Moderator's Introduction to the Workshop Since the Outbreak of The

Moderator’s introduction to the workshop

Since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Russia has been forced to abandon its traditional diplomatic strategy centering on European allies. Instead, it has to look east and actively promote a new Asia-Pacific strategy. Nevertheless, scholars at home and abroad have frequently questioned the continuity of Russia’s new strategy. From a historical point of view, one of the most fundamental problems in Russian state-building is the ideological swing caused by the geographical differences between the East and the West. Every seemingly accidental choice is underpinned by a profound historical tradition. Therefore, Russia’s path of state-building is unique in the development of world history and political science. Studying this issue is helpful to understand the direction of the development of the modern Russian state and the future development of Sino-Russian relations. At the workshop, Prof. Uyama Tomohiko and Associate Professor Alexander Morrison analyzed the Central Asia policy of the Russian Empire, stressing the strict control of Central Asia by the Russian Empire. As a result, the local forces and the people in Central Asia basically were obedient to the Czar in the mid and late 19th century. They did not have a special impact on the disintegration of the empire. The collapse of the central regime was the root of the disintegration of the Russian Empire. Prof. Zhang Guangxiang expounded on how the state built the economy by introducing the industrialization of Russia in the mid and late 19th century, saying the accumulation of Russian

1 capital and the promotion of industrialization were all achieved by the intervention of the state. Prof. Zhang Jianhua pointed out that “national identity” and “civic identity” is a concurrent, thorny question that goes in the same or opposite direction in the course of rapid political, economic, social and cultural transformation, giving examples of the ethnic policies of contemporary Russia. Associate Professor Dimitrii Andreev explained the institutional characteristics of Russian state-building through the development of bureaucracy in the “long 19th century” of the Russian Empire. Pang Dapeng and Zhao Huirong discussed the transformation of the contemporary Russian political system and the relationship between Russia and Europe. From the perspective of historical development, it is not accurate to identify Russia as a nation-state. Scholars at home and abroad now tend to call it an “empire.” For a country with a highly complex ethnic composition and constantly expanding geographical territory, there is no doubt that state-building occupied the first place in Russia’s history during the period of the Czar and the Soviet Union. It is exactly the aforementioned characteristics that lead to the complexity and difficulty in Russia’s state-building. An awareness of historical phenomena that shows the essence of Russian state-building is helpful to grasp Russia’s fundamental interests in diplomacy. This will help make reasonable predictions in foreign decision-making. International academic exchanges like the Broadyard Workshop (博雅工作坊) provide the public with a channel to understand Russia comprehensively and truly. They also help support the development of a Chinese national

2 strategy, and contribute to the development of the intellectual power of China’s domestic academia.

Zhuang Yu September 10, 2019

The 21st Broadyard Workshop Russia’s Choices in its Approach to ‘State-Building’ September 5, 2019 The 21st Broadyard Workshop is led by Zhuang Yu, associate professor at the Department of History of Peking University, and participated by experts and scholars from well-known universities and research institutions at home and abroad, including Moscow State University, Oxford University, Hokkaido University of Japan, Beijing Normal University, Jilin University, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Focusing on the multi-dimensional research methods and perspectives in this field, they had an in-depth discussion on the important issue of Russia’s state-building path. Qian Chengdan, director of the Institute of Area Studies, Peking University (PKUIAS), extended a warm welcome to experts and scholars from various countries as well as teachers and students attending the workshop. He pointed out that choosing “Russia’s Choices in its Approach to ‘State-Building’” as the theme of the first workshop of the new semester was significant. Russia is an important great power and a near neighbor, sharing a long border with China. Issues related to Russia have attracted close attention of academia, and are of great research value. PKUIAS frequently holds thematic workshops on specific countries and regions, inviting experts and scholars from all over the world. Such international platforms aim to promote mutual exchanges and understanding among scholars. An emerging international dialogue is the main driving force to enhance area studies. This workshop gathers

4 scholars from well-known universities and research institutions in Russia, the UK and Japan. It is hoped that these guests will often come for events, and put forward valuable suggestions for PKUIAS. Uyama Tomohiko, a professor of Central Eurasian studies with Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University, gave the first presentation, entitled “The Russian Empire’s Attitudes Toward Its Non-Russian Subjects: Between Particularism and Russian Nationalism.” There have long been different views in academia on the attitude of the Russian imperial policy toward non-Russian subjects. Some people call the empire a “prison of nations,” while others think that Russia was more racially and ethnically tolerant than other European empires. Uyama Tomohiko opposed the latter view, which dominates the historical discourse in today’s Russia, and pointed out that Russia’s Orientalistic and discriminative attitudes toward non-Europeans is in many ways as common as in other European empires. Moreover, there is another problem in both the “tolerant empire” and the “prison of nations” theory. Both tend to regard Russia’s policy toward non-Russians as basically consistent throughout the imperial period and all peoples. However, Russian policy changed greatly over time and there are stark differences in policies toward different peoples. First, policies were formulated by the Russian empire depending on circumstances of incorporation of given peoples and subsequent situations with them. Roughly speaking, those peoples who were annexed to the Russian Empire by the early

19th century and were seen as more or less developed, with the exception of Jews, were incorporated into the same soslovie (estate) system as the Russians and had nearly the same rights and obligations. Aristocrats of these peoples, most notably Poles, Baltic Germans, Tatars and Georgians, formed part of the imperial elite. Some of them converted to Russian Orthodoxy and were assimilated to the Russian nobility, while many others became pillars of imperial rule in their own regions. In contrast, peoples who were seen underdeveloped, including among others indigenous peoples of Siberia, were grouped together as inorodtsy (people of different descent), a category outside the normal soslovie system, The Kazakhs, Kalmyks, Nogais, and later annexed peoples of Turkestan were also given the status of inorodtsy, who were considered to need special treatments because of their backwardness and peculiar modes of life such as nomadic, pastoralism, hunting and gathering. Imperial authorities exempted them from military conscription, partially preserved their customary law, and adapted tax systems to local conditions. Russian policy toward inorodtsy was thus protectionist and paternalist, but at the same time was discriminatory. Notables from among inorodtsy often played important roles in establishing Russian rule in their regions but were not incorporated into the Russian nobility with some exceptions, and their privileges were reduced over time. It is important to keep in mind that the Russians were not always in an absolutely dominant position. The empire’s control of ethnic relations was largely flexible and depended on the power of the local people. The Germans in the Baltic region and

