on the side of Whirlwind, a purge victim's memoir (New York: con- Har- tinuity of the Revolution, as SheilaFitzpatrick does court, 1967); NadezhdaMandelstam'sHope in Against Hope (New The Russian Revolution (New York:Oxford York:Atheneum, 1970); University Press, 1982), and others seeing Stalin's General Petro Grigorenko's Memoirs (New York: "second revolution" as in fundamentalsa negation Norton, 1982); the purge memoirs offoreign sur- of Lenin's "first." vivors, such as Joseph Berger's Shipwreckof a The lethal purge that Brzezinski called Generation (London: Harnill, 1971); and theStalin- "per- era reminiscences of Khrushchev himself in Khrush- manent," owing to the dynamics of totalitarianism, ended in post-Stalin Russia, whose chev Remembers (Boston: Little, Brown,1971-74), system ceased dictated after he was deposed in 1964and later to be the terroristic despotism that It became Inthe published abroad. 1930s. Consequently, the theory of totalitarianism found diminishing support in Westernscholarly Furthermore, in Khrushchev's time the censors minds. But if the "dynamics of totalitarianism"do permitted publication of such historicallyrevelatory notexplain what happened works as the writer Ilya Ehrenburg's inthe post-Lenin two-volume period, what does? One line of attackon this ques- Memoirs (Cleveland: World, 1963-67) and General tion, which found expression in the presentwriter's A. Gorbatov's Years Off My Life (New York:Nor- Soviet Political Mind (New York: Norton, ton, 1964); the latter contains the 1971), purge memoirs was psychological interpretation of Stalin and his of a military victim released to fight for Russia in need for total domination. Some scholars,such as World War II. In the West, Robert Conquestcould T.H.Rigby hardly have produced in Lenin's Government (New York: hisvaluablehistoryof CambridgeUniversityPress,1979) and Nina Stalin's purges, The Great Terror (New York:Col- Tumarkin in Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet lier, 1973), without access to the whole post-Stalin Russia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University literature of revelation. Nor would the works Press, like 1983), set about reexamining institutionsof the MosheLewin's Russian Peasants and Soviet Lenin period itself. Others applied themselves Power to (Evanston, IL: NorthwesternUniversity empirical study of institutions of the Stalin period, Press, 1968) and Alec Nove's An EconomicHistory instanced inNiels Erik Rosenfeidt's Knowledge of the USSR (New York: Penguin, 1972)have been and Power: The Role of Stalin's Secret Chancellery possible had not various Soviet historians(among in the Soviet System of Government them V.P. Danilov and N.A. ivnitsky) been (Copenhagen: allowed Rosenkilde,1978).Stillother studies,such as under Khrushchev to publish archive-basedstudies Robert Sullivan's Soviet Politics and the Ukraine on such subjects as collectivization and its back- (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962)and ground in the mid to late 1920s. Lionel Kochan, ed., The Jews in Soviet Russia Controversy has flared up and continued in third- Since1917 (London: OxfordUniversityPress, era historical writings.If a main theme of The 1970), have gone deeper into the study ofone or Gulag ArchipelagoisthatStalin'srulefulfilled another minority nation's experience in Soviet his- Lenin's tenets, Let History Judgeargues strongly tory or, as in Lowell Tillett's The Great Friendship:

1 '15 105 Soviet Historians on the Non-Russian Nationalities Soviet Novel: History as Ritual (Chicago: University (ChapelHill,NC: UniversityofNorth Carolina of Chicago Press, 1981) and S. Frederick Starr's Press, 1969), have examined the nationality prok, Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union, lem in the light of the Stalin period's resurgent 1917-1980 (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, Great Russian nationalism. 1983). Earlier ones include Edward J. Brown's Rus- The waning of the theory of totalitarianism en- sian Literature Since the Revolution (New. ark: couraged a search for new ways in Soviet histori- Macmillan, 1963) and Vera Dunham's In Stalin's cal studies. Perhaps the most promising has been Time: Middle-Class Values in Soviet Fiction (New the approach that sees the early Bolshevik revolu- York: Cambridge University Press, 1976). tionary movement as a would-be culture-transform- The history of Soviet society during and after ing movement of Marxistpersuasion, and the World War II remains a frontier for research. The society that emerged from the Revolution of 1917- military history of the war is, however, treated In 21 as a new form of culture or "political culture" in some studies, among them Matthew Gallagher's which Bolshevism's and later Stalinism's Innova- The Soviet History of World War 11 (Westport, CT: tions coexist and blend with persisting or reviving Greenwood, 1963) and Harrison Salisbury's 900 elements of pre-1917 Russian culture, such as the Days (New York: Avon,1969), an account of ruler cult, a state religion (new version in "Marxism- Leningrad under German siege. On the diplomatic Leninism"),a bureaucraticallycentralizedad- history of the war period, a major recent contribu- ministration, and imperial expansionism in foreign tion is Vojtech Mastny's Russia's Road to the Cold policy. The cultural approach finds reflectionin War: Diplomacy, Warfare, and the Politics of Com- Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Cultural Revolution in Rus- munism, 1941-1945 (New York: Columbia Univer- sia 1928-1931 (Bloomington. IN: Indiana University sity Press, 1979). Press, 1978); Robert C. Tucker, ed., Stalinism: Es- The history of Soviet foreign policy after Lenin is says in Historical Interpretation (New Yo-k: Norton, controversial terrain. Scholars remain of several 1977); and Abbott Gleason, Richard Stites, and minds on Stalin's foreign policies in the 1930s, Peter Kenez, eds., Bolshevik Culture: Experiment some seeing him working from early on toward the and Order in the Russian Revolution (Bloomington, accord with Hitler consumated in August 1939, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985). others seeing him committed to the collective A point in favor of the cultural approach (al- security against fascism until the Munich agree- though Solzhenitsyn and some Western historians ment of 1938 made evident its failure, and still would disagree) is that some representatives of it others seeing him keeping his options open as see Soviet and especially Stalinist Russia as in long as possible. Louis Fischer's Russia's Road foreign as well as domestic affairsthe successor- From Peace to War: Soviet Foreign Relations 1917- state of imperial Russia. According to the cultural 1941 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1969), &I Hoch- interpretation offered in mycontributionto man's The Soviet Union and the Failure of Collec- Stalinism: Essays inHistoricalInterpretation, tiveSecurity(1934-1938)(Ithaca,NY:Cornell Stalinism was Russian nationalBolshevism, an University Press,1984), and Jonathan Haslem's amalgam of Bolshevik revolutionism and Great Rus- The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective sian nationalism. Because of the latter component, Security in Europe, 1933-39 (New York: St. Martin, certain features of the tsarist past and of tsarist 1984) address the subject. Its continuing controver- policy were deliberately resurrected in Soviet guise. siality may be seen in the exchange between Ken- should be noted, however, that some scholars in nan,Dallin,PhilipGillette, Teddy Uldricks, and the second history-writing era pioneered the break- myself on Stalin's foreign policy of the 1930s in ing down of the idea of a total cleavage between The Slavic Review (December 1977). pre- and post-1917 Russia. Two notable examples The great controversy of recent decades on the areNicholas VakarinThe Taproot of Soviet origins of the post-1945 Cold War has produced Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1961), a such a profusion of scholarly writings that even a studyoftheinfluenceoftraditionalRussian selective listingis not feasible here. Perhaps the peasant culture on Soviet historical development, best course is to begin with George F. Kennan's and CyrilE.Black, whose edited volume, The "X" article on "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" Transformation of Russian Society: Aspects of So- (Foreign Affairs, July 1947), from which the con- cial Change Since 1861 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard troversy took itsrise. and then proceed to the University Press, 1961), offered studies in the com- retrospective view in chapters 9-19 of his Memoirs: parative history of the latertsarist and Soviet 1925-1950 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), chapters 1- periods. Finally,inall three history-writing eras, 7 of his Memoirs: 1950-1963 (Boston: Little, Brown, scholars have studied the history of Soviet artistic 1972), and his book Russia and the West Under culture under Lenin and Stalin. Among recent con- Lenin andStalin(NewYork: New American tributions we may mention Katerina Clark's The Library, 1960).

