area handbook series

Soviet Union

a country study



Soviet Union

a country study

Federal Research Division

Library of Congress

Edited by

Raymond E. Zickel

Research Completed

May 1989
On the cover: Spasskaia (Savior) Tower and the Kremlin Wall

with St. Basil Cathedral on the right and the Council of

Ministers building in the background

Second Edition, First Printing, 1991.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Soviet Union : a country study / Federal Research Division, Library

of Congress ; edited by Raymond E. Zickel. — 2nd ed.

p. cm. — (Area handbook series, ISSN 1057-5294)

(DA pam ; 550-95)

'

' Supersedes the 1971 edition of Area handbook for the Soviet

Union written by Eugene K. Keefe, et al." —T.p. verso.

4 'Research completed May 1989."

Includes bibliographical references (pp. 895-977) and index.

ISBN 0-8444-0727-5

1. Soviet Union. I. Zickel, Raymond E., 1934- . II. Library

of Congress. Federal Research Division. III. Area handbook for the Soviet Union. IV. Series. V. Series: DA pam ; 550-95.

DK17.S6396 1991 90-25756

947—dc20 CIP

Headquarters, Department of the Army

DA Pam 550-95

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402
Foreword

This volume is one in a continuing series of books prepared by

the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under

the Country Studies—Area Handbook Program sponsored by the

Department of the Army. The last page of this book lists the other

published studies.

Most books in the series deal with a particular foreign country,

describing and analyzing its political, economic, social, and national

security systems and institutions, and examining the interrelationships of those systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural

factors. Each study is written by a multidisciplinary team of social

scientists. The authors seek to provide a basic understanding of

the observed society, striving for a dynamic rather than a static portrayal. Particular attention is devoted to the people who make

up the society, their origins, dominant beliefs and values, their com- mon interests and the issues on which they are divided, the nature

and extent of their involvement with national institutions, and their

attitudes toward each other and toward their social system and

political order.

The books represent the analysis of the authors and should not

be construed as an expression of an official United States government position, policy, or decision. The authors have sought to adhere to accepted standards of scholarly objectivity. Corrections,

additions, and suggestions for changes from readers will be welcomed for use in future editions.

Louis R. Mortimer

Chief

Federal Research Division

Library of Congress

Washington, D.C. 20540

iii

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions that numerous persons made to the preparation of Soviet Union: A Country Study.

Many past and present members of the Federal Research Division

contributed to the preparation of the manuscript. Richard F. Nyrop

furnished expert guidance on the composition and writing of the

book and reviewed drafts of all the chapters. Sandra W. Meditz

reviewed portions of the text and graphics and served as liaison with

Ralph K. Benesch, who oversees the Country Studies—Area Handbook Program for the Department of the Army. Stephen R. Burant

deserves special thanks because, after writing one chapter and

coauthoring another, he provided substantive editing and rewriting of several other chapters. Special thanks are also due Helen R.

Fedor, who reviewed bibliographies, regularized spellings, and pre- pared the Glossary, which was initially compiled by Pamela J. Perry

and subsequently added to by Ihor Y. Gawdiak and Walter R.

Iwaskiw. Ihor Y. Gawdiak revised Appendix C and, together with

Glenn E. Curtis, revised Appendix B. Walter R. Iwaskiw prepared

the map drafts with expert guidance from Carolina E. Forrester and

Susan M. Lender and coordinated the subsequent work on the maps.

The late Anthony S. Beliajeff prepared the Chronology. Sara C.

Arason compiled the charts and tables from the authors' data and

provided other assistance. Carol A. Corrigan and Rosette Konick

helped select and organize the photographs and wrote captions for many of them and for the illustrations. Elizabeth A. Yates typed some of the chapters from handwritten manuscripts and assisted in many other details deserving of special thanks. Invaluable graphics

support was provided by David P. Cabitto, who also prepared the

final maps. He was assisted by Sandra K. Ferrell and Kimberly A.

Lord; the latter artist drew the cover and chapter illustrations for the book. Helen C. Metz helped write the description of Islam contained in Chapter 4, and Stanley M. Sciora furnished detailed in- formation on the uniforms and rank insignia of the Soviet armed

forces. Finally, special thanks are given to Martha E. Hopkins and

Marilyn L. Majeska, who managed the book's editing, and to Andrea T. Merrill, who managed production.

The following individuals are gratefully acknowledged as well: Mimi Cantwell, Sharon Costello, Barbara Dash, Deanna D'Errico,

Vince Ercolano, Barbara Harrison, Martha E. Hopkins, Patricia

Molella, Ruth Nieland, Evan Raynes, Gage Ricard, Sharon

Schultz, and Mary Wild for editing the chapters; Beverly Wolpert
for editing the Bibliography; Barbara Edgerton and Izella Watson

for word processing; Angela L. Eveges for typing the Introduction; Andrea T. Merrill for performing the final prepublication editorial review; Joan C. Cook for preparing the index; and

Malinda B. Neale of the Printing and Processing Section, Library

of Congress, for phototypesetting, under the direction of Peggy

Pixley.

The authors also wish to note the significant contributions of per- sons not on the staff of the Federal Research Division. Jimmy

Pritchard furnished the vast majority of the photographs used in

this volume, including some taken expressly for the study. David

M. Goldfrank wrote the portion of Chapter 1 that deals with Russian history from 1855 to 1917 and reviewed all of Chapter 1 and

Chapter 2 . Paul Goble provided commentary on Soviet nationalities, and Graham Vernon reviewed Chapter 17 and Chapter 18.

vi
Contents

Page Foreword iii Acknowledgments v Preface xxiii Country Profile xiv

Introduction lvii Chapter 1. Historical Setting: Early History

to 1917 l Zenon E. Kohut and David M. Goldfrank

EMERGENCE OF THE EAST SLAVS 4 The Peoples of the East European Plain 5 The East Slavs and the Varangians 5 The Golden Age of Kiev 6

The Rise of Regional Centers 8

The Mongol Invasion 9

MUSCOVY 10 The Rise of Muscovy 12 The Evolution of Russian Autocracy 12 Ivan IV 13 The Time of Troubles 14 The Romanovs 15 Expansion and Westernization 18 EARLY IMPERIAL RUSSIA 19 Peter the Great and the Formation of the Russian

Empire 20

Era of Palace Revolutions 22

Imperial Expansion and Maturation:

Catherine II 24

RULING THE EMPIRE 27 War and Peace, 1796-1825 27 Period of Reaction: Nicholas I, 1825-55 30

THE TRANSFORMATION OF IMPERIAL RUSSIA 32

Economic Developments 33

Reforms and Their Limits, 1855-92 33

Foreign Affairs after the Crimean War, 1856-93 .... 36

The Age of Realism in Literature 38

vii
The Rise of Revolutionary Populism and

Russian Marxism, 1855-90 40

Serge Witte and Accelerated Industrialization,

1891- 1903 41 The Development of Radical Political Parties,

1892- 1904 42

Imperialism in Asia and the Russo-Japanese

War, 1894-1905 44

THE LAST YEARS OF TSARDOM 45

The Revolution of 1905 and Counterrevolution,

1905-07 45

The Tenuous Regimes of Stolypin and Kokovstev,

1907-14 46

The Return to an Active Balkan Policy, 1906-13 48

Russia at War, 1914-16 49

The Strains of the War Effort and the Weakening

of Tsarism 50

Chapter 2. Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982 53

Thomas Skallerup

REVOLUTIONS AND CIVIL WAR 56

The February Revolution 56

The Period of Dual Power 57 The Bolshevik Revolution 59

Civil War and War Communism 61 THE ERA OF THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY 64

Lenin's Leadership 64

Stalin's Rise to Power 66

Foreign Policy, 1921-28 66

Society and Culture in the 1920s 67

TRANSFORMATION AND TERROR 68

Industrialization and Collectivization 68

The Period of the Purges 70

Mobilization of Society 71 Foreign Policy, 1928-39 72 WAR YEARS 73 Prelude to War 73 The Great Patriotic War 74

RECONSTRUCTION AND COLD WAR 77 Reconstruction Years 77 The Cold War 78

Death of Stalin 81 THE KHRUSHCHEV ERA 82

Collective Leadership and the Rise of Khrushchev ... 82

Foreign Policy under Khrushchev 85

vm
Khrushchev's Reforms and Fall 87

THE BREZHNEV ERA 88

Collective Leadership and the Rise of Brezhnev 88

Foreign Policy of a Superpower 90

The Economy 92

Culture and the Arts 93

Death of Brezhnev 94

Chapter 3. Physical Environment and

Population 97

David E. McClave

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 100

Global Position and Boundaries 101

Administrative-Political-Territorial Divisions 102

Topography and Drainage 104

Climate 109

Natural Resources 112

Environmental Concerns 113

POPULATION 115

Vital Statistics 116

Age and Sex Structure 119

Mortality and Fertility 120

Urbanization 121 Migration 122

Distribution and Density 124

Marriage, Divorce, and the Family 125

Population Problems and Policies 127 Chapter 4. Nationalities and Religions 133

Ihor Y. Gawdiak

NATIONALITIES OF THE SOVIET UNION 137

Slavic Nationalities 138

Baltic Nationalities 146

Nationalities of the Caucasus 152

Central Asian Nationalities 159

Other Major Nationalities 173

RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN THE SOVIET UNION 184

Orthodox 184

Armenian Apostolic 189

Catholic 189

Protestant 191 Muslim 191 POLICY TOWARD NATIONALITIES AND RELIGIONS

IN PRACTICE 195

ix
MANIFESTATIONS OF NATIONAL

ASSERTIVENESS 201

Baltic Nationalities 201

Armenians 202

Ukrainians 202

Central Asian Nationalities 204

Russians 205

Other Nationalities 205

Chapter 5. Social Structure 209

Kenneth E. Nyirady

FORMATION OF SOVIET SOCIETY 212

STRATIFICATION OF SOVIET SOCIETY 215

Socio-Occupational Groupings 216

Other Determinants of Social Position 217

Benefits of Social Position 219

Urban-Rural Cleavage 224

SOCIAL MOBILITY 227

SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS 228

Trade Unions 228

Youth Organizations 229

Sports Organizations 230

GENDER AND FAMILY ROLES 230

Role of Women 230

Male-Female Relationships 231

The Soviet Family 234

Chapter 6. Education, Health, and Welfare 241

Irene M. Steckler EDUCATION 244

Philosophy and Aims 245

Control and Administration 247

Pedagogy and Planning 248

Institutions of Learning 250

Quality, Reform, and Funding 261

HEALTH CARE 262

Provision of Medical Care 263

Declining Health Care in the 1970s and 1980s 269

WELFARE 274

Pension System 274

Workers' Compensation 276

Other Assistance 276

x
Chapter 7. The Communist Party 279

Stephen R. Burant

LENIN'S CONCEPTION OF THE PARTY 282

Theoretical Underpinnings 283

Democratic Centralism 284

PARTY LEGITIMACY 288

CENTRAL PARTY INSTITUTIONS 292

Party Congress 293

Party Conference 295

Central Committee 296

Central Auditing Commission 298

Party Control Committee 298

Politburo 298

Secretariat 300

Commissions 301

General Secretary: Power and Authority 302

INTERMEDIATE-LEVEL PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 306

Republic Party Organization 306

Oblast-Level Organization 308

District- and City-Level Organization 310

PRIMARY PARTY ORGANIZATION 312

NOMENKLATURA 313

The Party's Appointment Authority 314

Patron-Client Relations 315

PARTY MEMBERSHIP 316

Selection Procedures 317

Training 320

SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PARTY 322

Chapter 8. Government Structure and

Functions 327

Barry A. Zulauf, Stephen R. Burant,

and James P. Nichol

CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY OF

GOVERNMENT 331

Early Soviet Constitutions 332

The 1977 Constitution 333

CENTRAL GOVERNMENT 340

Administrative Organs 341

Congress of People's Deputies 346

Supreme Soviet 350

Control Organs 358

XI
TERRITORIAL ADMINISTRATION , 361

Republic Level 362

Provincial and District Levels 364

ELECTIONS 365

Chapter 9. Mass Media and the Arts 367

Joshua Spew

POLITICIZATION OF THE MASS MEDIA AND

THE ARTS 370

Leninist Principles 371

Socialist Realism 372

ADMINISTRATION OF THE MASS MEDIA AND

THE ARTS 373

The Party Role 373

The Government Role 374

THE MASS MEDIA 377

Newspapers 377

Magazines and Journals 381

Radio 382

Television and Video Cassette Recorders 382

Computers 384

THE ARTS 385

Literature 388

Cinema . . 390

Theater 393

Music 394

Painting, Sculpture, and the Graphic Arts 396

Chapter 10. Foreign Policy 399

James P. Nichol

IDEOLOGY AND OBJECTIVES 401

FOREIGN POLICY MAKING AND EXECUTION 403

The Foreign Policy Makers , . 403

Departments of the Central Committee 404

Higher State and Government Organizations 407

The Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet 408

The Council of Ministers and Its Presidium 408

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs 409

INSTRUMENTS OF INFLUENCE 410

Diplomatic Relations 410

Party and State Visits Abroad 413

Friendship and Cooperation Treaties 413

Communist Parties Abroad 414

xii
SOVIET-UNITED STATES RELATIONS 415

SOVIET-WEST EUROPEAN RELATIONS 419

France 420

West Germany 420

Britain 421

Spain and Portugal 422

Scandinavia 422

SOVIET-EAST EUROPEAN RELATIONS 423

SINO-SOVIET RELATIONS 426

SOVIET-JAPANESE RELATIONS 427

THE SOVIET UNION AND THE THIRD WORLD 428

Middle East and North Africa 430

Asia 433

Sub-Saharan Africa 438

Central America and South America 440

THE SOVIET UNION AND NUCLEAR ARMS

CONTROL 442

THE SOVIET UNION AND THE UNITED NATIONS 445

Chapter 11. Economic Structure and Policy 449

Becky Gates

ECONOMIC STRUCTURE 452

Nature of the National Economy 452

Labor 454

Retail and Wholesale Distribution System 456

Financial System 457

ECONOMIC PLANNING AND CONTROL 458

Planning Process 458

Reforming the Planning System 465

Tools of Control 469

ECONOMIC POLICY 471

Past Priorities 472

The Twelfth Five-Year Plan, 1986-90 478

Chapter 12. Industry 483

Glenn E. Curtis

DEVELOPMENT OF SOVIET INDUSTRY 486

INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES 487

Raw Materials 487

Geographic Location Factors 488

The Territorial Production Complexes and

Geographic Expansion 488

The Labor Force and Perestroika 490

INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION 491

The Complexes and the Ministries 491
The Industrial Planning System 492

Structural Reform of Industry 492

The Military-Industrial Complex 493

Industrial Research and Design 494

MACHINE BUILDING AND METAL WORKING 495

The Structure and Status of the Machine-Building

and Metal-Working Complex 495

The Planning and Investment Process of the Machine-Building and Metal-Working Complex . . . 496

The Location of the Machine-Building Industry 497

The Automotive Industry 497

The Electronics Industry 499

METALLURGY 499

Role of Metallurgy 500

Metallurgy Planning and Problems 500

Metallurgical Combine Locations and Major

Producers 501

Nonferrous Metals 501

CHEMICALS 502

Plastics 502

Petrochemicals 502

Other Branches of the Chemical Industry 503

Chemical Planning Goals 503

FUELS 505

Fuel Resource Base 505

Oil 505

Natural Gas 507

Coal 508

Uranium 510

POWER ENGINEERING 510

Energy Planning Goals 510

The Balance among Energy Sources 511

Obstacles to Power Supply 512

Heat and Cogeneration 512

THE CONSUMER INDUSTRY 512

Consumer Supply in the 1980s 513

The Logic and Goals of Consumer Production 514

Textiles and Wood Pulp 514

Chapter 13. Agriculture 517

Ronald D. Bachman

POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION 520

Stalin's Legacy 520

Evolution of an Integrated Food Policy 522

LAND USE 525

xiv
PRODUCTION 529

Grain , 530

Technical Crops 532

Forage Crops 533

Potatoes and Vegetables 533

Other Crops 534

Animal Husbandry 536

Forestry 538

Fishing 539

The Twelfth Five-Year Plan, 1986-90 540

Chapter 14. Transportation and

Communications 543

Boris Hlynsky

RAILROADS 546

Historical Background, 1913-39 546

World War II 550

The Postwar Period, 1946-60 552

Organization and Equipment of the Railroads 554

Passenger Operations 556

The Baykal-Amur Main Line 557

Other New Construction 558

Metropolitan Railways 561

AUTOMOTIVE TRANSPORT 561

Development of Automotive Transport 561

Freight Transportation by Trucks 565

Passenger Transportation 565

INLAND WATERWAYS 566

Development of Waterways 566

The Waterway System 567

River Ports and Facilities 569

Passenger Transportation 570

MERCHANT MARINE 570

Initial Developments 571

Fleet Operations 572

CIVIL AVIATION 576

Postwar Evolution of Aeroflot 579

Aeroflot Operations 579

PIPELINES 580

COMMUNICATIONS 582

Chapter 15. Foreign Trade 589

Malinda K. Goodrich

DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE MONOPOLY ON

FOREIGN TRADE 593xv
STRUCTURE OF THE FOREIGN TRADE

BUREAUCRACY 594

Administration 594

Operation 595

Structural Reforms, 1986 to Mid-1988 597

TRADE WITH SOCIALIST COUNTRIES 601

The Council for Mutual Economic

Assistance 601

Yugoslavia 603

China 604

Cambodia, Laos, and North Korea 605

TRADE WITH WESTERN INDUSTRIALIZED

COUNTRIES 605

The United States 607

Western Europe 609

Japan 610

Finland 611

TRADE WITH THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES 612

Balance of Trade 612

Composition of Trade 613

Africa, Asia, and Latin America 615

Countries of Socialist Orientation 616

Trade with the Organization of Petroleum

Exporting Countries 616

GORBACHEV'S ECONOMIC REFORMS 618

Chapter 16. Science and Technology 621

Cathleen A. Campbell

EARLY DEVELOPMENT 624

THE ADMINISTRATION OF SCIENCE AND

TECHNOLOGY 628

Policy Making 628

Planning 629

Financing 632

SCIENCE AND IDEOLOGY 633

RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND PRODUCTION

ORGANIZATIONS 634

SOVIET INNOVATION: PROBLEMS AND

SOLUTIONS 637

TECHNOLOGY AND INFORMATION

TRANSFER 642

MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 646

TRAINING 648

xvi
Chapter 17. Military Doctrine and Strategic

Concerns 65

1

Eugenia V. Osgood

MARXIST-LENINIST THEORY OF WAR 654

War as a Continuation of Politics 655

Laws of War 657

THE PARTY AND MILITARY DOCTRINE AND

POLICY 659

Evolution of Military Doctrine 660

Military Doctrine in the Late 1980s 662

Doctrine and Weapons Programs 664

Military Policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 665

MILITARY SCIENCE 666

Laws of Armed Conflict 668

Principles of Military Art 668

Military Art 668

STRATEGIC MISSIONS OF THE ARMED FORCES 675

Threat Assessments and Force Requirements 676

Offensive and Defensive Strategic Missions 676

GLOBAL STRATEGIC CONCERNS 681

Force Projection on the Periphery 682

Military Presence in the Third World 684

ARMS CONTROL AND MILITARY OBJECTIVES 685

Strategic Arms Control 686

Objectives in Space 688

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Arms

Control , 689

Conventional Arms Control 691

Chapter 18. Armed Forces and Defense

Organization 695

Karl Wheeler Soper

ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND

COMBAT EXPERIENCE 697

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP OF THE ARMED

FORCES 700

Defense Council 700

Main Military Council 701

Ministry of Defense 701

General Staff 702

THE ARMED SERVICES 703

Strategic Rocket Forces 703
Ground Forces 705

Air Forces 710

Air Defense Forces 712

Naval Forces 716

Airborne Troops and Special Purpose Troops 719

Rear Services 720

Civil Defense 720

Specialized and Paramilitary Forces 722

TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMED

FORCES 723

Military Districts 725

Fleets, Flotillas, and Squadrons 727

Groups of Forces Stationed Abroad 728

THE PARTY AND THE ARMED FORCES 728

Political-Military Relations 729

Military Representation in the Party 729

Party Control in the Armed Forces 730

MILITARY ECONOMICS 733

Defense Spending 733

Military Industries and Production 734

Military Technology 735

UNIFORMS AND RANK INSIGNIA 737

MILITARY MANPOWER 739

Premilitary Training 739

Conscripts 742

Officers 748

Reserves and Wartime Mobilization 750

Chapter 19. Internal Security 753

Amy W. Knight

PREDECESSORS OF THE COMMITTEE FOR STATE

SECURITY AND THE MINISTRY OF INTERNAL

AFFAIRS 756

The Tsarist Period 756

Soviet Predecessor Organizations, 1917-54 757

THE SECURITY APPARATUS AND KREMLIN

POLITICS 760

Khrushchev Period 760

After Khrushchev 762

Gorbachev Era 763

ORGANIZATION OF THE COMMITTEE FOR

STATE SECURITY 765

Structure 765

Functions and Internal Organization 766

xvin
Party Control 769

Personnel 770

DOMESTIC SECURITY AND THE COMMITTEE

FOR STATE SECURITY 771 Legal Prerogatives 771

Policy 772

Special Departments in the Armed Forces 775

THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE ROLE OF THE

COMMITTEE FOR STATE SECURITY 776

Organization 776

Intelligence and Counterintelligence 778

Active Measures 779

Influence on Foreign Policy 780

THE MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS 781

Functions and Organization 782

Leadership 783

Control by the Party 785

THE MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS, THE

JUDICIAL ORGANS, AND NONPOLITICAL CRIME . . 786

Socialist Legality 786

The Procuracy 787

Military Justice 787

The Judiciary and the Legal Profession 787

Legal Codes and Abuses of the System 788

Nonpolitical Crime and Punishment 790

INTERNAL SECURITY TROOPS 790

Border Troops of the Committee for State Security 791

Security Troops of the Committee for State Security 793

Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal

Affairs 793

Appendix A. Tables 797

Appendix B. The Council for Mutual

Economic Assistance 853

Malinda K. Goodrich

MEMBERSHIP, STRUCTURE, NATURE, AND

SCOPE 854

Membership 854

Structure 856

Nature of Operation 858
EVOLUTION 858

Early Years 858

Rediscovery of Comecon after Stalin's Death 859

Rapid Growth in Comecon Activity, 1956-63 860

Inactivity and Subsequent Revitalization in the Late 1960s 861

The 1971 Comprehensive Program 861

The 1980s 862

COOPERATION UNDER THE 1971 COMPREHENSIVE

PROGRAM 863

Market Relations and Instruments 864

Cooperation in Planning 866

POWER CONFIGURATIONS WITHIN COMECON 870

The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe 870

Mongolia, Cuba, and Vietnam 871

Support for Developing Countries 872

TRENDS AND PROSPECTS 872

Appendix C. The Warsaw Pact 875

Karl Wheeler Soper

THE SOVIET ALLIANCE SYSTEM, 1943-55 875

THE FORMATION OF THE WARSAW PACT,

1955-70 878

The Polish October 880

The Hungarian Revolution 880

A Shift Toward Greater Cohesion 881

The Prague Spring 882

ORGANIZATION AND STRATEGY OF THE

WARSAW PACT 884

Political Organization 884

Military Organization 885

Soviet Military Strategy and the Warsaw Pact 887

THE WEAKENING OF THE ALLIANCE'S COHESION,

1970-85 888

Detente 888

The End of Detente 891

THE RENEWAL OF THE ALLIANCE, 1985-89 892

Bibliography 895

Glossary 979

Index 1009

List of Figures

1 Administrative Divisions of the Soviet Union, 1989 lvi 2 The Principalities of Kievan Rus', 1136 6 xx
3 Territorial Expansion of Muscovy and the Russian Empire,

1550-1917 16 4 Red Army Line, March 1920 62

5 Military Operations Against Germany, 1941-45 76

6 Topography and Drainage 106

7 Major Mineral Deposits 114

8 Population Distribution by Age and Sex, 1987 120

9 Population Density, 1981 126

10 Nationalities and Nationality Groups, 1987 136

11 Structure of the Education System, 1987 252

12 Organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet

Union, 1988 294

13 Central Apparatus of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1988 302

14 Soviet Foreign Relations Worldwide, 1988 406

15 Automotive and Metallurgical Production Centers in the Western Soviet Union, 1988 498

16 Economic Regions, 1985 504

17 Land Use, 1982 528

18 Major Railroads, 1986 560

19 Major Roads, 1981 564

20 Major Inland Waterways, 1984 568

21 Major Maritime Ports, Airports, and Sea Routes, 1986 . . . 574

22 Major Petroleum Deposits and Pipelines, 1982 584

23 Foreign Trade Bureaucracy, 1988 596

24 Organization of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, 1987 598

25 Composition of Foreign Trade, Selected Years, 1960-87 . . . 602

26 Soviet Military-Political Concepts, 1989 656

27 Theaters of Military Operations, 1987 674

28 Organization of the Ministry of Defense, 1988 704

29 Typical Organization of an Armed Service, 1988 706

30 Military Districts and Fleets, 1988 724

31 Organization of a Typical Military District, 1988 726

32 Apparatus of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

in the Armed Services, 1988 732

33 Management of Defense Production, 1988 736

34 Ranks and Insignia of Strategic Rocket Forces and

Ground Forces, 1989 740

35 Ranks and Insignia of Air Forces and Air Defense

Forces, 1989 741

36 Ranks and Insignia of Naval Forces, 1989 744

37 Organization of the Committee for State Security

(KGB), 1988 768

38 Organization of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), 1988 784

xxi

Preface

Soviet Union: A Country Study seeks to present factual descriptions

and objective interpretations of a broad range of social, political,

economic, and national security aspects of the Soviet Union in the

late 1980s. The authors synthesized information from books, schol- arly journals, official reports of governments and international

organizations, foreign and domestic newspapers, and conference

reports and proceedings.

This volume supersedes the Area Handbook for the Soviet Union,

first published in 1971. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s,

the Soviet Union was politically, economically, and socially stagnant, according to many Western observers. After Mikhail S. Gorbachev came to power in March 1985, however, unprecedented

events portending substantial change began to occur. To revital- ize the critically ailing economy, Gorbachev introduced perestroika; to alter the political power structure, he introduced demokratizatsiia; and to provide information needed to implement both, he in- troduced glasnost \ These three slogans represented evolving concepts rather than formal programs with specific plans and time

schedules. Information about events occurring in the late 1980s came in such volume that many observers were overwhelmed. The

long-range impact of the events can be realistically assessed only

after careful analysis of accurate and complete data and the perspective granted with the passage of time. Meanwhile, the basic

elements of the Soviet Union, such as history, geography, and social, economic, and military structures, as described in this volume, can help readers understand the events as they occur. This volume covers the salient features of the Soviet Union in

nineteen chapters that attempt to provide balanced and straightforward descriptions and analyses of the subject matter. Readers

wishing to obtain more information on subjects dealt with in each

chapter can refer to the bibliographic essay at the end of the chapter. A complete Bibliography at the end of the book provides additional sources of information and complete citations. A Country

Profile and a Chronology are also included as reference aids. The

Glossary furnishes succinct definitions of many specialized terms

used in the book. Measurements are given in the metric system; a conversion table is provided to assist readers unfamiliar with

metric measurements (see table 1, Appendix A).

Because confusion often arises with respect to the use of the words

socialism and communism, a note of caution is in order concerning

xxiii
their use in this book. The Soviet Union and other countries that

people in the West generally refer to as communist usually describe

themselves as socialist, making the claim that they are working

toward communism, which Karl Marx described as a more advanced historical stage than socialism. In this book, socialist and

socialism are generally used in the sense of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Soviet socialism has little resemblance to the democratic

socialism of some West European countries. In this book, communism means a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and

Marxism-Leninism, which is the official ideology of the Soviet

Union.

Readers specifically interested in information on the Russian nationality and the Russian Orthodox Church should note that in- formation on these subjects is contained in a number of chapters.

Hence, to avoid redundancy, the space devoted to these subjects

in the chapter on nationalities and religions (Chapter 4) is proportionately less than that devoted to other nationalities and religions.

Readers are especially referred to Chapter 1, which is primarily

concerned with the history of the Russian nationality and frequentiy

refers to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Statistics derived from Soviet sources, especially those dealing

with the economy and transportation, have sometimes been dis- puted by Western authorities. Such statistics, occasionally containing unexplained discrepancies, have been used as the only available

alternative and have been identified as of Soviet origin. Population statistics used in the book were based on the 1989 census. Because, however, complete results of that census had not been

released or fully analyzed at the time the book was being written, some statistics were based on the 1979 census. Transliteration of Russian names and terms generally follows

the Library of Congress transliteration system, but geographic names follow the United States Board of Geographic Names ro- manization system. Exceptions were made, however, if the name

or term was listed in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. For

example, Leon Trotsky was used instead of Lev Trotskii and

Moscow instead of Moskva. Most of the Russian terms used in

the book were not in Webster's and were therefore transliterated

and italicized as foreign words. Hence the term for one administrative subdivision raion was transliterated and italicized, but the

term for another subdivision, oblast, listed in Webster's was not. For most organizational names, English translations—and if needed

the acronym derived therefrom—were used. If a transliterated or- ganizational name or its acronym was considered sufficiently well

known, however, it was used. For example, most readers will know

xxiv
that the acronym KGB stands for the Soviet secret police and to use CSS (based on Committee for State Security—a translation

of the name that is transliterated Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti) made little sense.

xxv

Table A. Chronology of Important Events

Period Description NINTH CENTURY

ca. 860

.. 880

Rurik, a Varangian, according to earliest chronicle of Kievan Rus', rules Novgorod and

founds Rurikid Dynasty.

Prince Oleg, a Varangian, first historically veri- fied ruler of Kievan Rus'. TENTH CENTURY

911 Prince Oleg, after attacking Constantinople, concludes treaty with Byzantine Empire

favorable to Kievan Rus'. 944

ca. 955

97]

Prince Igor' compelled by Constantinople to sign treaty adverse to Kievan Rus'.

Princess Olga, while regent of Kievan Rus', converts to Christianity. Prince Sviatoslav makes peace with Byzantine

Empire.

ELEVENTH CENTURY

1015

Prince Vladimir converts Kievan Rus' to Christianity.

Prince Vladimir's death leads Rurikid princes

into fratricidal war that continues until 1036. 1019 Prince Iaroslav (the Wise) of Novgorod assumes

throne of Kievan Rus'. 1036

1037

Prince Iaroslav the Wise ends fratricidal war and

later codifies laws of Kievan Rus' into Ruska

Pravda (Rus' Justice).

Prince Iaroslav the Wise defeats Pechenegs; construction begins on St. Sofia Cathedral in Kiev.

1051 Ilarion becomes first native metropolitan of Orthodox Church in Kievan Rus'. TWELFTH CENTURY

1113-25 Kievan Rus' experiences revival under Grand

Prince Vladimir Monomakh.

1136 Republic of Novgorod gains independence from Kievan Rus'. 1147 1156

Moscow first mentioned in chronicles. Novgorod acquires its own archbishop.

XXV11
Table A. —Continued

Period Description 1169 Armies of Prince Andrei Bogoliubskii of Vladimir-Suzdal' sack Kiev; Andrei assumes

tide "Grand Prince of Kiev and all Rus'" but chooses to reside in Suzdal'. THIRTEENTH CENTURY

1219-41

1242

1253 FOURTEENTH CENTURY

1327

Mongols invade: Kiev falls in 1240; Novgorod

and Moscow submit to Mongol "yoke"

without resisting. Aleksandr Nevskii successfully defends Novgorod against Teutonic attack.

Prince Daniil of Galicia-Volhynia accepts royal crown of Kievan Rus' from pope.

Ivan, prince of Moscow, nicknamed Kalita ("Money Bags"), affirmed as "Grand Prince

of Vladimir" by Mongols; Moscow becomes

seat of metropolitan of Russian Orthodox

Church.

1380

FIFTEENTH CENTURY

1462

1478

1485 SIXTEENTH CENTURY

1505 1510

1533

1547

1552 1556

1565

Dmitrii Donskoi defeats Golden Horde at Bat- de of Kulikovo, but Mongol domination continues until 1480.

Ivan III becomes grand prince of Muscovy and

first Muscovite ruler to use titles of tsar and

"Ruler of all Rus'." Muscovy defeats Novgorod.

Muscovy conquers Tver'.

Vasilii III becomes grand prince of Muscovy.

Muscovy conquers Pskov. Grand Prince Ivan IV named ruler of Muscovy

at age three. Ivan IV (the Terrible or the Dread) crowned tsar of Muscovy.

Ivan IV conquers Kazan' Khanate.

Ivan IV conquers Astrakhan' Khanate.

Oprichnina of Ivan IV creates a state within the

state.

xxviii
Table A. —Continued

Period Description

1571 Tatars raid Moscow.

1581 Ermak begins conquest of Siberia. 1584 Fedor I crowned tsar. 1589 Patriarchate of Moscow established. 1596 Union of Brest establishes Uniate Church.