6 the Poles in Ukraine and Belarus were dominant in land ownership and cultural terms, and the Tatars had a relatively strong influence in the Volga-Ural region. The imperial power manipulated interethnic relations, sometimes using dominant peoples’ influences in regional governance, and sometimes pretended to protect weaker peoples to constrain stronger ones. Policy of constraint became particularly visible from the mid-19th century, with the independence-aspiring Poles as the main target of repression. The Jews were also perceived as a threat, and in 1835 they were put into the category of inorodtsy, which in this case meant only discrimination, not protection. Second, regional differences were important in administration of both major peoples and inorodtsy. The principles of regional administration were stipulated by the basic law of 1775, but not all of them were applied to the peripheries, and special statutes were enacted for the Caucasus, Turkestan, the Steppe Region, etc. There were also special statutes for some ethnic groups. Thus, the Bashkirs were governed by the statute about the Bashkirs, and the Kalmyks and the Kazakhs of the Inner Horde (Astrakhan province) were governed by special clauses. Cossacks and migrants were governed by still different rules, and the legal system for peripheral administration was extremely complicated. During and after the Great Reforms of the 1860s, more and more officials intended to make the administrative system of the whole empire as uniform as possible. However, it was decided on an individual basis to which regions newly introduced systems should be applied. Zemstvos (organs of local self-government) were slowly

7 introduced to selective regions, and the “universal” military service act of 1874 left a number of groups of people, including inorodtsy, exempted from conscription. There was always deviation in implementing the ideal goal of Russification. The difference between Russification and actual policy was embodied in the Christianization and military conscription in Central Asia. In Turkestan, the first governor-general Kaufman took a non-intervention approach with Islam and prohibited propagating Orthodoxy among the sedentary population in order not to antagonize “fanatic” Muslims, and subsequent governors-general largely maintained this policy. Discussions of military conscription also began in the 1860s. Although military service was widely believed to be helpful in Russifying non-Russians, most officials were opposed to conscripting Central Asians into the regular army on the basis of their low “trustworthiness” and “level of civic and cultural development” (grazhdanstvennost'), believing that their warlikeness was dangerous for Russia. In both questions, officials choose passive maintenance of stability. They were interested in discussing the pros and cons of policy measure in relation to every single region or ethnic group rather than active integration and Russification. This particularism partly derived from the character of an autocratic empire where a subjugated people were given peculiar privileges and obligations, but in the nineteenth century, quasi-academic and Orientalist discourses on ethnic characters added new meanings to particularism. Courageousness, warlikeness, trustworthiness and grazhdanstvennost' were considered to be characters of ethnic

8 groups rather than qualities of individuals. The multifaceted and particularistic character of the Russian empire, where its subjects were classified and governed by the combination of a variety of criteria (estates, confessions, regions, ethnicity, etc.), did not fundamentally change until the fall of the empire. Particularism was challenged by Russian nationalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Russian ethnic nationalism was not just popular among narrow circles of rightists as people usually think. Phrases such as “Russians First” can be easily found in official documents and the personal writings of officials. This discourse was based on a sense of crisis about rural poverty in central Russia and a growing sense that Russians were threatened by the political movement of non-Russians, especially during the 1905 Revolution. Nationalist officials claimed that non-Russians profited from particularistic policies while Russians bore too heavy a burden, and sought to remove “privileges” of non-Russians including the exemption from military service. Notably, the labor conscription of inorodtsy in 1916, a measure devised in order to lay a burden on those “untrustworthy” people during World War I while avoiding giving arms to them, provoked large-scale uprisings in Central Asia. Although Russian nationalist officials intended to strengthen the Russian state by elevating the status of Russians as the core nation, they damaged the loose integration of the empire based on particularism and fueled national movements of non-Russians. Alexander Morrison, associate professor of the History of Modern War in the History Faculty, University of Oxford,, gave

9 a presentation entitled “The Russian State in Central Asia and the Fragility of Colonial Rule.” He reviewed the course of Russian war in Central Asia for nearly 70 years starting in the 1830s. Russia continued to destroy local fragile state structures with small armies ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 members, but at the same time, they lacked a clear strategic goal as a whole, not understanding how to govern Central Asia, the largest territory that had ever been included in Russian territory. With the help of local elites, Russia successively set up five protectorates in Bukhara, Khiva and other places, but the state-building in the Turkestan region had distinct colonial characteristics. This was very different from the situation in Russia’s “core area”. First of all, there were differences in civil rights. Existing works on Russia’s rule in Central Asia often claim that the people of the conquered areas enjoyed exactly the same civil rights. For example, in his book Russia and England in Central Asia published in 1875, M.A Terent’ev, the author of the three-volume The History of the Conquest of Central Asia, proposed that the urban residents of occupied Central Asia enjoyed the same -- perhaps even greater privileges than Russian citizens in Moscow. He also asserts that such Christian cosmopolitanism reflects the strength and future of Russia. But this was not necessarily the reality. There was an undeniable difference in administrative governance between the so-called the “core” of Russia (кореннаяроссия) and the conquered colonies of Central Asia. After the reform of Westernization, concepts of civic rights and citizenship officially entered the

Russian political dictionary. Closely related to the term “citizenship” (гражданственность) is the concept of civic responsibility: whether a citizen was civilized enough to enjoy privileges or serve the country. This is similar to the developmental attitude held by many Western countries toward human nature. From this perspective, some peoples are regarded as underdeveloped or not fully developed. The supplementary provisions of the Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire issued in 1867 stipulated the prohibition of granting military titles or medals to non-Russian aristocratic military chiefs, like the Bashkirs, Kyrgyzs and Kalmyks in order to weaken their warlike tendencies. Meanwhile, the provisions proposed that the Russian Empire should gradually undermine the authority of local elites and encourage other forces loyal to Russia. How was this understanding reflected in the broader level of civic practice? After the introduction of a more liberal concept of state behavior, “civic rights,” a concept that had never previously appeared in the state-building of Russia, began to be widely mentioned. A system of local self-government known as земства in the Russian Empire period as well as judicial reforms started to be implemented. It included setting up independent, civilian and confrontational civil and criminal courts, and establishing peasant juries. But some areas were excluded from the reforms of the 1860s, such as Right-bank Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic Sea region, Arkangelsk, the Caucasus, Siberia, Central Asia and so on. After that, the reforms were partially extended, but still limited. The Right-bank Ukraine did not have “partial self-governance” until

11 around 1910. Orenburg, Stavropol and Astrakhan province did not begin to implement self-government reforms until 1913. The core area of the European part of Russia was considered to be ethnically pure Russia, with a mature aristocratic system to ensure loyalty to the country. The cities and people in this “core zone” were also considered to be mature enough in all respects to absorb new self-government systems and a more liberal judicial system. The vast majority of the areas that extended from it were excluded from the new system. It is not difficult to find that most of the regions without self-government systems, judicial reforms, or benefiting from the reforms of the 1860s, such as Poland, the Caucasus, Siberia, and Central Asia, were under the military-popular government known as Военно-НародноеУправлени, a prevailing governance model carried out in colonial areas by the Russian Empire. Among them, the military-popular rule of Turkestan and Grassland areas was unique, because the administration of these two regions was even more militarized than that of Caucasus and Siberia. There was a clear distinction between the higher and lower levels of the administration. The higher level of the administration was made up of non-local officials such as Europeans or Georgians, while the lower-level of the administration was made up of local Muslims. Similar to other colonies, officials could not be promoted from the lower-level to the higher-level administration. Local people were regarded as inorodtsy and did not have full citizenship in the Russian empire, and therefore were exempt from military service. Morrison further presented the basic picture of Russian