106 .1 0 6 Despite the enormous literature on the Cold To conclude on a self-critkmi rwte on behalf of War, the history of Stalin's foreign policy in 1945-53 Russian studies as a profession, there isstill no remains to be written. Marshall Shulman's Stalin's adequate, much less definitive, biography of Lenin, Foreign PolicyReappraised (Boulder, CO: although David Shub'sbrief Lenin (New York: Westview Press,1963) and William Taubman's 1948) and Louis Fischer's more ambitious The Life Stalin's American Policy: From Entente to Détente of Lenin (New York: Harper Colophon, 1964) are of to Cold War (New tiork:Norton,19C2)are, use, and the specialized literature on Lenin and his however, substantial contributions on this subject. time is large. Eighty-five years after the rise of Bol- Finally, a question still in dispute is whether Stalin shevism and seventy years afterIts coming to was moderating his foreign policy position in 1951- power in the Russian Revolution, there is still some- 53, as proposed by Shulman in the volume just thing mysterious about Lenin as its leader. cited, or was still relentlessly engaged in the Cold War, as argued in "The Stalin Heritage in Soviet Policy" (The Soviet Political Mind, 2nd ed., chapter 4).

1 il 7 107 THE SOVIET UNION FROM 1953 TO THE PRESENT by Vojtech Mastny

The Soviet Union's fundamental conservatism experiment in rewriting an earlier, classical study of tends to blur the extent and significance of the the Stalinist system of government from a post- change that the country has undergone during the Stalinist perspective, positing a substantial degree period since the death of Stalin. Does what has of pluralism In Soviet politics. Gordon Skilling and changed or what has remained the same provide a Franklyn Griffiths,inInterest "zroups in Soviet better clue to the understanding of that period? Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, The answer to the question ultimately depends on 1971).stress the growing importanceofsuch value judgment perhaps the reason for the lack of groups since the end of the one-man dictatorship. any comprehensive scholarly study contrasting the More up-to-date is The Dynamics of Soviet Politics, post-Stalin era with that immediately preceding. A Paul Cocks, ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer- useful substitute is the collection of essays edited sity Press, 1976). by Stephen F. Cohen, The Soviet Union Since F'reign policy since 1953 lc the one area of Stalin (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, Soviet development where historical studies are the 1980). Nor is there a substantive n -rative account most readilyavailable.Foremost among those of Soviet history since 1953; the best brief one is covering nearly the entire period Is the last third of presented in chapters of Donald W. Treadgold's Adam Ulam's Expansion and Coexistence (New standard textbook, Twentieth Century Russia (Bos- York: Praeger, 1974), a perceptive history rich in in- ton: Houghton Mifflin, 1981). However, the ample terpretation, though limited in documentation. Ulam monographicliteraturebearing on the different sees the successive Soviet leadersstrivingfor aspects of the change enables a student of Soviet more power and influence abroad, yet advancing affairs to form an intelligent judgment. less because of their strength than because of their The best general introduction to the study of ability to take advantage of the mistakes and weak- contemporary Russian society is by Wright Miller, nesses of their adversaries. Ulam's chronological The Russians as a People (New York: Dutton, sequenceiscalled Dangerous Relations (New 1961). Since Its publication, several well-informed York: Oxford University Press, 1983). Thomas W. and readable books by American journalists who Wolfe's Soviet Power in Europe, 1946.1970 (Bal- spent several years in the countryHedrick Smith, timore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970) Robert Kaiser, David Shipler offer good, though stresses the military aspects of Soviet policy In the necessarily impressionistic,portrayals of the in- region that remains crucial to security as Moscow creasingly complex Soviet society as it has evolved understands It. An excellent, wide-ranging introduc- during the quarter of a century since Stalin's death. tion to the study ofpost-StalinSoviet foreign They all combine warm sympathy for the Russian policy, drawing on selections from leading authors, people with a critical perception of the rigidities of Is The Conduct of Soviet Foreign Policy, Erik P. the Soviet system. These works are Smith's The Hoffman and Frederic Fieron, eds. (New York: Al- Russians (New York: Quadrangle/New York Times dine, 1980). Book, 1976), Kaiser's Russia: The People and the In view of the highly centralized nature of the Power (New York: Atheneum, 1976), and Shipler's Soviet system, the transition from one-man tyranny Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams (New York: to oligarchy has been the single most important New York Times Book, 1983). political issue since Stalin's death.It has been Politics is what distinguishes the Soviet Union analyzed by Seweryn Bigler in Stalin's Successors most profoundly from the rest of the world. Al- (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980) am' though a few political scientists profess that Com- in two older studies by Myron Rush, How Com- munism does not substantially distinguish it from munist States Change Their Rulers (Ithaca, NY: other societies at comparable stages of develop- Cornell University Press, 1974) and Michel Tatu, ment, most scholars strive to grasp the difference. Power in the Kremlin (New York: Vil(!ng, 1968). The Chalmers Johnson, ed., Change in Communist Sys- latter, by a French journalist with long Moscow ex- tems (Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversityPress, perience, is a classic of sophisticated "Kremlinol- 1970) deals with the distinctiveness of post-Stalin ogy"an unjustly disparaged method of making Communist regimes in general; John S. Reshetar, deductions from seemingly trivial,but frequently The Soviet Polity (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978), portentous, changes in Soviet p otocol and sym- focuses specifically on the Soviet regime. Merle bolism. Power and Policy in the USSR by Robert Fainsod and Jerry Hough's How the Soviet Union Conquest (New York:St.Martin's Press, 1961), Is Governed (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University anotier skilled "Kremlinologist," includes the most Press, 1979) is an interesting though controversial