1598 Rurikid Dynasty ends with death of Fedor; Boris Godunov named tsar; Time of Troubles

begins. EVENTEENTH CENTURY

1601 Three years of famine begin. 1605 Fedor II crowned tsar; First False Dmitrii sub- sequendy named tsar after Fedor II' s murder. 1606 Vasilii Shuiskii named tsar. 1606-07 Bolotnikov leads revolt. 1610 Second False Dmitrii proclaimed tsar. 1610- 13 Poles occupy Moscow.

1611- 12 Minin and Pozharskii organize counterattack

against Poles. 1613 Mikhail Romanov crowned tsar, founding Romanov Dynasty.

1631 Metropolitan Mohila founds academy in Kiev. 1645 Alexis crowned tsar. 1648 Ukrainian Cossacks, led by Bohdan Khmel'-

nyts'kyi, revolt against Polish landowners and

gentry. 1649 r-i p| Pit . 1 1 ' I 11 1 Serfdom fully established by law. 1654

1667

Treaty of Pereyaslavl' places Ukraine under

tsarist rule. Church council in Moscow anathemizes Old Belief but removes Patriarch Nikon; Treaty of Andrusovo ends war with Poland.

1670- 71 Stenka Razin leads revolt. 1676 Fedor III crowned tsar.

XXIX
Table A. —Continued

Period Description 1682

1689

1696 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

1700

1703

1705-11

1708

1709 1710

1721

1722 1723-32

1725

1727 1730

1740

1741 1762

1768-74

Half brothers Ivan V and Peter I named cotsars; Peter's half sister, Sofia, becomes

regent.

Peter I (the Great) forces Sofia to resign regency; Treaty of Nerchinsk ends period of conflict with China. Ivan V dies, leaving Peter the Great sole tsar; port of Azov captured from Ottoman Empire.

Calendar reformed; war with Sweden begins.

St. Petersburg founded; becomes capital of Russia in 1713.

Bashkirs revolt.

First Russian newspaper published. Swedes defeated at Batde of Poltava.

Cyrillic alphabet reformed. Treaty of Nystad ends Great Northern War with Sweden and establishes Russian presence on

Baltic Sea; Peter the Great proclaims Muscovy the Russian Empire; Holy Synod

replaces patriarchate. Table of Ranks established. Russia gains control of southern shore of Caspian Sea. Catherine I crowned empress of Russia.

Peter II crowned emperor of Russia. Anna crowned empress of Russia. Ivan VI crowned emperor of Russia.

Elizabeth crowned empress of Russia.

Peter III crowned emperor of Russia; abolishes compulsory state service for the gentry; Catherine II (the Great) crowned empress of Russia. War with Ottoman Empire ends with Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji.

XXX
Table A. —Continued

Period Description

1772 1773-74

1785

Russia participates in first partition of Poland. Emelian Pugachev leads peasant revolt. Catherine II confirms nobility's privileges in Charter to the Nobility. 1787-92 War with Ottoman Empire ends with Treaty of

Jassy; Ottomans recognize 1783 Russian an- nexation of Crimea.

1793 and 1795 Russia participates in second and third partitions of Poland. 1796 Paul crowned emperor of Russia; establishes new law of succession. NINETEENTH CENTURY

1801 Alexander I crowned emperor; conquest of Caucasus region begins. 1809 Finland annexed from Sweden and awarded au- tonomous status. 1812 Napoleon's army occupies Moscow but is then

driven out of Russia. 1817-19 Baltic peasants liberated from serfdom but given no land. 1825

1830

1833

1837

"Decembrists' revolt" fails; Nicholas I crowned

emperor.

Polish uprising crushed. "Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and nationality" ac- cepted as guiding principles by regime.

First Russian railroad, from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo, opens; Aleksandr Pushkin,

foremost Russian writer, dies in duel.

1840s and 1850s Slavophiles debate Westernizers over Russia's

future. 1849

1853-56

Russia helps to put down anti-Habsburg Hungarian rebellion at Austria's request. Russia fights Britain, France, Sardinia, and Ot- toman Empire in Crimean War; Russia

forced to accept peace settlement dictated by

its opponents.

xxxi
Period Description

1855 1858

1860

1861 1863 1864

1869

1873-74

1875

1877-78

1879

1879-80

1881

1894

1898

TWENTIETH CENTURY

1903

1904-05

1905

Alexander II crowned emperor.

Treaty of Aigun signed with China; northern bank of Amur River ceded to Russia. Treaty of Beijing signed with China; Ussuri River region awarded to Russia. Alexander II emancipates serfs.

Polish rebellion unsuccessful.

Judicial system reformed; zemstvos created. War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910) published. Army reformed; Russian youths go "to the people."

Kuril Islands yielded to Japan in exchange for southern Sakhalin. War with Ottoman Empire ends with Treaty of San Stefano; independent Bulgaria pro- claimed. Revolutionary society Land and Liberty splits; People's Will and Black Repartition formed.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fedor Dostoevskii (1821-81) published. Alexander II assassinated; Alexander III crowned emperor.

Nicholas II crowned emperor. Russian Social Democratic Labor Party estab- lished and holds First Party Congress in March; Vladimir I. Lenin one of organizers of party.

Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. Russo-Japanese War ends with Russian defeat; southern Sakhalin ceded to Japan. "Bloody Sunday" massacre in January begins Revolution of 1905, a year of labor and eth- nic unrest; government issues so-called October

Manifesto, calling for parliamentary elections.
Table A. —Continued

Period Description 1906

1911 1914

1916

1917 March

First Duma (parliament) elected.

Stolypin, chief minister since 1906, assassinated. World War I begins. Rasputin murdered.

(February, according to Julian calendar) February Revolution, in which workers riot at Petrograd; Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and

Soldiers' Deputies formed; Provisional Government formed; Emperor Nicholas II abdicates; Petrograd Soviet issues "Order

No. 1."

April

July

September

November

December

1918 January

Demonstrations lead to Aleksandr Kerensky's

assuming leadership in government; Lenin

returns to Petrograd from Switzerland.

Bolsheviks oudawed after attempt to topple government fails. Lavr Kornilov putsch attempt fails.

(October, according to Julian calendar) Bolsheviks seize power from Provisional Government; Lenin, as leader of Bolsheviks, becomes head of state; Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (Russian Republic) formed;

Constituent Assembly elected. Vecheka (secret police) created; Finns and Moldavians declare independence from Russia; Japanese occupy Vladivostok. Constituent Assembly dissolved; Ukraine

declares its independence, followed, in sub- sequent months, by Armenia, Azerbaydzhan,

Belorussia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, and

Lithuania. February

March

Basmachi Rebellion begins in Central Asia; calendar changed from Julian to Gregorian. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed with Germany;

Russia loses Poland, Finland, Baltic lands, Ukraine, and other areas; Russian Social Democratic Labor Party becomes Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik).

April Civil War begins.

xxxiii
Table A. —Continued

Period Description June

July

Summer

August

November

1919 January

March

1920 January

February

April

July October November

1921 March

Summer

August

1922 March

Concentration camps established.

Constitution of Russian Republic promulgated;

imperial family murdered. War communism established; intervention in Civil War by foreign expeditionary forces

including those of Britain, France, and United

States—begins. Attempt to assassinate Lenin fails; Red Terror

begins. Treaty of Brest- Litovsk repudiated by Soviet government after Germany defeated by Allied Powers.

Belorussia established as theoretically indepen- dent Soviet republic. Communist International (Comintern) formally founded at congress in Moscow; Ukraine es- tablished as Soviet republic. Blockade of Russian Republic lifted by Britain and other Allies. Peace agreement signed with Estonia; agree- ments with Latvia and Lithuania follow. War with Poland begins; Azerbaydzhan established as Soviet republic. Trade agreement signed with Britain. Truce reached with Poland. Red Army defeats Wrangel's army in Crimea; Armenia established as Soviet republic. War with Poland ends with Treaty of Riga; Red

Army crushes Kronshtadt naval mutiny; New

Economic Policy proclaimed; Georgia established as Soviet republic. Famine breaks out in Volga region. Aleksandr Blok, foremost poet of Russian Sil- ver Age, dies; large number of intellectuals exiled. Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic formed, uniting Armenian, Azer- baydzhan, and Georgian republics.

XXXIV
Table A. —Continued

Period Description

April

May

June

December

1924 January

February

Fall

1925 April

November

December

1926 April October

1927 Fall

December

1928 January

May

July

Joseph V. Stalin made general secretary of

party; Treaty of Rapallo signed with Ger- many.

Lenin suffers his first stroke.

Socialist Revolutionary Party members put on

trial by State Political Administration; Glavlit organized with censorship function. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union) established, comprising Russian,

Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Transcaucasian

republics. Lenin dies; constitution of Soviet Union put into

force.

Britain recognizes Soviet Union; other European

countries follow suit later in year. Regime begins to delimit territories of Central Asian nationalities; Turkmenia and Uzbekistan elevated to Soviet republic status.

Nikolai I. Bukharin calls for peasants to enrich

themselves. Poet Sergei Esenin commits suicide. Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) becomes

All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik).

Grigorii V. Zinov'ev ousted from Politburo. Leon Trotsky and Lev B. Kamenev ousted from

Politburo. Peasants sell government less grain than demanded because of low prices; peasant dis- content increases; grain crisis begins.

Fifteenth Party Congress calls for large-scale col- lectivization of agriculture. Trotsky exiled to Alma-Ata.

Shakhty trial begins; first executions for "eco- nomic crimes" follow.

Sixth Congress of Comintern names socialist parties main enemy of communists. October Implementation of First Five-Year Plan begins. XXXV
Table A. —Continued

Period Description 1929 January

April

Fall

October

November

December

1930 March

April

November

1931 March

August

1932 May

December

1932-33

1933 November

1934 August

September December

1935 February

May

Trotsky forced to leave Soviet Union. Law on religious associations requires registra- tion of religious groups, authorizes church

closings, and bans religious teaching. Red Army skirmishes with Chinese forces in Manchuria.

Tadzhikistan splits from Uzbek Republic to form

separate Soviet republic. Bukharin ousted from Politburo.

Stalin formally declares end of New Economic

Policy and calls for elimination of kulaks; forced industrialization intensifies, and col- lectivization begins.

Collectivization slows temporarily. Poet Vladimir Maiakovskii commits suicide.

"Industrial Party" put on trial. Mensheviks put on trial. School system reformed.

Five-year plan against religion declared.

Internal passports introduced for domestic

travel; peasants not issued passports. Terror and forced famine rage in countryside, primarily in southeastern Ukrainian Republic and northern Caucasus. Diplomatic relations with United States established. Union of Writers holds its First Congress.

Soviet Union admitted to League of Nations.

Sergei Kirov assassinated in Leningrad; Great Terror begins, causing intense fear among

general populace, and peaks in 1937 and 1938

before subsiding in latter year. Party cards exchanged; many members purged from party ranks.

Treaties signed with France and Czechoslovakia.

xxxvi
Table A. —Continued

Period Description Summer

August

September

1936 June

August

September

October

December

1937 January June

1938 March

July

December

1939 May

August

September

October

Seventh Congress of Comintern calls for "united

front" of political parties against fascism. Stakhanovite movement to increase worker

productivity begins. New system of ranks issued for Red Army.

Restrictive laws on family and marriage issued.

Zinov'ev, Kamenev, and other high-level offi- cials put on trial for alleged political crimes.

Nikolai Ezhov replaces Genrikh Iagoda as head

of NKVD (police); purge of party deepens.

Soviet Union begins support for antifascists in Spanish Civil War. New constitution proclaimed; Kazakhstan and

Kirgizia become Soviet republics; Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic

splits into Armenian, Azerbaydzhan, and

Georgian republics.

Trial of "Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Center." Marshal Mikhail N. Tukhachevskii and other

military leaders executed. Russian language required in all schools in Soviet Union.

Soviet and Japanese forces fight at Lake Khasan. Lavrenty Beria replaces Ezhov; Great Terror

diminishes. Viacheslav Molotov replaces Maksim M. Lit- vinov as commissar of foreign affairs; armed

conflict withJapan at Halhin Gol in Mongolia continues until August.

Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact signed; pact in- cludes secret protocol.

Stalin joins Adolf Hitler in partitioning Poland.

Soviet forces enter Estonia, Latvia, and LithNovember Remaining (western) portions of Ukraine and

Belorussia incorporated into Soviet Union;

Soviet forces invade Finland.

xxxvii
Table A. —Continued

Period Description December

1940 March

April

June

August

1941 April

May

June

August

November

December

1942 May

July

November

1943 February

May

July

September

November

1944 January

May

Soviet Union expelled from League of Nations.

Finland sues for peace with Soviet Union.

Polish officers massacred in Katyn Forest by

NKVD.

Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia seized from Romania and subsequendy incorporated into Ukrainian Republic and newly created Moldavian Republic, respectively.

Soviet Union annexes Estonia, Latvia, and

Lithuania; Trotsky murdered in Mexico.

Neutrality pact signed with Japan.

Stalin becomes chairman of Council of People's Commissars.

Nazi Germany attacks Soviet Union under

Operation Barbarossa.

Soviet and British troops enter Iran. Lend-Lease Law of United States applied to Soviet Union.

Soviet counteroffensive against Germany begins. Red Army routed at Khar'kov; Germans halt Soviet offensive; treaty signed with Britain against Germany.

Battle of Stalingrad begins. Red Army starts winter offensive. German army units surrender at Stalingrad; 91,000 prisoners taken. Comintern dissolved. Germans defeated in tank battle at Kursk.

Stalin allows Russian Orthodox Church to ap- point patriarch. Teheran Conference held.

Siege of Leningrad ends after 870 days. Crimea liberated from German army.

xxxviii
Table A. —Continued

Period Description June

October

1945 February

Red Army begins summer offensive. Tuva incorporated into Soviet Union; armed

struggle against Soviet rule breaks out in western Ukrainian, western Belorussian, Lithuanian, and Latvian republics and continues for several years.

Stalin meets with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt at Yalta.

April

May

July-August

August

Soviet Union renounces neutrality with Japan. Red Army captures Berlin. Potsdam Conference attended by Stalin, Harry S Truman, and Churchill, who is later replaced by Clement R. Atdee.

Soviet Union declares war on Japan; Soviet

forces enter Manchuria and Korea.

1946 March Regime abolishes Ukrainian Catholic Church

(Uniate); Council of People's Commissars be- comes Council of Ministers. Summer

1947

September

1948 June

Summer

Beginning of "Zhdanovshchina," a campaign

against Western culture. Famine in southern and central regions of Euro- pean part of Soviet Union. Cominform established to replace Comintern.

Blockade of Berlin by Soviet forces begins and

lasts through May 1949. Trofim D. Lysenko begins his domination of

fields of biology and genetics that continues

until 1955. 1949 January Council for Mutual Economic Assistance formed; campaign against "cosmopolitan- ism" launched. August

1952 October

1953 January

Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb.

All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) be- comes Communist Party of the Soviet Union

(CPSU); name of Polituro is changed to Presidium. Kremlin "doctors' plot" exposed, signifying political infighting.

xxxix
Table A. —Continued

Period Description March

April June

August

September

1955 February

May

1956 February

September

November

1957 July

August

October

1958 March

October

1959 September

1960 May

1961 April

July

August

Stalin dies; Georgii M. Malenkov, Beria, and

Molotov form troika (triumvirate); tide of party chief changes from general secretary to

first secretary. "Doctors' plot" declared a provocation.

Beria arrested and later shot; Malenkov, Molotov, and Nikita S. Khrushchev form troika.

Soviet Union tests hydrogen bomb.

Khrushchev chosen CPSU first secretary; re- habilitation of Stalin's victims begins.

Nikolai A. Bulganin replaces Malenkov as prime

minister. Warsaw Pact organized. Khrushchev's "secret speech" at Twentieth

Party Congress exposes Stalin's crimes. Minimum wage established. Soviet forces crush Hungarian Revolution. "Anti-party group" excluded from CPSU

leadership.

First Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile tested successfully. World's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, launched. Khrushchev named chairman of Council of

Ministers. Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to Boris

Pasternak; campaign mounted against Paster- nak, who refuses to accept award. Khrushchev visits United States.

Soviet air defense downs United States U-2

reconnaissance aircraft over Soviet Union. Cosmonaut Iurii Gagarin launched in world's

first manned orbital space flight. Khrushchev meets with President John F. Kennedy in Vienna.

Construction of Berlin Wall begins.

xl
Table A. —Continued

Period Description October

1962 June

October

November

1963 August

1964 October

1965 August

1966 February

April

1967 April

September

1968 June

July

August

1969 March

May

1970 October

December

1972 May

Stalin's remains removed from Lenin Mausoleum. Workers' riots break out in Novocherkassk. Cuban missile crisis begins, bringing United

States and Soviet Union close to war. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich published in Soviet journal. Limited Test Ban Treaty signed with United

States and Britain. Khrushchev removed from power; Leonid I. Brezhnev becomes CPSU first secretary. Volga Germans rehabilitated. Dissident writers Andrei Siniavskii and Iulii Daniel tried and sentenced. Brezhnev's title changes from first secretary to general secretary; name of Presidium is changed back to Politburo.

Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Allilueva, defects to West. Crimean Tatars rehabilitated but not allowed

to return home.

Andrei Sakharov's dissident writings published

in samizdat. Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons signed by Soviet Union.

Soviet-led Warsaw Pact armies invade Czechoslovakia.

Soviet and Chinese forces skirmish on Ussuri

River. Major General Petr Grigorenko, a dissident, ar- rested and incarcerated in psychiatric hospital. Solzhenitsyn awarded Nobel Prize for Liter- ature. Jewish emigration to avoid persecution begins

to increase substantially.

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) result in signing of Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

Xli
Table A. —Continued

Period Description

1973 June

1974 February

1975 July

August

December

1976

1977 June

October

1979 June

December

1980 January

August

1981 February

1982 June

November

1983 September

1984 February

1985 March

November

(ABM Treaty) and Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms; Presi- dent Richard M. Nixon visits Moscow.

Brezhnev visits Washington.

Solzhenitsyn arrested and sent into foreign exile. Apollo-Soiuz space mission held jointly with United States.

Helsinki Accords signed, confirming East Euro- pean borders and calling for enforcement of human rights. Sakharov awarded Nobel Prize for Peace.

Helsinki watch groups formed to monitor human

rights safeguards. Brezhnev named chairman of Presidium of Supreme Soviet. New constitution promulgated for Soviet Union. Second SALT agreement signed but not rati- fied by United States Senate.

Soviet armed forces invade Afghanistan. Sakharov exiled to Gor'kiy.

Summer Olympics held in Moscow and boycotted by United States. CPSU holds its Twenty-Sixth Party Congress.

Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START)

begin. Brezhnev dies; Iurii V. Andropov named general secretary.

Soviet fighter aircraft downs South Korean

civilian airliner KAL 007 near Sakhalin. Andropov dies; Konstantin U. Chernenko be- comes general secretary. Chernenko dies; Mikhail S. Gorbachev becomes

general secretary. Gorbachev meets with President Ronald W.

Reagan in Geneva.

xlii
Table A. —Continued

Period Description 1986 February-March

April-May

October

December

1987 December

1988 Winter May

May-June

June

June-July

October

December

1989 February

March-April

May

CPSU holds its Twenty-Seventh Party Congress. Nuclear power plant disaster at Chernobyl'

releases deadly radiation. Gorbachev and Reagan hold summit at Reykjavik. Ethnic riots break out in Alma-Ata.

Soviet Union and United States sign Inter- mediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF

Treaty). Ethnic disturbances begin in Caucasus.

Soviet authorities stop jamming Voice of America broadcasts. Reagan visits Moscow.

Millennium of establishment of Christianity in Kievan Rus' celebrated in Moscow. CPSU's Nineteenth Party Conference tests limits of glasnost' and perestroika in unprece- dented discussions. Gorbachev replaces Andrei Gromyko as chair- man of Presidium of Supreme Soviet; Gro- myko and others removed from Politburo. Earthquake registering 6.9 on Richter scale

strikes Armenian Republic, destroying much

of cities of Leninakan and Spitak and result- ing in 25,000 deaths.

Soviet combat forces complete withdrawal from

Afghanistan.

Initial and runoff elections held for the 2,250

seats in Congress of People's Deputies; some

seats have more than one candidate running; about 87 percent of elected deputies CPSU

members or candidate members.

Congress of People's Deputies meets, openly

criticizes past and present regimes before tel- evision audiences, and elects 542 members to serve in Supreme Soviet; Gorbachev elected by Congress of People's Deputies to new position of chairman of Supreme Soviet.

xliii

Country Profile

Country

Formal Name: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; abbreviated:

USSR; transliterated: Soiuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik—SSSR.

Informal Name: Soviet Union.

Term for Citizens: Formally, Soviet people; informally, Soviets.

Capital: Moscow.

Geography

Size: Approximately 22,402,200 square kilometers (land area 22,

272,000 square kilometers); slighdy less than 2.5 times size of United

States.

xlv
Location: Occupies eastern portion of European continent and

northern portion of Asian continent. Most of country north of 50°

north latitude.

Topography: Vast steppe with low hills west of Ural Mountains;

extensive coniferous forest and tundra in Siberia; deserts in Central Asia; mountains along southern boundaries.

Climate: Generally temperate to Arctic continental. Wintry weather

varies from short-term and cold along Black Sea to long-term and

frigid in Siberia. Summer-like conditions vary from hot in southern

deserts to cool along Arctic coast. Weather usually harsh and unpredictable. Generally dry with more than half of country receiving

fewer than forty centimeters of rainfall per year, most of Soviet Central Asia and northeastern Siberia receiving only half that amount.

Land Boundaries: 19,933 kilometers total: Afghanistan 2,384 kilo- meters; China 7,520 kilometers; Czechoslovakia 98 kilometers;

Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) 17 kilo- meters; Finland 1,313 kilometers; Hungary 135 kilometers; Iran

1,690 kilometers; Mongolia 3,441 kilometers; Norway 196 kilo- meters; Poland 1,215 kilometers; Romania 1,307 kilometers; and

Turkey 617 kilometers.

Water Boundaries: 42,777 kilometers washed by oceanic systems

of Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific.

Land Use: 11 percent of land arable; 16 percent meadows and

pasture; 41 percent forest and woodland; and 32 percent other,

including tundra.

Natural Resources: Oil, natural gas, coal, iron ore, timber, gold,

manganese, lead, zinc, nickel, mercury, potash, phosphates, and

most strategic minerals.

Society

Population: 286,717,000 (January 1989 census). Average annual

growth rate 0.9 percent. Density twelve persons per square kilo- meter; 75 percent of people lived in European portion.

Nationalities: About 51 percent of population Russian, 15 per- cent Ukrainian, 6 percent Uzbek, 3.5 percent Belorussian, and 24.5

percent about 100 other nationalities.

Religions: Religious worship authorized by Constitution, but

Marxism-Leninism, the official ideology, militantiy atheistic. Reliable statistics unavailable, but about 18 percent Russian Orthodox;

xlvi
17 percent Muslim; and nearly 7 percent Roman Catholic, Protestant, Armenian Orthodox, Georgian Orthodox, and Jewish combined. Officially, most of remainder atheist. Languages: Russian the official language. Over 200 other languages

and dialects spoken, often as the primary tongue; 18 languages

spoken by groups of more than 1 million each. About 75 percent

of people spoke Slavic languages.

Education: Highly centralized school system with standardized cur- riculum. Compulsory attendance through eleventh grade. Strong

emphasis on training for vocations selected by central authorities.

Indoctrination in Marxist-Leninist ideology at all levels. Science

and technology emphasized at secondary level and above. As of

1979 census, official literacy rate 99.8 percent for persons between

nine and forty-nine years old. Over 5.3 million studied at universities and institutes, nearly 50 percent part time. All education free,

and in many cases students received stipends.

Health and Welfare: Medical care by government health institu- tions; free but of poor quality for general public despite highest

number of physicians and hospital beds per capita in world. Welfare and pension programs provided, albeit marginally, for substantial segments of population.

Politics and Government

Political Party: Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),

only party permitted by Constitution, controlled government apparatus and decisions affecting economy and society. CPSU fol- lowed ideology of Marxism-Leninism and operated on principle

of democratic centralism. Primary CPSU bodies: Politburo, highest

decision-making organ; Secretariat, controller of party bureaucracy;

and Central Committee, party's policy forum. CPSU membership more than 19 million (9.7 percent of adult population) in 1987,

dominated by male Russian professionals. Party members occupied

positions of authority in all officially recognized institutions throughout country.

Government: As authorized by 1977 Constitution, fourth since 1918,

government executed decisions of CPSU pertaining primarily to economy but also to security affairs and social issues. Congress of

People's Deputies created in 1988 by amendment to Constitution;

highest organ of legislative and executive authority; consisted of

2,250 deputies, about 87 percent of whom CPSU members or candidate members and some of whom selected in first multicandidate

xlvii
(although not multiparty) elections since early Soviet period; slated

to meet once a year for a few days; met for first time in May 1989;

deputies openly discussed issues, elected a chairman, and selected

542 deputies from among its membership to constitute a reor- ganized, bicameral Supreme Soviet, a standing legislature slated

to remain in session six to eight months annually. Prior to 1989,

former Supreme Soviet was constitutionally highest organ of legislative and executive authority but met only a few days annually;

its Presidium managed affairs throughout year. Council of Ministers

administered party decisions, mainly regarding economic management, by delegating authority to its Presidium; chairman of Council

of Ministers also sat on CPSU Politburo.

Judicial System: Supreme Court, highest judicial body, had lit- tle power, lacking authority to determine constitutionality of laws,

to interpret laws, or to strike laws down.

Administrative Divisions: Country administratively divided into one soviet federated socialist republic (Russian) and fourteen soviet

socialist republics (Armenian, Azerbaydazhan, Belorussian, Estonian, Georgian, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Latvian, Lithuanian, Moldavian,

Tadzhik, Turkmen, Ukrainian, and Uzbek). Below republic level,

administrative subdivisions complicated, varying with each republic

and including following categories: autonomous oblast, autonomous

okrug, autonomous republic, krai, oblast, and raion. Only Russian

Republic had all categories.

Foreign Relations: Diplomatic relations with majority of world's

nations. Main foreign policy objectives as determined by CPSU

Politburo: enhance national security, maintain presence in Eastern

Europe, continue "peaceful coexistence" with free world democracies, and seek increased influence in Third World.

International Agreements and Memberships: Dominant part- ner in Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) and

Warsaw Pact. Active participant in United Nations and its specialized agencies. Signatory to Final Act of Conference on Security

and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Accords) and many other

multilateral and bilateral agreements.

Economy

Salient Features: Centrally planned socialist economy. Government owned and operated all industries: banking, transportation,

and communications systems; trade and public services; and most

xlviii
of agricultural sector. CPSU, guided by principles of MarxismLeninism, controlled planning and decision-making processes; central planners determined investment, prices, distribution of goods

and services, and allocation of material and human resources ac- cording to CPSU priorities. Defense and heavy industries emphasized over consumer and agricultural sectors. Availability and

quality of food, clothing, housing, and services often inadequate

for average citizen. Economy planned as being largely self-sufficient. Economic development and population centers primarily in European portion, but many raw material and energy resources in

Asian areas, making access difficult and both exploration and trans- portation costly. Declining economic growth since mid-1970s. Beginning in 1985, regime attempted to implement economic reform.

Gross National Product (GNP): Estimated at US$2.4 trillion in

1986; US$8,375 per capita in 1986; real growth rate in 1988 about

1.5 percent, continuing deceleration begun in mid-1970s.

Revenue: Largest source of government funds taxation of enterprise profits and turnover taxes; personal income taxes provided

less than 10 percent.

Industry: Diversified industrial base directed by complicated, centralized bureaucratic system. Highest priorities given to machinebuilding and metal-working industries and to military materiel

manufacturing; consumer industries not allocated comparable

human, financial, or material resources. Technological advances

applied primarily to defense industries. Major industrial branches:

manufacturing (including defense), chemicals, metallurgy, textiles,

food processing, and construction. Employment in industry and

construction 38 percent in 1988.

Energy: Self- sufficient in energy and a major energy exporter.

World's largest producer of oil and natural gas and second largest

coal producer. Enormous energy resources in Siberia, but cost of

extraction and transportation over great distances to western in- dustrial areas high. Main generators of electric power: thermoelectric (coal, oil, natural gas, and peat), nuclear power plants, and

hydroelectric stations.

Agriculture: Collective farms and state farms supplied bulk of

agricultural needs. Wheat and other grains, potatoes, sugar beets,

cotton, sunflower seeds, and flax main crops. Private plots—small

percentage of sown area—produced substantial quantities of meat,

milk, eggs, and vegetables. Large amounts of grain and meat imported. Despite high investment, serious problems in agriculture

xlix
persisted: insufficient fertilizer; inadequate refrigeration, storage,

and transportation; wasteful processing; and unrealistic planning

and management. More fundamental problems: only 1.3 percent

of arable land receives optimal precipitation; widely fluctuating crop

yields; and many fertile areas have insufficient growing seasons because of northern latitudes or moisture deficiency.

Fishing: World's largest oceangoing fishing fleet, accompanied by

large, modern, fish-processing ships, operated in Atlantic and Pacific ocean systems. Inland seas and rivers accounted for less than

10 percent of catch.

Forestry: With a third of world's forested areas, country's production of logs and sawn timber exceeded that of all other countries,

despite inefficient and wasteful processing. Inadequate processing

capacity made production of pulp, paper cardboard, plywood, and

other wood products low.

Foreign Trade: Government policies of self- sufficiency and strict control maintained trade in minor economic role. In 1985 exports

and imports totaled US$185.9 billion, but each accounted for only

4 percent of GNP. Major trade partners included other communist

countries, particularly those of Eastern Europe, which accounted

for 67 percent of trade. Industrialized countries accounted for 22

percent and Third World countries for 1 1 percent. Major exports

petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, metals, wood,

agricultural products, and manufactured goods, primarily machinery, arms, and military equipment. Major imports grain and

other agricultural products, machinery and industrial equipment,

steel products (especially large-diameter pipe), and consumer goods.

Balance of trade favorable in mid-1980s. Trade with socialist countries conducted on bilateral basis with imports balancing exports.

Value of exports to Third World countries, including arms and

military equipment, exceeded hard-currency deficit caused by unfavorable trade balance with West. Merchant fleet consisted of about

2,500 oceangoing ships.

Exchange Rate: Officially, 0.61 ruble per US$1 (1988 average),

but rubles had no official value outside of Soviet Union. Soviet

authorities set exchange rates based on policy rather than market

factors. Unofficial (black market) exchange rates offered considerably more rubles per United States dollar. Fiscal Year: Calendar year. Science and Technology: Marked by highly developed pure sci- ence and innovation at theoretical level, but interpretation and

1
application fell short. Biology, chemistry, materials science, mathematics, and physics were fields in which Soviet citizens excelled.

Science emphasized at all levels of education, and very large number

of engineers graduated each year. Shortfall in science and technology could be attributed to centrally planned and controlled econ- omy and to priority given to national security, all of which provided

little incentive to design and create prototypes of products for mass

market. Without orders from central government, no product design and prototype saw fruition or stimulated innovation of other

products. Soviet regimes, in many cases, have chosen to adopt for- eign technology rather than to invest money, talent, and time to develop Soviet Union's indigenous technological capacity.

Transportation and Communications

Railroads: In 1986 about 145,600 kilometers of track, of which

50,600 kilometers electrified, almost all wide gauge; 3.8 trillion ton- kilometers of freight and 4.3 billion passenger fares, of which 3.9

billion on suburban lines, transported in 1986.

Highways: 1,609,900 kilometers in 1987, of which 1,196,000

kilometers hard-surfaced (asphalt, concrete, stone block, asphalttreated, gravel, or crushed stone) and 413,900 kilometers earth;

488.5 billion ton-kilometers of freight transported by trucks, primarily on short hauls for agricultural sector in 1986; 48.8 billion pas- sengers boarded, primarily commuters transported by bus. Use

of private automobiles limited.

Inland Waterways: 122,500 kilometers in 1987, exclusive of Caspian Sea; 255.6 billion ton-kilometers of freight transported by in- land waterways in 1986.

Pipelines: 81,500 kilometers for oil and 185,000 kilometers for

natural gas in 1986.

Ports: Over 100 major maritime and river ports, including Archangel, Astrakhan', Baku, Leningrad, Moscow, Murmansk, Odessa,

Riga, Tallin, and Vladivostok. Many maritime ports on Arctic

Ocean, northern Pacific Ocean, and Baltic Sea closed annually be- cause of ice. Many river ports also closed for varying periods annually.

Civil Aviation: 4,500 major transport aircraft. Airfields: 4,530

usable; 1,050 with permanent surface runways; 30 with runways

over 3,659 meters, 490 with runways 2,440 to 3,659 meters; and

660 with runways 1,220 to 2,439 meters.

li
Communications: Mass media controlled and directed by CPSU.

More than 8,000 daily newspapers in about sixty languages with

combined circulation of about 170 million. Nearly 5,500 weekly,

monthly, and quarterly magazines and journals with combined cir- culation of about 160 million. About 83,500 books and brochures

published in 1986 in 2.2 million copies. Radio broadcasting 1,400

hours of daily programs in seventy languages. Main programming

emanated from Moscow's eight radio channels. 162 million radio

sets. Television broadcasting, mainly from Moscow, by way of 350

stations and 1 ,400 relay facilities to 75 million households with tele- vision sets. Private telephones very limited.