12 colonial rule in Central Asia from the perspectives of the taxation, judicial systems, water conservancy, irrigation and colonial knowledge, etc. In terms of taxation, Russia’s tax revenue in Turkestan was heavily dependent on the local elite. The original tax system based on assessing annual harvest was too difficult for Russian officials to control, so they switched to a fixed land tax, each time charging 10 percent of the annual harvest when it was first levied. The real value of this tax decreased year by year with inflation, and officials rarely collected all of it. Villages were re-divided by village communities (сельскиеобщества). Each village paid a certain amount of tax after assessment, and the distribution of the tax burden within the village communities was controlled by the local elite. The major tax on nomads was the “horde tax” (кибиточнаяподать) for families, which was much lower in total than the land tax levied in non-nomadic areas. In the judicial field, despite the special military courts in Turkestan to enforce Russian law, the important judicial officials of the non-nomadic population were the qadi (Muslim judge) who managed Shariah. This role was known as the bii among the nomads, an official who managed the customary laws. After the promulgation of the new Turkestan law in 1886, they were reintegrated and named “local courts” (народныеcуды), basically retaining their main functions. Russians hated the corruption of qadi and bii, but they did not have extra resources to try them in military or civilian courts, and they were also worried about strong religious opposition. Evidence shows that by the beginning of the 20th century, locals increasingly used

Russian courts to overturn the decisions of “local courts,” demonstrating the legal diversity that was common in most colonial empires. In terms of water conservancy and irrigation, the Russian colonial regime tried many times to control the distribution of water. However, a lack of understanding of local situations usually led to failed attempts. Water was still distributed according to local customs, and the local knowledge involved in the process was out of reach. Even though the Russian government issued a new law on water distribution in 1916 in an attempt to replace the local customary laws, it was only a piece of paper, and the local elite remained the key middlemen for water distribution. The Russian government could not intervene in regions they did not know and could only leave the problem of water use to the local residents themselves. During Russian colonial rule in Central Asia, a large number of farmers migrated from Russia’s central region in Europe to the vast Central Asian region, in numbers far exceeded the existing statistics. The tide of migration aroused the alarm of many people at that time. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Count Constantine wrote a report on the resettlement of peasants in the Central Asian region he governed, pointing out that it was difficult to forcibly realize the “Russification” of the population structure through migration. Compared with the locals, Russian farmers and petty bourgeoisie who were allocated land and free loans and resettled in the border areas enjoyed great privileges in terms of government relations, sowing the seeds of ethnic discord and

14 hostility. Nevertheless, Constantine’s warning was eventually ignored by higher offices in macro political and economic planning. Morrison believes that the limits of Russian power were partly a product of a lack of resources, but also of a lack of knowledge of local social and economic structures. Above all, they were based on an erroneous belief that sblizhenie (rapprochement) between rulers and ruled would come about owing to the self-evident superiority of Russian culture and civilization, which the Russians believed would (among other things) lead to the abandonment of Islam and widespread cultural Russification. When this failed to materialize it was attributed to a malevolent and irrational Islamic “fanaticism.” The colonial revolt of 1916 clearly showed that Russia’s fragile local state-building failed to effectively project its political power into the local social structure and governance system. The symbiotic relationship between nomads and settlers that existed before building the Orenburg-Tashkent railway collapsed. Violence became widespread prior to 1914. Triggered by the Russian government’s attempt to recruit “locals” from Turkestan to labor camps, a serious rebellion broke out in the summer of 1916 in Turkestan. The reason the rebellion took place in the Turkestan region rather than East Siberia or the North Caucasus is precisely because of the weak integration between Turkestan and the empire and the lack of penetration of the Russian empire into the local society. Prof. Zhang Guangxiang at the Northeast Asian Studies College, Jilin University, gave a presentation entitled “Russian

Industrial and Commercial Policy and Economic Development from the Second Half of the 19th Century to Early 20th Century.” The professor said that state-building takes place in multiple dimensions, including the political and economic dimensions. Economically this process is mainly reflected in the country’s economic, industrial and commercial policies. The economic policy of Russia from the second half of the 19th century to early 20th century suggested that Russia did not attach importance to industry, commerce, economy and heavy industry until then. Before that, Russia’s industrial base was very weak, especially its manufacturing industry. The defeat of the Crimean War made the Russian government thoroughly awaken to the importance of developing railway transportation and national industry. Given the background of the autocratic country and the economic situation at that time, Russia could not achieve the natural growth of industry and commerce guided by the market, but had to rely on economic policy to carry out top-down state intervention. During this period, it was the Ministry of Finance that played a decisive role in the overall economic policy at the national level. The far-sightedness of the minister of finance and his ability to get the support of the Czarist government and the recognition of other departments had a profound impact on Russia’s industrial and commercial policy and economic development. Zhang Guangxiang listed the main policies adopted by the government from four aspects: protective tariffs, railway construction, foreign investment and a monopoly on alcohol. He

16 said that these policies were all designed from the perspective of state intervention and state advocacy, because Russia’s underdeveloped industrial and commercial bourgeoisie was unable to undertake the historical task of economic development. This task could only be led by the state. The first aspect was a tariff policy centered on protecting national industries. The policy was implemented for a long period of time, and the specific measures underwent many changes. Starting in 1822, the implementation of the protective tariff policy raised the tariff rate from 100 percent to 600 percent, especially for commodities such as sugar, alcohol, machinery and metals. From 1822 to 1857, Russia’s industrial sector developed at a slow pace, railway construction had not yet begun, and the demand for metals was limited. In order to protect the metallurgical industry in Ural, Russia carried out a policy of excluding foreign metals. The defeat of the Crimean War led to the suspension of Russian maritime trade. Russia had to resume trade with Germany and the Austria-Hungarian Empire by actively adjusting tariffs. After the 1850s, amid the large-scale construction of railways, the demand for metals in Russia increased in a linear manner. The tariff policy to protect the metal industry backfired to hinder the further development of Russian industry at this time. Taking the tariff rate of 1857 as a transition point, a more moderate protective tariff policy implemented in Russia in 1868 was related to the liberalism of the government. After Mikhail von Reutern became the Finance Minister of the Russian Empire in 1862, he proposed that tariffs should be reduced moderately,

17 which triggered a fierce national debate on protective tariffs and free trade. In the end, Russian tariffs were cut by 25 percent to 30 percent. This was conducive to the import of machinery, metal and raw cotton, and played a positive role in the development of the industrial sector. The second aspect was the promotion of industrial development through the construction of railways. The Russian railway industry first began with the 25-kilometer railway from St Petersburg to the Tsarskoye Selo in 1836, but this line was completely experimental and was of insignificant economic and political importance. The railway from St Petersburg to Moscow built from 1843 to 1851 was of great economic and strategic significance and it shocked Russian society. Due to a war and long-term budget problems, however, although the Russian government was aware of the need to build railways, funding problems always delayed the project. In 1867, a special railway committee was established, and in 1868 a railway fund was formally established. The fund was independent of the national budget to ensure that the country could continue to build railways even in times of extreme economic difficulties. The third aspect was the policy of foreign investment. In the 112 years from 1801 to 1913, the Russian government ran a budget deficit for 82 years. This forced Russia to attract foreign investment. The Russian government established an important policy for the development of industry after the middle of the 19th century, but the Czarist autocratic system used domestic accumulation mainly for the military. The huge military expenditure caused a great burden on the national economy and