109 Illuminating account of the power struggle in the Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc (Cambridge, early years after Stalin's death. MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), remain useful. The period since 1953 may be subdivided in ac- OndifferentaspectsofattemptedSoviet cordance with the changes in the top leadership reforms, particularly in the early 1960s, there are the Khrushchev decade until 1964, the subsequent specializedstudies,someofthemextending Brezhnev era, and the post-Brezhnev period (which beyond the Khrushchev period. These include Con- can be judged to have already begun in the late flict and Decision-Making in Soviet Russia, by Sid- 1970s when the General Skr.:retary became progres- ney Ploss(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversity sively incapacitated). George Breslauer in Khrush- Press, 1965) and Khrushchev and the Develop- chev and Brezhnev as Leaders (Boston: Allen and ment of Agriculture, by Martin McCauley (New Unwin, 1982), compares the ruling styles of the two York: Holmes and Meier, 1976), both on agricul- dominant Soviet statesmen of recent times. Of the ture; KarlRyavec'sImplementationofSoviet two, Khrushc,,ev appears the more complex and Economic Reforms (New York: Praeger, 1975), on colorful, thanks also to his having left to posterity industrial reform; and Thane Gustafson's Reform in two books of memoirs Khrushchev Remembers Soviet Politics (New York: Cambridge University (NewYork: Bantam, 1971)andKhrushchev Press,1981), on policies concerning land and Remembers: The Last Testament (Boston: Little, water management. How the Stalinist terror af- Brown, 1974)a unique and indispensable source fected the administration of Soviet justice is shown for the understanding of the man and the period. in Justice in the USSR: An Intrepretation of Soviet The memoirs can be supplemented by the insight- Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ful diary of the Yugoslav Ambassador to Moscow, 1981) and George Fetters Justice in Moscow (New Vellko MiCunov16, who was on close terms with York: Simon and Schuster, 1964). The Khrushchev Khrushchev; see The Moscow Diary (Garden City, era was one of great hope and renewed creativity NY: Doubleday, 1980). in cultural life, as described in Maurice Friedberg, A Studies of this atypical Soviet statesman include Decade of Euphoria (Bloomington,IN:Indiana Khrushchev: A Career,by Edward Crankshaw University Press, 1977). (New York:Viking,1966) Khrushchev and the From the Western point of view, the most strik- Soviet Leadership, by Carl Linden (Baltimore, MD: ing hallmark of the post-Stalin leadership in the Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966); and Khrus- 1950s and early 1960s was its aggressive spirit of chev,by Roy Medvedev (New York:Anchor dynamism and innovation in foreign policy. As a Press/Doubleday, 1983), the last author a well- first introduction to the study of this period, which known Soviet dissident. Roger Pethybridge in A is in need of a reassessment similar to that pre- Key to Soviet Politics (New York: Praeger, 1962), viously accorded to the Cold War, David Dallin's dissects the 1957 attempt by Khrushchev's rivals to Soviet Foreign Policy After Stalin (Philadelphia: Lip- unseat him. Contemporaries, impressed by Khrush- pincott, 1961) remains indispensable. The chang- chev's dynamism and apparent sense of purpose, ing Soviet views of the international environmer were prepared to credit him with a design; later as- implying acceptance of an international order in sessments tended to agree with his Soviet critics in which capitalism and socialism co-exist side by Judging him as something of an irresponsible side, are explained in William Zimmerman's Soviet gambler. More recently, his historical stature has Perspectives on International Relations, 1956-1967 been rising; he appears as a great improviser, well (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969). aware of his country's real problems even if unable On the transformation of the security doctrine to solve them. under Khrushchev, there is an authoritative Soviet The main theme of the Khrushchev era is that of accountbyMarshalV.D.Sokolovsky,Soviet reform and its viability. in the perennial struggle be- Military Strategy (New York: Crane, Russak, 1975); tween the friends and foes of reform that per- a perceptive American analysis is provided by Her- meates Russian history, Khrushchevfigures bert S. Dinerstein, War and the Soviet Union (New prominently as the quintessentialreformer.His York:Praeger,1976). Two aspectsofSoviet famousde-Stalinizationspeech,analyzed by militarypolicyunder Khrushchev disarmament Bertram Wolfe as a partial improvisation, was a and strategic deception are analyzed in Khrush- great turning point in Soviet history.It helped to chev and the Arms Race, by Lincoln Bloomfield precipitate the1956 crisisinEastern Europe, and others (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966), and which, even if overcome, eventually forced Mos- in Myron Rush's and Arnold Horelick's Strategic cow to rely in its relations with its satellites less on Power and Soviet Foreign Policy (Chicago: Univer- "prescription" (i.e., what they must do), and more sityof Chicago Press,1966),respectively. The on "proscription" (i.e., what they must not do). On former is more inclined than the latter to credit the Soviet relations with Eastern Europe during this Khrushchev with a genuine desire to achieve limita- first period of upheaval, the relevant chapters of tions of armaments.

110 1 0 9 The policy precipitated two major international in particular, William E. Griffith's The Sino-Soviet crises -in Berlin and in Cuba-which are the sub- Rift (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1964), or Herbert ject of three methodologically important, but con- J.Ellison,ed., The Sino-Soviet Conflict (Seattle, troversial monographs. In comparing both the 1948 WA: University of Washington Press, 1982). Few and the 1961 Berlin crises, Hannes Adomeit tries to share Harrison Salisbury's view, explicated In War determine the general patterns of what he refers to Between Russia and China (New York: Norton, in the title of his book as Soviet Risk-Taking and 1969), thatit would necessarily result in an open Crisis Behavior (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1982). military confrontation. Unlike Adomeit, Robert Slusser writes of The Berlin Crisis of 1961 Historical literature of the Brezhnev period is still (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins very scarce. John Domberg has written a biographi- University Press, 1973) as being determined by a cal study, Brezhnev: The Masks of Power (New struggle between Khrushchev and his rivals in the York: Basic Books, 1974). Much more enlightening Politburo. Finally, in his Essence of Decision (Bos- than his own, stilted Memoirs (Elmsford, NY: Per- ton: Little, Brown, 1971), Graham T. Allison at- gamon Press, 1982) are accounts by some of the tempts to apply to the Soviet leadership his statesmen who frequently dealt with him, notably bureaucratic paradigm, according to which policies Henry Kissinger's White House Years ( Boston: Lit- are the outcome not of perceptions of national in- tle, Brown, 1979). The memoirs of the high-ranking terest rationally arrived at, but of a largely spon- Soviet defector, former Deputy Secretary General taneous interplay of the parochial interests of dif- of the United Nations, Arkady Sheychenko, are a ferent segments of the bureaucracy. first-rate historical source, comparable in impor- Khrushchev initiated the expansion of Soviet in- tance for the Brezhnev years to the iv1I6unovi6 fluence in the Third World that his successors then diary for the Khrushchev years; see Breaking with pursued in different directions. The Soviet Union Moscow (New York: Knopf, 1985). and the Developing Nations, edited by Roger The main themes of the Brezhnev era are the Kanet (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University rise and decline of détente and the incipient crisis Press, 1974), surveys Soviet involvement indif- of the Soviet bloc after a period of temporary con- ferent parts of the world; Robert Legvold's book solidation.In the early years of the Brezhnev focuses on SovietPolicyin West Africa regime, the Soviet Union succeeded in containing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), the upheaval in Czechoslovakia. Applying the A- a new area of Soviet penetration in the 1960s. The lison model to the analysis of Soviet decision- extent of Moscow's commitment to the Arab cause making at that time, hi Valenta views the Soviet in the Middle East, where the Soviets invested decision not to intervene reversed within a month most of their money and prestige in Egypt, has as a result of a shift in the precarious consensus been a subjectofcontroversy; see AlvinZ. within the Politburo; his view is presented in Soviet Rubinstein, Red Star on the Nile (Princeton, NJ: Intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968 (Baltimore, Princeton University Press, 1977). In Arms for the MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979). Karen A.-abs (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Dawisha discusses theinterventionwithinthe Press, 1975), Jon Glassman shows the fundamen- broader context of Soviet foreign policy in The tally opportunistic nature of Soviet policy, aimed at Kremlin and the Prague Spring (Berkeley, CA: supporting the Arabs enough to exacerbate their University of California Press, 1984). J.F. Brown's conflict with Israel, thus perpetuating their need for Relations Between theSoviet Union andIts Soviet aid, but never enough to become victorious. The memoirsof prominent Egyptian journalist Eastern European Allies (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1975) describes the subsequent strengthening of Mohammed Heikal, entitled The Sphinx and the the Soviet hold on Eastern Europe as an example Commissar (New Ycrk: Harper and Row, 1978), of Moscow's successful pursuit of the simultaneous provide unique insights into Moscow's decision- goals of "cohesion" and "viability." In Soviet In- making and confirm the strict limitations of its back- fluence in Eastern Europe (New York: Praeger, ing of any Third World client. 1981), Christopher Jones documents the extent of Among the issues that accounted for Khrush- control that the Soviet Union was able to achieve chev's downfall, the opening rift between the Soviet over the Eastern European military. The normaliza- Union and China figured prominently. Even before tion of relations with West Germany and its reemer- the rift came into the open, it had been diagnosed gence as Moscow's most important trading partner in Donald Zagoria's classic study, The Sino-Soviet in the West during the 1970s has been analyzed by Conflict, 1956-61 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer- Angela Stent in From Embargo to Ostpolitik (New sityPress,1962), which examines Communist York: Cambridge University Press, 1982). "esoteric communication," analyzing the evolution A good, compact account of post-Khrushchev of the idcological differences between Moscow and Soviet foreign policy in different parts of the world Beijing. Most authors consider the rift irreparable; is Robin Edmonds' Soviet Foreign Policy: The