National Security

Defense Establishment: Based on Marxist-Leninist theory of war, CPSU determined missions and directed management of world's

largest military organization. Defense Council provided strategic

leadership. Five armed services, numbering about 3,750,000 out

of a total of nearly 6 million troops in uniform in 1989, and numerous logistical and support services. Of the 6 million, 75 percent

conscripts, 5 percent career enlisted, and 20 percent officers, most

of whom were Russian. Compulsory premilitary training; military

conscription of males at age eighteen, with few exceptions.

Strategic Rocket Forces: Primary strategic offensive forces, numbering about 300,000 in 1989. Controlled all ground-based nuclear

missiles and operations in space. Ground Forces: Largest of services, with a force of about 2 million troops in 1989 and comprising 150 motorized rifle and 52 tank

divisions, in three states of readiness, as well as rocket and artillery

troops, air defense troops, and other combat and support troops.

Air Forces: In 1989 numbered about 450,000. Consisted of Strategic Air Armies, for long-range bombing; Frontal Aviation, for support of Ground Forces; and Military Transport Aviation, for

strategic mobility of armed services.

Air Defense Forces: Numbered about 500,000 in 1989. Operated

extensive air defense system, controlling surface-to-air missile

launchers, air defense aircraft and missiles, and space defenses.

Naval Forces: In 1989 numbered about 500,000. Consisted of substantial numbers of surface combatants and support ships, missile

and attack submarines, and naval aircraft. Organized into four fleets and several flotillas with shore-based support facilities in strategic

locations.

lii
Paramilitary Forces: Seven airborne divisions subordinate to Supreme High Command. Elite Special Purpose Forces subordinate

to General Staff. Internal Troops and Border Troops organized,

equipped, and trained as military forces but assigned to Ministry

of Internal Affairs (Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del—MVD) and to Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—KGB), respectively.

Defense Spending: Estimated between 15 and 17 percent of gross national product (GNP) in 1989. Military materiel production, su- pervised by military, received best available managers, workers,

technology, and materials.

Military Presence Overseas: Naval combatants in Mediterranean

Sea and Indian Ocean with limited presence, mainly submarines,

elsewhere. Ground Forces in Afghanistan numbered 115,000 until

withdrawal in 1989; withdrawals announced in German Democratic

Republic (East Germany) and elsewhere but, as of 1989, substantial forces remained in East Germany, and some forces remained

in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Mongolia, and Cuba. Military advisers in several Third World nations.

Security Police: Substantial political and regular police protected

authoritarian CPSU from perceived internal and external threats

and combated ordinary crimes. KGB maintained internal and external espionage and counterintelligence networks and controlled

Border Troops and other specialized security troops. MVD investigated nonpolitical crime, operated labor camps for prisoners, and

controlled militarized Internal Troops.


i II.

' Laydzhan-*^ KAZAKH

VTURKim^ -UZBEK)

r

T t

''w' v""' }tadzhik

.. . . Figure 1. Administrative Divisions of the Soviet Union, 1989

lvi
Introduction

IN MID- 1991 THE SOVIET UNION remained in a state of tur- moil after the weakening of the authority of the Communist Party

of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had profoundly disturbed the socialist system and unleashed broad nationality unrest. Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the general secretary of the CPSU and president of the Soviet

Union, had recognized that the development of socialism (see Glossary) was faltering and that the cooperation of the Soviet people was

needed to revitalize the country's economy and society. He endeavored to reform both the party and the socialist system without radically altering either one. But Gorbachev's attempts at political reform

and economic restructuring shook the centralized, authoritarian sys- tem that had been dominated and controlled by the party since the

Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The seriously flawed Soviet system

could not readily adapt to extensive reform and restructuring.

The historical experience of the multinational Soviet Union is varied and complex and helps illuminate contemporary events and

institutions. The histories of the predecessor states of the Soviet

Union—Muscovy and the Russian Empire—demonstrate some

long-term trends having applicability to the Soviet period: the

predominant role of the East Slavs, particularly the Russians; the

dominance of the state over the individual; territorial acquisition,

which continued sporadically; nationality problems, which increased

as diverse peoples became subjects of the state as a result of territorial expansion; a general xenophobia, coupled with admiration

for Western ideas and technology and disruptive sporadic campaigns

to adopt them; and cyclical periods of repression and reform.

The death knell of the Russian Empire came in March 1917, when

the people of Petrograd (present-day Leningrad) rose up in an un- planned and unorganized protest against the tsarist regime and con- tinued their efforts until Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. His government

collapsed, leaving power in the hands of an elected Duma, which

formed the Provisional Government. That government was in turn

overthrown in November 1917 by the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir I. Lenin. The Bolsheviks (who began calling themselves Communists

in 1918) emerged victorious after a bitterly fought Civil War

(1918-21). They secured their power and in December 1922 es- tablished the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union),

which included almost all the territory of the former Russian Empire. The new government prohibited other political organizations

lvii


and inaugurated one-party rule, which exerted centralized control over the political, economic, social, and cultural lives of the people. Lenin, as head of the party, became the de facto ruler of the

country.

After Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph V. Stalin gradually assumed

supreme power in the party and the state by removing opponents

from influential positions. Stalin ordered the construction of a socialist economy through the appropriation by the state of private

industrial and agricultural properties. His ruthless policy of forced

industrialization and collectivization of agriculture caused massive

human suffering, as did his purge of party members. As the initi- ator of the Great Terror (see Glossary), Stalin also decimated the

economic, social, military, cultural, and religious elites in the Russian Republic and in some of the non-Russian republics. Millions

of citizens were executed, imprisoned, or starved. Nevertheless,

the Soviet state succeeded in developing an industrial base of ex- traordinary dimensions, albeit skewed toward military and heavy

industry rather than consumer needs. Stalin believed that the rapid

development of heavy industry was necessary to ensure the Soviet

Union's survival. His fear of attack led to the signing of the NaziSoviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939, enabling the Soviet Union to acquire the eastern portion of Poland (western Ukraine), the Baltic states, and Bessarabia but failing to forestall for long the Nazi

invasion of the Soviet Union that began in June 1941 . After several

crushing military defeats, the Red Army finally gained the offensive in 1943, expelled the enemy, and, by 1945, had occupied most

of Eastern Europe. Although more than 20 million Soviet citizens

died as a result of the war, the world was forced to acknowledge

the tremendous power of the Soviet military forces. In the postwar period, the Soviet Union converted its military

occupation of the countries of Eastern Europe into political and

economic domination by installing regimes dependent on Moscow.

It also pursued its goal of extending Soviet power abroad. The

Western powers reacted to Soviet expansionism, and thus began

the Cold War. Simultaneously, Stalin rebuilt the devastated Soviet

economy while retaining central planning and the emphasis on

heavy industry and military production rather than satisfying the

needs of the citizens. Suppression of dissent and human rights con- tinued unabated.

After Stalin's death in 1953, Nikita S. Khrushchev gradually

became the dominant Soviet leader and, in a dramatic move,

renounced his predecessor's use of terror and repression. He continued, however, a confrontational foreign policy toward the West.

His attempts at domestic reform, particularly in agriculture, and

lviii
his instigation of a missile crisis in Cuba, which almost launched

a nuclear war, contributed to his ouster as party leader and head

of state in 1964. After an extended period of collective leadership,

Leonid I. Brezhnev assumed party and government power and in- itiated a foreign policy of detente with the West. He continued the

traditional economic policy of emphasizing heavy industry and mili- tary production over civilian needs.

At the death of Brezhnev in 1982, the political, economic, and

cultural life of the country was controlled by a conservative, en- trenched, and aging bureaucracy. Brezhnev's successors, Iurii V.

Andropov and Konstantin U. Chernenko, were in power too briefly

before their deaths to effect lasting change, although Andropov at- tempted to initiate some reforms. When Gorbachev was selected

general secretary of the CPSU and head of the Soviet state in 1985,

the deterioration of the Soviet socialist system had nearly reached

crisis proportions. Gorbachev announced that * 'revolutionary"

change was required to revitalize the country, and he began his

programs ofperestroika, glasnost\ and demokratizatsiia (see Glossary).

Gorbachev's efforts at political and economic reform, however,

unleashed a flood of events leading to a profound political crisis and broad nationality unrest while leaving fundamental economic

problems unresolved. Several of the nationalities having union

republic (see Glossary) status began to seek greater political and

economic autonomy; indeed, some sought complete independence

from the Soviet multinational federation. Longstanding rivalries and enmities among nationality groups that had been suppressed

by successive Soviet regimes exploded in some areas of the country, causing loss of life and property. Thus, the authoritarian socialist system, although undergoing tentative restructuring, became

less capable of effectively responding to societal disorder and of implementing necessary fundamental change rapidly. In the 1990s,

Gorbachev's policy ofperestroika offered the people little in substantive, near-term economic improvement, and his policies ofglasnost'

and demokratizatsiia resulted in rapidly raising their expectations while

lessening the regime's controls over society. As a result, in mid- 1991

the Soviet Union appeared to be a disintegrating federation with

a collapsing economy and a despairing, confused society.

Internationally, the Soviet Union's affairs also appeared to be

in a state of fundamental change. Beginning in late 1989, the Soviet

Union's East European empire crumbled as citizens in Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and

Romania overthrew their communist dictators with at least the tacit approval of Gorbachev. Earlier in the year, the people of Poland

and Hungary had overthrown their communist systems. The actions

lix
of the peoples of Eastern Europe led to the dissolution, in May

and June 1991, respectively, of the two Soviet-dominated, multinational organizations, the Warsaw Pact (see Appendix C) and the

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon; see Appendix B) that had helped bind Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union.

In a collaborative effort with the United States, Gorbachev met

with President George H.W. Bush at Malta in December 1989 and

at Washington in May-June 1990 to effectively end the Cold War

and to move toward a cooperative relationship. In August 1991,

Bush and Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty,

which required the United States and the Soviet Union to cut their

nuclear weapons within seven years so that each side would have

only 4,900 ballistic missile nuclear warheads as part of a total of

6,000 "accountable" warheads. The two countries had been en- gaged in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) since 1982.

In another collaborative effort, the Soviet Union voted with the

United States and an international coalition of nations to oppose

the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, a nation that had been the recipient

of substantial amounts of Soviet military advice, equipment, and

weapons.

It was Gorbachev's "new thinking" (see Glossary) in foreign

policy that produced the most dramatic and far-reaching results of his reform efforts. In addition to the significant developments

just mentioned, these included the withdrawal of Soviet armed forces from Afghanistan; acceptance of national self-determination for the East European communist countries and a promised complete withdrawal of Soviet troops from those countries; agreement to a unified Germany remaining in the North Atiantic Treaty Organization

(NATO); and the ending of support for Cuban military operations

in Angola. The international community began to regard the Soviet

Union as less menacing and acknowledged that the actions it had

taken contributed substantially to the ending of the Cold War.

Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1991 for his

foreign policy initiatives and for their impact on world affairs. By

no means, however, did the Soviet Union abandon its foreign policy

goals. It continued its economic and military support of some longstanding allies, such as Afghanistan, Cuba, and Vietnam, as well

as Third World client states, although it often chose to act covertly,

in the hope of receiving economic aid from the West.

In 1991 the Soviet economy continued to be beset with serious

problems that had brought the Soviet Union to the point of crisis. The problems included poor planning by government officials; inefficient production methods; lack of incentives to boost efficiency;

lack of worker discipline; unemployment, underemployment, and

Ix
strikes; shortages of food and consumer goods; theft of state property; wasteful use of resources; prices distorted by a lack of

market mechanisms; and investments of scarce funds in projects

of dubious value. The system of central planning and rigid control by Moscow bureaucrats was partially disrupted by economic

problems and the regime's policy ofperestroika. Nevertheless, almost

all natural resources, agricultural and industrial enterprises (see

Glossary), transportation and communications systems, and financial institutions remained in the hands of the party-controlled

government. In addition, the vast majority of workers remained,

effectively, salaried employees of the government. Although the

1977 Constitution, as amended and changed, provided for cooperative or collective ownership of property, it also stated that the "socialist ownership of the means of production" was the foundation

of the economy, and socialist ownership remained the preferred

form of ownership. The Gorbachev regime, however, sought to devise a restructuring program that would enable market forces

rather than government planners to make many economic decisions. Thus, in the early 1990s the economic reform envisioned

by Gorbachev in the late 1980s seemed to be shifting away from

centralized planning to a market-oriented economy.

Indeed, in 1990 the Supreme Soviet debated several proposals

for economic reform before it, in October of that year, approved

one endorsed by Gorbachev called "Guidelines for the Stabilization of the Economy and Transition to a Market Economy. '

' This

program saw no alternative to shifting toward a market economy

but provided neither a detailed plan nor a schedule for implementation. It did, however, establish four phases for the transition: first, stabilization of the economy and initiation of the privatization of

state-owned enterprises; second, liberalization of prices, establishment of a safety net for people adversely affected, and exercise of

fiscal restraints over government expenditures; third, adjustment

of the pay scale for workers and institution of housing and financial reforms; and fourth, as markets stabilized, transformation of

the ruble from being nonconvertible to convertible, so as to enable Soviet and foreign businesses to exchange currencies at international rates. Price reform, a key element of the transition to a market economy, was to be administered and monitored carefully

by central authorities. This transition was estimated to require two

years. An important, but not easily achieved, requirement for its success was the integrity of the union and its constituent republics.

In spite of its many economic and political problems, the Soviet

Union had more of the natural and human resources essential for industrial production than any other country in the world. It had

lxi
vast quantities of important minerals and abundant energy supplies. It also had a very large, technically qualified labor force and

a higher percentage of people working in industry than most

Western nations. Yet, industrial productivity regularly fell behind

planned goals for several reasons. First, raw materials, including

fuels, had become less readily available in the heavily industrialized and heavily populated European part of the Soviet Union,

while the Asian part of the country, which contained abundant

natural resources, continued to lack an industrial infrastructure

and the stable, skilled labor force necessary to extract the needed

materials. Second, the formidable, and perhaps impossible, task

of uniting materials, energy, and skilled workers with appropriate

industrial enterprises on a timely and cost-effective basis was the

responsibility of the increasingly bureaucratic central planning agencies that responded to political, rather than economic, priorities.

Third, industrial enterprises, particularly those engaged in exclusively nondefense production, were constrained by obsolescent

machinery and a lack of innovation.

Producing and distributing food in sufficient quality, variety,

and quantity had eluded the Gorbachev regime, as well as all the

other regimes since the Bolshevik Revolution. Fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats were in chronically short supply in the stores owned

and operated by the government, and imports of grain and meat

were frequent and necessary. Nevertheless, possessing the world's

most extensive cultivated area, a large agricultural labor force, considerable investment in machinery, chemical fertilizers, and irri- gation, the Soviet Union had made itself the world's second largest

grower of agricultural commodities and was first in many of them.

The main reason for the anomaly between the high agricultural

potential and the low food availability in the stores was the centralized administration of agriculture by bureaucratic planners who

had little understanding of local conditions. Other reasons for the

anomaly included the inadequacy of incentives, equipment, and

modern techniques available to farm workers; the cold climate and

uncertain moisture conditions; the failure of the transportation sys- tem to move harvested crops promptly; the lack of adequate storage

facilities; and the paucity of refrigerated transportation. Massive

amounts of foodstuffs simply rotted in the fields or in storage.

Bypassing the government system, peasant farmers, most of

whom were women, raised about one-fourth of the country's food on their private plots and then sold their produce privately. The

area thus farmed amounted to about 3 percent of the total culti- vated area, most of which was on collective farms (see Glossary)

and state farms (see Glossary).

Ixii
The transportation system, owned and operated by the government, continued in 1991 to exhibit serious deficiencies, particularly with respect to its limited capacity, outdated technologies, and

poor maintenance. The main purpose of transportation in the Soviet

Union, as determined by successive regimes, was to fulfill national economic needs that the party decided on, rather than to serve the interests of private businesses or citizens. The structure of the

subsidized Soviet transportation system was greatly affected by the

large size, geographic features, and northern climate of the country. Also, the distribution of the population and industry (largely

in the European part) and the natural resources (largely in the Asian

part) helped determine the transportation system's structure. Railroads were the primary mode of transporting freight and passengers over long distances. Trucks were used mainly in urban and industrialized areas to transport raw materials from rail lines and

manufactured products to them. Buses were the primary mode of

conveyance for people in urban areas. For the vast majority of people, automobiles, which numbered only about 12 million, were not an important means of transportation. Without perceiving a need

to move people or freight long distances on roads, successive Soviet

regimes saw little economic reason to build a modern network of

highways, even in the European part of the country. Roads outside of cities generally had gravel or dirt surfaces and were poor

by Western standards. For intercity and long-distance travel where

time was a factor, the government airline, Aeroflot, provided lowcost transportation but had few amenities, and it had a safety record

that concerned many Western passengers.

Foreign trade, which might conceivably contribute to solving the

Soviet Union's economic problems, traditionally played a minor role. The Soviet government preferred instead to strive for self-sufficiency

in all areas of the economy. With extensive natural resources, in- cluding energy sources, decision makers saw foreign trade primarily

as a device to serve international political interests. Thus, after World

War II the Soviet Union's primary trading partners were the East European communist countries and other socialist and socialist- oriented countries. Trade with Third World countries was also con- ducted primarily for political rather than economic reasons and often

involved the exchange of Soviet-made weapons and military equipment for raw materials. Trade with the West, particularly the United

States, varied according to the political climate and the requirement

for hard-currency (see Glossary) payments. The Soviet Union ac- quired hard currency by selling its minerals, fuels, and gold bullion on the world market, primarily to the West. In turn, the Soviet

Union bought Western manufactures, especially high-technology

lxiii
items, and agricultural products, mainly grains. In the late 1980s,

Soviet foreign indebtedness, principally to West European commercial banks, rose substantially, reaching US$54 billion in 1989,

in part because the price of oil and natural gas, the main hardcurrency exports, fell on the world market. Soviet exports to communist and other socialist countries consisted primarily of energy,

manufactures, and consumer goods. In mid- 1991 increasing hardcurrency indebtedness, decreasing oil production, mounting domestic

economic problems, and a requirement for advanced technology

forced Gorbachev to seek increased participation in international

economic organizations, trade with foreign countries, foreign eco- nomic assistance, and reduction of unprofitable trade with the Soviet

Union's allies. Foreign trade and economic assistance were urgendy

needed to make the economy more efficient, as well as to help improve the standard of living.

The living conditions of the majority of the Soviet people were more comparable to some Third World countries than to those of an industrially developed superpower. Even Soviet sources ac- knowledged that about 55 million people (approximately 20 per- cent of the population) were living below the official poverty level,

but some Western analysts considered that far more people were,

in fact, impoverished. The availability and distribution of food,

clothing, and shelter were controlled by the government, but the

supply was inadequate and generally became worse as the Gorbachev regime attempted economic reforms.

The cost to Soviet consumers of many essential consumer items

and services was remarkably low compared with the cost of similar items and services in the West. Soviet prices were set artificially

low by the government, which subsidized the cost of selected items

in an attempt to ensure accessibility by all citizens. The practical

impact of the subsidies, however, was to distort the real production and distribution costs, reduce the availability of the items, and

inflate the real cost of other items that were not subsidized. Another

impact was to increase the resistance of citizens to price increases

when the regime tried to adjust the prices of items and services

to correspond more closely to the real costs of their production and

distribution.

Many educational benefits were free and guaranteed to the

citizens by the Constitution. Education, mandatory through the

eleventh grade, provided excellent schooling in mathematics, for- eign languages, and the physical sciences. Training in these fields was offered at universities, which were generally available to chil- dren of the elite, and at institutes, which were available to students

without political connections. Universities and institutes were

lxiv
excellent by Western standards but tended to be very narrowly fo- cused. The main purpose of education in the Soviet Union was

to produce socially motivated and technically qualified people who

were able to serve the state-run economy. In 1991 educators were

developing reforms for the state- controlled system that included

the privatization of schools.

Medical services were also guaranteed by the Constitution and

enabled government officials to claim that the Soviet Union had

the world's highest number of doctors and hospital beds per capita.

Similar to the purpose of education, the main purpose of medical

care was to ensure a healthy work force for the centrally controlled

economy. Training of health care professionals, although not as advanced as that in the West, prepared the large numbers of doctors, the majority of whom were women, and medical assistants

to attend to the basic medical needs of the people, millions of whom

lived in rural or geographically remote areas. Medical care was

free of charge, but to obtain specialized, or sometimes even routine, medicines or care, ordinary citizens used bribes or Mat (see

Glossary). Although hospital care was available without charge,

it was comparable to some Third World countries because of the

lack of modern medical equipment and some medicines and supplies, such as sterile syringes, and because of poor sanitation in

general. Members of the elite, particularly high-level party, government, economic, and cultural officials and their families, were

served by a much higher quality health care system than that avail- able to average citizens. Soviet society, although officially classless according to MarxismLeninism, was divided into four socio-occupational groups by

Western sociologists: peasants and agricultural specialists; bluecollar workers; white-collar workers; and the party and government elite and cultural and scientific intelligentsia. Social status was also affected by the level and field of education, place of resi- dence, nationality, and party membership and party rank. High

socio-occupational status was generally accompanied by aboveaverage pay, but more important for the individual, it offered in- creased access to scarce consumer goods, and even foreign goods,

as well as social prestige and other perquisites for the individual

and his or her family. The pay of some skilled laborers exceeded

that of many professionals, including teachers, doctors, and engineers, because Marxism-Leninism exalted manual work. Despite

earning less money, however, professionals generally had higher

social status than manual workers. The pay for many occupations was set low by government planners, requiring two incomes to maintain a family's living standard that often was at the poverty

lxv
level. In contrast, the members of the elite of Soviet society not

only received substantially higher salaries but also had access to special food and consumer goods stores, better housing and health

care, and increased educational opportunities.

Women, although according to the Constitution the equal of men,

were treated as if they were of a political, economic, and social status that was inferior to men. The vast majority of women worked be- cause of economic necessity, but most often in low-paying positions. They endured the greater share of the burden of living in a country where the regime placed superpower military status above

citizens' needs and desires for adequate housing, food, clothing,

and other consumer goods. Crowded living quarters, often with

shared bathrooms and kitchens that usually lacked modern kitchen

appliances made life difficult. Waiting in long lines every day to purchase food and other essentials was another burden borne mostly

by women, who received little assistance from their spouses and

even less from the male-dominated society and the socialist regime.

Although given some special benefits, including generous maternity and child care leave by the government, Soviet women were

generally overburdened. As a consequence of the domestic stresses, the Soviet Union had high rates of abortion, alcoholism, and di- vorce, most evident among the Slavic nationalities.

The Soviet Union comprised more than 100 nationalities, twentytwo of which had populations of over 1 million. The Russian nationality made up only about 51 percent of the total population,

according to the 1989 census, but the two other East Slavic nationalities—the Belorussians and the Ukrainians—together constituted about another 23 percent of the population. Some of the

cultural and linguistic diversity of the Soviet nationalities could

be seen when contrasting the North European heritage of the

Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians with the Mongol, Persian,

and Turkic roots of the Central Asian Kazakhs, Kirgiz, Tadzhiks,

Turkmens, and Uzbeks. The cultures and languages of the three

major nationalities of the Caucasus region—the Armenians, Azerbaydzhanis, and Georgians—were significantly different from each

other as well as from the other nationalities. These fourteen

nationalities, together with the Moldavians, each had union republic

status. Many other nationalities were granted "autonomous" status in territorial and administrative subdivisions (i.e., autonomous

republics, autonomous oblasts, and autonomous okruga—see Glossary). It should be noted, however, that despite the semblance of

autonomy, real political and economic power was retained in

Moscow, and the Russians remained, in mid-1991, the dominant nationality in the political and economic life of the Soviet

lxvi
Union. It should also be noted that some nationalities were brought

into the Soviet Union under duress, and others were annexed by

force by its predecessor, the Russian Empire.

Several of the non-Russian nationalities formally objected to being part of the communist-controlled Soviet Union and had long

viewed Russians as oppressors. In addition, many of the non- Russian peoples had had serious and longstanding disagreements

and rivalries with neighboring peoples of other nationalities. Partly

as a defense against criticism by non-Russian nationalities, Russians in some areas began to reassert their own nationality, but

in other areas they felt compelled to leave their homes in some non- Russian republics because of anti-Russian sentiments. Successive

Soviet regimes, including that of Gorbachev until the late 1980s,

maintained that all peoples of the Soviet Union lived harmoniously

and were content with their circumstances. When Gorbachev in- itiated reforms that relaxed the regime's system of constraints, the

latent discontent erupted into disturbances and violence, result- ing in hundreds of deaths.

Each nationality, having its own history, language, and culture,

attempted to preserve its distinctive heritage and, in most cases, was permitted by the government to provide language instruction

for children to that end. Nevertheless, instruction in Russian was

also required, and Russian was the official language of the Soviet

regime, although only a small percentage of non-Russians spoke

and read Russian fluently. The religions of the various nationalities were almost universally repressed by the official antireligious

policies of successive regimes. Although Gorbachev authorized the

reopening of many churches in 1989 and 1990, most churches,

mosques, and synagogues remained closed. Nevertheless, by mid1991 religion was playing an increasingly significant role in the

lives of some of the people.

An important domestic reform put forward by Gorbachev was

demokratizatsiia, the attempt to introduce greater participation by

citizens, including younger party members, in the political process. Having risen to leadership in the Soviet state through the party,

Gorbachev attempted to use the party to implement his reform pro- gram. Since 1917 the party had held, in fact, the "leading and

guiding role in Soviet society," but that role was formally abolished

in March 1991 when the Supreme Soviet, as part of its program

of demokratizatsiia, amended the Constitution and revised Article

6 to permit other parties to exist. The party thereby lost the legal

basis for its authority over the government, economy, and society

throughout the Soviet Union. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, even before the constitutional change, the CPSU's effectiveness

lxvii
in leading the Soviet Union appeared, to most observers, to have

diminished markedly. The party had been unable to implement

reform or make the Marxist-Leninist system function effectively on a continuing basis. This systemic failure, however, had not led

to a complete renunciation of the underlying socialist ideology by

mid- 1991. This fact led many party members to resign in protest

against the party's failure to promote genuine change, or in ac- knowledgment of the declining relevance of the party, or as a renunciation of Marxism-Leninism as a viable doctrine, or, perhaps, in

recognition of the fact that continued membership could be

detrimental to their future careers. Among the many prominent party members who had resigned

by mid- 1991 were three former Politburo members: Boris N. Yeltsin, formerly also the Moscow party secretary; Eduard A. Shevardnadze, formerly also the minister of foreign affairs; and Aleksandr N.

Iakovlev, formerly also a member of the CPSU Secretariat. The

latter two were long-term, close advisers to Gorbachev. Yeltsin, however, was probably the most politically powerful of the former party

members. He had been picked by Gorbachev for the Moscow post

in 1985 but angered the party hierarchy with his outspoken criti- cism of the party and was dismissed from both that post and the

Politburo in 1987. In a remarkable political comeback, however,

Yeltsin was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies in 1989

and in 1990 was elected chairman of the supreme soviet of the Russian Republic, by far the largest and most important of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union. But his most significant

victory came in June 1991, when he was elected to the newly created

position of president of the Russian Republic by a majority of 57

percent of the voters in the Russian Republic in a direct, popular

election. Meanwhile, the popularity of Gorbachev among Soviet

citizens had fallen to less than 10 percent, according to a Soviet

poll. Yeltsin's popularity among citizens of the Russian Republic was apparently based, in part, on his political agenda, which in- cluded establishing a market economy with private property rights

and denationalizing government-owned enterprises; shifting more

decision-making power from the central authorities to the republics; and reducing the power of the party, the size of the armed

forces, and the influence of the Committee for State Security

(Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—KGB). This ambitious

agenda could not be accomplished quickly or easily under the best

of circumstances, and some intellectuals and other Soviet citizens

mistrusted Yeltsin as a leader.

Despite the CPSU's loss of many members—both prominent

and rank-and-file members—and despite its loss of constitutional

lxviii
exclusivity and its failure to lead the country effectively, the party

remained the Soviet Union's major political force and bastion of

reaction in mid- 1991. No longer the monolithic, disciplined power

it had once been and often divided along nationality lines, the party

retained as members, however, a large percentage of the male population over the age of thirty and having at least ten years of education, the segment of the population that had traditionally made

the decisions and managed the affairs of the country. They and

the party as a whole appeared to give Gorbachev their support.

The party's de facto power appeared strong in the central government bureaucracy, in most city governments, in some republic

governments, and in many administrative subdivisions but was weak in certain other republics and administrative subdivisions.

Party members generally remained in charge of the Soviet government's controlled economy from the central planning organs and

the military-industrial complex to the individual enterprises. And

party members remained in positions of responsibility in the trans- portation, communications, agriculture, education, mass media,

legal, and judicial systems. The party's power was weakest among

the non-Russian nationalities, where some party leaders were prompted to advocate national sovereignty in an effort to maintain their positions. Significantly, the party was strongest among

the leadership of the armed forces, the KGB, and the Ministry of

Internal Affairs (Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del—MVD). These

organs of party power—and their predecessor organizations—had

been used to maintain the party's preeminence since the Bolshevik

Revolution, and in mid- 1991 the party continued to use them.

During the late 1980s, the popular elections that Gorbachev had

instigated produced revitalized legislative bodies that could compete with the party for power at the all-union, republic, and lower

levels of government. These elections spurred millions of ordinary

citizens to become more politically involved than they had ever been

and prompted many of their elected representatives to challenge

party officials and other central authorities. Politically active in- dividuals, including CPSU members, former prisoners in the Gulag

(see Glossary), and citizens motivated by a variety of concerns

created or joined disparate political action groups. For the most

part, these groups represented liberal and democratic viewpoints,

particularly in urban areas such as Moscow and Leningrad, or nationality interests in the non-Russian republics and administrative

subdivisions. But conservative, reactionary, and pro-Russian groups

also sprang up. The various liberal groups often opposed the CPSU

and the central authorities but lacked positive, unifying goals and

programs, as well as practical experience in democracy's way of

lxix
coalition building, compromise, and the rule of law. They struggled to form political parties with broadened geographical and popular bases. But without the extraordinary financing, organization,

communications, and material support retained by the CPSU, the

emergent political groups found the competition especially difficult. Political leaders in all fifteen republics asserted the precedence

of their republics' laws over those of the central government and

demanded control over their own natural resources, agricultural

products, and industrial output. Leaders of several republics proclaimed complete independence, national sovereignty, and separation from the Soviet Union. Within many of the republics, however,

officials of various minority nationalities in administrative subdivisions sometimes proclaimed their subdivision's independence

from their republics or passed laws contradictory to the laws of

higher legislative or executive bodies. Hence the Constitution, Gorbachev's decrees, and laws passed by the Supreme Soviet, by the

supreme Soviets of the republics, or by the Soviets (see Glossary)

of the various subdivisions were often disobeyed with impunity.

This so-called "war of laws" among the legislative and executive bodies at various levels contributed to the forging of an agreement between Gorbachev and the leaders of nine of the fifteen republics in April 1991. This agreement, which Yeltsin played a key role in formulating, promised that the central government would

permit the republics to have more economic and political autonomy and that the republics would fulfill their economic and financial

obligations to Moscow. At the time of the agreement, Gorbachev

and Yeltsin and the eight other republic leaders endorsed, in principle, a revised draft of a new treaty, which would in effect reestablish the Soviet Union on a different basis from the original union

treaty of 1922. The republics that did not sign the agreement were

to be excluded from its provisions.

The six republics refusing to join the agreement between Gorbachev and the nine republics were the Armenian, Estonian,

Georgian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Moldavian republics. In these

republics, the people had elected to their republic legislatures

representatives who, for the most part, were not CPSU members

but rather were advocates of the primacy of their nationality vis- a-vis the central regime in Moscow. The leaders of these republics

indicated that they did not wish to be part of the Soviet Union and

were attempting to sever their political ties with it and establish

themselves as independent countries. The six republics together

constituted about 1.4 percent of the territory and about 7.2 per- cent of the population of the Soviet Union.

Ixx
Meanwhile, the Gorbachev regime continued its efforts to finalize a new union treaty that would replace the 1922 union treaty. During 1990 the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian republics elected

noncommunist governments. The elected representatives voted for independence from the Soviet Union and sought the same independent status that they had had before being absorbed into the Soviet

Union in 1940. (It should be noted that the United States never

recognized the incorporation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into

the Soviet Union.) Gorbachev and the Supreme Soviet did not

recognize the independence of the three Baltic states, and the Soviet

armed forces were employed to disrupt their independence drives.

It is likely that separation of the three republics was also hindered,

in part, because their economies were closely intertwined with those

of the other republics, particularly with that of the Russian Republic.

In March 1990, the regime created the office of the presidency

in accordance with changes in the Constitution. The president and

vice president were supposed to be elected by direct popular vote,

but, by special exception, Gorbachev and Gennadii I. Ianaev were

elected as the first president and vice president, respectively, by

vote of the Congress of People's Deputies. The president, who could

serve a maximum of two five-year terms, was authorized by the

changes in the Constitution to appoint and remove high-level

government officials; veto laws and suspend orders of the Council

of Ministers; and declare martial law or a state of emergency, subject

to approval by a two-thirds majority of the Supreme Soviet.