18 made the government unable to develop industry and commerce. From the 1870s until Sergey Witte became minister of finance, the Russian government imposed strict restrictions on the business activities of foreign companies in Russia. After Witte became minister of finance in 1892, he ambitiously began to plan for national industrialization. In order to stabilize the currency system, he resolutely implemented the gold standard, successfully stabilizing the ruble market. This increased the confidence of European capitalists toward investing in Russia. In addition, Russia introduced a new tariff rate in 1891, which made it more profitable to export capital than goods to Russia, thus prompting foreign investors to increase their direct investment in Russia. From 1861 to 1917, direct investment mostly appeared when domestic economic activity was stable and performing well, while indirect borrowing mostly appeared when Russia launched foreign wars. Foreign capital mainly flowed to Russian railways and joint-stock enterprises, focusing on productive investment. This included railways, metallurgy, mining, transportation and urban construction. This was conducive to the recovery of Russia’s national economy. From 1894 to 1914, as the Finance Minister, Witte implemented amonopoly on alcohol in order to increase national tax revenue and to improve people’s drinking habits and health. Although the latter aim was not achieved in the end, the first one exceeded expectations. The growth rate of national alcohol revenue was much higher than that of the national budget. Implemented by Witte, an economic policy intervened by state was of great significance to the development of Russian

19 heavy industry and the machinery manufacturing industry. During the period when Ural was the center of Russia’s metallurgical industry in the 1890s, rails, carriages and other raw materials necessary to build railways were basically imported. In 1900, however, Russia was 80 percent self-sufficient in metallurgical products. The oil industry and coal industry developed rapidly, and heavy industry, machinery manufacturing and metallurgy became the foundation of the national economy. Many Russian historians believe that Russia completed its industrialization at the end of the 19th century, and Russia reached the economic level of a moderately developed capitalist country at the beginning of the 20th century. Zhang Guangxiang said that the industrial and commercial policy depended on state support had a certain effect, but its efficiency was relatively low as the production did not accord with market needs but was arranged by the state from top to bottom and implemented as planned. This is in line with the policies of the Soviet Union, and worthy of further discussion. Prof. Zhang Jianhua at Beijing Normal University gave a speech entitled “Russian Ethnic Identity and Civic Identity: Lessons from the Soviet Union and Contemporary Russia.” After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation conducted its first census in 2002. The result showed that at least 156 ethnic groups lived in Russia, and the number rose to 193 in 2010. These new ethnic groups did not emerge out of thin air, but are an outcome of recognizing and valuing their existence in the process of ethnic development over the past eight years. This is also an outcome of Russia underlining ethnic

20 identity and ethnic development. While recognizing ethnic identity, the Russian government also recognizes that any ethnic group is qualified to have its own language and culture, as well as the accompanying value system, recognizing the right of each ethnic group to have an independent ethnic development. At the same time, the Russian government also emphasizes national identity and national progress, and stresses that citizens of the Russian Federation must identify with their first identity as citizens, be legally loyal to national sovereignty, and morally abide by national values. Shaping this “civic identity” has become an important social development goal led by the government of the Russian Federation. In this context, two pairs of seemingly contradictory concepts of ethnic/national identity, ethnic/national progress coexist in contemporary Russia. In dealing with relevant issues, the government of the Russian Federation has largely learned from the experience of the Soviet Union. For example, Chingiz Aitmatov, a famous Kyrgyz writer, was regarded as a cultural symbol of Kyrgyzstan during the Soviet period. He had three identities: the first was a Soviet intellectual cultivated from a non-Russian ethnic group in order to embody the equality among all ethnic groups in the new country. This political symbolic meaning is of great importance. The second was the Kyrgyz national intellectual. Aitmatov always claimed that he wrote literature in two languages. The third was a public intellectual and social intellectual, because some of his thoughts transcended ethnic groups and the nation, focusing on mankind

21 as a whole. Aitmatov was a good example of how Soviet Union combined ethnic/national identity and ethnic/national progress, and he was also a model that the Soviet government strove to establish. Objectively speaking, the Soviet government and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union made more mistakes than achievements on ethnic issues, and created more crises than opportunities, which eventually led to their collapse. Consequently, the Soviet government failed to properly manage the relationship between ethnic and national identities and between ethnic and national developments. The responsibility of being a socialist beacon and the halo of international proletarian obligations, as well as the consideration of national interests and the nationalism, finally resulted in a state of imbalance -- civic identity and national identity covered ethnic identity, and progress that benefitted the nation was placed before progress that benefitted ethnic groups. There are at least three reasons for these mistakes. First, the Soviet government thought that it represented the most advanced civilization and institutions. It ignored the actual social situation, and acted too hastily in many aspects. Second, the government was influenced by the long-existing struggles along inner-party lines during the whole Soviet period. Third, the country faced the external disturbances from the international environment and war. The Soviet Union placed too much emphasis on the similarities between all ethnic groups and ignored their individual characters, confusing the boundary and relationship between ethnic identity and civic identity. For example, the

Soviet Union decided Russian to be the interethnic communication language in the form of bilingual system, promoting Russian among all ethnic groups by administrative order. Economically, it carried out policies known as “regional division of labor” and “equalization,” thus harming both developed and underdeveloped areas. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union claimed with blind optimism that ethnic problems and ethnic differences had been “resolved once and for all.” There was no need for each ethnic group to emphasize its own ethnic identity or even to mark its ethnic identity on its passport. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian scholars began to reflect on this. The most representative one was Valery Tishkov, director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Russian Academy of Sciences. He proposed to reconsider the word “нация” (nation), believing that this word is different from “народность” (affinity to the people) or “национальность” (nationality) from the ethnological and cultural perspective. It is a concept recognizing state and political ethnic groups. The Russian government has carried out a lot of practices. It has fully affirmed the ethnic identity and enacted the National and Cultural Autonomy Act of the Russian Federation. On the other hand, political and academic circles have jointly advocated civic consciousness, promoting the civic identity and national identity of various ethnic groups toward the Russian Federation. The first paragraph of the Constitution of the Russian Federation (конституцияРФ) of 1993 clearly states: “We, the multinational people of the Russian Federation, united by a common fate on our land