1 1 0 111 Paradox of Superpower (New York: Oxford Univer- Europe (New York: Crane, Russak, 1976); and sity Press, 1975). Moscow's pursuit of detente with ChristopherBertram,ed.,Prospects of Soviet the United States has produced many studies. Power in the 1980s (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, Some of these have been sympathetic: Walter C. 1980). The thesis that the Soviets built their military Clemens, The USSR and Global Interdependence machhe as a tool for the better exploitation of (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, whatever favorable opportunities for the expansion 1978); Morton Schwartz, Soviet Perceptions of the of their power and influence may occur tends to be United States (Berkeley, CA: University of California supported by the reasoning of their own spokes- Press, 1978); and Alexander George, ed., Manag- personsfor example, Admiral Serge! G. ing U.S.Soviet Rivalry (Boulder, CO: Westview Gorshkov, the architect of the modem Soviet navy Press, 1983). Most of these studies are, however, and author of a book entitled The Sea Power of the critical. Among the most incisive of these are Wil- State (New York: Pergamon Press, 1979). liam E. Griffith, ed., Soviet Empire: Expansion and As the Brezhnev era drew to a close, the internal Détente (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1976) weaknesses of the Soviet system reemerged on a and John Lenczowski, Soviet Perceptions of U.S. new level, where satisfactory solutions seemed ForeignPolicy(Ithaca,NY:CornellUniversity more difficult than before. The issues began to be Press,1982).Thelatterisacounterpartof addressed in the growing literature of dissent a Schwartz's book from a conservative point of view, phenomenon which, though subject to recurrent emphasizing that the interests the members of the repression, became nevertheless a permanent fea- Soviet oligarchy had in commonnamely, the ture of the post-Stalin political scene. Writings by preservation and expansion of their powerfar out- the dissidents represent a wide political spectrum weighed any putative differences between "hawks" ranging from neo-Marxism (Roy Medvedev) to and "doves." The most detailed is Raymond Gar - liberalism (Andrei Sakharov) and religious conser- thoff's monumental study of U.S.-Soviet relations at vatism (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn). Among the exten- the time of détente, Détente and Confrontation: sive Western literature about Soviet dissent are American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan Rudolph L T6kes, ed., Dissent in the USSR (Bal- (Washington,DC:BrookingsInstitution, 1985). timore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975); Harry Gelman traces therelationship between Frederick C. Barghoom, Détenteand the Soviet internal politics and détente's collapse in Democratic Movement in the USSR (New York: The Brezhnev Politburo and the Decline of Détente FreePress,1976); andconcerning disturbing (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984). nationalist and authoritarian opposition trends The assessment of the vast expansion of Soviet AlexanderYanov, The Russian NewRight military power during the period of détente has (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978). been particularly controversial. While few authors Most Western authors consider the Soviet sys- question the evidence of a military build-up well in tem outdated and incapable of keeping up with the excess of any reasonable defense requirements, West without radical reform; they differ about the disagreements persist about itsextent, the es- feasibility of such a reform. The declining growth timatesof which have sometimes been exag- rates, low produc ivity, and dependence on the gerated by dubious calculations. The interpretation West for advanceu technology have been amply of Moscow's motives for expandingitsmilitary documented by Abram Bergson, in Productivity in might precisely at the time of diminishing interna- the Soviet System (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ur,. er- tional tensionhave ranged from a presumed sity Press, 1978); Joseph S. Berliner, in The Innova- design for military superiority in quest of world tion Decision in Soviet Industry (Cambridge, MA: domination to the thesis that the Soviets were drift- Harvard University Press, 1976); and Philip Han- ing,partlyinresponsetoWesterndefense son, in Trade and Technology in Soviet-Western programs, in a never-ending pursuit of marginal ad- Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, vantage and eiusive security. 1981). Whether the effect of these deficiencies and The best introductions to he ongoing debate of the Soviet Union's growing economic interdepen- are provided in Gerald Segel and John Baylis, eds., dence with the rest of the world is making its Soviet Strategy (Montclair, NJ: Allenheld, Osmun, leaders more or less accommodating remains un- 1981) and David Holloway, The Soviet Union and clear, however. Technology transfer between East the Arms Race (New Haven, CT: Yale University and Westthe subject of a book of that title by Press, 1983). Other important books include Har- Eugene Zaleski and Helgard Weinert (Paris: OECD, riet F. Scott and William F. Scott, The Armed For- 1980) and several otherbookshas been ces of the USSR (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, defended as a means of inducing Moscow to ac- 1981); Stephen S. Kaplan, ed., Diplomacy of Power cept Western economic concepts and procedures, (Washington,DC: BrookingsInstitution,1981); thus facilitating mutual understanding; alternately, it RichardPipes andothers,Soviet Strategyin has been condemned as a hidden subsidy of an im-

112 placable enemy. Nor arescholarsunanirne.u., the extensive research reports prepared reguarly about the ability of the Soviet system to spur scien- by the staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in tificinnovation without substantial aid from the Munich and is published by Duke University Press, West; the political price,ifany, that the Soviet Durham, NC. Union may be willing to pay for such aid remains Even before the period of leadership weakness correspondingly vague. Two monographs have ex- that dates from the late 1970s and became par- amined the crucial linkages relevant to technologi- ticularly pronounced under General Secretaries cal growth:Loren Graham'sScienceand Andropov and Chemenko, predictions of an im- Philosophy in the Soviet Union (New York: Knopf, pending internal crisis of the Soviet Union had 1972) and Bruce Parrott's Politics arid Technology been made.In1981, the well-known dissident in the Soviet Union (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Andrei Amalrik posed in the title of his book the ar- 1981). resting question, Will the Soviet Union Survive until The social problems of the Soviet state, exacer- 1984? (New York: Harper, 1971). Although the bated in the 1970s, have been studied by Western question was eventually answered in the affirm- scholars from incomplete and distorted data made ative, a growing literature has focused on the ac- meaningful by skillful extrapolation. Mervyn Mat- cumulation of long-term problems that the Soviet thews' Class and Society in Soviet Russia (New system seems structurally incapable of tackling; York: Walker, 1972) and Privilege in the Soviet the effort of the Gorbachev regime to do so suc- Union (London: Allen and Unwln, 1978) examine ceeded mainly in keeping them very much on the the rampant socialinequality inthe ostensibly agenda. socialistsociety. Walter Connor's Deviance in Prominent among the analyses of Soviet decline SovietSociety:Crime,Delinquency andAl- is the essay by Robert C. Tucker, "Swollen State, coholism (New York: Columbia University Press, Spent Society: Stalin's Legacy to Brezhnev's Rus- 1972) focuses on the increasingly conspicuous sia,"in Foreign Affairs (Winter 1981-82). Robert manifestations of anti-social conduct. A book by Wesson, in The Aging of Communism (New York: Christopher Davis and Murray Feshbach, Rising In- Praeger, 1980) and The Soviet Union :' Looking to fant Mortality in the USSR (Washington, DC: U.S. the1980's(Millwood,NY: KrausInternational, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1980), dwells on the unmistakeable signs of decay. 1980), calls attention to a startling trend unique A minority of Western experts (Richard V. Burks, among industilalized nations. Dorothy Atkinson Ernst Kux) believe that a severe crisis of the Soviet and others, Women in Russia (Stanford, CA: Stan- Union might be imminent;othersconcede a ford University Press, 1977), is the beet on that proliferation of symptoms of such a crisis but weighty subject. The potentially explosive refrain from any prediction of timing in regard to its nationality questions in the Russian-dominated mul- progress. The leading American experts who con- tiethnic state are explored in Helene Carrere d'En- tributed to the volume, After Brezhnev, edited by causse, Decline of an Empire (New York: Harper, Robert F. Byrnes (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univer- 1981). sity Press, 1983), credit the Soviet Union with an al- From 1983 onward, the most topical issues of most inexhaustible capacity to muddle through and Soviet development have been analyzed annually consequently foresaw no dramatic change in the in Soviet/East European Survey, edited by Vojtech near future. The course of events under Gorbachev Mastny, with an interpretive introduction by the proved the seemingly realistic prediction wrong. editor. The publication is based on selections from