Also created in 1990 were two organizations designed to support the presidency. The new Presidential Council was given re- sponsibility for implementing foreign and domestic policies and for ensuring the country's security. The new Council of the Federation, which was headed by the president of the Soviet Union and

consisted also of the '

' supreme state official from each of the fifteen constituent republics," had duties that included developing ways

to implement a nationalities policy, recommending to the Supreme

Soviet solutions for interethnic problems, and ensuring that the

union republics complied with international treaties. The creation

of the presidency with its two supporting bodies was seen by some

Western observers as helping Gorbachev to provide his regime with

a renewed political power that was based on constitutionally es- tablished government organs rather than on the CPSU, the traditional source of political power.

In November 1990, Gorbachev proposed the establishment of

several other new bodies (all directly subordinate to him) designed

to strengthen the executive branch of the government. The new

lxxi
bodies included the Cabinet of Ministers (replacing the Council

of Ministers), the Security Council, and the Coordinating Agency

for the Supervision of Law and Order. The Presidential Council was dissolved, and its functions were given to the Council of the

Federation, which was designated the chief policy-making organ

in the country. These administrative changes appeared to some

analysts to be an attempt by Gorbachev to recover the authority

and control that his regime had lost during conflicts with several

secessionist republics, as well as during disputes with radical and

conservative opponents of his reforms. Gorbachev was, in the view

of some analysts, also attempting to counter calls for his resignation for failing to initiate and implement measures that would cure

the country's economic and political ills. One of Gorbachev's main instruments in his attempt to improve

the country's condition was his policy of glasnost'. Through this policy, he used the mass media to arouse the people who would

help change the way the bureaucratic system functioned. He and

all prior leaders of the Soviet Union had used the mass media and

artistic expression to help govern the people and direct the soci- ety's course. Politicizing the mass media and the arts served not

only to secure the regime's power but also furthered the role of

the CPSU and the dominance of Marxism-Leninism (see Glossary)

in the social, cultural, and economic life of the country. In the late 1980s, however, Soviet mass media and the arts became part of

the revolution in information technologies that swept the globe and

could not be sealed off from the Soviet Union. The regime needed

those same technologies to compete with the West and to prevent

falling further behind economically and technologically.

In the late 1980s, the Soviet regimes, first that of Andropov and

then that of Gorbachev, relaxed their monopoly on the press and

modern communications technology and eased the strictures of socialist realism (see Glossary), thus permitting open discussion of

many themes previously prohibited. The implementation of the

policy of glasnost ' made much more information about government

activities, past and present, accessible to ordinary citizens, who then

criticized not only the government but also the CPSU and even

Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state. Editors, journalists, and other

writers transformed newspapers, journals, and television broadcasts into media for investigative reports and lively discussions of

a wide variety of subjects that had been heavily censored before

glasnost'. The works of previously banned writers, including Joseph

Brodsky and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, both exiled winners of the

Nobel Prize for Literature, and such exiled authors as Vasilii

Aksionov and Vladimir Voinovich, were published in the Soviet

lxxii
Union. Thus, the regime began to lose control of the policy ofglasnost\ and the censors began to lose control of the mass media. In

June 1990, the Supreme Soviet passed a law that purportedly sanc- tioned freedom of the press, but later that year the regime began

again to restrict news reporting, particularly on radio and television.

Still, in mid- 1991 the mass media continued to offer interesting news and diverse viewpoints—although some less independent and

revelatory than they had been in the late 1980s—that were eagerly

followed by the people.

Another side effect of Gorbachev's policy ofglasnost' was the ex- posure and public discussion of the severe degradation and official neglect of the environment that had been perpetuated by successive regimes in the drive to achieve industrial and national security goals at any price. As a consequence of this neglect, two of

the twentieth century's worst man-made environmental disasters

struck the Soviet Union: the Chernobyl' nuclear power plant ac- cident, the consequence of an insufficient regard for safety to obtain increased energy; and the loss of huge amounts of water from

the Aral Sea. Although the death toll from the Chernobyl' accident in 1986 was initially low, millions of people continued to live on radioactive land and raise and consume contaminated food. In

addition to the human costs, cleaning up and repairing the after- effects of the accident, which continued to leak radioactive gases

in 1991, were estimated to cost hundreds of billions of rubles (see

Glossary) by the year 2000. The other major environmental dis- aster was the near destruction of the Aral Sea, whose main sources of water were diverted to irrigate arid land for the purpose of rais- ing cotton and other crops beginning in 1960. Subsequently, the

Aral Sea's coast receded sixty kilometers, in places, from its former

location. Other environmental problems included the severe pollution of rivers, lakes, and the air resulting from the direct dis- charge of pollutants, particularly in the European part of the Soviet

Union.

In the late 1980s, environmental concern spurred the formation

of genuine grass-roots ecology groups that pressed the authorities

to remedy the harmful conditions. Often these groups were supported by or were merged with nationality groups advocating in- creased self-determination or independence but nevertheless had

little political power. Despite the efforts of the grass-roots groups,

resolving the Soviet Union's many environmental problems, in the

view of many Western specialists, will be costly and long-term. The

Gorbachev regime as of mid- 1991 had not redirected its economic

policies regarding industrial and agricultural production, resource

extraction, and consumption to provide adequate protection for the environment.

Ixxiii
Another effect of glasnost ' was the official acknowledgment of past

civil and human rights abuses and the marked improvement in people' s rights during Gorbachev's regime. The advancement of civil and human rights for the people of the Soviet Union was coura- geously sought by Andrei Sakharov, a winner of the Nobel Prize

for Peace in 1975, who moved from internal exile in Gor'kiy to membership in the Congress of People's Deputies in Moscow before his death in December 1989. Freedom of speech and the press grew enormously after censorship was officially abolished. Free- dom to assemble peacefully for political purposes, with or without

government authorization, was tested frequentiy, generally without

serious incident. (In January 1991, however, armed Soviet troops on two different occasions reportedly killed or wounded several

dozen unarmed demonstrators occupying buildings in the Latvian

and Lithuanian republics.) Political rights of individuals were en- hanced when the Supreme Soviet approved legal authority for a multiparty system. But in 1991 the emerging political groups were

too fragmented and weak to seriously challenge the power of the

CPSU except in cities such as Leningrad and Moscow and in several of the republics' legislatures. In 1990 the regime expanded the right

of citizens to emigrate. About 180,000 Jews departed for Israel,

150,000 Germans departed for a united Germany, and about 55,000

citizens emigrated to the United States. And, finally, independent

trade unions were allowed to form, and strikes, made legal in 1989, were permitted by the regime, even one involving over 600,000

miners in several areas of the Soviet Union in 1990.

In the late 1980s, the Gorbachev regime released many prisoners

of conscience (persons imprisoned for their political or religious

beliefs) from imprisonment in the Gulag, from internal exile, and

from psychiatric hospitals. Although authorities could still legally

detain and arrest people without warrants, political killings, dis- appearances, or psychiatric hospitalizations for political or religious

beliefs were rare. Nevertheless, human rights practices in the Soviet

Union remained in transition in 1991.

Of major concern to successive Soviet regimes was the system

of internal security, which in 1991 consisted primarily of the KGB

and the MVD. They had been powerful tools for ferreting out and

suppressing political and other internal threats to rule by the CPSU.

The party always considered the KGB its most vital arm and maintained the closest supervision and control over it. The party controlled the KGB and MVD by approving personnel appointments

through the nomenklatura (see Glossary) system and by exercising

general oversight to ensure that party directives were followed. Party

control was also exerted specifically and individually because all

lxxiv
KGB officers and the majority of MVD officers were members of

the CPSU. Party membership subjected them to the norms of

democratic centralism (see Glossary) and party discipline.

Internal security forces, particularly the KGB, had broad authority to employ severe and sometimes violent methods against the

Soviet people while enforcing the regime's directives and thereby

preserving the party's dominant role in the Soviet Union. In mid1991 the KGB, under Vladimir A. Kriuchkov, and the MVD,

under Boris K. Pugo beginning in October 1990, continued to give

their loyalty and substantial support to the party. Thus, the internal security organs continued to oppose radical change and re- mained a significant, and perhaps immobilizing, threat to some

citizens advocating substantial economic and political reform. At

the same time, the internal security organs, particularly the KGB,

continued to take advantage of the party's need for their vital support by exerting influence on the party's policies and the regime's

decisions.

Like the KGB and MVD, the armed forces traditionally were

loyal to the party and beneficiaries of the party's decisions. Control of the armed forces by the party was exercised primarily through

the military leaders, the overwhelming majority of whom were loyal

party members and followers of Marxism-Leninism. The armed

forces were controlled by the party through networks of uniformed

party representatives and covert informers who reported to the

CPSU. Most of the middle and junior grade officers, although probably members of the CPSU or its youth affiliate, the Komsomol

(see Glossary), were, in the view of some Western observers, less bound to party doctrine than were the senior military leaders. The

vast majority of the military rank and file, however, were not af- filiated with the party and resented the covert informers in their

midst and the political indoctrination they endured.

The Soviet Union's military establishment was the justification

for its international ranking as a superpower. With the world's largest military establishment—nearly 6 million people in uniform and

a large arsenal of nuclear missiles—the Soviet Union's superpower

status appeared justified on a military, if not on an economic, basis. The military establishment consisted not only of the armed forces

but also of the internal security forces and an extensive militaryindustrial complex, all of which had priority use of human and eco- nomic resources. Decisions regarding the use of most human and

material economic resources continued to be made by party members. The majority of the citizens, however, were dissatisfied with

the party's decision-making role and were not in favor of Gorbachev's reform efforts. But the majority of the people were not

lxxv
allowed to choose alternative national leadership and appeared unwilling to exert their influence to radically change the course of events out of fear of the armed forces, and perhaps of civil war. The armed forces consisted of the five armed services (Strategic

Rocket Forces, Ground Forces, Air Forces, Air Defense Forces,

and Naval Forces), extensive support and rear service organizations, and specialized and paramilitary forces, such as the Airborne

Troops, the Internal Troops of the MVD, and the Border Troops

of the KGB. The Internal Troops and the Border Troops had mili- tary equipment, organization, training, and missions. The most

strategically significant of the five armed services were the Strategic Rocket Forces, whose main purpose was to attack an opponent's nuclear weapons, military facilities, and industry with nuclear

missiles. The Ground Forces, the largest and most prestigious of

the armed services, were also important, in part because the senior

officers typically held high-level positions in the Ministry of Defense

and the General Staff of the Armed Forces. Of the five armed ser- vices, the Strategic Rocket Forces in mid- 1991 maintained the capability of destroying targets in the United States and elsewhere, and

the Ground Forces continued to have the world's largest numbers

of tanks, artillery pieces, and tactical nuclear weapons.

The armed forces were not without internal problems, however.

The combat losses sustained in Afghanistan and the withdrawal

without victory had a profound effect on the armed forces and tar- nished their image in the eyes of the party and the society as a whole.

The armed forces were also disturbed by mounting nationality

problems, including the refusal of many non-Russian conscripts

to report for induction, the continuing interethnic conflicts among

conscripts, and the demographic trend in which non-Russians were

likely to outnumber Russians in the biannual conscript inductions.

The Soviet armed forces also lacked a well-trained, experienced,

and stable noncommissioned officer corps, such as that forming

the basis of many Western armies. Gorbachev's announcement in

1988 of a unilateral reduction of 500,000 officers and men from

the armed forces and his announced cutbacks in the armed forces' share of the government budget were not received with enthusiasm

by the military hierarchy.

The doctrine, structure, and mission of the Soviet armed forces were based on the theories of Marxism-Leninism. One of these the- ories rested on the principle, formulated by the nineteenth-century

Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, that war is a continuation of politics and that an aim of war is the attainment of mili- tary victory. Marxism-Leninism added that military victory can

accelerate the victory of the world socialist system (see Glossary).

lxxvi
Marxism-Leninism also provided the theoretical basis for Soviet

military science and for the tactical operations of military units. In practice, Marxism-Leninism was interpreted and applied solely

by the CPSU, which closely monitored military leaders' adherence

to party policies and directives. Thus, when Gorbachev characterized Marxism-Leninism as an outdated dogma in July 1991 and

called on the CPSU Central Committee to abandon it in favor of

social democratic principles, military leaders probably were sur- prised and dismayed.

Under the direction of the party, the armed forces were organized

and equipped mainly to accomplish offensive missions, the success of which were indispensable to victory in war. Although Soviet

military doctrine was always defensive, according to Soviet leaders, Western specialists regarded it as offensive in emphasis be- cause it stressed offensive strategy, weapons, and forces to achieve

victory in war. As directed by Gorbachev, however, military leaders

emphasized the defensive aspects of the doctrine. Gorbachev also directed that the military establishment adopt the doctrine of

''reasonable sufficiency," new to the Soviet Union in the 1980s,

to facilitate the conversion of portions of the military industrial complex to support civilian, consumer-oriented requirements.

With the apparent support of the armed forces, the internal security organs, and the governmental economic bureaucracies, the

CPSU continued its efforts to control events in the country in

mid- 1991. Despite its problem-plagued economy and society and

its altered international situation, the Soviet Union remained one

of the two most powerful countries in the world. Its size and location, natural resources, industrial capacity, population, and military strength made it of continuing importance. Having large

quantities of almost all the strategic minerals and large reserves of coal, iron ore, natural gas, oil, timber, gold, manganese, and

other resources, the Soviet Union required little material support

from beyond its borders. It was self-sufficient in coal, natural gas, and oil, the major fuels needed for its extensive industry. Industrial development had been a keystone of economic policies of all Soviet regimes beginning with the Bolshevik Revolution and had

resulted in a higher percentage of Soviet citizens working in in- dustry than in most Western nations. Soviet industrial development, however, always favored heavy industry, for reasons of

national security and military production. Light industry, which

mainly produced goods for consumers other than nonmilitary needs,

such as agriculture, always had low priority. The emphasis on heavy

industry produced some spectacular successes, particularly with

regard to the production of large quantities of military equipment

lxxvii
and weapons systems. As a result of this emphasis, however, the

Soviet people had to settle for food, clothing, and housing of generally poor quality and insufficient quantity.

In mid- 1991 the people gave the Gorbachev regime only minimal

support and were beginning to reject the party's right to rule the

Soviet Union. Gorbachev, however, continued to proclaim himself a Communist and to align himself with opponents of reform on some issues but with advocates of reform on other issues. He

thus lost the support of almost all the democratic and marketoriented reformers and remained acceptable to the hard-line opponents of reform mainly because they lacked an alternative leader. Gorbachev apparently could not permanently join either the

reformers or their opponents, but neither could he allow either group

to gain continuing supremacy because his role as the arbiter of conflicting views would be unnecessary. His zigzags perhaps enabled

him to remain in a position of power, but he continued to lose ef- fectiveness as the director of major events in the country and therefore his relevance as a leader and reformer. His six years of historic

political reform opened the Soviet Union to fundamental change.

The reform effort, however, was not accompanied by significant

changes in the oarty's ideology or the government's functions, and

the irresolute and sporadic attempts to transform the centrally controlled economy into a market-based system had had little real success. Meanwhile, the country continued in its chaotic turmoil as the economy worsened, the regime became weaker, and several

of the republics became more insistent on their national independence. The Soviet Union remained in flux and unpredictable.

August 16, 1991

Early in the morning of August 19, 1991 , events began to occur

that would have a greater historical impact than the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, according to George F. Kennan, one of America's

foremost specialists on the Soviet Union. The events began when

Soviet radio and television broadcasts announced that Gorbachev,

who was vacationing in Crimea, had been replaced by a committee of high-ranking party and government officials because "ill health" prevented him from performing his presidential duties

at a time when the country faced "fatal dangers." The officials,

who called themselves the State Committee for the State of Emergency, placed themselves in charge of the country and put Gorbachev under house arrest. The committee was headed by the vice

lxxviii
president of the Soviet Union, Gennadii I. Ianaev, who was named

acting president, and included the chairman of the KGB, Vladimir

A. Kriuchkov; the minister of internal affairs, Boris K. Pugo; the

minister of defense, Dmitrii T. Iazov; and the chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, Valentin Pavlov. Anatolii I. Luk'ianov, the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, supported the

committee, as did other CPSU leaders in the government, armed

forces, internal security forces, and military-industrial complex.

The committee issued several decrees that suspended democratic

political organizations; promised housing improvements and the

freezing or reduction of prices on some food items; banned publication of several newspapers and journals; forbade labor strikes

and public gatherings; and declared martial law in Moscow. In an appeal to the people, Ianaev pledged to ensure the territorial integrity of the Soviet Union and indicated that the new union

treaty, which was scheduled to be signed on August 20, would be

reevaluated before final acceptance. In an appeal to foreign leaders, Ianaev stated that treaties and other international agreements

signed by the Soviet Union would be upheld by the committee,

but he warned against attempts by foreign governments to change

Soviet boundaries.

The announcements by the leaders of the coup d'etat brought

immediate reactions, mostly negative. In Moscow crowds of people protested in the streets and eventually confronted tanks of the

armed forces in defense of the building housing the Russian Republic's supreme soviet. Tens of thousands of people rallied around

Yeltsin, who urged them to continue resisting the coup and asked

the troops not to fire on fellow citizens. Masses of people in many

other Soviet cities demonstrated against the coup, and leaders of

most of the republics denounced the coup. On the second day of

the coup, three people were killed attempting to defend the supreme

soviet building against tanks. Soviet troops occupied radio and tele- vision facilities in the Estonian and Lithuanian republics, and the

Estonian and Lithuanian legislatures declared immediate secession

from the Soviet Union. President Bush and other foreign leaders

voiced strong opposition to the coup, which they termed "illegal,"

and called for the organizers to restore Gorbachev to power.

Firm opposition from the Soviet people, Yeltsin and other republic

leaders, and international figures was not the only problem facing

the initiators of the coup. Some of the armed forces defected to the opposition, and some others—for example, General Evgenii Shaposhnikov, commander in chief of the Air Forces, and Lieutenant General Pavel Grachev, commander of the Airborne Troops—refused

to obey the orders to deploy. Many other military leaders, as well

lxxix
as many senior members of the party, government, and media,

apparently took no overt stand but waited to see if the coup was

likely to succeed.

Early on the third day, the coup collapsed. The committee dis- banded, and the Ministry of Defense directed all troops to leave

Moscow. The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union formally re- instated Gorbachev as president, and he returned to Moscow

from Crimea. Gorbachev returned to find that the political environment in Moscow and in many other places in the Soviet Union

was radically different from the one that had existed before the coup

attempt. At the urging of Yeltsin, Gorbachev, who had originally replaced coup members with their close subordinates, appointed persons more acceptable to the reformers. Shaposhnikov was appointed minister of defense, Vadim V. Bakatin the chairman of the KGB, and Viktor Barannikov the minister of internal

affairs. The failed coup and the events immediately following it repre- sented a historic turning point for many reasons. The CPSU, which was a main bond linking the coup leaders, was thrown into fur- ther disarray, and it, together with the party-dominated central

government, v/as seriously discredited. The position of conservative and reactionary leaders, who were mainly party members, was weakened relative to that of the advocates of substantial political

and economic reform. In addition, Gorbachev, who had appointed

or approved the appointment of the coup leaders and failed to forestall the coup, was diminished politically. Although he rejected col- laborating with the coup leaders, Gorbachev fully advocated neither

democracy nor a free-market economy and was viewed by many

observers as a figure of mainly historical importance. Yeltsin, who

had publicly defied the coup leaders, rallied the people to resist,

and faced the tanks, used his position as the popularly elected president of the Russian Republic and his forceful personality to change

the course of events. He altered Gorbachev's appointments, made

economic and political agreements affecting the whole country, and

revised the proposed new union treaty.

Although the precise roles that the armed forces, KGB, and MVD

took during the coup were unclear, some people in these organs failed to respond to manipulation by the party apparatchiks (see Glossary).

Some elements of the armed services, for example, opted not to sup- port the coup. The vast majority of the armed forces, KGB, and

MVD, however, were not actively involved in the coup and therefore did not attempt to influence the course of events. These organs

traditionally had opposed change, and their considerable power

lxxx
remained available for commitment in a future struggle. The positions of the nationalities seeking independence, sovereignty, and

secession was also strengthened as a result of the failure of the coup.

Ten of the fifteen republics declared or reaffirmed their independence. The United States, as well as the European Community,

recognized Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as separate and independent states. Finally, advocates of reform, in general, and democratic

reform, in particular, were seen as ascendant by some Western observers, as a result of the coup. But perhaps equally as important,

the advocates began to include not only members of the intelligentsia

but also tens of thousands of ordinary citizens. Their activism helped

defeat the coup, and it was possible they would be encouraged to participate in the democratic movement and thus help alter their

political condition.

On August 24, 1991, the people received further encouragement

when an evening television news program announced that Gorbachev had resigned as CPSU general secretary. Also announced

was a plea from Gorbachev for the CPSU Central Committee to disband itself. On the same day, Gorbachev decreed that " Soviets

of people's deputies" should seize CPSU property and decide on

its future use in accordance with Soviet law and the laws of the

republics. In another decree, Gorbachev directed that political parties and political organizations must cease activities in the armed

forces, MVD, KGB, and in the central government bureaucracy.

Decrees limiting party activities had been issued earlier by Yeltsin

for the Russian Republic and by some other republic leaders, but

those decrees had generally not been carried out. Gorbachev did

not quit the party, but although neither he nor Yeltsin outlawed

it entirely, the people reacted as if the reign of the party had ended.

They toppled numerous statues of Lenin and other party leaders,

assaulted party members, and attempted to take over party buildings in several cities. The people's anger at the party erupted not

only because of the coup attempt but because of the years of

corruption, deceit, and tyranny that party members had inflicted on them in the exercise of near total power. Meanwhile, the Party

Control Committee expelled the coup leaders from the party and

claimed that the party as a whole should not be condemned for the illegal actions of a few "adventurers."

On September 5, 1991, perhaps the most significant aftereffect of the failed coup occurred: the Congress of People's Deputies, after being given an ultimatum by Gorbachev, dissolved both itself and

the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, after voting to transfer

state power to a transitional government. The transitional government, which was largely controlled by the republics, was designed

to rule until a new constitution and a new union treaty could be

lxxxi
prepared and approved. It consisted of the State Council, a new

bicameral Supreme Soviet, and the Interrepublican Economic Committee. The State Council, with Gorbachev as the head, had as members the leaders of the republics participating in the new

"voluntary" union. The State Council acted as the collective executive, and its responsibilities included foreign affairs, national

defense, and internal security. The Interrepublican Economic Committee, with members chosen by the republics, was responsible for coordinating the economic relations of the republics and the

management of the national economy. Gorbachev chose the committee chairman with approval of the State Council. In one of its first acts, the State Council recognized the complete independence

of the former Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian republics.

By successfully withstanding a coup and instituting a transitional

government, Gorbachev once again displayed his masterful talent

for tactical improvisation and political survival. Nevertheless, the

political situation in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was unstable, and the economy continued to worsen. Most of

the people were apprehensive about their future.

September 7, 1991 Raymond E. Zickel

lxxxii
Chapter 1. Historical Setting: Early History to 1917
Icon, Mother of God (Georgian)
THE SOVIET UNION is inhabited by many nationalities with

complex origins and different histories. Its historical roots, however,

are chiefly those of the East Slavs, who evolved into the Russian,

Ukrainian, and Belorussian peoples. The major pre- Soviet politi- cal formations of the East Slavs were, in order, medieval Kievan

Rus', Muscovy, and the Russian Empire. Three other states

Poland, Lithuania, and the Mongol Empire—also played crucial

roles in the historical development of the Soviet Union.

The first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus', emerged along the

Dnepr River Valley, where it controlled the trade route between

Scandinavia and the Byzantine Empire. By adopting Christianity

from Constantinople, Kievan Rus' began a synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures. Kievan Rus' was the collective possession of a princely family, a fact that led to armed struggles between

princes and ultimately to the territorial disintegration of the state. Conquest by the Mongols was the final blow, and subsequently a number of states claimed to be heirs of Kievan Rus' . One of these was Muscovy, located on the northeastern periphery of Kievan Rus'

and populated primarily by Russians. Muscovy gradually dominated neighboring territories and expanded into the Russian

Empire.

The historical characteristics that emerged in Muscovy were to

affect both Russia and the Soviet Union. One such characteristic was the state's dominance over the individual. Mongol, Byzantine, and native Russian roots all contributed to what was referred

to as Russian autocracy: the idea that Russian rulers, or tsars, were

unlimited in their power. All institutions, including the Russian

Orthodox Church, were subordinated to the state and the autocrat. The idea of autocracy survived until the fall of the last tsar. Continual territorial expansion was another characteristic of Russian history. Beginning with Muscovy's "gathering of the Russian lands," expansion soon went beyond ethnically Russian areas. As a result, Muscovy developed into the huge Russian Empire,

eventually stretching from the border with Poland to the Pacific

Ocean. Because of its size and military might, Russia became a major power, but acquisition of non-Russian lands and peoples

posed continuing nationality problems.

Expansion westward forced Russia to face the perennial questions of its backwardness and its relationship to the West. Muscovy

had grown in isolation from the West, but Russia had to adopt
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Western technology to compete militarily in Europe. Thus, Peter

the Great attempted to modernize the country, as did subsequent

rulers who struggled, largely unsuccessfully, to raise Russia to European levels of technology and productivity. With the acquisition

of technology came Western cultural and intellectual currents that

disrupted the development of an independent Russian culture.

Native and foreign cultural values were often in contention, and

questions of Russia's relationship to the West became an enduring obsession of Russian intellectuals. Russia's defeat in the Crimean War triggered another attempt

at modernization, including the emancipation of the serfs—peasants

bound to the land they tilled. Despite major reforms, agriculture

remained inefficient, industrialization proceeded haltingly, and new

problems emerged. In addition to masses of land-hungry peasants, a budding industrial proletariat and a small but important group

of middle-class professionals were becoming dissatisfied. NonRussians, resentful of Russification (see Glossary), struggled for autonomy. In response to these continuing problems, successive

regimes vacillated between repression and reform. The tsars were

unwilling to give up autocratic rule or to share power. They, their

supporters, and government bureaucrats became more isolated from

the rest of society. Intellectuals became more radical, and some became professional revolutionaries.

Despite its internal problems, Russia continued to play a major

role in international politics. Its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War,

however, sparked a revolution in 1905. Professionals, workers,

peasants, non-Russians, and soldiers demanded fundamental re- forms. Reluctantly, the last tsar granted a limited constitution, but

for a decade he circumvented it and continued autocratic rule. When World War I began, Russian patriotism at first compensated for the war's disruption and suffering. The government,

however, proved incompetent in pursuing the war, and as warweariness and revolutionary pressures increased, fewer and fewer

defended autocracy.

Emergence of the East Slavs

Many ethnically diverse peoples migrated onto the East European Plain, but the East Slavs remained and gradually became

dominant. Kievan Rus', the first East Slavic state, emerged in the

late ninth century A.D. and developed a complex and frequendy

unstable political system. Nonetheless, Kievan Rus' flourished until

the thirteenth century, when it rapidly declined. A Slavic variant

of the Eastern Orthodox religion and a synthesis of Byzantine

and Slavic cultures are among its lasting achievements. The

4
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

disintegration of Kievan Rus' played a crucial role in the evolution of the East Slavs into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian

peoples.

The Peoples of the East European Plain

Long before the appearance of Kievan Rus', Iranian and other

peoples lived in the area of the present-day Ukrainian Republic.

The most famous of these were the Scythians (ca. 600-200 B.C.),

whose stylized animal jewelry can be seen in museums throughout the world. From A.D. 100 to 900, Goths and nomadic Huns,

Avars, and Magyars passed though this region but left little of last- ing import. More significant was the simultaneous spread of the

Slavs, who were agriculturists and beekeepers, as well as hunters,

fishers, herders, and trappers. The Slavs demographically dominated the region.

Little is known of the origins of the Slavs. Philologists and archaeologists have surmised that they settled very early in the Carpathian

Mountains or in the area of the present-day Belorussian Republic. By A.D. 600, they had split linguistically into southern, western,

and eastern branches. The East Slavs setded along the Dnepr River

and its tributaries and then spread northward to Lake Ladoga and

the Neva River Basin, northeastward to the northern Volga River

region, and westward to the northern Dnestr and western Bug river

basins. In the eighth and ninth centuries, many of the East Slavic

tribes paid tribute to the Khazars, a Turkic-speaking people liv- ing in the southern Volga and Caucasus regions.

The East Slavs and the Varangians

By the ninth century, Scandinavian warriors and merchants,

called Varangians, had penetrated the East Slavic regions. According to the earliest chronicle of Kievan Rus', a Varangian named

Rurik first established himself in Novgorod ca. 860 before moving south and extending his authority to Kiev. The chronicle cited

Rurik as the progenitor of the Rurikid Dynasty. This princely clan was to rule in eastern Europe until 1598. Another Varangian,

named Oleg, moved south from Novgorod, expelled the Khazars

from Kiev, and founded Kievan Rus' ca. 880. In a period of thirtyfive years, he subdued the various East Slavic tribes. In 907 he

led a campaign against Constantinople, and in 91 1 he signed a commercial treaty with the Byzantine Empire on the basis of equality.

The new state prospered because it controlled the trade route

stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and because it had

an abundant supply of furs, wax, honey, and slaves for export.
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Source: Based on information from David MacKenzie and Michael W. Curran, A History of Russia and the Soviet Union, Chicago, 1987, 61.

Figure 2. The Principalities of Kievan Rus }

, 1136

Historians have debated the role of the Varangians in the establishment of Kievan Rus' . Most Russian—and particularly Soviet

historians have stressed the Slavic influence in the development

of the state. Although Slavic tribes had formed their own regional

entities by 860, the Varangians undoubtedly accelerated the crystallization of Kievan Rus'.

The Golden Age of Kiev

Kiev dominated Kievan Rus' for the next two centuries (see

fig. 2). The grand prince controlled the lands around Kiev, while

his theoretically subordinate relatives ruled in other cities and sent

6
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

him tribute. The zenith of Kievan Rus' came during the reigns

of Prince Vladimir (978-1015) and Prince Iaroslav the Wise (1019-

54). Both rulers continued the steady expansion of Kievan Rus',

begun under Prince Oleg. To enhance his power, Vladimir married the sister of the Byzantine emperor. Iaroslav arranged marriages for his sister and three daughters to the kings of Poland,

France, Hungary, and Norway. Vladimir's greatest achievement was the Christianization of Kievan Rus', starting in 988, and he

built the first great edifice of Kievan Rus', the Tithe Church in

Kiev. Iaroslav promulgated the first East Slavic law code, Ruska

Pravda (Rus' Justice); built the St. Sofia cathedrals in Kiev and

Novgorod; patronized native clergy and monasticism; and is said

to have founded a school system. Kiev's great Monastery of the

Caves, which functioned in Kievan Rus' as an ecclesiastical academy, was developed under Iaroslav 's sons. Vladimir's choice of Eastern Orthodoxy reflected his close political ties with Constantinople, which dominated the Black Sea and

hence the Dnepr River trade. His decision had long-range political, cultural, and religious consequences. The Eastern Orthodox

Church had a liturgy written in Cyrillic (see Glossary) and a cor- pus of translations, which had been produced earlier for the South

Slavs. This literature facilitated the conversion to Christianity and

introduced East Slavs to rudimentary Greek philosophy, science,

and historiography without their having to learn Greek. In contrast, educated people in medieval western and central Europe

learned Latin. East Slavs learned neither Greek nor Latin and thus were isolated from Byzantine culture as well as from the culture

of their European neighbors to the west. Rurik's purported descendants organized Kievan Rus' as their

shared possession. Princely succession devolved from elder to younger brother and from uncle to nephew, as well as from father to son. Junior members of the dynasty usually began their princely

careers by ruling a minor district, then sought to obtain a more

lucrative principality, and finally competed for the coveted golden

throne of Kiev.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the princes and their

retinues—a mixture of Varangian and native Slavic elites plus small

Finno-Ugric and Turkic elements—dominated the society of Kievan

Rus'. Leading warriors and officials, who sometimes constituted an advisory council, or duma (see Glossary), received income or land from the princes in return for their services. The society of

Kievan Rus' did not develop class institutions, the concept of legal

reciprocity, or autonomous towns, all of which characterized

Western feudalism. Nevertheless, urban merchants, artisans, and
Soviet Union: A Country Study

laborers sometimes exercised political influence through a popular assembly, or veche. In some cases, the veche either made agreements with princes or expelled them and invited others to take their

places. At the bottom of society was a small stratum of slaves. More

important were tribute-paying peasants, who gradually came under

the influence of the Orthodox Church and landlords. As in the rest of eastern Europe, the peasants owed labor duty to the princes,

but the widespread personal serfdom characteristic of western

Europe did not exist in Kievan Rus'.

The Rise of Regional Centers

Kievan Rus' was not able to maintain its position as a powerful

and prosperous state. Many factors contributed to its decline,

among them its being an amalgamation of disparate lands held

together by a ruling clan. As the descendants of Rurik multiplied,

they identified themselves with regional interests rather than with

a larger patrimony. The princes fought among themselves, fre- quendy forming alliances with Polovtsians, Poles, Hungarians, and

others. The decline of Kievan Rus' was further accelerated by a

shift in European trade routes resulting from the Crusades. The

sacking of Constantinople in 1204 by the Crusaders made the Dnepr

trade route marginal. As it declined, Kievan Rus' splintered into

many principalities and several large regional centers. The people

inhabiting the regional centers evolved into several nationalities:

Ukrainians in the southeast and southwest, Belorussians in the

northwest, and Russians in the north and northeast.