(соединенныеобщейсудьбойнасвоейземле).” The terms “Pоссияне” (Russians) and российскаянация (Russian nation) that were seldom used in the past began to appear frequently. It is particularly noteworthy that on December 2016, when President Vladimir Putin referred to the February and October revolutions in Russia in 1917 in his State of the Union address, he stressed, “Let us remember that we are a unified nation and a common nation. We only have one Russia” In short, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, “national identity” (national progress) and “civic identity” (state course) is a concurrent, thorny question that goes in the same or opposite direction in the course of rapid political, economic, social and cultural transformation. Given that the Russia Federation remains to be a multinational state that has the federal system, the ethnic problem and policy is still an urgent issue which the Russian government should manage carefully. Therefore, how to properly handle the relationship between national identity and civic identity is a power and right game that will not end. Dimitrii Andreev, an associate professor at the History Department of Moscow State University, discussed the development of Russian statehood in the “Long Nineteenth Century” and the destruction of the autocratic monarchy. Andreev pointed out that the “nineteenth century” mentioned here has a special meaning. It means the period that began in the second half of the eighteenth century under Catherine II, and ended in 1905 when Emperor Nicholas II was forced to sign the “October Manifesto.” After Nicholas II signed the “October Manifesto,” he established the post of prime

24 minister. The sharing of imperial power marked an actual weakening of the autocratic monarchy of Russia. Andreev opined that the destruction of the Russian autocratic monarchy dates back to Peter the Great’s reforms. In order to make the state effective and be capable of ensuring the development of the country and the realization of its foreign policy interests, Peter the Great introduced Western state institutions and the Western culture of civil service to Russia, such as the establishment of the Senate. Peter the Great had absolute power, so sharing power with a Senate with inarticulate functions did not constitute a threat to his rule. However, after the death of Peter the Great, the situation changed drastically. The top of the political elite, which happened to occupy the leading official positions in the new institutions, reinforced its position at the expense of the monarchical power. However, due to its weakness and immaturity, the new institutional-bureaucratic milieu could not yet compete with the autocracy. During the reign of Peter the Great, a Russian version of the concept of Cameralism was nurtured and became an indispensable tool for monarchs to exercise power. As we all know, in the second half of the 17th century, the ideas of Cameralism were adopted in different European states, but Cameralism had specific traits in Russia. In Western Europe, bureaucratic functionalism invariably implied the forming of a system of institutions controlled by the monarch. In Russia, the official felt like a miniature autocrat at his workplace and believed that his main task was to extract the maximum possible

25 status-related rent from his post. Rent-seeking behavior was not necessarily supposed to be in the form of a bribe. It could manifest itself through the establishment of profitable ties, gaining privileges and so on. The task of building a functional system was pushed off by an official to their boss, who pushed it off to their boss and so on. So everything again rested on the emperor, who was forced to provide internal relationships within this bureaucratic pyramid. This situation created a natural opposition of the officials to their superiors as such and to the chief superior–the Emperor. At first, such opposition was extended only to direct bosses, and was mainly latent. But the logic and the trajectory of this conflict within the government were quite clearly delineated. Conflict broke out in the second half of the 18th century. During the time of Catherine II, the foundation was laid for another type of opposition among the noble bureaucratic elite – the opposition of ideology and behavior. Catherine II not only participated in the murder of her husband Peter III, but also, contrary to the centuries-old tradition of succession to the throne, deprived her son, Paul, of the chance to ascend to the throne after the death of his father, and began to reign herself. As she wanted to obtain support from the elite, she gave the nobility exemption from compulsory service and also allowed it to arrange its estate self-government. This self-government became an oasis of political culture completely alien to the autocracy and became a source of oppositional liberal sentiment. On the one hand, this coexistence ensured partnership in

26 reaching administration objectives. On the other hand, the growth of contradictions between the source of authority (the autocrat) and its instruments (officialdom and institutions) was inevitable. The latter sought to stop being instruments and become equal partners. This was only possible if Czarist power was limited, and transformed from autocratic to constitutional. The subsequent history of the “long nineteenth century” is the story of how autocracy withdrew from its positions and how the officialdom consolidated its strength. The period of Alexander I laid the foundation of a paradigm for the functioning of autocratic power, with the following features: First, political reform did not make any substantial changes to the country, but merely imitated Enlightenment liberalism’s value creation system. The State Council, established in 1810, was not a parliament at all, but an advisory legislative body composed of senior officials. Nevertheless, reform can be regarded as creating a new political reality. The emperor could no longer issue a law without preliminary discussion. He could only issue decrees in his name. In Russian legislative practice, there was no clear division of issues into those covered by laws and those covered by decrees. However, in practice, fundamental problems had to be covered by laws through the State Council. Second, reforms for the sake of reforms were carried out exclusively in the circle of officials. Alexander I created ministries, which were much more centralized and vertically organized institutions. As a result, there was a significant increase in the emperor’s dependence on ministers, who became

27 the main informants to the throne about what was happening in the spheres of public administration under their jurisdiction. Furthermore, although there was no cabinet headed by a prime minister, one should not underestimate the qualitative change in the relationship between the head of the state and his instruments of administration. The practice of ministers’ personal reports to the emperor in the absence of a collective cabinet office lead to the Czar maintaining the status of the main and sole decision maker. As a result, a certain managerial system was shaped, and ministers stopped being faceless performers and turned into trusted informants, without whom the supreme power could no longer exist. The reforms of Alexander I were developed during the rule of Nicholas I in many ways. Although Nicholas I pursued a conservative policy in the field of control over public opinion, the State Council continued functioning and the bureaucratic enveloping of the throne increased markedly. Nicholas I designed the Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancery, which was expected to control the activities of the bureaucratic vertical structure, but in practice it turned into an additional bureaucratic institution, poorly executing its duties and forcing the emperor to personally delve into many routine administrative issues. Thus, the sacred figure of the absolute ruler was being transformed into a functionary involved in the inspection of the entire state machine. Andreev stressed that top officialdom became not only an actual partner of the Czarist government, but also a proponent of

28 liberal values. The liberal officials became the main initiators and proponents of the Great Reforms (reforms to emancipate serfs, zemstvo reform, creation of local self-government, judicial reform, and so on). The liberal officials believed that the successful modernization of Russia was only possible if it was not purely functional – technical and organizational – but also socio-political, providing freedoms and the opportunity for public participation in the government. The public of the era of Alexander II comprised low-ranking officials, as well as numerous employees, professionals and those who shaped public opinion through the press. Unlike senior officialdom, doomed to partnership with the monarch, the public felt free from such obligations. Hence, its main and essentially only motivation was to destroy the existing order of the state, which seemed unjust, since it did not provide a position of power that the public thought it deserved. Thus, as a result of the Great Reforms in 1861, Russia was forced to accept the bureaucratic autocracy formed by the reforms of Peter the Great. In the “long nineteenth century,” the bureaucratic shell of the ideocratic autocratic monarchy not only sought to get rid of its subordinate and instrumental status and become a full-fledged “co-ruler” with the monarch, but it also became an environment in which political values hostile to the throne were formed. Among senior officials, these values evolved more in a latent form – in the form of a belief that sooner or later the autocratic monarchy would turn into a constitutional one, as in European states. Among minor officials, public opposition to the political regime became more and more overt. The public did