1 2 113 INDEX

Addison, Joseph-34 Berger, Joseph-105 Adler, Friedrich -55 Bergson, Abram-112 Adomeit, Hannes, -111 Beria, Lavrentii P.-68 Afghanistan-73 Berlin blockade (1948)-65, 109 Agapetus-19 Berlin crisis (1961)-70, 109, 111 Agrarian reform-53; Lenin on-54 Berlin, Isaiah- 93 Aksyonov, Vasily-7 Berliner, Joseph S. -112 Albania - 70 Berry, Lloyd- 82 Alef, Gustave-84 Bertram, Christopher-112 Alexander 1-37. 91 Besancon, Alain-94 Alexander 11- 46, 87 Bessarabia, Nazi-Soviet nonagression Alexander 111-41 pact and-63 Maier, Seweryn109 Allen, W.E. D. -81, 88 Biliington, James-82, 93 Allison, Graham T.-111 Birnbaum, Henryk 85 Alive*rth, Edward-88 Black, Cyril E. -106 Ameorik, Andrei-105, 113 Blitzkrieg (1940)-63 American Relief Administration (ARA)-58,62 Bloody Sunday-49-50, 97 American Revolution-90 Bloomfield, Lincoln-100 Andropov, luri- 74-75, 113 Blum, Jerome-84, 87 Angola-73 Bogoliubskii, Andrei-12 Anti-Semitism-65; see also Jews Bohachevskii-Chomiak, Martha-95 Anweiler, Oskar-97 Bolshevik party (Communist party after Archibald, L - 91 1918)-57, 100-101; leadership of-53; on revolutionary Aristocracy, see nobility terror-54; Revolution of 1905 and-97 Aristotle-35 Bolshevism, or Bolsheviks-49-50, 62, 97-101, Armenia--11,88 103-105; in the Revolution of 1905-50; labor Armstrong, John -103 union elections and-52; and the Soviets inthe Ascher, Abraham-30, 43, 45, 94, 97 Revolution of 1917-53-54; the Treaty of Atkinson, Dorothy-113 Austria-69 Brest-Litovsk and,-53; in elections to the Austrian State Treaty-69 constituent assembly-53; elimination of Mensheviks and-54; use of nationalism Autocracy-11; Muscovite society and-14-17,19, by-54; Berdyaev on-57; civil wav, Russian, 79; in Time of Troubles-15-16; Oprichnina and emissaries in the outlying and -16; weakness of the Church and -21; republics-59; "Right deviationists" Tatar yoke and-14; Peter the Great among -59; Stalin's Great Terror and-63 and - 88 -89; collapse of -97-99 Bonnell, Victoria E.-97 Auty, Robert-90 Bowit, John-94-95 Avrich, Paul -84 Bowman, Herbert93 Avtorkhanov, A.A. -104 Brandt, Willy-58 Awakum - 81 Braude!, Fernand-5 Axelrod, Paul-42 Breslauer, George -110 Brezhnev, Leonid I. - 68, 70-75, 110-112 Backus, Oswald-85 Brest-Litovsk Treaty (1918) -53 Bakunin, Michael -38-40, 95 Brown, Edward J.-106 Barbaro, Josafa- 81 Brown, J.F. -111 Barghoom, Frederick C.-103, 112 Brzezinski, Zbignicw- 104-105, 110 Barmine, Alexander-103 Bukharin, Waal -53, 59-60, 105 Baron, Samuel H.-82, 94 Bulavin, revolt of-13 Baylis, John-112 Bulgaria -65 Beccaria, Cesare-34 Burks, Richard V. -113 Beck, F.-104 Bushkovitch, Paul-84 Belinskil, Vissarion -38-39, 95 Byrnes, Robert F.-113 Belskiis,- 17 Byzantium-4, 14-15, 84 Belorussia, or Belorussians-13, 79,84 Bely, Andrei -95 -96 Cadets, see Constitutional Democrat Party Berdyaev, Nicholas- 35 -36, 57-58, 93-95,103 Carpini, John de Plano-81

115 1 13 Carr, E.H. -53, 93, 101. 104 Cumans. see Polovtsians Carrere d'Encausse, Helene -113 Czechoslovakia-65, 68, 70-71, 109 Catherine 11-89-90; Westernization and -27-28, 34-35; enlightened absolutism of -34-35; the Dallin, Alexander-64, 104, 106 Church and-89; development of civil society Dallin, David-104, 110 and-90 Dan, Fedor-93-94 Central Committee, Communist Party-60, 62 Daniels, Robert V. -103 Chaadaev, Peter-37-38, 40, 94 Danilov, V.P. -105 Chamberlin, William H.-99-100, 103 Davis Christopher-113 Cheka -53 Dawisha, Karen-111 Chekhov, Anton-95 Decembrist Rebellion-37, 90-91 Cherkasskiis17 Descartes, Rene-33 Chemenko, Konstantin -74-75, 113 Detente-112; Krushchev and-69; Brezhnev Chemiaysky. Michael-15, 82-84, 94 and - 71-72 Chemyshevsky, Nicholas-39-40, 57, 95 Deutsch, Lev- 42 China-12, 66, 70-72, 82, 111 Deutscher, Isaac -104 Chingisid empire-13-14 Dewey, Horace-81 Christoff, Peter-94 Dinerstein, Herbert S.-110 Cliurchill, Winston-65 Dmytryshyn, Basil-81 Cities-84; in Kievan Rus'- 17; in Muscovy-17 Dobroliubov, Nicholas-39, 95 Clans, social organization of -6, 17 Dcigorukovs- 17 Clark, Katerina - 106 Donnely, A.S.-85 Clemens, Walter C.-112 Donskoi, Prince Dmitr11-80 Cocks, Paul-109 Domberg, John-111 Cohen, Stephen F. -105, 109 Dostoevsky, Fedor-37, 95 Collective farms, Stalin's conception of-62; under Duma -49-51, 98 Nazi occupation-64 Duma, Boiar- 17-18 Collectivization-61, 105 Dunham, Vera-106 Comintern-58-59 Commissariat of Nationality Affairs-60 Edie, James-94 Commune, peasant-6; in Kievan Rus'- 18; in Edmonds, Robin-111 Muscovite state-21-22, 25-26; process of Egypt-72, 109 Westernization and-27; Slavophiles on -40, Ehrenburg, Ilya-105 Herzen on-40; Piekhanov on-41-42; Elisabeth, Empress-34, 90 emancipation of serfs and-46 Ellison, Herbert J. -111 Communism, or Communists-45, 54, 57, 69, 109; Emmons, Terence-87, 97 revolutionary terror and-55; Berdyaev on-57; Engel, Barbara-94-95 Russian nationalism and-59; Great Terror Engels, Friedrich -58 and-62; in Yugoslavia and China-66; theory Engelstein, Laura-97 of totalitarianism and-104 England, or Englishmen-2-3, 28-29, 53; see also Communist Manifesto-58 Great Britain Communist Party-97; factions within-54-55 Enlightenment-1, 8, 28-29, 90 Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Congresses Esper, T.-82 of: Tenth-54, 59; Twelfth -60; Estonia -11; Nazi-Soviet nonagression pact Seventeenth-62; Twentieth-63, 69, 104 and Connor, Waiter-113 Ethiopia-73 Constitutional Democratic Party (Cadets) -43 Eurocommunism-71 Conquest, Robert-105, 109 Contarini, Ambrogio-81 Fainsod, Merle-100, 103-104, 109 Corneille, Pierre -34 Famines-61 Cossacks-13, 16, 18, 31, 84-85, 8R Faulkner, William-33, 57 Crankshaw, Edward -110 Fedotov, r4Porge -36, 80, 84 Crimean War-46 Feifer, Get. .110 Cross, Samuel-80 Fennell, Jol.. 30-81. 83 Crummey, Robert-82, 84 Feshbach, Murray-113 Cuba-45, 70-71, 73 Fichte, Johann G. -37 Cuban missile crisis - 70-71, 109 Field, Daniel-87 Cult of personality-62 Finland, or Finns-4, 11, n1-32, 63, 79, 88; in the Winter War of 1939-40-63