In the north, Novgorod prospered because it controlled trade routes from the Volga River to the Baltic Sea. As Kievan Rus'

declined, Novgorod became more independent. It was ruled by

a town oligarchy, and major decisions, including the election or

dismissal of a prince, were made at town meetings. In the twelfth

century, Novgorod acquired its own archbishop—a sign of its importance and its political independence. In its political structure and mercantile activities, Novgorod, which became a republic in

1136, resembled the north European towns of the Hanseatic League more than the other principalities of Kievan Rus'.

In the northeast, the territory that eventually became Muscovy

was colonized by East Slavs who intermingled with the Finno-Ugric

tribes of the area. The city of Rostov was the oldest center of the

northeast but was supplanted first by the city of Suzdal' and then

by the city of Vladimir. By the twelfth century, the combined principality of Vladimir-Suzdal' had become a major power in Kievan

Rus'. In 1 169 Prince Andrei Bogoliubskii of Vladimir-Suzdal' dealt a severe blow to the waning power of the Kievan Rus' capital of

8
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

Kiev when his armies sacked the city. Prince Andrei installed his

younger brother in Kiev and continued to rule his realm from the

city of Suzdal'. Political power had shifted to the northeast. In 1299,

in the wake of a Mongol invasion, the head of the Orthodox Church,

the metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus', moved to the city of Vladimir.

Thus Vladimir-Suzdal', with its increased political power and with

the metropolitan in residence, acted as a continuator of Kievan

Rus'.

The principality of Galicia-Volhynia, which had highly developed trade relations with its Polish, Hungarian, and Lithuanian

neighbors, emerged as another successor to Kievan Rus' in the south- west. In the early thirteenth century, Prince Roman Mstislavich

united the two previously separate principalities, conquered Kiev,

and assumed the title of grand prince of Kievan Rus'. His son, Prince Daniil (1230-64), was the first ruler of Kievan Rus' to ac- cept a crown from the Roman papacy, apparently without breaking with Orthodoxy. Early in the fourteenth century, the patriarch

of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople granted the rulers of

Galicia-Volhynia a metropolitan to compensate for the Kievan

metropolitan's move to Vladimir.

A long and losing struggle against the Mongols, however, as well

as internal opposition to the prince and foreign intervention,

weakened Galicia-Volhynia. With the end of the Mstislavich

Dynasty in the mid-fourteenth century, Galicia-Volhynia ceased

to exist: Lithuania took Volhynia, and Poland annexed Galicia.

The Mongol Invasion

During its fragmentation, Kievan Rus' faced its greatest threat

from invading Mongols. An army from Kievan Rus', together with

the Turkic Polovtsians, met a Mongol raiding party in 1223 at the

Kalka River. The army of Kievan Rus' and its Polovtsian allies were soundly defeated. A much larger Mongol force overran much

of Kievan Rus' in the winter of 1237-38. In 1240 the city of Kiev was sacked, and the Mongols moved on to Poland and Hungary.

Of the principalities of Kievan Rus', only the Republic of Novgorod

escaped the invasion; it did, however, pay tribute to the Mongols.

One branch of the Mongols withdrew to Sarai on the lower Volga

River and established the Golden Horde (see Glossary). From Sarai

the Golden Horde Mongols controlled Kievan Rus', ruling in- directly through its princes and tax collectors. The impact of the Mongol invasion was uneven. Some centers,

Kiev for example, never recovered from the devastation of the initial attack. The Republic of Novgorod continued to prosper unscathed, and a new entity, the city of Moscow, flourished under

9
Soviet Union: A Country Study

the Mongols. Although a Russian army defeated the Golden Horde

at Kulikovo in 1380, Mongol domination of territories inhabited

by Russians, and demands for tribute from Russian princes, con- tinued until about 1480. In the early fourteenth century, however,

Lithuania pushed the Mongols from territories inhabited by Ukrainians and Belorussians and claimed these lands. The Lithuanians

accepted the Ruthenian language (Ukrainian-Belorussian) as the

state language and maintained the judicial and administrative practices of Kievan Rus' . The grand duke of Lithuania became a con- tender for the political and cultural heritage of Kievan Rus'.

Ultimately, the traditions of Kievan Rus' were superseded by Polish

influences in Lithuania.

Historians have debated the long-term impact of Mongol rule on Russian and Soviet society. The Mongols have been blamed

for the destruction of Kievan Rus'; the breakup of an old 4 'Russian" nationality into Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Russian components; and the introduction of "oriental despotism" to Russia.

But most historians have agreed that Kievan Rus' was not a homogeneous political, cultural, or ethnic entity and that the Mongols merely accelerated its breakup, which had begun before the

invasion. Nevertheless, modern historians have tended to credit

the Mongol regime with a very important role in the development

of Muscovy as a state. Muscovy, for example, adopted its postal

road network, census, fiscal system, and military organization from

the Mongols.

Kievan Rus' left a powerful legacy. Under the leadership of the

Rurikid Dynasty, a large territory inhabited by East Slavs was

united into an important, albeit unstable, state. After the acceptance of Eastern Orthodoxy, Kievan Rus' was united by a church

structure and developed a Byzantine-Slavic synthesis in culture,

the arts, and traditions. In the western part of this area, these tra- ditions helped form the Ukrainian and Belorussian nationalities.

On the northeastern periphery of Kievan Rus', these traditions were adapted to form the Russian autocratic state. Muscovy

The development of the Russian state can be traced from

Vladimir-Suzdal' through Muscovy to the Russian Empire.

Muscovy drew people and wealth to the northeastern periphery

of Kievan Rus'; established trade links to the Baltic, White, and

Caspian seas and to Siberia; and created a highly centralized and

autocratic political system. Muscovite political traditions, therefore, have exerted a powerful influence on Russian and Soviet

society.

10
St. Sofia Cathedral

(completed in 1046),

Kiev, Ukrainian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

Cathedral of the Assumption

(completed in 1479)

in Moscow's Kremlin,

where coronations of tsars took place, the last one for Tsar Nicholas II in 1894

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard
Soviet Union: A Country Study

The Rise of Muscovy

When the Mongols invaded the lands of Kievan Rus', Moscow

was an insignificant trading outpost in the principality of VladimirSuzdal'. Muscovy's remote, forested location offered some security

from Mongol attack and occupation, while a number of rivers provided access to the Baltic and Black seas and to the Caucasus region.

More important to Moscow's development in the state of Muscovy,

however, was its rule by a series of princes who were ambitious,

determined, and lucky. The first ruler of the principality of Muscovy,

Daniil Aleksandrovich (d. 1303), secured the principality for his

branch of the Rurikid Dynasty. His son, Ivan I (1325-40), known

as Kalita ('' Money Bags"), obtained the tide of * 'Grand Prince of

Vladimir" from his Mongol overlords. He closely cooperated with

the Mongols and collected tribute from other Russian principalities on their behalf. This enabled him to gain regional ascendancy, particularly over Muscovy's rival, Tver'. In 1327 the Orthodox metropolitan transferred his residency from Vladimir to Moscow, further

enhancing the prestige of the new principality.

The grand princes of Muscovy began gathering Russian lands

to increase the population and wealth under their rule. The most

successful "gatherer" was Ivan III (1462-1505), who in 1478 con- quered Novgorod and in 1485 Tver' (see table 2, Appendix A).

Through inheritance, Ivan obtained part of Ryazan', and the

princes of Rostov and Yaroslavl' voluntarily subordinated themselves to him. Pskov, which remained independent, was conquered

in 1510 by Ivan's son, Vasilii III (1505-33). By the beginning of

the sixteenth century, Muscovy had united virtually all ethnically

Russian lands.

Muscovy gained full sovereignty as Mongol power waned, and

Mongol overlordship was officially terminated in 1480. Ivan III was the first Muscovite ruler to use the titles of tsar and "Ruler

of all Rus'," laying claim not only to Russian areas but also to parts of the Ukrainian and Belorussian lands of Kievan Rus'.

Lithuania, then a powerful state, included other parts of Belorussia

and central Ukraine. Ivan III competed with Lithuania for control over some of the semi-independent former principalities of

Kievan Rus' in the upper Dnepr and Donets river basins. Through

defections of some princes, border skirmishes, and an inconclusive war with Lithuania, Ivan III was able to push westward, and

Muscovy tripled in size under his rule. The Evolution of Russian Autocracy

Outward expansion was accompanied by internal consolidation.

By the fifteenth century, the rulers of Muscovy considered the entire

12
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

territory their collective property. Various semi-independent princes

still claimed specific territories, but Ivan forced the lesser princes

to acknowledge the grand prince of Muscovy and his descendants

as unquestioned rulers and having control over military, judicial,

and foreign affairs. Gradually, the Muscovite ruler emerged as a powerful, autocratic

ruler, a "tsar." By assuming the tide "tsar," the Muscovite prince

underscored that he was a major ruler or emperor, much like the

emperor of the Byzantine Empire or the Mongol khan. Indeed,

Byzantine terms, rituals, emblems such as the double-headed eagle,

and tides were adopted by the Muscovite court after Ivan Ill's marriage to Sophia Paleologue, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor.

Ivan III was the first Russian prince to begin using the title "tsar and autocrat," mimicking the titles used by Christian emperors

of Constantinople. At first, "autocrat" indicated merely that the

tsar was an independent ruler, but in the reign of Ivan IV (1533-84)

the concept was enlarged until it came to mean unlimited rule. Ivan

IV was crowned tsar and was thus recognized, at least by the Orthodox Church, as emperor. An Orthodox monk had claimed that,

with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453,

the Muscovite tsar was the only legitimate Orthodox ruler and that

Moscow was the Third Rome because it was the final successor

to Rome and Constantinople, the centers of Christianity in earlier

eras. Ivan IV

The development of the tsar's autocratic powers reached a cul- mination during the reign of Ivan IV. Ivan, who became known

as "the Terrible" or "the Dread," strengthened the position of

the tsar to an unprecedented degree, thus demonstrating the risks of unbridled power in the hands of an unbalanced individual.

Although apparently intelligent and energetic, he suffered from

bouts of paranoia and depression, and his rule was prone to ex- treme violence.

Ivan IV became grand prince of Muscovy in 1533 at the age

of three. Various boyar (see Glossary) factions competed for control over the regency until Ivan assumed the throne in 1547. Reflect- ing Muscovy's new imperial claims, Ivan was crowned tsar in an

elaborate ritual modeled after the coronation of the Byzantine emperors. Ivan continued to be assisted by a group of boyars, and

his reign began a series of useful reforms. During the 1550s, a new

law code was promulgated, the military was revamped, and local government was reorganized. These reforms were undoubtedly in- tended to strengthen Muscovy in the face of continuous warfare.

13
Soviet Union: A Country Study

During the late 1550s, Ivan became angry with his advisers, the

government, and the boyars. Historians have not determined

whether his wrath was caused by policy differences, personal animosities, or mental imbalance. In any case, he divided Muscovy

into two parts: his private domain and the public realm. For his

private domain, Ivan chose some of the most prosperous and important districts in Muscovy. In these areas, Ivan's agents attacked

boyars, merchants, and even common people, summarily execut- ing them and confiscating their land and possessions. A decade of

terror descended over Muscovy. As a result of the oprichnina (see

Glossary), Ivan broke the economic and political power of the leading boyar families, thereby destroying precisely those persons who

had built up Muscovy and were the most capable of running it. Trade was curtailed, and peasants, faced with mounting taxes and

physical violence, began to leave central Muscovy. Efforts to curtail the mobility of the peasants brought Muscovy closer to legal

serfdom. In 1572 Ivan finally abandoned the practices followed during the oprichnina.

Despite domestic turmoil, Muscovy continued to wage wars and

to expand. Ivan defeated and annexed the Kazan' Khanate in 1552

and later the Astrakhan' Khanate. With these victories, Muscovy

gained access to the entire Volga River littoral and Central Asia.

Muscovy's expansion eastward encountered relatively little resis- tance. In 1581 the Stroganov merchant family, interested in the

fur trade, hired a cossack (see Glossary) leader, Ermak, to lead an expedition into western Siberia. Ermak defeated the Siberian

Khanate and claimed the territories west of the Ob' and Irtysh rivers for Muscovy (see fig. 3).

Expanding northwest toward the Baltic Sea proved to be much

more difficult. In 1558 Ivan invaded Livonia, which eventually embroiled him in a twenty-five-year war against Poland, Lithuania,

Sweden, and Denmark. Despite occasional successes, Ivan's army

was pushed back, and Muscovy failed to secure a position on the

Baltic Sea. The war drained Muscovy. Some historians believe that

the oprichnina was initiated to mobilize resources for the war and

to counter opposition to it. In any case, Ivan's domestic and for- eign policies were devastating for Muscovy, and they led to a period

of social struggle and civil war, the so-called Time of Troubles (1598-

1613).

The Time of Troubles

Ivan IV was succeeded by his son Fedor, who was mentally defi- cient. Actual power was exercised by Fedor' s brother-in-law, Boris

Godunov, a boyar. Perhaps the most important event of Fedor'

14
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

reign was the proclamation of the patriarchate of Moscow in 1 589

The patriarchate culminated the evolution of a separate and totally

independent Russian Orthodox Church.

In 1598 Fedor died without an heir, ending the Rurikid Dynasty.

Boris Godunov called a zemskii sobor (see Glossary), which proclaimed him tsar, although various boyar factions refused to ac- cept him. Widespread crop failures caused a famine between 1601

and 1603, and in the ensuing discontent, a leader emerged who

claimed to be Dmitrii, a son of Ivan IV (the actual Dmitrii had

died in 1591). This First False Dmitrii obtained military support

in Poland and began a march toward Moscow. On his way, he was joined by dissatisfied elements ranging from peasants to boyars.

Historians speculate that Godunov would have weathered the crisis, but he died in 1605, and, as a result, the pretender entered

Moscow and was crowned tsar, following the murder of Fedor II, Boris Godunov's son. Subsequendy, Muscovy entered a period of continuous chaos.

The Time of Troubles included a civil war in which a struggle over

the throne was complicated by the machinations of rival boyar fac- tions, the intervention of Poland and Sweden, and intense popular

discontent. The First False Dmitrii and his Polish garrison were over- thrown, and a boyar, Vasilii Shuiskii, was proclaimed tsar in 1606.

In his attempt to retain the throne, Shuiskii allied himself with the

Swedes. A Second False Dmitrii, allied with the Poles, appeared.

In 1610 the Polish heir apparent was proclaimed tsar, and the Poles

occupied Moscow. The Polish presence led to a patriotic revival

among the Russians, and a new army—financed by northern merchants and blessed by the Orthodox Church—drove the Poles out

of Moscow. In 1613a zemskii sobor chose the boyar Mikhail Romanov

as tsar, thus beginning 300 years of Romanov rule. For over a decade, Muscovy was in chaos, but the institution of

autocracy remained intact. Despite the tsar's persecution of the

boyars, the dissatisfaction of the townspeople, and the gradual en- serfment of the peasantry, efforts at restricting the tsar were only

halfhearted. Finding no institutional alternative to autocracy, the

discontented rallied behind various pretenders. During this period,

politics consisted of gaining influence over an autocrat or placing

one's candidate on the throne. The boyars fought among themselves,

the lower classes revolted blindly, and foreign armies occupied the

Kremlin in Moscow, prompting many to accept tsarist absolutism

and autocracy as necessary to restore unity and order in Muscovy.

The Romanovs

The most immediate task of Romanov rule was to restore order.

Fortunately for Muscovy, its major enemies, Poland and Sweden,

15
Soviet Union: A Country Study
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

were in bitter conflict with each other, and Muscovy obtained peace

with Sweden in 1617 and a truce with Poland in 1619. After an

unsuccessful attempt to regain Smolensk from Poland in 1632, Muscovy made peace with Poland in 1634. The Polish king, who had

been elected tsar during the Time of Troubles, renounced all claims

to the tide. Mikhail Romanov was a weak monarch, and state affairs were

actually in the hands of his father, Filaret, who in 1619 became

patriarch of the Orthodox Church. Similarly, Mikhail's son, Alexis

(1645-76), relied on a boyar, Boris Morozov, to run the government. Morozov abused his position by exploiting the populace, and

in 1648, after an uprising in Moscow, he was dismissed.

The autocracy survived the Time of Troubles and the rule of

weak or corrupt tsars because of the strength of the government's

central bureaucracy. Its functionaries continued to serve, regardless of the tsar's legitimacy or the boyar faction controlling the tsar. In the seventeenth century, this bureaucracy expanded dramatically. The number of government departments (prikazi) increased

from twenty-two in 1613 to eighty by mid-century. Although the

departments often had overlapping and conflicting jurisdictions,

the central government, through provincial governors, controlled

and regulated all social groups, trade, manufacturing, and even

the Orthodox Church.

The extent of state control of Russian society was demonstrated

by the comprehensive legal code introduced in 1649. By that time,

the boyars had largely merged with the elite, who were obligatory

servitors of the state, to form a new nobility (dvorianstvo) . Both

groups, whether old or new nobility, were required to serve the

state, primarily in the military. In return, they received land and

peasants. Peasants, whose right to move to another landlord had

been gradually curtailed, were thereafter attached to their domicile.

The state fully sanctioned serfdom, and runaway peasants became

state fugitives. Landlords had complete power over their peasants

and sold, traded, or mortgaged them. Peasants living on state-owned

land, however, were not considered serfs. They were organized into

communes, which were responsible for taxes and other obligations.

Like serfs, however, state peasants were attached to the land they

farmed. Burghers, who lived in urban areas and engaged in trade

and handicrafts, were assessed taxes and were also prohibited from

changing residences. All segments of the population were subject

to military levies and special taxes. Flight was the most common

escape from state-imposed burdens. By chaining much of Muscovite society to its domicile, the legal code of 1649 curtailed move- ment and subordinated the people to the interests of the state.

17
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Increased state exactions and regulations exacerbated the social

discontent that had been simmering since the Time of Troubles.

A major uprising occurred in the Volga region in 1670 and 1671

.

Stenka Razin, a cossack from the Don River area, spearheaded

a revolt that drew together dissatisfied cossacks, escaped serfs, and

Turkic ethnic groups. The uprising swept the Volga River Valley

and even threatened Moscow. Ultimately, tsarist troops defeated

the rebels, and Stenka Razin was publicly tortured and executed.

Expansion and Westernization

Muscovy continued its territorial growth. In the southwest, it acquired eastern Ukraine, which had been under Polish rule. The

Ukrainian Cossacks, warriors organized into military formations,

lived in the frontier areas bordering Poland, the Tatar lands, and

Muscovy. Although they had served the Polish king as mercenary

troops, the Ukrainian Cossacks remained fiercely independent and

staged a number of uprisings against the Poles. In 1648 the Ukrainian Cossacks revolted and were joined by most of Ukrainian soci- ety, which had suffered political, social, religious, and ethnic

oppression under Polish rule. After the Ukrainians threw off Polish

rule, they needed military help to sustain their gains. In 1654 the

leader of the Ukrainian Cossacks, Bohdan Khmel'nyts'kyi, offered

to place Ukraine under the protection of the Muscovite tsar rather

than the Polish king. After some hesitation, the tsar accepted

Khmel'nyts'kyi' s offer, which led to a protracted war between

Muscovy and Poland. The war was concluded by the Treaty of

Andrusovo in 1667. Ukraine was split along the Dnepr River. The

western bank was retained by Poland, and the eastern bank re- mained self-governing under the suzerainty of the tsar. In the east, Muscovy had obtained western Siberia in the six- teenth century. From this base, merchants, traders, and explorers

continued to push east from the Ob' River to the Yenisey River

and then from the Yenisey River to the Lena River. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Muscovites had reached the Amur

River and the outskirts of the Chinese Empire. After a period of

conflict, Muscovy made peace with China in 1689. By the Treaty

of Nerchinsk, Muscovy gave up claims to the Amur River Valley.

By the middle of the seventeenth century, Muscovy extended east- ward through Eurasia to the Pacific Ocean.

Muscovy's southwestern expansion, particularly its incorporation of eastern Ukraine, had unintended consequences. Most

Ukrainians were Orthodox, but, having had to compete with the

Polish Counter-Reformation, they combined Western intellectual currents with their religion. Through Kiev, Muscovy obtained links

18
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

to Polish and central European influences and to the wider Orthodox world. Historically, Ukrainians had been under the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople. Although the Ukrainian

link stimulated creativity, it also undermined traditional Russian

religious practices and culture. The Russian Orthodox Church dis- covered that because of its isolation from Constantinople, variations had crept into its liturgical books and practices. The Russian

Orthodox patriarch, Nikon, was determined to correct the texts according to the Greek originals. Nikon, however, encountered

fierce opposition because many Russians viewed the corrections

as inspired by foreigners or the devil. The Orthodox Church forced

the reforms, which resulted in a schism in 1667. Those who did

not accept the reforms, the Old Believers, were pronounced heretics

and were persecuted by the church and the state. The chief opposition figure, Avvakum, was burned at the stake. The split subsequently became permanent, and many merchants and prosperous

peasants joined the Old Believers.

The impact of Ukraine and the West was also felt at the tsar's court. Kiev, through its famed scholarly academy, founded by

Metropolitan Mohila in 1631 , was a major transmitter of new ideas

and introduced the Muscovite elite to a central European variant

of the Western world. Among the results of this infusion of ideas were baroque architecture, literature, and icon painting. Other more direct channels to the West opened as international trade in- creased and more foreigners came to Muscovy. The tsar's court was interested in the West's more advanced technology, particularly if its applications were military in nature. By the end of the

seventeenth century, Ukrainian, Polish, and West European penetration had undermined the Muscovite cultural synthesis—at least among the elite—and had prepared the way for an even more radical transformation.

Early Imperial Russia

In the eighteenth century, Muscovy was transformed from a static, somewhat isolated, traditional state into the more dynamic, partially

Westernized, and secularized Russian Empire. This transformation was in no small measure a result of the vision, energy, and determination of Peter the Great (1682-1725). Historians disagree about

the extent to which Peter himself transformed Russia, but they generally concur that he laid the foundations that shaped the empire over

the next two centuries. The era he initiated signaled the advent of

Russia as a major European power. But although the Russian Empire would play a leading political role for the next century, its reten- tion of serfdom precluded economic progress of any significant

19
Soviet Union: A Country Study

degree. As west European economic growth accelerated during the

Industrial Revolution, Russia began to lag ever further behind,

creating new problems for the empire as a great power.

Peter the Great and the Formation of the Russian Empire

As a child of the second marriage of Tsar Alexis, Peter was at

first relegated to the background of Russian politics as various court

factions struggled for control of the throne. Tsar Alexis was suc- ceeded by his son from his first marriage, Fedor III, a sickly boy

who died in 1682. Peter was then made co-tsar with his half brother,

Ivan V, but real power was held by Peter's half sister, Sofia. She

ruled as regent while the young Peter was allowed to play war games

with his friends and roam in Moscow's foreign quarters. These

early experiences instilled in him an abiding interest in Western

warfare and technology, particularly in military engineering, artillery, navigation, and shipbuilding. In 1689, using troops he had

drilled during childhood games, Peter foiled a plot to have Sofia

crowned. With the death of Ivan V in 1696, Peter became the sole tsar of Muscovy.

Much of Peter's reign was spent at war. At first he attempted

to secure Muscovy's southern borders against the Tatars and the

Ottoman Turks. His campaign against a fort on the Sea of Azov

failed at first, but having created Russia's first navy, Peter was

able to take the port of Azov in 1696. To continue the war with

the Ottoman Empire, Peter began looking for allies in Europe. He

traveled to Europe, the first tsar to do so, in a so-called Grand Embassy that included visits to Brandenburg, Holland, England, and

the Holy Roman Empire. Peter learned a great deal and enlisted

into his service hundreds of European technical specialists. The

embassy was cut short by a revolt in Moscow that attempted to place Sofia on the throne. Peter's followers crushed the revolt. Peter had hundreds of the participants tortured and killed, and he publicly displayed their bodies as a lesson to others.

Although Peter was unsuccessful in forging an anti-Ottoman coalition in Europe, he found interest in waging war against Sweden

during his travels. Seeing an opportunity to break through to the

Baltic Sea, Peter made peace with the Ottoman Empire in 1700

and then attacked the Swedes at Narva. Sweden's young king,

Charles XII, however, proved to be a military genius and crushed

Peter's army. Fortunately for Peter, Charles did not follow his vic- tory with a counteroffensive, but rather became embroiled in a series of wars over the Polish throne. The respite allowed Peter to build

a new Western-style army. When the two met again in the town

of Poltava in 1709, Peter defeated Charles. Charles escaped to

20
Column of Glory in Poltava,

Ukrainian Republic. The bronze

eagle at its top faces the

battlefield where, in 1709,

Peter the Great defeated King

Charles XII of Sweden.

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

Ottoman territories, and Russia subsequently became engaged in

another war with the Ottoman Empire. Russia agreed to return

the port of Azov to the Ottoman Empire in 1711. The Great Northern War, which in essence was settled at Poltava, dragged on until

1721, when Sweden agreed to the Treaty of Nystad. Muscovy re- tained what it had conquered: Livonia, Estonia, and Ingria on the

Baltic Sea. Through his victories, Peter had acquired a direct link

to western Europe. In celebration, Peter assumed the tide of emperor as well as tsar, and Muscovy became the Russian Empire

in 1721.

Muscovy's expansion into Europe and transformation into the

Russian Empire had been accomplished by restructuring the military, streamlining the government, and mobilizing Russia's financial and human resources. Peter had established Russia's naval

forces and reorganized the army along European lines. Soldiers,

who served for life, were drafted from the taxed population. Officers were drawn from the nobility and were required to spend lifelong

service in either the military or the civilian administration. In 1722

Peter introduced the Table of Ranks, which determined position

and status on the basis of service to the tsar rather than on birth or seniority. Even commoners were ennobled automatically if they

achieved a certain rank.

Peter also reorganized the governmental structure. The prikazi were replaced with colleges, or boards, and the newly created Senate

21
Soviet Union: A Country Study

coordinated government policy. Peter's reform of the local governmental system was less successful, but its operations were adequate

for collecting taxes and maintaining order. As part of the governmental reform, the Orthodox Church was partially incorporated

into the administrative structure of the country. The patriarchate was abolished and replaced by a collective body, the Holy Synod,

which was headed by a lay government official. Peter managed to triple the revenues coming into the state trea- sury. A major innovation was a capitation, or poll tax, levied on

all males except clergy and nobles. A myriad of indirect taxes on

alcohol, salt, and even beards added further income. To provide

uniforms and weapons for the military, Peter developed a metallurgical and textile industry based on the labor of serfs. Peter wanted Russia to have modern technologies, institutions,

and ideas. He required Western-style education for all male nobles, introduced "cipher" schools to teach the alphabet and basic

arithmetic, established a printing house, and funded the Academy

of Sciences (see Glossary), established just before his death in 1725.

He demanded that aristocrats acquire Western dress, tastes, and

social customs. As a consequence, the cultural rift between the nobles and the mass of Russia people deepened. Peter's drive for Westernization, his break with past traditions, and his coercive

methods were epitomized in the construction of the new, architecturally Western capital, St. Petersburg, situated on land newly con- quered on the Gulf of Finland. St. Petersburg faced westward but was constructed by conscripted labor. Westernization by coercion

could not arouse the individualistic creative spirit that was an important element of the Western ways Peter so much admired.

Peter's reign raised questions regarding Russia's backwardness,

its relationship to the West, its coercive style of reform from above,

and other fundamental problems that have confronted subsequent

rulers. In the nineteenth century, Russians debated whether Peter

correctly pointed Russia toward the West or violated its natural

traditions. Historians' views of Peter's reign have tended to reveal

their own political and ideological positions as to the essence of Russia' s history and civilization. Era of Palace Revolutions

Having killed his own son, Alexis, who had opposed his father's reforms and served as a rallying point for antireform groupings,

Peter changed the rules of succession. A new law provided that

the tsar would choose his own heir, but Peter failed to do so before

his own death in 1725. The absence of clear rules of succession

left the monarchy open to intrigues, plots, coups, and countercoups.

22
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

Henceforth, the crucial factor for obtaining the throne was the sup- port of the elite palace guard stationed in St. Petersburg.

At first, Peter's wife, Catherine I, seized the throne. But she

died in 1727, and Peter's grandson, Peter II, was crowned tsar. In 1730 Peter II succumbed to smallpox, and Anna, a daughter

of the former co-tsar, Ivan V, ascended the throne. The clique of

nobles that put Anna on the throne attempted to impose various

conditions on her. Although initially accepting these "points,"

Anna repudiated them after becoming tsarina. Anna was supported

by other nobles, who apparently feared oligarchic rule more than

autocracy. Despite continuing chaotic struggles for the throne, the

nobles did not question the principle of autocratic absolutism.

Anna died in 1740, and her infant grandnephew, Ivan VI, was

proclaimed tsar. After a series of coups, however, he was replaced

by Peter the Great's daughter Elizabeth (1741-62). During Elizabeth's reign, a Westernized yet Russian culture began to emerge,

as witnessed by the founding of Moscow University (1755) and the

Academy of Fine Arts (1757). In the same period, Russia also produced its first eminent scientist and scholar, Mikhail V.

Lomonosov.

During the rule of Peter's successors, Russia increased its role in the European state system. From 1726 to 1761, Russia was al- lied with Austria against the Ottoman Empire, which, in turn, was

usually supported by France. In the War of Polish Succession

(1733-35), Russia and Austria blocked the French candidate to the

Polish throne. In a cosdy war with the Ottoman Empire (1734-39),

Russia reacquired the port of Azov. Russia's greatest reach into

Europe was during the Seven Years' War (1756-63). Russia had

continued its alliance with Austria, but in the "diplomatic revolution" of the period Austria allied itself with France against Prussia. In 1760 Russian forces were at the gates of Berlin. Fortunately

for Prussia, Elizabeth died in 1762, and her successor, Peter III, was devoted to the Prussian emperor, Frederick the Great. Peter

III allied Russia with Prussia.

Peter III had a very short and unpopular reign. Although a grandson of Peter the Great, he was the son of the duke of Holstein

and was raised in a German Lutheran environment. He was therefore considered a foreigner. Making no secret of his contempt for

all things Russian, Peter created deep resentment by foisting Prussian military drills on the Russian military, attacking the church,

and creating a sudden alliance with Prussia, which deprived Russia of a military victory. Making use of the discontent and fearing

for her own position, Peter Ill's wife, Catherine, deposed her husband in a coup. Peter III was subsequently murdered by Catherine's

23
Soviet Union: A Country Study

lover, Aleksei Orlov. Thus, in June 1762 a German princess, who

had no legitimate claim to the Russian throne, became Tsarina

Catherine II, empress of Russia.

Imperial Expansion and Maturation: Catherine II Catherine IPs reign was notable for imperial expansion and in- ternal consolidation. The empire acquired huge new territories in

the south and west. A war that broke out with the Ottoman Empire in 1768 was settled by the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji in 1774.

Russia acquired an outlet to the Black Sea, and the Crimean Tatars were made independent of the Ottomans. In 1783 Catherine an- nexed Crimea, helping to spark the next war with the Ottoman

Empire in 1787. By the Treaty ofJassy in 1792, Russia acquired

territory south to the Dnestr River. The terms of the treaty fell far short of the goals of Catherine's reputed "Greek project"

the expulsion of the Ottomans from Europe and the renewal of a Byzantine empire under Russian control. The Ottoman Empire,

nevertheless, was no longer a serious threat to Russia and was forced

to tolerate an increasing Russian influence over the Balkans.

Russia's westward expansion was the result of the partitioning

of Poland. As Poland became increasingly weak in the eighteenth

century, each of its neighbors—Russia, Prussia, and Austria

tried to place its own candidate on the Polish throne. In 1772 the

three agreed on the first partition, by which Russia received parts

of Belorussia and Livonia. After the partition, Poland initiated an

extensive reform program, which in 1793 led to the second partition. This time Russia obtained most of Belorussia and Ukraine

west of the Dnepr River. The partition led to an anti-Russian and

anti-Prussian uprising in Poland, which ended with the third partition in 1795. The result was that Poland was wiped off the map.

Although the partitioning of Poland greatly added to Russia's

territory and prestige, it also created new difficulties. Russia, having

lost Poland as a buffer, had to share borders with both Prussia and

Austria. In addition, the empire became more ethnically heterogeneous as it absorbed large numbers of Poles, Ukrainians,

Belorussians, and Jews. The fate of the Ukrainians and Belorussians, who were primarily serfs, changed little at first under Russian rule. Roman Catholic Poles, however, resented their loss of

independence and proved to be difficult to integrate. Jews, who had

been barred from Russia in 1742, were viewed as an alien population, and a decree of January 3, 1792, formally initiated the Pale

of Settlement (see Other Major Nationalities, ch. 4). The decree

permitted Jews to live only in the western part of the empire, thereby

setting the stage for anti-Jewish discrimination in later periods. At

24
Summer Palace of Peter the Great in Leningrad, Russian Republic. The

palace, completed in 1 712 in the Dutch style of architecture by the Italian Domenico Trezzini, was converted into a museum under the Soviet regime.