29 not conceal their hostility to the absolute monarchy and wished for more radical political changes. It is therefore symptomatic that the “long nineteenth century” ended precisely in October 1905. Now the public received a real parliament, the State Duma, and the senior officials were given a collegiate government Cabinet with a prime minister. A few years later, both institutes came to operate in tandem: the Duma formed public opinion about the most desirable and undesirable ministers, and the latter in their actions tried to enlist the support of the majority of deputies. The autocratic monarchy turned out to be superfluous and in February 1917 ceased to exist. Pang Dapeng, director of the Russian Political Research Office of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in his presentation that the transformation of the Russian political institution has three traits: integrity, comprehensiveness and continuity. Integrity refers to the change in the power structure of the entire Russian state and the change of political institutions. Comprehensiveness refers to the integration of Russia’s political transformation with its economics, diplomacy, culture, and history, which represents a comprehensive transformation. Continuity means that Russia is not a complete separation from the Soviet Union, but a continuous evolution. Among them, the continuity is particularly obvious. Because Russia was deeply affected by the 70 years of socialist institutions under the Soviet Union, many issues after the transition reflected this influence. Pang Dapeng pointed out that institutional transformation generally consists of three stages: institutional change,

30 institutional consolidation, and conceptual consolidation. The institutional changes in Russia can be divided into four periods: start-up, implementation, transition, and preliminary completion. In June 1988, the Nineteenth Congress of the CPSU proposed comprehensive political institutional reform, marking the beginning of political institutional change. On June 12, 1990, the Declaration of State Sovereignty was issued, which marked the end of the start-up period and the beginning of the implementation period. Due to the unclear division of powers between the legislative body and the executive body during the Soviet Union, rebuilding the legislative body and dividing the powers intensified this conflict, which eventually led to the October incident. In December 1993, the Constitution of the Russian Federation was passed, ending the conflict between the legislative body and the executive body. This marked the preliminary establishment of the constitutional government institution of separation of powers in Russia, and the completion of the period of institutional changes. After that, Yeltsin held a second election in June 1996, further improving the way parliament operated as a legislative body, known as the transition period of institutional change. In December 1999, for the first time in the history of Russia, a peaceful transfer of power was achieved, marking the initial completion of the institutional changes. The special feature of Russia in the institutional consolidation phase is that the institutional consolidation and concept consolidation are parallel and intertwined. From 2000 to

April 2005, the constitutional model of separation of powers established in the Yeltsin era continued to be implemented, and Putin adjusted the national governance model and the basic political system operation mechanism. For example, in August 2000, the Procedure of Establishing the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation came into effect, changing the composition of the upper house of parliament. At this stage, the Beslan school siege was the demarcation point. In the early stage, Putin effectively stopped the country from splitting, and in the later stage, the way to build the federal executive body was established. For countries in transformation, after institutional changes and institutional consolidation are over, they always hope to fix existing results and measures at the level of values and ideology, thereby entering the period of concept consolidation. This stage is particularly evident in Russia. In December 1999, Putin published Russia at the Turn of the Millennium in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, proposing that Russia’s new ideas are essentially incorporating Russian tradition into the pursuit of Russian modernization. In 2001, Putin’s brain trust Vladimir Kryuchkov proposed that Russia is a manageable nation, and used the term managed democracy. This was to provide Russia and Putin with legitimacy for institutional consolidation, but in the end the phrase has the meaning of control. After the Beslan school siege, the entire CIS region was politically unstable. Putin demonstrated Russia’s political thought in a section of his 2005 State of the Union address. This was subsequently summarized by Surkov as the idea of Russian sovereignty and democracy.

This was questioned by Western and even Russian elites. After the 2008 financial crisis, United Russia amended its charter and proclaimed Russian conservatism as its official ideology. This guiding ideology was changed to the Russian mir after the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, and to Greater Eurasia in 2015. Putin himself has achieved political and ideological coordination internally and externally from three levels: Russian conservatism, the Russian mir, and Greater Eurasia. In 2019, for the first time, Surkov, as a representative of officials, proposed Putinism as a concept that Russia may continue to adhere to in the post-Putin era. Since then, inheritance has become the key word of Russian politics, mainly referring to the concept of inheriting Putin’s effective measures to govern the country. Pang Dapeng said that the evolution of concepts will lead to changes in political measures, and different political measures will lead to different results in political performance. From the perspective of political measures, since Russia started its political transformation in 1988, in addition to the two basic characteristics of strengthening the central government’s control over local power and strengthening mainstream political values, the transformation also has the following characteristics: first, it emphasized the important role of the country. Second, the basic political system’s operating mechanisms were interconnected. The parliamentary system, the federal system, the political party system, and the electoral system became interconnected and fully integrated. Third, the state took control of strategic resources to combine power and capital. Fourth, the United Russia Party strengthened itself, to maintain national unity and

33 achieve federal integrity. From the above traits, Russia’s transformation has had its own unique characteristics. First, Russia’s transformation was centered on the state rather than society. Russia and Western countries differ in the order in which property rights and ownership relations arise. In Western countries, property rights take precedence over ownership, but in Russia, the utility of political power is at the core. Second, Russia is a centralized management model, which is in line with Russia’s monopoly operating structure. Third, Russia has the characteristics of centralizing its power internally and expanding externally. Pang Dapeng opined that Russia’s development prospects will encounter some problems. In terms of security, Russia’s national security interests are higher than its development interests. This has always run through Russia’s development strategy and will have an impact on diplomatic and economic development. In terms of politics, although Putin proposed that Russia can develop better only by shifting from the “manual” mode of management to an automatic one, in fact, Russian political modernization is constrained by Putin’s politics of personality. Economically, any changes in the current distribution of interests will lead to political instability in Russia. In terms of diplomacy, there is still a large gap between Russia’s capabilities and its great power ambitions. Zhao Huirong, director of the Ukraine Research Office of the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, focused on whether Russia can return to “Greater Europe.”

In September 1962, French President Charles de Gaulle claimed during his visit to Germany, “One day, we will work with the Soviet Union to build Europe.” The Europe referred to by Charles de Gaulle spanned from Lisbon to the Urals. In November 1990, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) summit adopted the Charter of Paris for A New Europe, which laid down the “Greater Europe” principles. In July 1992, the CSCE issued a joint statement from Helsinki, which referred to a larger Greater Europe, from Vancouver to Vladivostok, but the document was not approved by the parliaments of the CSCE member states. The Soviet Union attached great importance to collective security after World War II. Both Leonid Brezhnev and Gorbachev Mikhail Gorbachev supported de Gaulle’s idea of building a common European home that extended to Vladivostok. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the idea of Greater Europe continued in Russia and reached its peak in the Yeltsin era. At that time, Russia was eager to return to Western civilization and its foreign policy tilted toward the West. President Putin proposed joining the EU and NATO around 1999 but was rejected. After that, showing his vision for a Greater Europe, he repeatedly mentioned on different occasions four “common spaces” in Europe — the economy, internal security and justice, external security, and research and education. In June 2008, Dmitry Medvedev made a proposal to develop a pan-European security treaty. In 2010, Putin proposed a new type of economic cooperation model with the EU. It can