116 1 1 4 Fischer, Louis-103, 106-107 Grekov, Boris-82 Fischer, Markoosha- 104 Griffith, William E.-111-112 Fischer, Ralph-81 Griffiths, Frankiyn -109 Fitzpatrick, Shelia-105-106 Grigorenko, Petro-105 Five-Year Plan (1928 -33) -103 Gromyko, Andrei A.-72 Fleron, Frederic-109 Gulag -62, 65 Florinsky, Michael T.-82, 90 Gustafson, Thane -110 Florovsky, George-19, 84 Forster, R.-88 Haimson, Leopold -94, 99 France, or Frenchmen-2, 6, 28-29, 53, 63-64 Halecki, Oskar-84-85 Franco, Francisco-63 Halperin, Charles-83 French Revolution-53, 90 Hanson, Philip-112 Freeze, Gregory L-88 Harcave, Sidney-82, 97 Friedberg, Maurice-110 Hardy, Deboran-94 Fuggers- 18 Hasiem, Jonathnn106 FOlop-Miller, Rene-103 Hassner, Pierre-71 Hegel, Georg-33, 36-38 Galai, Shmuel - 97 Heikal, Mohammed -111 Gallagher, Matthew-106 Heille, Richard-81, 84 Gapon, Father- 49 Herberstein, Sigismund -82 Garthoff, Raymond -112 Helsinki Accords (1975)-72 Gedymin dynasty-20 Herzen, Alexander-33, 38-40, 95 Gelman, Harry-112 Higgins, Henry-3, 4. 8 George, Alexander -112 Hilarion, Archbishop of Kiev-12 Georgia, or Georgians-11, 60-61, 68, 71, 81, 88 Hilger, G.-104 German Communist Party-54 Hindus, Maurice-103 German Foreign Office-99 Hitler, Adolf-63-64, 103-104, 106 German Independent Social Democratic Party-55 Hittle, J.-84 German Social Democratic Party-54 Hochman, Jiri- 106 Germany, or Germans-2, 28, 31, 37, 63-64, 68, Hoffman, Erik P.-109 99-100, 106; East Germany-65, 68, 70, 74; Holland, or Dutchmen-2-3 West Germany-69-70, 72, 109 Holloway, David -112 Gershenkron, Alexander 98 Holstein, Duke of -82 Getzler, Israel-94 Hocver, Herbert-58, 62 Gillette, Philip-106 Horelick, Arnold -110 Ginzburg, Eugenia-105 Hough, Jerry-109 Glasnost (openness), policy of-75 Howes, Robert-80 Glassman, Jthl -111 Hrushevskyl, Myhailo- 11, 85, 88 Gleason, Abbott-94, 106 Hume, David-33, 36 Godin, W.-104 Hunczak, Taras - 84 Godunov, BorisBoris-16 Hungary, or Hungarlans- 12, 17, 64, 69, 74 Gogol, Nikolal -38, 95 Hunter, Holland -105 Golden Hord9- 13.15, 19, 85 Goldfrank, David-81 laroslav the Wise-12-13 Golitsyns- 17 Ideology, Soviet-67 Gorbachev, Mikhail S. -66, 68, 74-75, 113 Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences-11 Gorbatov, A.-105 industrialization-45, 47-49, 105; Russian Marxists Gorky, Maxim-95-96 on-44; Lenin on-58; Stalin and-61; in the Gorshkov, Sergel G. -112 1930s62-63 Graham, Loren-113 intelligentsia, Russian-6, 7, 27-29, 38-41, 93-96; Gray, Camilla-94 origins of-27; emergence of- 40 -41; radical Great Britain-64, 103; see also England, or ideologies and-42-45 Englishmen Iran - 55 Great Russia, or Great Russians-2, 13-15, 20; isafahan, Saffavld -3 origins of-11-12 Italy, or Italians-2-3, 63 Great Terror-103-105; number of arrests-62; Ivan the Terrible-2, 15-16, 19, 80-81, 83 concentration camps-62; consequences Ivan III -15, 79 of - 63 ivnitsky, N.A. -105 Green, J.P.- 88

145 117 Jakobson, Roman -4 Lavrov, Peter-40, 95 Japan -64-65 Legislative Commission of 1767-34 Jews-45, 49; see also anti-Semitism Legvold, Robert -111 Johnson, Chalmers-109 Leibniz, Gottfried W.-28, 33 Jones, Christopher-111 Lenczowski, John-112 Lenin, Vladimir 1.-75, 94-95, 103-105; concept of Kaiser, Robert -109 Marxism-42-43; on the Revolution of Kalmuks-12 1905-48; Zurich speech-51-52; April Kamenev, Liev-60, 62 theses-52-53; on agrarian reform-53; on Kaminski, Andrzej -4, 21, 23, 57 workers' control-53; on ending the war with Kanet, Roger-111 Germany-54; on Cheka -53; on democratic Kant, Immanuel-33, 36 procedures-54; on War Communism-53; on Kaplan, Stephen S. -112 NEP-54; consolidation of power-55; Stalin Karpovich, Michael-82, 98 and-57, 59-60; as founder of Bolshevik Katkov, George-99 party-54; on revolution -57; Comintern Kautsky, Karl -55 and-58; political testament of -57, 59; Keenan, Edward L.-21, 25, 29, 81, 85 succession after-59 Keep, John-84, 101 Levant trade-3, 13 Kenez, Peter-106 Lewin, Moshe-105 Kennan, George-65, 106 Lewitter, L.R. - 85 KGB (State Security Committee)-74 Liberalism, or liberals-28, 34, 38, 43, 97; collapse Khan, Ayuka- 12 of autocracy and -48, 103; disagreements with Khazars-12, 79 socialists-49; in the Provisional Kheraskov, Michael-34 Government-51 Khmelnitsky uprising-13 "Liberation of Labor" - 41-42 Khovansklis-17 Liberman, Evsei - 70 Khrushchev, Nikita S.-68-69, 74-75, 103-105, Libya-73 107.109; "secret speech" of 1956-62-63; on Lincoln. Bruce-83, 91 Stalin's deportation of Ukrainians-63; rise to Linden, Carl-110 power-67-68; Otente and-69, 71; downfall Lithuania, or Lithuanians-11, 13, 16, 80-81, 84-85; of70 Grand Duchy of-19-20; 84; iiazi-Soviet Kireevsky, Ivan-95 nonaggression pact and-63 Kievan Rus' -4, 80-82; origins of-11-13; Loewe, Karl von -81 organization of society in -17-18; the Church Loeweuthal, Richard -75 in -18; patrimony of -19 Longworth, Philip-83, 85 Kirov. Sergel -62, 103 Lyons, Eugene-103 Kissinger, Henry-111 Klimas, Petras- 81 Maasa, Isaac-82 Kliuchevsky, VasIIII-80, 82-83, 91 Macarius, Metropolitan-80 Kochan, Lionel-105 Madariaga, Isabel de-91 Koenker, Diane-100 Magdeburg Law-18 Korea, North-65 Malenkov, Georgil M.-68-69 Korean War -65, 68 Major, R.H.82 Kosygin, Aleksei- 70 Malia, Martin-93 Kotoshikhin, Grigorii K.-81 Mamal, Emir-14, 80 Klrvitsky, W.G.- 103 Mam!ukes -3 Kr000tkin, Peter A.-95 Mandel, David-100 Krupskaya, Nadezhda -60 Mandelstam, Nadezhda -105 Kulaks, deportation of -61 -62 Manning, Roberta M. -98 Kurbsky, Prince Andrei -16, 81 Mao Ze Dong -66, 70-71 Kux, Ernst-113 Margaret, Jacques-6 Martov, luiii- 42 "Land and Freedom" 41 Marx, Karl -33, 36, 41, 57-58 Land Committees, in the Revolution of 1917-53 Marxism, or Marxists-7, 37,.41 -43, 93-95, 97, Lannoy, Ghillebert de-81 99-101, 103-104; concept of socialist revolution Lantzeff, George V.-85 and -45, 55; Lenin's concept of-57-59, 75; in Latvia -11; Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact Germany--54; internationalist aspect of-57; and -63 Russian nationalism and-58 Laue, Theodore H. Von-98 Masaryk, Thomas-93