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

the same time, the autonomy of Ukraine east of the Dnepr, the

Baltic states, and various cossack areas was abolished. With her

emphasis on a uniformly administered empire, Catherine presaged

the policy of Russification practiced by later tsars and by their successors. Historians have debated Catherine's sincerity as an enlightened

monarch, although few have doubted that she believed in government activism aimed at developing the empire's resources and

making its administration more rational and effective. Initially,

Catherine attempted to rationalize government procedures through

law. In 1767 she created the Legislative Commission, drawn from

nobles, townsmen, and others, to codify Russia's laws. Although no new law code was formulated, Catherine's Instruction to the

Commission introduced some Russians to Western political and

legal thinking.

During the 1768-74 war with the Ottoman Empire, Russia experienced a major social upheaval, the Pugachev Uprising. In 1773, a Don Cossack, Emelian Pugachev, announced that he was Peter

III. He was joined in the rebellion by other cossacks, various Turkic

tribes who felt the impingement of the Russian centralizing state,

25
Soviet Union: A Country Study

and industrial workers in the Ural Mountains, as well as by peasants

hoping to escape serfdom. Russia's preoccupation with the war

enabled Pugachev to take control of a part of the Volga area, but

the regular army crushed the rebellion in 1774.

The Pugachev Uprising bolstered Catherine's determination to reorganize Russia's provincial administration. In 1775 she divided

Russia, strictly according to population statistics, into provinces

and districts and gave each province an expanded administrative,

police, and judicial apparatus. Nobles, who were no longer required

to serve the central government, were given significant roles in

administering provincial governments.

Catherine also attempted to organize society into well-defined

social groups, or estates. In 1785 she issued charters to nobles and

townsmen. The Charter to the Nobility confirmed the liberation

of the nobles from compulsory service and gave them rights that

not even the autocracy could infringe upon. The Charter to the

Towns proved to be complicated and ultimately less successful than

the one issued to the nobles. Failure to issue a similar charter to

state peasants, or to ameliorate the conditions of serfdom, made

Catherine's social reforms incomplete.

The intellectual Westernization of the elite continued during

Catherine's reign. An increase in the number of books and periodicals also brought forth intellectual debates and social criticism.

In 1 790 Aleksandr Radishchev published hisJourneyfrom St. Peters- burg to Moscow, a fierce attack on serfdom and the autocracy. Catherine, already frightened by the French Revolution, had Radishchev

arrested and banished to Siberia. Radishchev was later recognized

as "the father of Russian radicalism."

In many respects, Catherine brought the policies of Peter the

Great to fruition and set the foundation for the nineteenth-century

empire. Russia became a power capable of competing with its European neighbors on military, political, and diplomatic grounds. Russia's elite became culturally more like the elites of central and west

European countries. The organization of society and the government system, from Peter the Great's central institutions to Catherine's provincial administration, remained basically unchanged until

the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and, in some respects, until

the fall of the monarchy in 1917. Catherine's push to the south,

with the founding of the city of Odessa on the Black Sea, provided

the basis for Russia's nineteenth-century grain trade.

Despite such accomplishments, the empire built by Peter I and

Catherine II was beset with fundamental problems. A small Europeanized elite, alienated from the mass of ordinary Russians, raised

questions about the very essence of Russia's history, culture, and

26
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

identity. Russia's military preeminence was achieved by reliance on coercion and a primitive command economy based on serfdom.

Although economic development was almost sufficient for Russia's

eighteenth-century needs, it was no match for those of the Western

countries that were being transformed by the Industrial Revolution. Catherine's attempt at organizing society into corporate

estates was already being challenged by the French Revolution,

which emphasized individual citizenship. Russia's territorial ex- pansion and the incorporation of an increasing number of nonRussians into the empire set the stage for the future nationalities

problem. Finally, the first questioning of serfdom and autocracy on moral grounds foreshadowed the conflict between the state and

the intelligentsia that was to become dominant in the nineteenth

century.

Ruling the Empire

During the early nineteenth century, Russia's population,

resources, international diplomacy, and military forces made it one

of the most powerful states in the world. Its power enabled it to play an increasingly assertive role in the affairs of Europe. This

role drew it into a series of wars against Napoleon, which had far- reaching consequences not only for Europe but also for Russia.

After a period of enlightenment, Russia became an active opponent of liberalizing trends in central and western Europe. Internally, Russia's population had grown more diverse with each

territorial acquisition. The population included Lutheran Finns,

Baltic Germans, Estonians, and some Latvians; Roman Catholic

Lithuanians, Poles, and some Latvians; Orthodox and Uniate (see

Glossary) Belorussians and Ukrainians; Muslim peoples of vari- ous sects; Orthodox Greeks and Georgians; and Apostolic Armenians. As Western influence and opposition to Russian autocracy

mounted, the regime reacted by curtailing the activities of persons

advocating change, by creating a secret police, and by increasing

censorship. The regime remained increasingly committed to its serf- based economy as the means of supporting the upper classes, the

government, and the military forces. But Russia's backwardness

and inherent weakness were revealed when several powers attacked a Russian fortress in Crimea and forced its surrender.

War and Peace, 1796-1825

Catherine II died in 1796 and was succeeded by her son Paul

(1796-1801). Painfully aware that Catherine had planned to bypass

him and name his son, Alexander, as tsar, Paul instituted primogeniture in the male line as the basis for succession. It was one

27
Soviet Union: A Country Study

of the few lasting reforms of Paul's brief reign. He also chartered a Russian-American company, which led to Russia's acquisition

of Alaska. Paul was haughty and unstable, and he frequently

reversed his previous decisions, creating administrative chaos and

accumulating enemies.

As a major European power, Russia could not escape the wars

involving revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Paul became an adamant opponent of France, and Russia joined Britain and Austria in a war against France. Russian troops under one of Russia's

most famous generals, Aleksandr Suvorov, performed brilliantly

in Italy and Switzerland. Paul, however, reversed himself and abandoned his allies. This reversal, coupled with increasingly arbitrary

domestic policies, sparked a coup, and in March 1801 Paul was

assassinated.

The new tsar, Alexander I (1801-25), came to the throne as the

result of the murder of his father, in which he was implicated.

Groomed for the throne by Catherine II and raised in the spirit

of enlightenment, Alexander also had an inclination toward romanticism and religious mysticism, particularly in the latter period of

his reign. Alexander tinkered with changes in the central government, and he replaced the colleges set up by Peter the Great with

ministries, but without a coordinating prime minister. The liberal

statesman Mikhail Speranskii proposed a constitutional reform, but

it was never implemented.

Alexander's primary focus was not on domestic policy but on

foreign affairs, and particularly on Napoleon. Fearing Napoleon's

expansionist ambitions and the growth of French power, Alexander

joined Britain and Austria against Napoleon. The Russians and

Austrians were defeated at Austerlitz in 1805, and the Russians were trounced at Friedland in 1807. Alexander was forced to sue

for peace, and by the Treaty of Tilsit, signed in 1807, he became

Napoleon's ally. Russia lost little territory under the treaty, and

Alexander made use of his alliance with Napoleon for further ex- pansion. He wrested the Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden

in 1809 and acquired Bessarabia from Turkey in 1812.

The Russo-French alliance gradually became strained. Napoleon was concerned about Russia's intentions in the Bosporous and

Dardenelles straits. At the same time, Alexander viewed the Grand

Duchy of Warsaw, the French-controlled reconstituted Polish state, with suspicion. The requirement of maintaining a continental blockade against Britain made trading difficult, and in 1810 Alexander

repudiated the obligation. In June 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with 600,000 troops—a force that was twice as large as the Russian regular army. Napoleon hoped to inflict a major defeat on

28
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

the Russians and have Alexander sue for peace. As Napoleon

pushed the Russian forces back, he became seriously overextended.

Although Napoleon occupied a burning Moscow, the Russians re- fused to surrender, and Napoleon had to retreat. The harsh wintry

weather, combined with continuous harassment by Russian forces,

resulted in the destruction of Napoleon's Grand Army. Fewer than

30,000 troops returned from the Russian campaign.

As the French retreated, the Russians pursued them into central and western Europe, to the gates of Paris. After the defeat of

Napoleon by the allies, Alexander became known as the "savior

of Europe," and he played a prominent role in the redrawing of

the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the same

year, under the influence of religious mysticism, Alexander initiated the creation of the Holy Alliance, an agreement pledging the rulers of the nations involved to act according to Christian principles.

More pragmatically, in order to prevent the resurgence of an ex- pansionist France, the Quadruple Alliance had been formed by

Russia, Britain, Austria, and Prussia in 1814. The allies created an international system to maintain the territorial status quo. This

system, confirmed by a number of international conferences, en- sured Russia's influence in Europe.

At the same time, Russia continued its expansion. The Congress of Vienna created the Russian Kingdom of Poland (Russian

Poland), to which Alexander granted a constitution. Thus Alexander I became the constitutional monarch of Poland while remaining the autocratic tsar of Russia. He was also the limited monarch

of Finland, which had been annexed in 1809 but awarded autonomous status. In 1813 Russia gained territory in the Baku area of

the Caucasus at the expense of Iran. By the early nineteenth century, the empire also was firmly ensconced in Alaska.

Historians have generally agreed that a revolutionary movement

was born during the reign of Alexander I. Young officers who had

pursued Napoleon into western Europe came back to Russia with

revolutionary ideas, including liberalism, representative government, and mass democracy. Whereas in the eighteenth century in- tellectual Westernization had been fostered by a paternalistic,

autocratic state, in the nineteenth century Western ideas included

opposition to autocracy, demands for representative government,

calls for the abolition of serfdom, and, in some instances, advocacy of a revolutionary overthrow of the government. Officers were

particularly incensed that Alexander had granted Poland a constitution while Russia remained without one. Several clandestine or- ganizations were preparing for an uprising when Alexander died

unexpectedly in 1825. Following his death, there was confusion

29
Soviet Union: A Country Study

as to who would succeed him because his heir, Constantine, had

relinquished his right to the throne. A group of officers commanding about 3,000 men refused to swear allegiance to the new tsar, Nicholas I, and proclaimed their loyalty to * 'Constantine and Constitution." Because these events occurred in December 1825, the

rebels were called Decembrists. Nicholas had them surrounded and,

when they refused to disperse, ordered the army to fire on them.

The revolt was soon over, and the Decembrists who remained alive were arrested. Many were exiled to Siberia.

To some extent, the Decembrists were in the tradition of a long

line of palace revolutionaries who wanted to place their candidate on the throne. But because the Decembrists also wanted to implement a liberal political program, their revolt has been considered

the beginning of a revolutionary movement. The "Decembrists'

revolt" was the first open breach between the government and lib- eral elements—a breach that subsequently widened.

Period of Reaction: Nicholas I, 1825-55

Having experienced the trauma of the Decembrists' revolt,

Nicholas I was determined to restrain Russian society. A secret

police, the so-called Third Section, ran a huge network of spies

and informers. Government censorship and controls were exercised over education, publishing, and all manifestations of public life. The minister of education, Sergei Uvarov, devised a program of

"autocracy, Orthodoxy, and nationality" as the guiding principle of the regime. The people were asked to show loyalty to the

unlimited authority of the tsar, the traditions of the Orthodox

Church, and, in a vague way, to the Russian nation. These principles did not gain the support of the population but instead led

to repression in general and to suppression of non-Russian nationalities and religions other than Russian Orthodoxy in particular.

For example, the Uniate Church in Ukraine and Belorussia was

suppressed in 1839.

The official emphasis on Russian nationalism to some extent contributed to a debate on Russia's place in the world, the meaning

of Russian history, and the future of Russia. One group, the

Westernizers, believed that Russia remained backward and primitive and could progress only through more thorough Europeanization. Another group, the Slavophiles, idealized the Russia that

had existed before Peter the Great. The Slavophiles viewed old Russia as a source of wholeness and looked askance at Western rationalism and materialism. Some of them believed that the Russian

peasant commune offered an attractive alternative to Western

capitalism and could make Russia a potential social and moral savior

30
Jt. ft

St. Nicholas Cathedral

(completed in 1762), Leningrad,

Russian Republic. This

functioning church is an example

of the Russian baroque style. Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

of mankind. The Slavophiles, therefore, represented a form of Russian messianism.

Despite the repressions of this period, Russia experienced a

flowering of literature and the arts. Through the works of Aleksandr

Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, and numerous others,

Russian literature gained international stature and recognition.

After its importation from France, ballet took root in Russia, and

classical music became firmly established with the compositions of

Mikhail Glinka.

In foreign policy, Nicholas I acted as the protector of ruling legitimism and as the guardian against revolution. His offers to suppress revolution on the European continent, accepted in some

instances, earned him the label of "gendarme of Europe." In 1830,

after an uprising in France, the Poles in Russia revolted. Nicholas

crushed the rebellion, abrogated the Polish constitution, and

reduced Russian Poland to the status of a province. In 1848, when

a series of revolutions convulsed Europe, Nicholas was in the fore- front of reaction. In 1849 he intervened on behalf of the Habsburgs and helped suppress an uprising in Hungary, and he also

urged Prussia not to accept a liberal constitution. Having helped

conservative forces repel the specter of revolution, Nicholas I seemed

to dominate Europe.

Russian dominance proved illusory, however. While Nicholas

I was attempting to maintain the status quo in Europe, he adopted

31
Soviet Union: A Country Study

an aggressive policy toward the Ottoman Empire. Nicholas I was

following the traditional Russian policy of resolving the "Eastern

Question" by seeking to partition the Ottoman Empire and es- tablish a protectorate over the Orthodox population of the Balkans.

Russia fought a successful war with the Ottomans in 1828 and 1829.

In 1833 Russia negotiated the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi with the

Ottoman Empire. Western statesmen believed mistakenly that the

treaty contained a secret clause granting Russia the right to send

warships through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. As a result,

the major European powers intervened and by the London Straits

Convention of 1841 affirmed Ottoman control over the straits and

forbade any power, including Russia, to send warships through

the straits. Based on his role in suppressing the revolutions of 1848

and his mistaken belief that he had British diplomatic support,

Nicholas moved against the Ottomans, who declared war in 1853.

Thus the Crimean War began. But the European powers were

frightened of Russia, and in 1854 Britain, France, and Sardinia

joined the Ottoman Empire against Russia. Austria offered the

Ottomans diplomatic support, while Prussia remained neutral. The

European allies landed in Crimea and laid siege to a well-fortified

base at Sevastopol' . After a year's siege the base fell, exposing Russia's inability to defend a major fortification on its own soil. Nicholas

I died before the fall of Sevastopol', but even before then he had

recognized the failure of his regime. Russia now had to initiate major reforms or cease to be a competitive major power.

The Transformation of Imperial Russia

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were difficult for Russia. Not only did technology and industry continue to develop more rapidly in the West but also new, dynamic, competitive great powers appeared on the world scene: Otto von Bismarck's

united Germany, the post-Civil War United States, and Meiji

Restoration Japan. Although it was an expanding regional giant

in Central Asia straddling the borders of the Ottoman, Iranian,

British Indian, and Chinese empires, Russia could not generate

enough capital to undergo rapid industrial development or to compete with advanced countries on a commercial basis. Russia's fundamental dilemma was that either it could attempt to accelerate

domestic development and risk upheaval at home or it could

progress slowly and risk becoming an economic colony of the more

advanced world. The transformation of the economic and social structure of Russia was accompanied by political ferment, particularly among the intelligentsia, and also by impressive developments

in literature, music, the fine arts, and the natural sciences.

32
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

Economic Developments

Throughout the last half of the nineteenth century, Russia's econ- omy developed more slowly than did that of the major European

nations to its west. The population of Russia was substantially larger

than those of the more developed Western countries, but the vast majority of the people lived in rural communities and engaged in

relatively primitive agriculture. Industry, in general, had greater

state involvement than in western Europe, but in selected sectors

it was developing with private initiative, some of it foreign. The

population doubled between 1850 and 1900, but it remained chiefly

rural well into the twentieth century. Russia's population growth

rate from 1850 to 1910 was the fastest of all the major powers ex- cept for the United States (see table 3, Appendix A).

Agriculture, which was technologically underdeveloped, re- mained in the hands of former serfs and former state peasants, who

together constituted about four-fifths of the population. Large estates of more than fifty square kilometers accounted for about 20 per- cent of all farmland, but for the most part they were not worked

in efficient, large-scale units. Small-scale peasant farming and the

growth of the rural population produced extensive agricultural

development because land was used more for gardens and fields of grain and less for grazing meadows than it had been in the past

(see table 4, Appendix A).

Industrial growth was significant, although unsteady, and in absolute terms it was not extensive. Russia's industrial regions in- cluded Moscow, the central regions of the country, St. Petersburg,

the Baltic cities, Russian Poland, some areas along the lower Don

and Dnepr rivers, and the Ural Mountains. By 1890 Russia had

about 32,000 kilometers of railroads and 1 .4 million factory workers, the majority of them in the textile industry. Between 1860 and

1890, coal production had grown about 1,200 percent to over 6.6

million tons, and iron and steel production had more than doubled to 2 million tons. The state budget, however, had more than

doubled, and debt expenditures had quadrupled, constituting 28

percent of official expenditures in 1891. Foreign trade was inadequate to meet the empire's needs, and surpluses sufficient to cover

the debts incurred to finance trade with the West were not realized

until high industrial tariffs were introduced in the 1880s.

Reforms and Their Limits, 1855-92

Tsar Alexander II, who succeeded Nicholas I in 1855, was a conservative who nonetheless saw no alternative to change and who

initiated substantial reforms in education, the government, the

33
Soviet Union: A Country Study

judiciary, and the military, in addition to emancipating the serfs. His reforms were accelerated after Russia's military weakness and

backwardness had become apparent during the Crimean War. Following Alexander's assassination in 1881, his son Alexander III reasserted government controls.

In 1861 Alexander II proclaimed the emancipation of about 20

million privately held serfs. Local commissions, which were dominated by landlords, effected emancipation by giving land and limited

freedom to the serfs. The former serfs usually remained in the vil- lage commune, or mir (see Glossary), but were required to make

redemption payments, which were stretched out over a period of

almost fifty years, to the government. The government compensated former owners of serfs by issuing them bonds.

The regime had envisioned that the 50,000 landlords who possessed estates of over 110 hectares would thrive without serfs and

would continue to provide loyal political and administrative leadership in the countryside. The government also had envisioned that

peasants would produce sufficient crops for their own consumption and for export sales, thereby helping to finance most of the

government's expenses, imports, and foreign debt. Neither of the

government's visions was realistic, and both the former serfs and

the former owners of serfs were dissatisfied with the outcome of

emancipation. Because the lands given to serfs by local commissions were often poor and because Russian agricultural methods

were inadequate, the new peasants soon fell behind in their payments to the government. The former owners of serfs, most of whom

could neither farm nor manage estates without their former serfs,

often had to sell their lands to remain solvent. In addition, the value

of their government bonds fell as the peasants failed to make their

redemption payments.

Reforms of the local governmental system closely followed emancipation. In 1864 most local government in the European part of

Russia was organized into provincial zemstvos (see Glossary) and

district zemstvos, which included representatives of all classes. In

1870 elected city councils, or dumas, were formed. Dominated by

nobles and other property owners and constrained by provincial

governors and the police, the zemstvos and city dumas were empowered to raise taxes and levy labor to develop, maintain, and

operate local transportation, education, and public health care systems.

In 1864 the regime implemented judicial reforms. In major

towns, it established Western-style courts with juries. In general,

the judicial system functioned effectively, but sometimes juries sympathized with obvious criminals and refused to convict them. The

34
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

government was unable, financially and culturally, to extend the court system to the villages, where traditional peasant justice con- tinued to operate with minimal interference from provincial offi- cials. In addition, judges were instructed to decide each case on

its merits and not to use precedents, which would have enabled

them to construct a body of law independent of state authority.

Under the reform, the Senate, one of the highest government

bodies, adopted more of the characteristics of a supreme court, with

three major branches: civil, criminal, and administrative.

Other major reforms took place in the educational and cultural

spheres. The accession of Alexander II brought a social restruc- turing that required a public discussion of issues. Accordingly, the

regime lifted some manifestations of censorship, yet in 1863 it prohibited publishing in the Ukrainian language. In 1866, when an

attempt was made to assassinate the tsar, censorship was reinstated,

but pre- 1855 levels of control were not restored. Universities, which were granted autonomy in 1861 , were also restricted in 1866. The

central government, attempting to act through the zemstvos but

lacking effective resources, sought to establish uniform curricula

for elementary schools and to control the schools by imposing conservative policies. Because many liberal teachers and school offi- cials were only nominally subject to the reactionary Ministry of

Education, the regime's educational achievements were mixed after 1866.

In the financial sphere, the State Bank was established in 1866,

and Russia's currency was put on a firmer footing. The Ministry

of Finance supported railroad development, facilitating vital exports, but it was cautious and moderate in its foreign ventures. The ministry also founded the Peasant Land Bank in 1882 to enable

enterprising farmers to acquire more land. The Ministry of the

Interior, however, countered this policy by establishing the Nobles'

Land Bank in 1885 to forestall foreclosures of mortgages.

The regime also sought to reform the military. One of the chief reasons for the emancipation of the serfs was to facilitate the transition from a large standing army to a reserve army by instituting

territorial levies and mobilization in times of need. Before emancipation, serfs could not be given military training and then returned

to their owners. Bureaucratic inertia, however, obstructed military reform until the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) demonstrated

the necessity of building a modern army. The levy system in- troduced in 1874 gave the army a role in teaching many peasants

to read and in pioneering medical education for women. But despite

these military reforms, the army remained backward. Officers often

preferred bayonets to bullets and feared that long-range sights on

35
Soviet Union: A Country Study

rifles would induce cowardice. In spite of some notable achievements, Russia did not keep pace with Western technological developments in the construction of rifles, machine guns, artillery,

ships, and naval ordnance. Also, naval modernization in the 1860s

failed to spur broad development of Russia's industrial base.

In 1881 revolutionaries assassinated Alexander II. His son Alexander III (1881-94) initiated a period of political reaction, which

intensified a counterreform movement that had begun in 1866. He

strengthened the security police, reorganized as the Okhrana (see

Glossary), gave it extraordinary powers, and placed it under the

Ministry of the Interior. Dmitrii Tolstoi, Alexander's minister of

the interior, instituted the use of land captains, who were noble

overseers of districts, and he restricted the power of the zemstvos

and dumas. Alexander III assigned his former tutor, the reactionary Konstantin Pobedonostsev, to be the procurator (see Glossary)

of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church and Ivan Delianov to be the minister of education. In their attempts to

1 'save" Russia

from "modernism," they revived religious censorship, persecuted

the non-Orthodox and non-Russian population, fostered antiSemitism, and suppressed the autonomy of the universities. Their

attacks on liberal and non-Russian elements alienated large seg- ments of the population. The nationalities, particularly Poles, Finns,

Latvians, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians, reacted to the regime's

efforts to Russify them by intensifying their own nationalism. Many

Jews emigrated or joined radical movements. Secret organizations

and political movements continued to develop despite the regime's

efforts to quell them.

Foreign Affairs after the Crimean War, 1856-93

After the Crimean War, Russia pursued cautious and intelli- gent foreign policies until nationalist passions and another Balkan

crisis almost caused a catastrophic war in the late 1870s. The 1856

Treaty of Paris concluded at the end of the Crimean War demilitarized the Black Sea and deprived Russia of southern Bessarabia

and a narrow strip of land at the mouth of the Danube River. It also nullified the 1774 Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji by theoretically

providing European protection of the Christians living in the

Ottoman Empire. Russian statesmen viewed Britain and Austria

(Austria- Hungary as of 1867) as opposed to revising the Treaty

of Paris, and they sought good relations with France, Prussia, and

the United States. Prussia (Germany as of 1871) replaced Britain

as Russia's chief banker.

Following the Crimean War, the regime revived its expansionist

policies. Russian troops first moved to quell the lingering revolts

36
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

of Muslim tribesmen in the Caucasus. Once the revolts were

crushed, the army resumed its expansion into Central Asia. Attempts were made to ensure that Britain would not be unduly

alarmed by Russia's policy of leaving the territories directly bordering Afghanistan and Iran nominally independent. Russia also

supported Iranian attempts to expand into Afghanistan—a move

that strained the resources of British India. At the same time, Russia

followed the United States, Britain, and France in establishing

relations with Japan, and it, together with Britain and France, obtained concessions from China consequent to the Second Opium

War (1856-60). By the Treaty of Aigun in 1858 and the Treaty

of Beijing in 1860, China was forced to cede Russia extensive trading rights and regions adjacent to the Amur and Ussuri rivers, and

it allowed Russia to begin building a port and naval base at Vladivostok. Meanwhile, in 1867 the logic of the balance of power

and the cost of developing and defending the Amur-Ussuri region

dictated that Russia sell Alaska to the United States in order to acquire much-needed funds.

As part of the regime's foreign policy goals in Europe, Russia

gave guarded support to the anti-Austrian diplomacy of the French.

A weak Franco-Russian entente soured, however, when France

backed a Polish uprising against Russian rule in 1863. Russia then

aligned itself more closely with Prussia and tolerated the unification of Germany in exchange for a revision of the Treaty of Paris

and the remilitarization of the Black Sea. These diplomatic achievements came at a London conference in 1871, following Prussia's

defeat of France. After 1871 Germany, united by Prussia, was the

strongest continental power in Europe. It supported both Russia

and Austria-Hungary, and in 1873 it formed the loosely knit League

of the Three Emperors with those two powers to forestall them from

forming an alliance with France.

Nevertheless, Austro-Hungarian and Russian ambitions clashed

in the Balkans, where rival nationalities and anti-Ottoman senti- ments seethed. In the 1870s, Russian nationalist opinion became

a serious domestic factor, supportive of policies that advocated liber- ating Balkan Christians from Ottoman rule and making Bulgaria

and Serbia quasi-protectorates of Russia. From 1875 to 1877, the

Balkans crisis heated, with rebellions in Bosnia, Hercegovina, and

Bulgaria, and with a Serbo-Ottoman war. Russia, however,

promised not to exercise influence in the western Balkans.

In early 1877, Russia went to war with the Ottoman Empire,

and by December its troops were nearing Constantinople. Russia's nationalist diplomats and generals persuaded Alexander II

37
Soviet Union: A Country Study

to force the Ottomans to sign the Treaty of San Stefano in March

1878. The treaty created an enlarged Bulgaria that stretched into

the southwestern Balkans. This development alarmed Britain, which

threatened war, and an exhausted Russia backed down. At the Congress of Berlin in July 1878, Russia agreed to the creation of a

smaller Bulgaria. Russian nationalists were furious with AustriaHungary and Germany, but the tsar accepted a revived and

strengthened League of the Three Emperors as well as Austrian

hegemony in the western Balkans.

Russian diplomatic and military interests subsequently turned

to the East. Russian troops occupied Turkmen lands on the Iranian

and Afghan borders, raising British concerns, but German support of Russian advances averted a possible Anglo-Russian war. The Bulgarians became angry with Russia's continuing interfer- ence in Bulgarian affairs and sought support from Austria. In turn,

Germany, displaying firmness toward Russia, protected Austria

from the tsar while mollifying him with a bilateral defensive alli- ance, the Reinsurance Treaty of 1887 between Germany and Russia. Within a year, Russo-German acrimony led to Bismarck's

forbidding further Russian loans, and France replaced Germany

as Russia's financier. In 1890 Kaiser Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck, and the loose Russo-Prussian entente, which had held fast for more than twenty-five years, collapsed. The consequence of

this development was that Russia allied itself with France in 1893

by entering into a joint military convention, which matched the

German-Austrian dual alliance of 1879.

The Age of Realism in Literature

Russian literature in the last half of the nineteenth century provided a congenial and artistic medium for the discussion of politi- cal and social issues that could not be addressed directly because

of government restrictions. The writers of this period shared important qualities: great attention to realistic, detailed descriptions

of everyday Russian life; the lifting of the taboo on describing the

vulgar, unsightiy side of life; and a satirical attitude toward mediocrity and routine. Although varying widely in style, subject matter,

and viewpoint, these writers stimulated government bureaucrats,

nobles, and intellectuals to think about important social issues. This

period of literature, which became known as the Age of Realism,

lasted from about mid-century to 1905. The literature of the Age

of Realism owed a great debt to three authors and to a literary

critic of the preceding half-century: Aleksandr Pushkin, Mikhail

Lermontov, Nikolai Gogol, and Vissarion Belinskii. These figures

set a pattern for language, subject matter, and narrative techniques,

38
Grave of Russian novelist Fedor Dostoevskii in the Tikhvin Cemetery

of the Aleksandr Nevskii

Monastery, Leningrad,

Russian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

which before 1830 had been very poorly developed. The critic Belinskii became the patron saint of the radical intelligentsia throughout the century.

The main outlet for literary opinion in the Age of Realism was

the "thick journal" —a combination of original literature, criticism,

and a wide variety of other material. These publications reached

a large portion of the intelligentsia. Most of the materials of the

major writers and critics of the period were featured in such journals, and published debates were common between journals of vari- ous viewpoints. Much of the prose literature of the period contained

sharply polemical messages, favoring either radical or reactionary

positions concerning the problems of Russian society. Ivan Turgenev was perhaps the most successful at integrating social concerns with

true literary art. His Hunter's Sketches and Fathers and Sons portrayed

Russia's problems with great realism and with enough artistry that

these v/orks have survived as classics. Many writers of the period

did not aim for social commentary, but the realism of their portrayals nevertheless drew comment from radical critics. Such writers

included the novelist Ivan Goncharov, whose Oblomov is a very negative portrayal of the provincial gentry, and the dramatist Aleksandr

Ostrovskii, whose plays uniformly condemned the bourgeoisie.

Above all the other writers stand two: Lev Tolstoy and Fedor

Dostoevskii, the greatest talents of the age. Their realistic style tran- scended immediate social issues and explored universal issues such

39
Soviet Union: A Country Study

as morality and the nature of life itself. Although Dostoevskii was

sometimes drawn into polemical satire, both writers kept the main

body of their work above the dominant social and political pre- occupations of the 1860s and 1870s. Tolstoy's War and Peace and

Anna Karenina and Dostoevskii 's Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov have endured as genuine classics because they drew the

best from the Russian realistic heritage while focusing on broad

human questions. Although Tolstoy continued to write into the

twentieth century, he rejected his earlier style and never again

reached the level of his greatest works.

The literary careers of Tolstoy, Dostoevskii, and Turgenev had

ended by 1881. Anton Chekhov, the major literary figure in the

last decade of the nineteenth century, contributed in two genres:

short story and drama. Chekhov, a realist who examined not soci- ety as a whole but the foibles of individuals, produced a large volume

of sometimes tragic, sometimes comic short stories and several out- standing plays, including The Cherry Orchard, a dramatic chronicling of the decay of a Russian aristocratic family.

The Rise of Revolutionary Populism and Russian Marxism,

1855-90

The reforms of Alexander II, particularly his lifting of state censorship, fostered the development of political and social thought.

The regime relied on journals and newspapers to gain support for

its domestic and foreign polices. But liberal, nationalist, and radical writers also helped mold opinion opposed to tsarism, private

property, and the imperial state. Because many intellectuals, professionals, peasants, and workers shared these sentiments, the publications and the organizations that the radicals joined were perceived

as dangerous to the regime. From the 1860s through the 1880s,

Russian radicals, collectively known as "Populists" (Narodniki),

focused chiefly on the peasantry, whom they identified as "the people" (narod).

Among the leaders of the Populist movement were radical writers,

idealists, and advocates of terrorism. In the 1860s, Nikolai Chernyshevskii, the most important radical writer of the period, posited

that Russia could bypass capitalism and move direcdy to socialism.

His most influential work, What Is to Be Done? (1861), describes the

role of an individual of a "superior nature" who guides a new,

revolutionary generation. Other radicals such as the incendiary anarchist Mikhail Bakunin and his terrorist collaborator, Sergei Nechaev,

urged direct action. The calmer Petr Tkachev argued against the

advocates of Marxism (see Glossary), maintaining that a central- ized revolutionary band had to seize power before socialism could

40
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

fully develop. Disputing his views, the moralist and individualist

Petr Lavrov made a call "to the people" that was heeded in 1873

and 1874 when hundreds of idealists left their schools for the countryside to try to generate a mass movement among the narod. The

Populist campaign failed, however, when the peasants showed

hostility to the urban idealists and the government more willingly

began to consider nationalist opinion.

The radicals reconsidered their approach, and in 1876 they formed

a propagandist organization called Land and Liberty (Zemlia i volia),

which leaned toward terrorism. It became even more oriented to- ward terrorism three years later, renamed itself the People's Will

(Narodnaia volia), and in 1881 was responsible for the assassination of Alexander II. In 1879 Georgii Plekhanov formed a propagandist faction of Land and Liberty called Black Repartition (Chernyi

peredel), which advocated reassigning all land to the peasantry. This

group studied Marxism, which, paradoxically, was principally con- cerned with urban industrial workers. The People's Will remained

underground, but in 1887 a young member of the group, Aleksandr

Ulianov, attempted to assassinate Alexander III and was arrested

and executed. Another Ulianov, Vladimir, was greatly affected by

his brother's execution. Influenced by Chernyshevskii's writings,

he also joined the People's Will and later, under the influence of

Plekhanov, converted to Marxism. The younger Ulianov later changed his name to Lenin.