35 be seen that Russia had high expectations for building a Greater Europe security system. After the Crimean crisis, the West imposed economic sanctions on Russia and constantly exerted political pressure. Frustration with the West, from the elite to society as a whole, forced Russia to give up the vision of a Greater Europe and replace it with a vision for Greater Eurasia. Greater Europe originated from Eurocentrism, and Greater Eurasia originated from Eurasianism. Zhao Huirong emphasized that the Greater Europe referred to by Europeans is the world order in their eyes. It is the “Greater Europe” that Russia should join as an obedient country. What the Russians refer to as Greater Europe is ostensibly equal to the West, but in fact Russia dominates. From this point of view, Russia’s return to the Greater Europe is very difficult, and it is unlikely to be realized in the next three to five years. First of all, although Russia currently has confidence in its military, its economic strength is weak. Therefore, it hopes to use the power of the Asia-Pacific region and the comprehensive Eurasian partnership with China to obtain support from China and the Asia-Pacific region under the framework of the Greater Eurasian Partnership and the Belt and Road Initiative. Second, the geopolitical contradictions between Western countries and Russia are very deep. Take the Eurasian Economic Union as an example. The EU and the US believe that Russia hopes to restore the Soviet empire and that the Eurasian Economic Union is Russia’s tool. Therefore, the issues of cooperation between the Eurasian Economic Union and the EU proposed by Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus are ignored. In the

36 former Soviet Union, the US supported the act of weakening Russia, and the trend of de-Russianization in the region became more and more obvious. Among them, the most radical, Ukraine and Georgia, have been separated from Russia, and Belarus and Kazakhstan, which have the closest relationship with Russia, have become increasingly de-Russified. Third, it is hard for Russia to find a solution to the Ukrainian issue. Behind this is a geopolitical game and conflicts of interests of the great powers. Issues such as Crimea or the conflict in eastern Ukraine can only be technically advanced and partially agreed upon on the surface. It is difficult to reach an agreement on the fundamental issue of the high degree of autonomy in eastern Ukraine and the control of the border between Ukraine and Russia. Finally, the process and prospects of Russia’s return to Greater Europe depends on the advancement of the Greater Eurasian concept. The Greater Eurasia concept does not exclude cooperation with Europe. In a sense, it is an expanded version of the original Greater Europe concept. Although Eurocentrism has deep-rooted influence on Russia, Asia is becoming the center of the world economy. The connection between “The Belt and Road” and the Eurasian Economic Union, and the combination of “The Belt and Road” and the Greater Eurasian Partnership, can bring about practical cooperation, which is what Russia actually needs. Therefore, Russia will not give up its pursuit of Greater Europe, but in diplomatic practice it will also work with the international situation to pursue practical interests. Shi Yue, an assistant professor at the School of Foreign

Languages at Peking University, made a presentation titled “The 1822 Statute on the Siberian Kirgiz: The Beginning of the Czarist Administration in the Eastern Kazakh Steppe.” Shi Yue opined that the “Statute on the Siberian Kirgiz” is of great significance. In March 1819, Mikhail Speransky was transferred from his post as the governor of Penza to a new post as the governor of Siberia. His main task was to systematically reform the rule of Czarist Russia in this area. The statute marks the first time Czarist Russia extended the imperial bureaucracy to the eastern part of the Kazakh steppe, and ruled the Kazakhs with bureaucratic management since the 16th century when Czarist Russia established rule in the Ob-Irtysh River basin. The statute also marks the point that the rule of the Asian region by Czarist Russia turned to the establishment of effective administrative institutions, gradually absorbing new conquered territories and subjects, and laid the foundation for further expansion in Central Asia in the 19th century. From the perspective of the text of the code, the Statute on the Siberian Kirgiz was the founding work of the regulations for municipalities in Central Asia, and the statutes issued in the regions thereafter were basically inherited from this statute. Regarding the “Kirgiz” concept in the name of the statute, Shi Yue pointed out that in the 18th century, the Russian defense lines in the northern Kazakh steppe mainly consisted of the Ural, Orenburg, Irtysh, and Ishim lines. Later, these lines formed a network that basically divided the border between Siberia and the steppe. Kazakh nomads to the west and south of the line of defense have since been called Siberian Kirgiz. In 1926, Czarist

Russia changed the Kirgiz commonly used in 19th-century literature to Kazakh. Therefore, although the name of the statute is Kirgiz, the content actually refers to the Kazakhs. The Statute on the Siberian Kirgiz has a total of ten chapters including 319 provisions. The new management system was composed of local grassroots officials at the frontiers recommended by the Kazakhs, and the Russian government at two levels: Siberia and Moscow. The basic administrative structure is the creation of a district (okrug) under Moscow, which is divided into internal and external districts according to the Siberian fortress line. The external districts are the nomadic area of the Kazakhs in the eastern steppe, which is the main area regulated by the statute. The village is located below the district, and aul is located below the village. The aul is the smallest administrative unit, consisting of 50 to 70 nomad households. A village consists of 10 to 12 auls, and the division of the village often corresponds to a Kazakh clan. The more critical institution is the district, which is composed of closely connected villages, and belongs to a mixed system. It is run by the district office, chaired by a senior sultan. Two Russian representatives appointed by the governor of Omsk and two elected Kazakh representatives are members of the district office, which recruits and assigns clerks, translators and interpreters in accordance with the regulations. The new management system also includes the aul election system under the supervision of the provincial department. Chief executives at all levels have a limited term in office but are eligible for re-election. The core purpose was to reshape the

Kazakh political structure using a bureaucratic system. The statute established written administrative procedures, handled daily cases with written documents, registered in Russian and Tatar, and developed bureaucratic tribal leaders. Another focus of the regulations was primary justice, which divides Kazakh judicial cases into three categories: criminal, civil and administrative cases, which were heard by relevant courts. The regulations also included the division of territories. The regulations required that all administrative spaces in the entire eastern steppe area be divided on the basis of district, village, and aul. The demarcation of the border was the responsibility of the military officers along the Russian fortress line. Once an administrative boundary was delineated, the power of a district office could not extend beyond it and the residents of each district could not cross the border without the permission of the local governor. Each district prohibited other district offices from arresting fugitives without coordination, and the administrators in the fugitive’s home district needed to notify their counterparts before any arrests. Shi Yue pointed out that the most important provision on the delimitation of territories was the definition of criminal offenses concerning baranta. Baranta is a common phenomenon in pre-modern nomadic society. It means that when nomadic people are treated unfairly by other people or clans, they force the other party to make compensation negotiations by seizing the other party’s livestock. After the issue is settled, the party holding the livestock will return the animals. This simple grassland tradition can easily lead to clan and even tribal