118 16 Massie, R.K.-90 Nobility, or aristocracy-38; In Kievan Rus'17-18; Mastny, Vojtech -67, 106, 109, 113 in Muscovy-21; under Peter the Great- 2':- ?4, Matlaw, Ralph-95 34-35, 84; under Catherine 11-26, 35 Matthews, Mervyn -113 "Normanist" controversy-11, 81 McCauley, Martin -110 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) -69, McConnell, Allen -91 73-75 McNeill, William-83, 85 Nove, Alec-105 Medvedev, Roy A. -105, 110, 112 Novgorod-12, 19, 80; Mongol yoke and- 13; Meehan-Waters, Brenda-89 towns in-17 Mehlinger, Howard D.-98 Novikov, Nicholas-35 Menshevlsm, or Mensheviks-42, 97-99; in the Norretranders, Bjarne - 83 Revolution of 1917-50; with the Soviets-51; Nuclear Text Ban Treaty (1963)-70 elimination of -53, 57 Merezhkovsky, D.S. -91 Obolenskils- 17 Mestnichestvo, see Clans Obolensky, Dmitri -18, 84, 90 Meyendorff, John-84 O'Brien, C. Bickford-83 Meyer, A. -104 October Manifesto (1905)-43, 49, 6, Michelet, Jules-40 Old Believers-19, 30, 88; persecution of -22 Micunovic, Veljko -110-111 Olearius, Adam-82 MikhallovskII, Nicholas-36 Oprichnina-15-16, 82 Milktkov, Pave!-52, 93 Orchard E.-82 Millar, James-195 Orlov, Alexander - 104 Miller, Martin - 94 Ottoman Empire -13, 17; see also Turkey Miller, Wright-109 Mir, see Commune, Peasant Parrott, Bruce-113 Mirsky, D.S. -80, 96 Paul of Aleppo-82 Modernization; in imperial Russia-45; reforms of Paul 1-90 Stolypin -49; see also Westernization Peasantry-84, 87; in pre-Petrine Russ.a- 17-18; Molotov, Viacheslav M.-68-69 central administration and-22; under Peter the Mongol conquest -4, 12-14, 21, 80-81, 83; see Great - 24 -26; Europeanization and also Tatars emancipation of the serfs-30, 41, 45-47; Montesquieu, Charles Secondat, Baron de-34 populism and-40; Lenin on-57 Morozovs- 17 Peasants' Deputies, Soviets of -52 Moscow, Grand Principality of -12 Pelenski, Jaroslaw - 83, 85 Moscow University-35, 38, 45 "People's Will"-41 Mstislayskils- 17 Perfecky, G.-80 Muller, Gerhard- 11 Persia, or Persians-3, 13, 21 Munich Agreement (1938) -106 Peter the Great-2-3, 12, 17, 19-26, 28, 30, 57, 83, Muscovy, or Muscovites-2-4, 6, 13, 58, 60, 79-82; 87-91; ecleslastical reform of -18; reforms autocracy in-14-16, 19; the Church in-18-19, of-22-24, 33-34, 84-85; peasantry 21-22; as multinational empire- 19-20; nobility under -24-26; Europeanization under-26, 34, in -21; social stratification of -46-48 87; nobility under-34-35; the Church and-30; Mussolini, Benito-63 cultural elite under - 89 -90 Peter ill -34, 90 Napoleon 1-37, 61 Pethybridge, Roger-110 Narodnichestvo, see Populism Phillip, Metropolitan -19 Narodniki (revolutionary populists)- 53 Pierce A.-85 National socialism -104 Pinter, William M.-84 Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact (1939) -63, 103, Pipes, Richard -94, 97, 112 106 Platonov, Sergei -83 New Economic Policy (NEP) -54, 57, 62, 103 Playsic, Borivoj84 Newton, Sir Isaac-28 Plekhanov, Georgil -41-43 New York Times-6, 64 Ploss, Sidney-110 Neo-populists, see Socialist Revolutionary Party Poland, and Poles-2, 12-13, 17, 31-32, 63, 68, Nicholas 1 - 37, 89-91 73-74, 88; Kingdom of -19; Nazi-Soviet Nicholas II -49 nonaggression pact and Nicholaevsky, Boris-104 Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth-14, 16, 19, 85, Nikon, Patriarch-19, 22 88 Nixon, Richard M.-72-73 Politburo, Communist Party-69-70, 72, 109-110