Serge Witte and Accelerated Industrialization, 1891-1903

In the late 1800s, Russia's domestic backwardness and vulnerability in foreign affairs reached crisis proportions. A famine claiming a half-million lives in 1891 exemplified the domestic crisis, and

activities by Japan and China near Russia's borders were perceived

as threats from abroad. In reaction, the regime was forced to adopt

the ambitious but costly economic programs of Sergei Witte, the

country's strong-willed minister of finance. Witte championed a combination of foreign loans, conversion to the gold standard, heavy

taxation of the peasantry, accelerated development of heavy in- dustry, and a trans-Siberian railroad. These policies were designed

to modernize the country, secure the Russian Far East, and give

Russia a commanding position with which to exploit the resources

of China's northern territories, Korea, and Siberia. This expansionist foreign policy was Russia's version of the imperialism so

characteristic of the relations of advanced capitalist countries with

weak and backward areas during the nineteenth century. The ac- cession of the pliable Nicholas II in 1894 resulted in the domination of the government by Witte and other powerful ministers.

41
Soviet Union: A Country Study

The results of Witte's policies were mixed. In spite of a severe depression at the end of the century, Russia's coal, iron, steel, and

oil production tripled between 1890 and 1900. Railroad mileage

almost doubled, giving Russia the most track of any nation other

than the United States. Yet Russian grain production and exports

failed to rise significantly, and imports grew faster than exports,

although the latter subsequently rose. The state budget also more

than doubled, absorbing some of the country's economic growth.

Western historians have differed as to the merits of Witte's reforms,

with some believing that many domestic industries that did not

benefit from subsidies or contracts suffered a setback. Moreover,

most analysts have agreed that the Trans-Siberian Railway and

the ventures into Manchuria and Korea were economic losses for Russia and a drain on the treasury. Certainly the financial costs of his reforms contributed to Witte's dismissal as minister of finance

in 1903.

The Development of Radical Political Parties, 1892-1904

During the 1890s, Russia's industrial development led to a significant increase in the size of the urban bourgeoisie and the working

class, setting the stage for a more dynamic political atmosphere

and the development of radical parties. Because much of Russia's

industry was owned by the state or by foreigners, the working class was comparatively stronger and the bourgeoisie comparatively

weaker than in the West. Because the nobility and the wealthy bourgeoisie were politically timid, the establishment of working-class

and peasant parties preceded that of bourgeois parties. Thus, in

the 1890s and early 1900s strikes and agrarian disorders prompted

by abysmal living and working conditions, high taxes, and land

hunger became more frequent. The bourgeoisie of various nationalities developed a host of different parties, both liberal and conservative.

Socialist parties were formed on the basis of the nationalities of

their members. Russian Poles, who had suffered significant administrative and educational Russification, founded the nationalistic Polish Socialist Party in Paris in 1892. Its founders hoped that it would help reunite a divided Poland from territories held by Austria and Germany and by Russia. In 1897 the Bund was founded

by Jewish workers in Russia, and it became popular in western

Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, and Russian Poland. In 1898 the

Russian Social Democratic Labor Party was formed. The Finnish

Social Democrats remained separate, but the Latvians and

Georgians associated themselves with the Russian Social Democrats.

Armenians were inspired by both Russian and Balkan revolutionary

42
On March 1, 1881, the building

in the foreground was a

cheese shop, from which

members of the radical revolutionary group People's

Will, posing as shop employees, assassinated Tsar Alexander II. Leningrad, Russian Republic.

Courtesy Stephen Burant

traditions, and they operated in both Russia and the Ottoman

Empire. Politically minded Muslims living in Russia tended to be

attracted to the pan-Islamic and pan-Turkic movements that developed in Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. Russians who fused

the ideas of the old Populists and urban socialists formed Russia's

largest radical movement, the United Socialist Revolutionary Party,

which combined the standard Populist ingredients of propaganda

and terrorist activities. Vladimir I. Ulianov was the most politically talented of the

revolutionary socialists. In the 1890s, he labored to wean young

radicals away from populism to Marxism. Exiled from 1895 to 1899

in Siberia, where he took the name Lenin, he was the master tactician among the organizers of the Russian Social Democratic Labor

Party. In December 1900, he founded the newspaper Iskra (Spark).

In his book What Is to Be Done? (1902), Lenin developed the theory

that a newspaper published abroad could aid in organizing a centralized revolutionary party to direct the overthrow of an autocratic

government. He then worked to establish a tighdy organized, highly

disciplined party to do so in Russia. At the Second Party Congress

of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1903, he forced

the Bund to walk out, and he induced a split between his majority

Bolshevik faction and the minority Menshevik faction, which believed more in worker spontaneity than in strict organizational tactics. Lenin's concept of a revolutionary party and a worker-peasant

43
Soviet Union: A Country Study

alliance owed more to Tkachev and to the People's Will than to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the developers of Marxism. Young

Bolsheviks such as Joseph V. Stalin and Nikolai I. Bukharin looked

to Lenin as their leader.

Imperialism in Asia and the Russo-Japanese War, 1894-1905

At the turn of the century, Russia gained maneuvering room

in Asia because of its alliance with France and the growing rivalry

between Britain and Germany. Tsar Nicholas failed to orchestrate a coherent Far Eastern policy because of ministerial conflicts. Russia's uncoordinated and aggressive moves in the region ultimately

led to the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05).

By 1895 Germany was competing with France for Russia's favor,

and British statesmen hoped to negotiate with the Russians to demarcate spheres of influence in Asia. This situation enabled

Russia to intervene in northeastern Asia after Japan's victory over China in 1895. Japan was forced to make concessions in the

Liaotung Peninsula and Port Arthur in southern Manchuria. The

next year, Witte used French capital to establish the Russo-Chinese

Bank. The goal of the bank was to finance the construction of a

railroad across northern Manchuria and thus shorten the TransSiberian Railway. Within two years, Russia had acquired leases on the Liaotung Peninsula and Port Arthur and had begun building a trunk line from Harbin to Port Arthur.

In 1900 China reacted to foreign encroachments on its territory

with an armed popular uprising, the Boxer Rebellion. Russian mili- tary contingents joined forces from Europe, Japan, and the United

States in restoring order in northern China. A force of 180,000

Russian troops fought to pacify part of Manchuria and to secure

its railroads. The Japanese, however, backed by Britain and the

United States, insisted that Russia evacuate Manchuria. Witte and some Russian diplomats wanted to compromise with Japan and

trade Manchuria for Korea, but a group of Witte 's reactionary

enemies, courtiers, and army and naval leaders refused to compromise. The tsar favored their viewpoint, and, disdaining Japan's

threats—despite the latter 's formal alliance with Britain—the Russian government equivocated until Japan declared war in early

1904.

Japan's location, technological superiority, and higher morale

gave it command of the seas, and Russia's sluggishness and in- competent commanders were the cause of continuous setbacks on

land. In January 1905, after an eight-month siege, Port Arthur

surrendered, and in March the Japanese forced the Russians to withdraw north of Mukden. In May, at the Tsushima Straits, the

44
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

Japanese destroyed Russia's last hope in the war, a fleet assembled from the navy's Baltic and Mediterranean squadrons. Theoretically, Russian army reinforcements could have driven the

Japanese from the Asian mainland, but revolution at home and

diplomatic pressure forced the tsar to seek peace. Russia, accepting American mediation, ceded southern Sakhalin to Japan, and

it acknowledged Japan's ascendancy in Korea and southern Manchuria.

The Last Years of Tsardom

The Russo-Japanese War was a turning point in Russian his- tory. It led to a popular uprising against the government that forced

the regime to respond with domestic economic and political reforms.

Advocates of counterreform and groups serving parochial interests,

however, actively sought control of the regime's policies. In for- eign affairs, Russia again became an intrusive participant in Balkan

affairs and in the international political intrigues of major Euro - pean powers. As a consequence of its foreign policies, Russia was drawn into a world war that its domestic policies rendered it poorly

prepared to wage. The regime, severely weakened by internal tur- moil and a lack of strong leadership, was ultimately unable to sur- mount the traumatic events that would lead to the fall of tsarism

and initiate a new era in Russian and world history.

The Revolution of 1905 and Counterrevolution, 1905-07

The Russo-Japanese War accelerated the rise of political movements among all classes and the major nationalities, including

propertied Russians. By early 1904, Russian liberals active in as- semblies of nobles, zemstvos, and the professions had formed an

organization called the Union of Liberation. In the same year, they

joined with Finns, Poles, Georgians, Armenians, and with Russian

members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party to form an antiautocratic alliance. They later promoted the broad, professional

Union of Unions. In early 1905, Father Georgii Gapon, a Russian

Orthodox priest who headed a police- sponsored workers' association, led a huge, peaceful march in St. Petersburg to present a petition to the tsar. Nervous troops responded with gunfire, killing

several hundred people, and thus the Revolution of 1905 began.

Called ' 'Bloody Sunday," this event, along with the failures incurred

in the war with Japan, prompted opposition groups to instigate more strikes, agrarian disorders, army mutinies, and terrorist acts and to form a workers' council, or soviet (see Glossary), in St. Petersburg. Armed uprisings occurred in Moscow, the Urals, Latvia,

and parts of Poland. Activists from the zemstvos and the Union

45
Soviet Union: A Country Study

of Unions formed the Constitutional Democratic Party, whose

members were known as Kadets.

Some upper-class and propertied activists were fearful of these

disorders and were willing to compromise. In late 1905, Nicholas,

under pressure from Witte, issued the so-called October Manifesto,

giving Russia a constitution and proclaiming basic civil liberties for all citizens. The constitution envisioned a ministerial government responsible to the tsar, not to the proposed national Duma—

state assembly to be elected on a broad, but not wholly equitable,

franchise. Those who accepted this arrangement formed a centerright political party, the Octobrists. The Kadets held out for a

ministerial government and equal, universal suffrage. Because of

their political principles and continued armed uprisings, Russia's

leftist parties were in a quandary over whether or not to participate in the Duma elections. At the same time, rightists, who had

been perpetrating anti-Jewish pogroms, actively opposed the re- forms. Several monarchist and protofascist groups wishing to subvert the new order also arose. Nevertheless, the regime continued

to function, eventually restoring order in the cities, the countryside, and the army. In the process, several thousand officials were murdered by terrorists, and an equal number of terrorists were

executed by the government. Because the government was successful in restoring order and in securing a loan from France before

the Duma met, Nicholas was in a strong position and therefore

able to dismiss Witte, who had been serving as Russia's chief

minister.

The First Duma, which was elected in 1906, was dominated by

the Kadets and their allies, with the mainly nonparty radical leftists slightiy weaker than the Octobrists and the nonparty center-rightists

combined. The Kadets and the government were deadlocked over

the adoption of a constitution and peasant reform, leading to the

dissolution of the Duma and the scheduling of new elections. In

spite of an upsurge of leftist terror, radical leftist parties participated in the election and, together with the nonparty left, gained

a plurality of seats, followed by a loose coalition of Kadets and of

Poles and other nationalities in the political center. The impasse

continued, however, when the Second Duma met in 1907.

The Tenuous Regimes of Stolypin and Kokovstev, 1907-14

In 1907 Petr Stolypin, the new chief minister, instituted a series of major reforms. In June 1907, he dissolved the Second Duma

and promulgated a new electoral law, which vastly reduced the elec- toral weight of lower class and non-Russian voters and increased

the weight of the nobility. This political coup succeeded to the extent

46
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

that the government restored order. New elections in the fall returned a more conservative Third Duma, which was dominated

by Octobrists. Even this Duma, however, quarreled with the

government over a variety of issues: the composition of the naval

staff, the autonomous status of Finland, the introduction of zemstvos

into the western provinces, the reform of the peasant court sys- tem, and the establishment of workers' insurance organizations

under police supervision. In these disputes, the Duma, with the

appointed aristocratic-bureaucratic upper house, was sometimes more conservative than the government, and at other times it was more legally or constitutionally minded. The Fourth Duma, elected

in 1912, was similar in composition to the Third Duma, but a

progressive faction of Octobrists split from the right and joined the

political center. Stolypin's boldest measure was his peasant reform program,

which allowed, and sometimes forced, the breakup of communes

as well as the establishment of full private property. Through the

reform program, Stolypin hoped to create a class of conservative

landowning farmers loyal to the tsar. Most peasants, however, did

not want to lose the safety of the commune or to permit outsiders

to buy village land. By 1914 only about 10 percent of all peasant

communes had been dissolved. Nevertheless, the economy recov- ered and grew impressively from 1907 to 1914, not only quantitatively but also in terms of the formation of rural cooperatives and

banks and the generation of domestic capital. By 1914 Russian steel production equaled that of France and Austria-Hungary, and Russia' s economic growth rate was one of the highest in the world.

Although Russia's external debt was very high, it was declining

as a percentage of the gross national product (GNP—see Glossary),

and the empire's overall trade balance was favorable.

In 1911 a double agent working for the Okhrana assassinated

Stolypin. He was replaced by Vladimir N. Kokovtsev, Witte's suc- cessor as finance minister. Although very able and a supporter of

the tsar, the cautious Kokovtsev could not compete with the powerful court factions that dominated the government.

Historians have debated whether or not Russia had the potential to develop a constitutional government between 1905 and 1914.

At any rate, it failed to do so, in part because the tsar was not

completely willing to give up autocratic rule or share power. By

manipulating the franchise, the authorities obtained more conservative, but less representative, Dumas. Moreover, the regime sometimes bypassed the conservative Dumas and ruled by decree.

During this period, the government's policies were inconsistent—some reformist, others repressive. The bold reform plans of

47
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Witte and Stolypin have led historians to speculate as to whether

or not such reforms could have " saved" the Russian Empire. But

the reforms were hampered by court politics, and both the tsar and

the bureaucracy remained isolated from the rest of society. Suspensions of civil liberties and the rule of law continued in many

places, and neither workers nor the Orthodox Church had the right

to organize themselves as they chose. Discrimination against Poles,

Jews, Ukrainians, and Old Believers was common. Domestic unrest was on the rise, while the empire's foreign policy was becoming more adventurous.

The Return to an Active Balkan Policy, 1906-13

The logic of Russia's earlier Far Eastern policy had required holding Balkan issues in abeyance—a strategy also followed by AustriaHungary between 1897 and 1906. Japan's victory in 1905 forced

Russia to make deals with the British and the Japanese. In 1907

Russia's new, more liberal foreign minister, Aleksandr P. Izvol'skii,

concluded agreements with both nations. To maintain its sphere

of influence in northern Manchuria and northern Iran, Russia

agreed to Japanese ascendancy in southern Manchuria and Korea

and to British ascendancy in southern Iran, Afghanistan, and Tibet.

The logic of this policy demanded that Russia and Japan unite to prevent the United States from organizing a consortium to develop

Chinese railroads and, after China's republican revolution of 191 1

,

to recognize each other's spheres of influence in Outer Mongolia.

In an extension of this logic, Russia traded recognition of German

economic interests in the Ottoman Empire and Iran for German

recognition of various Russian security interests in the region. Similarly, Russia's strategic and financial position required that it remain

faithful to its alliance with France and that it bolster the AngloFrench and Anglo-Russian rapprochements with the informal Triple

Entente of Britain, France, and Russia, but without antagonizing

Germany or provoking a war.

Nevertheless, following the Russo-Japanese War, Russia and

Austria-Hungary resumed their Balkan rivalry, focusing on the

South Slavic Kingdom of Serbia and the provinces of Bosnia and

Hercegovina. The two provinces had been occupied by AustriaHungary since 1878. Only a handful of Russian and Austrian states- men knew that in 1881 Russia secretly had agreed to Austria's

future annexation of the provinces. But in 1908, Izvol'skii foolishly consented to their formal annexation in return for Austria's sup- port for a revision of the international agreement that had insured

the neutrality of the Bosporus and Dardanelles. This arrangement

would have given Russia special navigational rights of passage.

48
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

When Britain blocked the revision, Austria nonetheless proceeded

with the annexation and, backed by German threats of war, forced

Russia to disavow support for Serbia—a pointed demonstration

of Russian weakness.

After Austria's annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, Russian

diplomacy increased tension and conflict in the Balkans. In 1912

Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro defeated the Ottoman

Empire but continued to quarrel among themselves. Then in 1913,

the Bulgarians were defeated by the Serbians, Greeks, and Romanians. Austria became Bulgaria's patron, while Germany remained

the Ottoman Empire's protector. Russia tied itself more closely

to Serbia. When a Serbian terrorist assassinated the heir to the Austrian throne in late June 1914, Austria delivered an ultimatum to Serbia. Russia, fearing another humiliation in the Balkans, supported Serbia. The system of alliances began to operate automatically, with Germany supporting Austria and with France backing

Russia. When Germany invaded France through Belgium, the conflict escalated into a world war.

Russia at War, 1914-16

Russia's large population enabled it to field a greater number

of troops than Austria-Hungary and Germany combined, but its underdeveloped industrial base meant that its soldiers were as poorly

armed as those of the Austrian army. Russian forces were inferior

to Germany's in every respect except numbers. Generally, the larger

Russian armies defeated the Austro-Hungarians but suffered

reverses against German or combined German-Austrian forces unless the latter were overextended.

In the initial phase of the war, Russia's offensives into East Prussia drew enough German troops from the Western Front to allow

the French, Belgians, and British to stabilize it. One of Russia's

two invading armies was almost totally destroyed, however. Meanwhile, the Russians turned back an Austrian offensive and pushed

into eastern Galicia. The Russians halted a combined GermanAustrian winter counteroffensive into Russian Poland, and in early

1915 they pushed more deeply into Galicia. Then in the spring

and summer of that year, a German-Austrian offensive drove the

Russians out of Galicia and Poland and destroyed several Russian

army corps. In 1916 the Germans planned to drive France out of

the war with a large-scale attack in the Verdun area, but a new

Russian offensive against Austria- Hungary once again drew German troops from the west. These actions left both major fronts stable and both Russia and Germany despairing of victory: Russia be- cause of exhaustion, Germany because of its opponents' superior

49
Soviet Union: A Country Study

resources. Toward the end of 1916, Russia came to the rescue of

Romania, which had just entered the war, and extended the Eastern

Front south to the Black Sea. Russia had between 4 and 5 million

casualties in World War I. Wartime agreements among the Allies reflected the imperialist

aims of the Triple Entente and the Russian Empire's relative weakness outside eastern Europe. Russia nonetheless expected impressive gains from a victory: territorial acquisitions in eastern Galicia

from Austria, in East Prussia from Germany, and in Armenia from

the Ottoman Empire; control of Constantinople and the Bosporus

and Dardanelles straits; and territorial and political alteration of

Austria-Hungary in the interests of Romania and the Slavic peoples of the region. Britain was to acquire the middle zone of Iran

and share much of the Arab Middle East with France; Italy—not

Russia's ally Serbia—was to acquire Dalmatia; Japan was to control more territory in China; and France was to regain AlsaceLorraine and to have increased influence in western Germany.

The Strains of the War Effort and the Weakening of Tsarism

The onset of World War I had a drastic effect on domestic policies and a weak regime. A show of national unity had accompanied Russia's entrance into the war, but military reversals and the

government's incompetence soon soured the attitude of much of

the population. German control of the Baltic Sea and GermanOttoman control of the Black Sea severed Russia from most of its foreign supplies and potential markets. In addition, inept Russian

preparations for war and ineffective economic policies hurt the country financially, logistically, and militarily. Inflation became a seri- ous problem. Because of inadequate materiel support for military

operations, the War Industries Committee was formed to ensure

that necessary supplies reached the front. But army officers quarreled with civilian leaders, seized administrative control of front

areas, and would not work with the committee. The central government disliked independent support activities organized by zemstvos

and various cities. The Duma quarreled with the bureaucracy, and

center and center-left deputies eventually formed the Progressive

Bloc, which was aimed at forming a genuinely constitutional government.

After Russian military reversals in 1915, Nicholas II went to the

front to assume nominal leadership of the army. His German-born

wife, Aleksandra, and Rasputin, a debauched faith healer, who was

able to stop the bleeding of the hemophiliac heir to the throne, tried

to dictate policy and make ministerial appointments. Although their

50
Historical Setting: Early History to 1917

true influence has been debated, they undoubtedly decreased the

regime's prestige and credibility.

While the central government was hampered by court intrigue,

the strain of the war began to cause popular unrest. In 1916 high

food prices and a lack of fuel caused strikes in some cities. Workers, who won for themselves separate representative sections of the

War Industries Committee, used them as organs of political opposition. The countryside was becoming restive. Soldiers, mainly

newly recruited peasants who had been used as cannon fodder in

the inept conduct of the war, were increasingly insubordinate.

The situation continued to deteriorate. In an attempt to allevi- ate the morass at the tsar's court, a group of nobles murdered

Rasputin in December 1916. But his death brought little change.

In the winter of 1917, however, deteriorating rail transport caused

acute food and fuel shortages, which resulted in riots and strikes. Troops were summoned to quell the disorders. Although troops

had fired on demonstrators and saved tsarism in 1905, in 1917 the

troops in Petrograd (the name of St. Petersburg after 1914) turned

their guns over to the angry crowds. Support for the tsarist regime

simply evaporated in 1917, ending three centuries of Romanov rule.

* * * A good summary of Russian history is provided in New Encyclopedia

Britannica, Macropaedia, "Russia and the Soviet Union, History

of." Three excellent one-volume surveys of Russian history are Nicholas Riasanovsky's A History of Russia, David MacKenzie and

Michael W. Curran's A History of Russia and the Soviet Union, and

Robert Auty and Dmitry Obolensky's An Introduction to Russian History. The most useful thorough study of Russia before the nineteenth

century is Vasily Kliuchevsky's five-volume collection, Course ofRussian History. Good translations exist, however, only for the third

volume, The Seventeenth Century, and part of the fourth volume, Peter

the Great. For the 1800-1917 period, two excellent comprehensive

works are the second volume of Michael T. Florinsky's Russia: A

History and Interpretation and Hugh Seton-Watson's The Russian Empire, 1801-1917. The roots and nature of Russian autocracy are probed in Richard Pipes' s controversial Russia under the Old Regime.

A useful, if dated, translation of a Soviet interpretation of this subject is P.I. Liashchenko's A History of the National Economy of Russia

to the 1917 Revolution. Social history is treated by Jerome Blum in

Lord and Peasant in Russiafrom the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century. Cultural history is discussed in James H. Billington's The Icon and the Axe and Marc Raeff s Russian Intellectual History. (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

51


Vladimir I. Lenin, founder of the Soviet state and the Russian Communist

Party (Bolshevik)
THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS (Soviet

Union) was established in December 1922 by the leaders of the

Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) on territory generally cor- responding to that of the old Russian Empire. A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd overthrew the imperial government in

March 1917, leading to the formation of the Provisional Government, which intended to establish democracy in Russia. At the same

time, to ensure the rights of the working class, workers' councils (soviets—see Glossary) sprang up across the country. The

Bolsheviks (see Glossary), led by Vladimir I. Lenin, agitated for

socialist revolution in the Soviets and on the streets, and they seized

power from the Provisional Government in November 1917. Only

after the ensuing Civil War (1918-21) and foreign intervention was

the new communist government secure. From its first years, government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communists, as the Bolsheviks called

themselves beginning March 1918. After unsuccessfully attempting to centralize the economy during the Civil War, the Soviet

government permitted some private enterprise to coexist with

nationalized industry in the 1920s. Debate over the future of the

economy provided the background for Soviet leaders to contend

for power in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. By gradually

consolidating influence and isolating his rivals within the party,

Joseph V. Stalin became the sole leader of the Soviet Union by

the end of the 1920s.

In 1928 Stalin introduced the First Five-Year Plan for building a socialist economy. In industry, the state assumed control over

all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of in- dustrialization; in agriculture, the state appropriated the peasants'

property to establish collective farms. These sweeping economic

innovations produced widespread misery, and millions of peasants

perished during forced collectivization. Social upheaval continued

in the mid- 1930s when Stalin began a purge of the party; out of

this purge grew a campaign of terror that led to the execution or imprisonment of untold millions of people from all walks of life. Yet despite this turmoil, the Soviet Union developed a powerful

industrial economy in the years before World War II. Stalin tried to avert war with Germany by concluding the NaziSoviet Nonaggression Pact with Adolf Hider in 1939, but in 1941

Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The Red Army stopped the

55
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Nazi offensive at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 and then over- ran much of eastern Europe before Germany surrendered in 1945.

Although severely ravaged in the war, the Soviet Union emerged

from the conflict as one of the world's great powers.

During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy. The Soviet Union consolidated its control over postwar Eastern Europe, supplied aid

toward the victory of the communists in China, and sought to ex- pand its influence elsewhere in the world. The active Soviet for- eign policy helped bring about the Cold War, which turned its wartime allies, Britain and the United States, into foes. Within

the Soviet Union, repressive measures continued in force; Stalin

apparently was about to launch a new purge when he died in 1953.

In the absence of an acceptable successor, Stalin's closest associ- ates opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly, although behind the

public display of collective leadership a struggle for power took place.

Nikita S. Khrushchev, who acquired the dominant position in the

country in the mid-1950s, denounced Stalin's use of terror and

effectively reduced repressive controls over party and society.

Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive, and foreign policy toward China and

the United States suffered reverses. Khrushchev's colleagues in the

leadership removed him from power in 1964.

Following the ouster of Khrushchev, another period of rule by

collective leadership ensued, which lasted until Leonid I. Brezhnev

established himself in the early 1970s as the preeminent figure in

Soviet political life. Brezhnev presided over a period of detente with

the West while at the same time building up Soviet military strength;

the arms buildup contributed to the demise of detente in the late 1970s. Also contributing to the end of detente was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.

After some experimentation with economic reforms in the mid1960s, the Soviet leadership reverted to established means of eco- nomic management. Industry showed slow but steady gains during

the 1970s, while agricultural development continued to lag. In contrast to the revolutionary spirit that accompanied the birth of the

Soviet Union, the prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the

time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of cautious conservatism

and aversion to change.

Revolutions and Civil War

The February Revolution

By early 1917, the existing order in Russia verged on collapse.

The country's involvement in World War I had already cost millions

56
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

of lives and caused severe disruption in Russia's backward econ- omy. In an effort to reverse the steadily worsening military situation, Emperor Nicholas II commanded Russian forces at the front,

abandoning the conduct of government in Petrograd (St. Peters- burg before 1914; Leningrad after 1924) to his unpopular wife and

a series of incompetent ministers. As a consequence of these conditions, the morale of the people rapidly deteriorated.

The spark to the events that ended tsarist rule was ignited on

the streets of Petrograd in February 1917 (according to the old Julian

calendar [see Glossary] then in use in Russia). Provoked by shortages of food and fuel, crowds of hungry citizens and striking workers

began spontaneous rioting and demonstrations on March 7 (February 23, according to the Julian calendar). Local reserve troops,

called in to suppress the riots, refused to fire on the crowds, and some soldiers joined the workers and other rioters. On March 12,

with tsarist authority in Petrograd rapidly disintegrating, two sep- arate bodies emerged, each claiming to represent the Russian people. One was the Executive Committee of the Duma, which the

Duma (see Glossary) had established in defiance of the tsar's orders

of March 1 1 . The other body was the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, founded on the model of the St. Peters- burg Soviet of 1905. With the consent of the Petrograd Soviet, the

Executive Committee of the Duma organized the Provisional

Government on March 1 5 . Delegates of the new government met

Nicholas that evening at Pskov, where rebellious railroad workers

had stopped the imperial train as the tsar attempted to return to the capital. Advised by his generals that he lacked the support of

the country, Nicholas informed the delegates that he was abdicating in favor of his brother, Grand Duke Michael. When Michael

in turn refused the throne on March 16 (March 3), the rule of tsars and emperors in Russia came to an end.

The Period of Dual Power

The collapse of the monarchy left two rival political institutions

the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet—to share administrative authority over the country. The Petrograd Soviet, drawing its membership from socialist deputies elected in factories and

regiments, coordinated the activities of other Soviets that sprang up

across Russia at this time. The Petrograd Soviet was dominated by

moderate socialists of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and by the

Menshevik (see Glossary) faction of the Russian Social Democratic

Labor Party. The Bolshevik faction of the latter party provided the

opposition. While representing the interests of Russia's working

classes, the Petrograd Soviet at first did not seek to undermine the

57
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Provisional Government's authority directly. Nevertheless, the

Petrograd Soviet's "Order No. 1" of March 14 (March 1) instructed

soldiers and sailors to obey their officers and the government only

if their orders did not contradict the decrees of the Petrograd Soviet,

thereby effectively limiting the Provisional Government's control over the armed forces. The Provisional Government, in contrast to the socialist Petro- grad Soviet, chiefly represented the propertied classes. Headed by

ministers of a moderate or liberal bent, the new government pledged

to convene a constituent assembly that would usher in a new era

of bourgeois democracy. In the meantime, the government granted

unprecedented rights—full freedom of speech, press, and religion, as well as legal equality—to all citizens. The government did not

take up the matter of land redistribution, however, leaving it for the constituent assembly. Even more damaging, the ministers fa- vored keeping Russia's military commitments to its allies, a position that became increasingly unpopular as the war dragged on. The government suffered its first crisis in the "April Days," when

demonstrations against the government's annexationist war aims

forced two ministers to resign, leading to the appointment of moderate socialist Aleksandr Kerensky as war minister. Kerensky, quickly

assuming de facto leadership of the government, ordered the army

to launch a major offensive in June, which, after early successes, turned into a full-scale retreat in July.

While the Provisional Government grappled with foreign foes,

the Bolsheviks, who were opposed to bourgeois democracy, gained

new strength. Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, returned to Petrograd

in April 1917 from his wartime residence in Switzerland. Although

he had been born into a noble family, from his youth Lenin es- poused the cause of the common workers. A committed revolutionary and pragmatic Marxist thinker, Lenin astounded the

Bolsheviks already in Petrograd by his April Theses, boldly calling

for the overthrow of the Provisional Government, the transfer of

"all power to the Soviets," and the expropriation of factories by

workers and of land belonging to the church, the nobility, and the

gentry by peasants. Lenin's dynamic presence quickly won the other

Bolshevik leaders to his position, and the radicalized orientation

of the Bolshevik faction attracted new members. Inspired by Lenin's

slogans, crowds of workers, soldiers, and sailors took to the streets of Petrograd in July to wrest power from the Provisional Government. But the spontaneity of the "July Days" caught the Bolshevik

leaders by surprise, and the Petrograd Soviet, controlled by moderate Mensheviks, refused to take power or enforce Bolshevik demands. After the uprising died down, the Provisional Government

58
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

outlawed the Bolsheviks and jailed Leon Trotsky (Lev Trotskii,

originally Lev Bronstein), an active Bolshevik leader. Lenin fled to Finland.

In the aftermath of the ' 'July Days," conservatives sought to reassert order in society. The army's commander in chief, General Lavr Kornilov, who protested the influence of the Soviets on

both the army and the government, appeared as a counterrevolutionary threat to Kerensky, now prime minister. Kerensky dis- missed Kornilov from his command, but Kornilov, disobeying the

order, launched an extemporaneous revolt on September 10 (August

28). To defend the capital, Kerensky sought help from all quarters and relaxed his ban on Bolshevik activities. Railroad workers

sympathetic to the Bolsheviks halted Kornilov 's troop trains, and

Kornilov soon surrendered, ending the only serious challenge to the Provisional Government from the right.

The Bolshevik Revolution

Although the Provisional Government survived the Kornilov

revolt, popular support for the government faded rapidly as the

national mood swung to the left in the fall of 1917. Workers took

control of their factories through elected committees; peasants ex- propriated lands belonging to the state, church, nobility, and gentry; and armies melted away as peasant soldiers deserted to take

part in the land seizures. The Bolsheviks, skillfully exploiting these

popular trends in their propaganda, dominated the Petrograd Soviet

and the Moscow Soviet by September, with Trotsky, freed from

prison after the Kornilov revolt, now chairman of the Petrograd

Soviet.

Realizing that the time was ripe for seizing power by armed force,

Lenin returned to Petrograd in October and convinced a majority

of the Bolshevik Central Committee, which had hoped to take power

legally, to accept armed uprising in principle. Trotsky won the

Petrograd garrison over to Soviet authority, depriving the Provisional Government of its main military support in Petrograd.