40 conflicts and long-term disputes. Therefore, for Russia, this behavior could not be treated as a mere ethnic custom. This regulation defined the detention of livestock as a criminal case. In addition to establishing a new system and dividing the territories, the regulations also had an important provision aimed at guiding nomads to settle. The Kazakhs were nomads living along the borders of Czarist Russia and southern Siberia. The military potential of their nomadic lifestyle posed a fundamental threat of the to the Czarist Siberian fortress line. In order to eventually eliminate the military threat, the nomadic groups needed to settle on a large scale and change their lifestyle. Regulations required districts and villages to accurately track land information and the population, update the information every three years, and allocate land use rights based on it. If Kazakhs voluntarily engaged in farming, each person received 15dessiatines (about 40 acres) of land, and the administrative authority would monitor its use. Other related measures included the use of frontier funds to encourage the construction of premises, with emphasis on the establishment of official grain shops, and to attract bankrupt Kazakhs to join the army by stabilizing food prices during disasters. The regulations stipulated that the district office was the backbone of policy implementation, and attracted Kazakhs into the mainstream of the empire by encouraging agricultural reclamation, settlement, introducing medical and educational services, and attracting business travel. Shi Yue stated that the 1822 regulations established a bureaucratic system that incorporated the grassland nomadic

41 tradition and absorbed the elite of the Kazakh tribes with 319 provisions. The administrative boundary and boundary management centered on the bureaucratic system did not curb the means of forming a large-scale nomadic polity in the steppe area, but fundamentally eliminated the possibility of the emergence of the nomadic empire. Various measures were used to attract nomads to settle, and in combination with technologies such as firearms manufacturing, land surveys and logistics management that appeared in Europe at the time, the farming management system was successfully established on the grassland. Under the conditions of relatively limited personnel and capital investment, the bureaucratization and settlement policy promoted by the 1822 regulations basically covered the Siberian Kyrgyzstan region in more than ten years, laying the foundation for further Russian policies in the region. Zhuang Yu, an assistant professor of Department of History at Peking University, spoke on the development of the Soviet cultural system. In 1936, Stalin Constitution declared that in the USSR the division between classes has been annihilated. Affected by politics, the literary and art circles believed that the actual life and ideal life of Soviet society had reached a high degree of consistency. This idea brought a strong turn to the creation of Soviet literary and artistic works, leading to the emergence of a large number of works guided by the “drama without conflict” theory. After World War II, the Soviet literary and art circles were under strict ideological control. The authorities issued a series of resolutions on literary and art issues, including the

“Resolutions on the Journals Zvezda and Leningrad,”“On the Repertoire of the Dramatic Theaters and Measures for Its Improvement,”“On the Film Bolshaya Zhizn (A Great Life),” etc. These resolutions further promoted the fermentation of “drama without conflict” in the Soviet Union. With the exception of some foreign writers’ works that reflected the tragic life in foreign countries, dramas of tragedy and satirical topics almost disappeared in the Soviet Union, and repetitive and tedious model operas depicting technical competitions and production plans appeared in large numbers. By the 1950s, “drama without conflict” had formed a trend that caused very serious real-life problems. First, all plays were uniform, repetitive, tedious, and boring. Second, with the exception of flagship theaters such as the Vakhtangov Theater, the attendance rate was basically less than 50 percent, and economic issues prompted theaters to think about reform. Third, the replacement of upper political power led to a major overhaul of the idea of “drama without conflict.” In April 1952, Pravda initiated a discussion about “drama without conflict,” stating that the creation of drama could not keep up with the growing needs of the people. This can be regarded as the precursor of the cultural decisions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) (Bolshevik). At the 19th Party Congress of the CPSU (Bolshevik) in October of that year, Malenkov put forward the shortcomings of the “literature and drama without conflict” theory. He emphasized that “we need Soviet Gogol and Shchedrin” and explained that the Soviet Union needs dramas

43 describing reality. Soviet literature and art must boldly express the contradictions and conflicting views of life. The report also pointed out the important task of Soviet literature and art workers: to make good use of the weapons of criticism and to make criticism effective for education. Malenkov’s report sparked discussions across society, focusing on issues such as aesthetic fatigue and inadequate innovation in the creation of dramas. Some important newspapers and magazines published many articles on the phenomenon of backwardness in drama and discussion about the “drama without conflict” theory. In the fall of 1956, the magazine Problems of Philosophy published articles by Nazarov and Gridnevain which they further elaborated on A.Н. Анастасьев’s views on the ills of the Soviet cultural management system. Although the original intention of the article was in line with the era’s backdrop of criticizing the worship of Stalin, the words were too intense. In particular, their views of the opposition party and the state leading literature and art led public opinion to the other extreme. This caused the Central Committee of the CPSU to order Pravda and Soviet Literature to publicly criticize Nazarovand Gridneva’s views, which led to the austerity of Soviet cultural policies in the late 1950s. In May 1957, Khrushchev published a report, For a Close Tie between Literature and Art and the Life of the People, which caused a halt to the discussion of “drama without conflict” and the socialist creative method and realistic creative method. The

44 life of ordinary people became the fundamental concern of the new aesthetic turn in literature and art in this period. The change in aesthetic ideas behind Soviet drama can be roughly divided into three periods. The first period propagated heroism and the image of the leader. The second period focused on the actual daily life of the Soviet people. The third period showed human personalities and the harmony between human personality and the world. The discussion triggered by the “drama without conflict” theory was in the process of moving from the first stage to the second stage. The change in aesthetic ideas promoted the return of forgotten and forbidden dramas. An Optimistic Tragedy was created by Vsevolod Vishnevsky in 1933. After staying in the playlist for one season, the play was banned because it did not conform to the social reality of the Soviet Union. In 1955, the famous Soviet drama director Tovstonogov rehearsed An Optimistic Tragedy and staged it in Leningrad, which caused a huge sensation and won it the Lenin Prize. There was also The Dragon by the famous Soviet dramatist Evgeny Schwartz, which was banned in 1944 and returned to the theater stage in 1962. Zhuang Yu believes that this transformation and practice of literary theory reflects the core issues of the development of the Soviet cultural system, and also responds to Lenin’s understanding of cultural development. The October Revolution was not only a reform of the political system, but also a reconstruction of the cultural system for Russia. The development of the Soviet cultural system played an important

45 role in the establishment and development of Soviet state ideology. Undoubtedly, the political transformation of Khrushchev’s period caused a change in the aesthetic ideals of Soviet drama in the same period, which was the fundamental reason for the expansion of the Soviet cultural system in the 1950s. It is worth noting that the cultural policy transformation during this period was not only de-Stalinization and opposition to the worship of Stalin, but also a manifestation of the Soviet party and government organs’ attention to the needs of the people. In the process of developing a national cultural system, the needs of political transformation, the requirements of economic interests, and the understanding and practice of national cultural policies by literary and artistic workers will all have an impact on the development of the national cultural system. The development of the cultural system is constantly adjusted in accordance with the historical background. During the development of the Soviet cultural system in the 1950s, literary creation had a breakthrough from its previous stage, and the new aesthetic ideas became successful, marking a new period. In the last part of the seminar, scholars from Japan and the UK introduced the training system of academics in Russian studies in their own countries. Chinese and Russian scholars discussed the orientation of contemporary national politics and diplomatic strategies toward academic research.