119 PJoyts:ans (Cumans)-12, 80 conquest of --13; Tatar yoke and-13-14; the Porn:-..sr, Phillip- 94 Church in-18 Popov, N.-11 Rush, Myron-109-110 Populism, or oopullsts -39-40, 93-94 Russian Orthodox church-4, 11, 15, 35, 84; in Pososhkov, Ivan-34 Muscovite state-15-16, 21; origins of- 18 -19; Pravda-53, 59 Old Believers and-22; in imperial Russia-30; Pravda, concept of-36 Slavophiles on -39 Presniakov, Alexander-15-11, 83 Russian national Bolshevism-57, 64, 106 Pritsak, Omegan -83, 85 Russian Social Democratic Party-42-43 Proffer Carl -95 Russification, policy of-31, 79 Proffer, Elenda -95 Ryavec, Karl-110 Protopopov, Metropolitan Feofan- 34 Rykov, Alexel-59-60 Provisional Government (1917)-51-52, 98-99 Pugachev, revolt of -13, 88, 91 Sablinsky, Walter-97 Purges, see Great Terror St. Just-53 Pushkin, Alexander S.-35, 37, 90-91, 95 Sakharov, Andrei -112 Salisbury, Harrison -106, 111 Raba, J.-85 SALT I treaty (1973)-72 Rabinowitch, Alexander-100 SALT11 treaty (1979)-73 Racine, Jean -34 Samizdat- 104-105 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) -113 Schaplro, Leonard-54, 103 Raeff, Marc -33, 45, 87-91, 93-95 Schelling, Friedrich -37 Raleigh, Donald J.-100 Schism of the 1660s-18-19, 22, 83-84 Rasputin - 51 Scholmer, Joseph-104 Razin, revolt of -13 Schwartz, Morton-112 Raznochintsy (persons of different ranks) -39 Scott, Harriet F. -112 Read, Christopher-94 Scott, John-103 Reagan, Ronald -75 Scott, William F.-112 Red Army-58; in World War 11-60-61; after Worlr) Sebes, Joseph-82 War 11-64 Segel, Gerald -112 Reformation-2-3 Segel, Harold B.-91 Renaissance-2-3, 35 Serfdom, or serfs-24-26, 83; abolition of -29, 41, Reshetar, John S.-109 45-47; see also Peasantry Revolution of 1905-38, 42, 47-49; historiography Seton-Watson, Hugh-90 of -50, 97-98, 101 6evcenkc hor- 83-85 Revolution of 1917-20, 38, 45, 50-55; Shakhm-. -, A.A.-80 historiography of -97 -101 Shanin, f eodor -5 Riasanovsky, Nicholas-82, 90, 93 Sherbowitz, O.P.80 Rice, Martin -94 Shererietevs, -17 Rigby, T.H. -105 Shevchenko, Arkady- 111 Riha, Thomas-82 Shipler, David -109 Rogger, Hans-45, 90 Shub, David107 Romania-63, 65, 70 Shuiskii, Vasiiii- 16 Romanov, Tsar Alexis-14 rihuiskils -17 Romanov, Tsar Michael- 14, 16 bhulgin, V.V.-51 Romanov dynasty-14, 16-17 Shulman, Marshall -107 Romanticism -29, 31 Skilliitg, Gordon-109 Roosevelt, Franklin D.-65 Skrynnikov, R.G.83 Rosenfeldt, Niels E.-105 Siavophiles-38-3F., .)3-95 Rosenthal, Bernice - 94 -95 Skis- 3r, Robert -111 Rosenthal, Clifford -95 Smith, Hedrick-109 Rousseau, J.J.- 29 Smith, Robert-5 Rowney, D.K. -84 Socialism, or socialists-40, 54, 57-59, 61; Rozanov, Vasilli - 95 Plekhanov's concept of -41-42; Russian Rubinstein, Alvin Z.-111 Marxists' idea of- 42 -43; disagreements with Rurikid dynasty-11-12, 16-17 liberals-48; Lenin on the Revolution of 1905 and - 48 -49; and the Soviets-51; Stalin's concept of -59, 61 Rus' - 79-80; origins of- 11 -12, 79; Mongol "Socialism in One Country" -59

120 1 /8 Socialist Revolutionary Party-41,43; and the Tillet, Lowell-84, 105 Soviets-51; on land reform-53 Timasheff, Nicholas-103 Sokolovsky, V.D. -110 Time of Troubles-13, 15-16, 82 Soloviev, Serge(- 82 Tito, Josef Bros-66, 69, 104 Soloviev, Vladimir-95 Takes, Rudoiph L.-112 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander-105-106,112 Toisto! A.-91 Sophia-83 Tolstoy, Leo-37, 91, 95 Souvarine, Boris-103 Tomsky, Mikhail- 59-60 Soviets; in Petrograd-51; in theprovinces-52; of Totalitarianism, theory of -104-105 Peasants' Deputies-52 Trade unions-57-58 Spanish Civil War- 63 Treadgold, Donald W.-82-83, 109 Spuler, Bertold- 83 Trotsky, Leon-60, 62, 95, 99, 103-104;opposition Sputnik -69 to Stalin -59 Staden, Heinrich von-82 Trubetskois,- 17 Stael, Madame de-36 Tschizewskij, Dmitrij- 34, 80 Stalin, Joseph-2, 67-70, 74, 103-106, 109; Lenin Tucker, Robert C.-57, 94, 103,106, 113 and - 57 -59; use of Russian nationalism Tumarkin, Nina-105 by-59; Trotskyist oppositlon and-60; Turgenev, Ivan-38, 95 non-Russian nationalities and-59; succession Turkey, or Turks-3, 15, 75; Trotsky in-59;see after Lenin and-59; as student ofRussian also Ottoman Empire history-60; policy of collectivization-60-61; Kirov's assassination and-62; GreatTerror Uganda- 73 and-62-63; Hitler and-63; in WorldWar Ukraine, or Ukrainians -14, 18, 19-20,31-32, 79, 11-63-64; in post-World War II period-64-66 84-85, 87-88 Stalinism-7, 61-62, 105-108; Russian national Uiam, Adam B.-100, 109 Bolshevism and-58; departuresfrom-65-66; Uldricks, Teddy-106 in post-Stalin era-66; theory oftotalitarianism Union of Liberation-48 and-104 Union of Writers-35 Starr, S. Frederick -106 U.S. Senate-73 Steele, Richard-34 U.S. State Department-63, 104 Stent, Angela-111 United States, or Americans-45-46,63-64, 103; in Steppe, problem of the- 12-13, 79,82 World War 1-53; in World War II Stites, Richard -106 -64; Stokes, Anthony- 80 Khrushchev and-68-70; Brezhnev and-72-74; post-Brezhnev era and-74 Stolypin, Peter-49 Uroff, G.-81 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)- 75 Struve, Peter-42 Vakar, Nicholas-106 Sullivan, Robert -105 Valenta, Jiri -111 Sumarokov, Alexander-34 Varangians, see Vikings Suny, Ronald G.-100 Vasil(' ill -15, 82 Supreme Soviet-74 Veche (city assembly) -14, 20, 79 Sviatoslav-12 Venturi, Franco-93 Sweden, or Swedes-31, 88 Vernadsky, George-81-83, 85 Sysyn, Frank-85 Vietnam War-71 Vikings-7, 11-12 Tarle, E.V.-91 Vladimir-11, 18 Tatars, or Tatar influence-3-4, 8,11, 21, 79, 83; at Vlasto, A.P. -84 Muscovite court -14-15; Tatar yoke and Voltaire-29 autocracy-14; see also Mongol conquest Voznesenskii, Andrei-33 Tatishchev, Vasilii- 34 Tatu, Michel-109 Walicki, Andrzej93-94 Taubma . William- 107 Walsh, Warren- 82 Third International, see Comintern War Communism-53, 103 Third World -55, 69, 71-73, 111 Warsaw Pact-69 Thompson, John M. -98 Weber, Max-24 Thomsen, Vilhelm- 82 Weinert, Helgard -112 Tikhomirov, Mikhail-84 Weissberg, Alexander-104 Wesson, Robert-- 113

121 Westernization, or Western influence-26-31, World Warn 63-65, 103, 105-106 37-39; under Peter the Great-23, 26, 33-34, Wortman, Richard-45, 93-94 87-89; under Catherine 11-26, 34, 89; cultural aspect of-35-37, 87-90, 93 Yanov, Alexander 112 Westemizers-38, 94; populism and 40 Yemen, South-73 What Is To Be Done? (Chemyshevsky) 57, 95 Yom Kippur War-72 "What Is To Be Done" (Lenin) 41-42, 57-58; Stalin Yugoslavia-65-66, 69 and White armies-53-54 Zagoria, Donald 111 White Russia, see Belorussia Zaleski, Eugene-112 Wleczynski, J.L.83, 85 Zasulich, Vera-42 William, Robert-94 Zatonsky, V.P. 59 Wilson, Edmund 94 Zemskie Soboty (assemblies of the land) 14, 16 Witte, Sergel 47 Zemstva (Institutions of sell-government)43, 47-48 Wittfogel, Karl 83 Zenkovsky, B.J. 80 Woehrliti, William-94 Zenkovsky, S.-80 Wolfe, Bertram 100 Zernov, Nicholas-94 Wolfe, Thomas W. 109 Zhdanov, Andrei 65 Worker councils, see Soviets Zimmerman, William 110 World War 1-53-54, 59, 61, 98 Zinoviev, Grigory 60, 62

122 J20