The actual insurrection—the Bolshevik Revolution—began on

the morning of November 6 (October 24) when Kerensky ordered

the Bolshevik press closed. Interpreting this action as a counter- revolutionary move, the Bolsheviks called on their supporters to defend the Petrograd Soviet. By evening the Bolsheviks controlled

utilities and most government buildings in Petrograd, allowing

Lenin to proclaim the downfall of the Provisional Government on

the morning of November 7 (October 25). The Bolsheviks captured

the Provisional Government's cabinet at its Winter Palace headquarters that night with hardly a shot fired in the government's

59
Soviet Union: A Country Study

defense. Kerensky left Petrograd to organize resistance, but his

countercoup failed and he fled Russia. Bolshevik uprisings soon

took place elsewhere; the Bolsheviks gained control of Moscow by

November 15 (November 2). The Second Congress of Soviets,

meeting in Petrograd on November 7 (October 25), ratified the

Bolshevik takeover after moderate deputies (mainly Mensheviks

and right-wing members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, or SRs) quit the session. The remaining Bolsheviks and left-wing SRs

declared the Soviets the governing bodies of Russia and named the

Council of People's Commissars (Sovet narodnykh komissarov

Sovnarkom) to serve as the cabinet. Lenin became chairman of

this council (see table 5, Appendix A). Trotsky took the post of

commissar of foreign affairs; Stalin, a Georgian, became commissar of nationalities. By acting decisively while their opponents vacil- lated, the Bolsheviks succeeded in effecting their coup d'etat. On coming to power, the Bolsheviks issued a series of revolutionary decrees that ratified peasants' seizures of land and workers' control of industry; abolished legal class privileges; nationalized

the banks; and set up revolutionary tribunals in place of the courts. At the same time, the revolutionaries now constituting the regime

worked to secure power inside and outside the government. Deeming Western forms of parliamentary democracy irrelevant, Lenin

argued for a dictatorship of the proletariat (see Glossary) based on

one-party Bolshevik rule, although for a time left-wing SRs also participated in the Sovnarkom. The Soviet government created a

secret police, the Vecheka (see Glossary) to persecute enemies of

the state (including bourgeois liberals and moderate socialists) (see

Predecessors of the Committee for State Security and the Ministry

of Internal Affairs, ch. 19). Having convened the Constituent Assembly, which had been elected in November with the Bolsheviks

winning only a quarter of the seats, the Soviet government dis- solved the assembly in January after a one-day session, ending a

short-lived experiment in parliamentary democracy in Russia.

In foreign affairs, the Soviet government, seeking to disengage

Russia from the world war, called on the belligerent powers for an armistice and peace without annexations. The Allied Powers

rejected this appeal, but Germany and its allies agreed to a ceasefire and began negotiations in December 1917. After dictating harsh

terms that the Soviet government would not accept, however, Germany resumed its offensive in February 1918, meeting scant

resistance from disintegrating Russian armies. Lenin, after bitter

debate with leading Bolsheviks who favored prolonging the war

in hopes of precipitating class warfare in Germany, persuaded a

slim majority of the Bolshevik Central Committee that peace must

60
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

be made at any cost. On March 3, Soviet government officials signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, relinquishing Poland, the Baltic lands, Finland, and Ukraine to German control and giving up

a portion of the Caucasus region to Turkey. With the new border

dangerously close to Petrograd, the government was soon trans- ferred to Moscow. An enormous part of the population and re- sources of the Russian Empire was lost by this treaty, but Lenin

understood that no alternative could ensure the survival of the fledgling Soviet state. Civil War and War Communism

Soon after buying peace with Germany, the Soviet state found

itself under attack from other quarters. By the spring of 1918, ele- ments dissatisfied with the Communists (as the Bolsheviks started

calling themselves, conforming with the name change from Russian Social Democratic Labor Party to Russian Communist Party

[Bolshevik] in March) established centers of resistance in southern

and Siberian Russia against the Communist-controlled area (see

fig. 4). Anti-Communists, often led by former officers of the tsarist army, clashed with the Red Army, founded and organized by

Trotsky, now serving as commissar of war. A civil war to determine the future of Russia had begun.

The White armies (see Glossary) enjoyed, to varying degrees,

the support of the Allied Powers. Desiring to defeat Germany in

any way possible, Britain, France, and the United States landed

troops in Russia and provided logistical support to the Whites,

whom the Allies trusted to resume Russia's struggle against Germany after overthrowing the Communist regime. (Japan also sent troops, but with the intention of seizing territory in Siberia.) After

the Allies defeated Germany in November 1918, they opted to continue their intervention in the Russian Civil War against the Communists in the interests of averting world socialist revolution.

During the Civil War, the Soviet regime also had to deal with

struggles for independence in regions that it had given up under

the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (which the regime immediately repudiated after Germany's defeat by the Allies in November 1918).

By force of arms, the Communists established Soviet republics in

Belorussia (January 1919), Ukraine (March 1919), Azerbaydzhan

(April 1920), Armenia (November 1920), and Georgia (March 1921),

but they were unable to win back the Baltic region, where the in- dependent states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania had been founded

shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution. In December 1917, during

a civil war between Finnish Reds and Whites, the Soviet government recognized the independence of Finland but was disappointed

61
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Source: Based on information from David MacKenzie and Michael W. Curran, A History of Russia and the Soviet Union, Chicago, 1987, 611.

Figure 4. Red Army Line, March 1920

when that country became a parliamentary republic in 1918.

Poland, reborn after World War I, fought a successful war with

Soviet Russia from April 1920 to March 1921 over the location

of the frontier between the two states. During its struggle for survival, the Soviet state placed great hope on revolution's breaking out in the industrialized countries. To coor- dinate the socialist movement under Soviet auspices, Lenin founded

the Communist International (Comintern) in March 1919. Although no successful socialist revolutions occurred elsewhere immediately

after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Comintern provided the Communist leadership with the means through which they later controlled

foreign communist parties. By the end of 1920, the Communists

had clearly triumphed in the Civil War. Although in 1919 Soviet

Russia had shrunk to the size of sixteenth-century Muscovy, the

Red Army had the advantage of defending the heartland with

Moscow at its center. The White armies, divided geographically and

62
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

without a clearly defined cause, went down in defeat one by one. The monarchical cause was effectively killed when Communists

shot the imperial family in July 1918. The Allied governments,

lacking support for intervention from their war-weary citizenry,

withdrew most of their forces by 1920. The last foreign troops

departed Siberia in 1922, leaving the Soviet state unchallenged from

abroad.

During the Civil War, the Communist regime took increasingly

repressive measures against its opponents within the country. The

Soviet constitution of 1918 deprived members of the former "exploiting classes" —nobles, priests, and capitalists—of civil rights.

Left-wing SRs, formerly partners of the Bolsheviks, became tar- gets for persecution during the Red Terror that followed an at- tempt on Lenin's life in August 1918. In those desperate times,

both Reds and Whites murdered and executed without trial large

numbers of suspected enemies. The party also took measures to ensure greater discipline among its members by tightening its or- ganization and creating specialized administrative organs.

In the economic life of the country, too, the Communist regime

sought to exert control through a series of drastic measures that came to be known as war communism. To coordinate what re- mained of Russia's economic resources after years of war, in 1918

the government nationalized industry and subordinated it to central administrations in Moscow. Rejecting workers' control of fac- tories as inefficient, the regime brought in expert managers to run

the factories and organized and directed the factory workers as in a military mobilization. To feed the urban population, the Soviet

government carried out mass requisitions of grain from the

peasantry.

The results of war communism were unsatisfactory. Industrial

production continued to fall. Workers received wages in kind be- cause inflation had made the ruble practically worthless. In the

countryside, peasants rebelled against payments in valueless money

by curtailing or consuming their agricultural production. In late 1920, strikes broke out in the industrial centers, and peasant uprisings sprang up across the land as famine ravaged the countryside. To the Soviet government, however, the most disquieting

manifestation of dissatisfaction with war communism was the re- bellion in March 1921 of sailors at the naval base at Kronshtadt

(near Petrograd), which had earlier won renown as a bastion of

the Bolshevik Revolution. Although Trotsky and the Red Army

succeeded in putting down the mutiny, the rebellion signaled to the party leadership that the austere policies of war communism

had to be abolished. The harsh legacy of the Civil War period,

63
Soviet Union: A Country Study

however, would have a profound influence on the future development of the country.

The Era of the New Economic Policy

Lenin's Leadership

While the Kronshtadt base rebelled against the severe policies

of war communism, the Tenth Party Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) met in March 1921 to hear Lenin argue

for a new course in Soviet policy. Lenin realized that the radical

approach to communism was unsuited to existing conditions and

jeopardized the survival of his regime. Now the Soviet leader proposed a tactical retreat, convincing the congress to adopt a temporary compromise with capitalism under the program that came

to be known as the New Economic Policy (NEP). Under NEP,

market forces and the monetary system regained their importance.

The state scrapped its policy of grain requisitioning in favor of tax- ation, permitting peasants to dispose of their produce as they

pleased. NEP also denationalized service enterprises and much

small-scale industry, leaving the "commanding heights" of the

economy—large-scale industry, transportation, and foreign trade

under state control. Under the mixed economy of NEP, agricul- ture and industry staged recoveries, with most branches of the econ- omy attaining prewar levels of production by the late 1920s. In

general, standards of living improved during this time, and the

"NEP man"—the independent private trader—became a symbol

of the era. About the time that the party sanctioned partial decentralization of the economy, it also approved a quasi-federal structure for the state. During the Civil War years, the non-Russian nationalities on the periphery of the former Russian Empire were theoretically independent, but in fact Moscow attempted to control them

through the party and the Red Army. Some Communists favored

a centralized Soviet state, while nationalists wanted autonomy for the borderlands. A compromise between the two positions was

reached in December 1922 by the formation of the Union of Soviet

Socialist Republics. The constituent republics of this Soviet Union

(the Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian, and Transcaucasian republics) exercised a degree of cultural and linguistic autonomy, while

the Communist, predominantly Russian, leadership in Moscow

retained political authority over the entire country.

The party consolidated its authority throughout the country, becoming a monolithic presence in state and society. Potential rivals outside the party, including prominent members of the abolished

64
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

Menshevik faction and the Socialist Revolutionary Party, were exiled. Within the party, Lenin denounced the formation of factions,

particularly by radical-left party members. Central party organs

subordinated local Soviets under their authority. Purges of party

members periodically removed the less committed from the rosters. The Politburo (see Glossary) created the new post of general secre- tary for supervising personnel matters and assigned Stalin to this office in April 1922. Stalin, a minor member of the Central Committee at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, was thought to be

a rather lackluster personality and therefore well suited to the routine work required of the general secretary.

From the time of the Bolshevik Revolution and into the early

NEP years, the actual leader of the Soviet state was Lenin. Although

a collective of prominent Communists nominally guided the party

and the Soviet Union, Lenin commanded such prestige and authority that even such brilliant theoreticians as Trotsky and Nikolai I. Bukharin generally yielded to his will. But when Lenin became

temporarily incapacitated after a stroke in May 1922, the unity

of the Politburo fractured, and a troika (triumvirate) formed by

Stalin, Lev B. Kamenev, and Grigorii V. Zinov'ev assumed leadership in opposition to Trotsky. Lenin recovered late in 1922 and

found fault with the troika, and particularly with Stalin. Stalin,

in Lenin's view, had used coercion to force non-Russian republics

to join the Soviet Union; he was "rude"; and he was accumulating too much power through his office of general secretary. Although

Lenin recommended that Stalin be removed from that position,

the Politburo decided not to take action, and Stalin remained general secretary when Lenin died in January 1924.

As important as Lenin's activities were to the foundation of the

Soviet Union, his legacy to the Soviet future was perhaps even more

significant. By willingly changing his policies to suit new situations,

Lenin had developed a pragmatic interpretation of Marxism (later called Marxism-Leninism—see Glossary) that implied that the party

should follow any course that would ultimately lead to communism.

His party, while still permitting intraorganizational debate, insisted

that its members adhere to its decisions once they were adopted,

in accordance with the principle of democratic centralism (see Glossary). Finally, because his party embodied the dictatorship of the

proletariat, organized opposition could not be tolerated, and adversaries would be prosecuted (see Lenin's Conception of the Party,

ch. 7). Thus, although the Soviet regime was not totalitarian when

he died, Lenin had nonetheless laid the foundations upon which

such a tyranny might later arise.

65
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Stalin's Rise to Power

After Lenin's death, two conflicting schools of thought regarding the future of the Soviet Union arose in party debates. Leftwing Communists believed that world revolution was essential for the survival of socialism in the economically backward Soviet Union.

Trotsky, one of the primary proponents of this position, called for Soviet support for permanent revolution (see Glossary) around the

world. As for domestic policy, the left wing advocated the rapid

development of the economy and the creation of a socialist soci- ety. In contrast with these militant Communists, the right wing

of the party, recognizing that world revolution was unlikely in the

immediate future, favored the gradual development of the Soviet

Union through NEP programs. Yet even Bukharin, one of the

major right-wing theoreticians, believed that socialism could not

triumph in the Soviet Union without assistance from more eco- nomically advanced socialist countries.

Against this backdrop of contrasting perceptions of the Soviet

future, the leading figures of the Ail-Union Communist Party

(Bolshevik)—the new name of the Russian Communist Party

(Bolshevik) as of December 1925—competed for influence. The

Kamenev-Zinov'ev-Stalin troika, supporting the militant international program, successfully maneuvered against Trotsky and en- gineered his removal as commissar of war in 1925. In the meantime,

Stalin gradually consolidated his power base and, when he had suffi- cient strength, broke with Kamenev and Zinov'ev. Belatedly recog- nizing Stalin's political power, Kamenev and Zinov'ev made

amends with Trotsky to join against their former partner. But Stalin

countered their attacks on his position with his well-timed formulation of the theory of "socialism in one country." This doctrine,

calling for construction of a socialist society in the Soviet Union

regardless of the international situation, distanced Stalin from the

left and won support from Bukharin and the party's right wing.

With this support, Stalin ousted the leaders of the "Left Opposition" from their positions in 1926 and 1927 and forced Trotsky

into exile. By the end of the NEP era, free debate within the party

thus became progressively limited as Stalin gradually eliminated

his opponents.

Foreign Policy, 1921-28

In the 1920s, as the new Soviet state temporarily retreated from

the revolutionary path to socialism, the party also adopted a less ideological approach in its relations with the rest of the world. Lenin, ever the practical leader, having become convinced that socialist

66
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

revolution would not break out in other countries in the near fu- ture, realized that his government required normal relations with

the Western world for it to survive. Not only were good relations

important for national security, but the economy also required trade

with the industrial countries. Blocking Soviet attainment of these

desires were lingering suspicions of communism on the part of the

Western powers and concern over the foreign debts incurred by

the tsarist government that the Soviet government had unilaterally

canceled. In April 1922, the Soviet commissar of foreign affairs,

Georgii Chicherin, circumvented these difficulties by achieving an

understanding with Germany, the other pariah state of Europe,

at Rapallo, Italy. In the Treaty of Rapallo, Germany and Russia

agreed on mutual recognition, cancellation of debt claims, normalization of trade relations, and secret cooperation in military development. After concluding the treaty, the Soviet Union soon obtained

diplomatic recognition from other major powers, beginning with

Britain in February 1924. Although the United States withheld

recognition until 1933, private American firms began to extend

technological assistance and develop commercial links beginning

in the 1920s.

Toward the non-Western world, the Soviet leadership limited

its policy to promoting opposition among the indigenous populations against imperialist exploitation. Moscow did pursue an active policy in China, aiding the rise of the Nationalist Party, a non-Marxist organization committed to reform and national

sovereignty. After the triumph of the Nationalists, a debate developed among Soviet leaders concerning the future status of rela- tions with China. Stalin wanted the Chinese Communist Party to join the Nationalists and infiltrate the government from within,

while Trotsky proposed an armed communist uprising and forci- ble imposition of socialism in that country. Although Stalin's plan was finally accepted, it came to nought when in 1926 the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek ordered the Chinese communists massacred and Soviet advisers expelled.

Society and Culture in the 1920s

In many respects, the NEP period was a time of relative free- dom and experimentation for the social and cultural life of the Soviet

Union. The government tolerated a variety of trends in these fields,

provided they were not overtly hostile to the regime. In art and

literature, numerous schools, some traditional and others radically

experimental, proliferated. Communist writers Maksim Gorky and

Vladimir Maiakovskii were active during this time, but other

authors, many of whose works were later repressed, published work

67
Soviet Union: A Country Study

lacking socialist political content. Film, as a means of influencing a largely illiterate society, received encouragement from the state; much of cinematographer Sergei Eisenstein's best work dates from

this period.

Education, under Commissar Anatolii Lunacharskii, entered a phase of experimentation based on progressive theories of learning. At the same time, the state expanded the primary and secondary school system and introduced night schools for working adults. The quality of higher education suffered, however, because admissions policies preferred entrants from the proletarian class over those

of bourgeois backgrounds, regardless of the applicants' qualifications.

Under NEP the state eased its active persecution of religion begun

during war communism but continued to agitate on behalf of atheism. The party supported the Living Church reform movement

within the Russian Orthodox Church in hopes that it would undermine faith in the church, but the movement died out in the late 1920s.

In family life, attitudes generally became more permissive. The

state legalized abortion, and it made divorce progressively easier

to obtain. In general, traditional attitudes toward such institutions as marriage were subtly undermined by the party's promotion of

revolutionary ideals. Transformation and Terror

Industrialization and Collectivization

At the end of the 1920s, a dramatic new phase in economic development began when Stalin decided to carry out a program of

intensive socialist construction. To some extent, Stalin chose to advocate accelerated economic development at this point as a politi- cal maneuver to eliminate rivals within the party. Because Bukharin

and some other party members would not give up the gradualistic

NEP in favor of radical development, Stalin branded them as "right-wing deviationists" and used the party organization to re- move them from influential positions in 1929 and 1930. Yet Stalin's

break with NEP also revealed that his doctrine of building '' so- cialism in one country' ' paralleled the line that Trotsky had originally supported early in the 1920s. Marxism supplied no basis for

Stalin's model of a planned economy, although the centralized eco- nomic controls of the war communism years seemingly furnished

a Leninist precedent. Nonetheless, between 1927 and 1929 the State Planning Commission (Gosplan—see Glossary) worked out the First Five-Year Plan for intensive economic growth; Stalin began to implement this plan—his "revolution from above" —in 1928.

68
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

The First Five-Year Plan called for rapid industrialization of the

economy, with particular growth in heavy industry. The economy

was centralized: small-scale industry and services were nationalized, managers strove to fulfill Gosplan's output quotas, and the

trade unions were converted into mechanisms for increasing worker

productivity. But because Stalin insisted on unrealistic production

targets, serious problems soon arose. With the greatest share of

investment put into heavy industry, widespread shortages of con- sumer goods occurred, and inflation grew.

To satisfy the state's need for increased food supplies, the First

Five-Year Plan called for the organization of the peasantry into

collective units that the authorities could easily control. This col- lectivization program entailed compounding the peasants' lands

and animals into collective farms (see Glossary) and state farms

(see Glossary) and restricting the peasants' movements from these

farms, thus in effect reintroducing a kind of serfdom into the countryside. Although the program was designed to affect all peasants,

Stalin in particular sought to liquidate the wealthiest peasants, the

kulaks. Generally speaking, the kulaks were only marginally better off than other peasants, but the party claimed that the kulaks

ensnared the rest of the peasantry in capitalistic relationships. Yet

collectivization met widespread resistance not only from kulaks but

from poorer peasants as well, and a desperate struggle of the peasantry against the authorities ensued. Peasants slaughtered their cows and pigs rather than turn them over to the collective farms, with

the result that livestock resources remained below the 1929 level for years afterward. The state in turn forcibly collectivized reluc- tant peasants and deported kulaks and active rebels to Siberia.

Within the collective farms, the authorities in many instances

exacted such high levels of procurements that starvation was

widespread. In some places, famine was allowed to run its course;

millions of peasants in the Ukrainian Republic starved to death

when the state deliberately withheld food shipments.

By 1932 Stalin realized that both the economy and society were

seriously overstrained. Although industry failed to meet its production targets and agriculture actually lost ground in comparison with

1928 yields, Stalin declared that the First Five-Year Plan had successfully met its goals in four years. He then proceeded to set more

realistic goals. Under the Second Five-Year Plan (1933-37), the

state devoted attention to consumer goods, and the factories built

during the first plan helped increase industrial output in general.

The Third Five-Year Plan, begun in 1938, produced poorer results because of a sudden shift of emphasis to armaments production

in response to the worsening international climate. All in all,

69
Soviet Union: A Country Study

however, the Soviet economy had become industrialized by the end

of the 1930s. Agriculture, which had been exploited to finance the

industrialization drive, continued to show poor returns throughout the decade.

The Period of the Purges

The complete subjugation of the party to Stalin, its leader,

paralleled the subordination of industry and agriculture to the state. After squelching Bukharin and the "right-wing deviationists" in

1929 and 1930, Stalin's position was assured. To secure his absolute control over the party, however, Stalin began to purge from

party ranks those leaders and their followers whose loyalty he

doubted.

The period of Stalin's purges began in December 1934 when

Sergei Kirov, a popular Leningrad party chief who advocated a moderate policy toward the peasants, was assassinated. Although

details remain murky, many Western historians believe that Stalin

instigated the murder to rid himself of a potential opponent. In any

event, in the resultant mass purge of the local Leningrad party, thousands were deported to camps in Siberia. Zinov'ev and Kamenev,

Stalin's former political partners, received prison sentences for their

alleged role in Kirov's murder. At the same time, the NKVD (see

Glossary), the secret police, stepped up surveillance through its agents

and informers and claimed to uncover anti-Soviet conspiracies among

prominent long-term party members. At three publicized show trials held in Moscow between 1936 and 1938, dozens of these Old Bolsheviks, including Zinov'ev, Kamenev, and Bukharin, confessed to improbable crimes against the Soviet state and were executed. (The

last of Stalin's old enemies, Trotsky, who had supposedly masterminded the conspiracies against Stalin from abroad, was murdered

in Mexico in 1940, presumably by the NKVD.) Coincident with

the show trials against the original leadership of the party, unpublicized purges swept through the ranks of younger leaders in party,

government, industrial management, and cultural affairs. Party

purges in the non-Russian republics were particularly severe. The

Ezhovshchina ("era of Ezhov," named for NKVD chief Nikolai

Ezhov) ravaged the military as well, leading to the execution or in- carceration of about half the entire military officer corps. The secret police also terrorized the general populace, with untold numbers

of common people punished for spurious crimes. By the time the

purges subsided in 1938, millions of Soviet leaders, officials, and

other citizens had been executed, imprisoned, or exiled. The reasons for this period of widespread purges remain unclear.

Western historians variously hypothesize that Stalin created the

70
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

terror out of a desire to goad the population to carry out his intensive modernization program, or to atomize society to preclude

dissent, or simply out of brutal paranoia. Whatever the causes, the purges must be viewed as a counterproductive episode that

weakened the Soviet state and caused incalculable suffering.

In 1936, just as the purges were intensifying the Great Terror

(see Glossary), Stalin approved a new Soviet constitution to replace

that of 1924. Hailed as "the most democratic constitution in the

world," the 1936 document stipulated free and secret elections based on universal suffrage and guaranteed the citizenry a range of civil and economic rights. But in practice the freedoms implied by these

rights were denied by provisions elsewhere in the constitution that

indicated that the basic structure of Soviet society could not be

changed and that the party retained all political power (see Early

Soviet Constitutions, ch. 8).

The power of the party, in turn, now was concentrated in the

persons of Stalin and his handpicked Politburo. Symbolic of the

lack of influence of the party rank and file, party congresses (see

Glossary) met less and less frequently. State power, far from

"withering away" after the revolution as Karl Marx had predicted,

instead grew in strength. Stalin's personal dictatorship found reflec- tion in the adulation that surrounded him; the reverence accorded

Stalin in Soviet society gradually eclipsed that given to Lenin.

Mobilization of Society

Concomitant with industrialization and collectivization, society

also experienced wide-ranging regimentation. Collective enterprises

replaced individualistic efforts across the board: not only did the

regime abolish private farms and businesses, but it collectivized

scientific and literary endeavors as well. As the 1930s progressed,

the revolutionary experimentation that had characterized many

facets of cultural and social life gave way to conservative norms.

Considerations of order and discipline dominated social policy,

which became an instrument for the modernization effort. Workers came under strict labor codes demanding punctuality and dis- cipline, and labor unions served as extensions of the industrial

ministries. At the same time, higher pay and privileges accrued

to productive workers and labor brigades. To provide greater social stability, the state aimed to strengthen the family by restrict- ing divorce and abolishing abortion.

Literature and the arts came under direct party control during

the 1930s as mandatory membership in unions of writers, musicians, and other artists entailed adherence to established standards.

After 1934, the party dictated that creative works had to express

71
Soviet Union: A Country Study

socialistic spirit through traditional forms. This officially sanctioned

doctrine, called socialist realism (see Glossary), applied to all fields of artistic endeavor. The state repressed works that were stylistically innovative or lacked appropriate content. The party also subjected science and the liberal arts to its scrutiny. Development of scientific theory in a number of fields had

to be based upon the party's understanding of the Marxist dialectic, which derailed serious research in certain disciplines. The party

took a more active role in directing work in the social sciences. In

the writing of history, the orthodox Marxist interpretation employed

in the late 1920s was modified to include nationalistic themes and

to stress the role of great leaders to foster legitimacy for Stalin's

dictatorship.

Education returned to traditional forms as the party discarded

the experimental programs of Lunacharskii after 1929. Admission

procedures underwent modification: candidates for higher education now were selected by their academic records, rather than by

class origins.

Religion suffered from a state policy of increased repression, start- ing with the closure of numerous churches in 1929. Persecution

of clergy was particularly severe during the purges of the late 1930s,

when many of the faithful went underground.

Foreign Policy, 1928-39

Soviet foreign policy underwent a series of changes during the

first decade of Stalin's rule. Soon after assuming control of the party,

Stalin oversaw a radicalization of Soviet foreign policy that complemented his strenuous domestic policies. To heighten the urgency

of his demands for modernization, Stalin portrayed the Western

powers, particularly France, as warmongers eager to attack the

Soviet Union. The diplomatic isolation practiced by the Soviet

Union in the early 1930s seemed ideologically justified by the Great

Depression; world capitalism appeared destined for destruction.

To aid the triumph of communism, Stalin resolved to weaken the

moderate social democrats of Europe, the communists' rivals for working-class support. Conversely, the Comintern ordered the

Communist Party of Germany to aid the anti-Soviet National Socialist German Workers' Party (the Nazi Party) in its bid for power

in the hopes that a Nazi regime would exacerbate social tensions

and produce conditions that would lead to a communist revolution in Germany. Stalin thus shares responsibility for Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and its tragic consequences for the Soviet Union

and the rest of the world.

72
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

The dynamics of Soviet foreign relations changed drastically after Stalin recognized the danger posed by Nazi Germany. From 1934

through 1937, the Soviet Union tried to restrain German militarism

by building coalitions hostile to fascism. In the international communist movement, the Comintern adopted the popular front (see

Glossary) policy of cooperation with socialists and liberals against

fascism, thus reversing its line of the early 1930s. In 1934 the Soviet

Union joined the League of Nations, where Maksim M. Litvinov,

the commissar of foreign affairs, advocated disarmament and col- lective security against fascist aggression. In 1935 the Soviet Union

concluded defensive military alliances with France and Czechoslovakia, and from 1936 to 1939 it gave assistance to antifascists

in the Spanish Civil War. The menace of fascist militarism to the

Soviet Union increased when Germany and Japan (itself a threat

to Soviet Far Eastern territory in the 1930s) signed the AntiComintern Pact in 1936. But the West proved unwilling to counter

German provocative behavior, and after France and Britain ac- quiesced to Hider's demands for Czechoslovak territory at Munich

in 1938, Stalin abandoned his efforts to forge a collective security

agreement with the West.

Convinced now that the West would not fight Hitler, Stalin decided to come to an understanding with Germany. Signaling a shift in foreign policy, Viacheslav Molotov, Stalin's loyal assistant, re- placed Litvinov (who was Jewish) as commissar of foreign affairs in May 1939. Hitler, who had decided to attack Poland despite the

guarantees of Britain and France to defend that country, soon re- sponded to the changed Soviet stance. While Britain and France

dilatorily attempted to induce the Soviet Union to join them in pledging to protect Poland, the Soviet Union and Germany engaged in

intensive negotiations. The product of the talks between the former

ideological foes—the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of August 23,

1939—shocked the world. The open provisions of the agreement

pledged absolute neutrality in the event one of the parties should

become involved in war, while a secret protocol partitioned Poland

between the parties and assigned Romanian territory as well as Estonia and Latvia (and later Lithuania) to the Soviet sphere of in- fluence. With his eastern flank thus secured, Hitler began the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939; Britain and France

declared war on Germany two days later. World War II had begun.

War Years

Prelude to War

When German troops invaded Poland, the Soviet Union was

ill prepared to enter a major war. Although military expenditures

73
Soviet Union: A Country Study

had increased dramatically during the 1930s and the standing army

was expanded in 1939, Soviet weaponry was inferior to that of the

German army. More important, the purges had deprived the armed

services of many capable leaders, resulting in diminished morale

and effectiveness. The time gained through the pact with the Nazis was therefore critical to the development of Soviet defenses, particularly after Hider' s forces had overrun much of western Europe,

against little resistance, by the summer of 1940.

To strengthen its western frontier, the Soviet Union quickly se- cured the territory located in its sphere of interest. Soviet forces

seized eastern Poland in September 1939; entered Estonia, Latvia,

and Lithuania (which were later converted into Soviet republics)

in October 1939; and seized the Romanian territories of Bessarabia

(later incorporated into the Moldavian Republic) and northern

Bukovina (later added to the Ukrainian Republic) in June 1940.

Only Finland resisted Stalin's program of expansion, first by refus- ing to cede territory and then by putting up a determined defense

when the Red Army invaded in November 1939. Although the

Soviet Union finally won its original demands in March 1940, the

Soviet-Finnish War (also known as the Winter War) pointed out

grave deficiencies in Soviet military capabilities, which Hitler un- doubtedly noted.

As the European war continued and the theaters of the conflict

widened, Hitler began to chafe under his pact with the Soviet

Union. The German dictator refused to grant Stalin a free hand

in the Balkans and instead moved the German forces deeper into eastern Europe and strengthened his ties with Finland. Hider thus

prepared for war against the Soviet Union under a plan that he

officially approved in December 1940. Stalin, however, apparendy

believed that the Soviet Union could avert war by not offending

Germany. The Soviet Union continued its regular shipments of resources to Germany and maintained its armed forces at a low

stage of readiness. But despite Stalin's efforts to mollify Hider, Germany declared war on the Soviet Union just as 180 German divisions swept across the border early on the morning ofJune 22, 1941

.

The Great Patriotic War

The German blitzkrieg nearly succeeded in defeating the Soviet

Union within the first months. The Soviet forces, caught unprepared, lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the

German onslaught in the first weeks of the war, By November the

German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, begun its siege

of Leningrad, and threatened the security of Moscow itself (see

fig. 5). The Great Patriotic War, as the Soviet Union calls the phase

74
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

of World War II involving that country, thus began inauspiciously

for the Soviet Union.

By the end of 1941, however, the German forces had lost their

momentum. Harsh winter weather, attacks from bands of parti- sans, and difficulties in obtaining supplies over long distances restricted German movements. At the same time the Red Army, after recovering from the initial blow, launched its first counterattacks

against the invaders in December. To ensure the army's ability to fight the war, the Soviet authorities evacuated thousands of fac- tories and key personnel from the war zone to the interior of the

country, where the plants began producing war materiel. Finally,

the country was bolstered by the prospect of receiving assistance

from Britain and the United States. After a lull in active hostilities during the winter of 1941-42,

the German army renewed its offensive, scoring a number of vic- tories in the Ukrainian Republic, Crimea, and southern Russia

in the first half of 1942. Then, in an effort to gain control of the

lower Volga River region, the German forces attempted to capture the city of Stalingrad (present-day Volgograd) on the west bank

of the river. Here, Soviet forces put up fierce resistance even after Hitler's determined actions to take the city had reduced it to rubble. Finally, Soviet forces led by General Georgii K. Zhukov sur- rounded the German attackers and forced their surrender in

February 1943. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad proved decisive;

after losing this battle the Germans lacked the strength to sustain

their offensive operations against the Soviet Union.

After Stalingrad, the Soviet Union held the initiative for the rest of the war. By the end of 1943, the Red Army had broken through

the German siege of Leningrad and recaptured much of the Ukrainian Republic. By the end of 1944, the front had moved beyond

the 1939 Soviet frontiers into eastern Europe. With a decisive su- periority in troops and weaponry, Soviet forces drove into eastern Germany, capturing Berlin in May 1945. The war with Germany

thus ended triumphantly for the Soviet Union.

In gaining the victory, the Soviet government had to rely on the

support of the people. To increase popular enthusiasm for the war,

Stalin changed his domestic policies to heighten patriotic spirit. Nationalistic slogans replaced much of the communist rhetoric in offi- cial pronouncements and the mass media. Active persecution of

religion ceased, and in 1943 Stalin allowed the Russian Orthodox

Church to name a patriarch after the office had stood vacant for nearly two decades. In the countryside, authorities permitted greater

freedom on the collective farms. Harsh German rule in the occupied

territories also aided the Soviet cause. Nazi administrators of

75
Source: Based on information from David MacKenzie and Michael W. Curran, A History of Russia and the Soviet Union, Chicago, 1987, 742.

Figure 5. Military Operations Against Germany, 1941-45

conquered Soviet territories made little attempt to exploit the population 's dissatisfaction with Soviet political and economic policies.

Instead, the Nazis preserved the collective-farm system, systematically carried out genocidal policies against Jews, and deported

others (mainly Ukrainians) to work in Germany. Under these cir- cumstances, the great majority of the Soviet people fought and

worked on their country's behalf, thus ensuring the regime's survival.

The war with Germany also brought about a temporary alliance

with the two greatest powers in the " imperialist camp," namely,

Britain and the United States. Despite deep-seated mistrust between

76
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

the Western democracies and the Soviet state, the demands of war made cooperation critical. The Soviet Union benefited from shipments of weaponry and equipment from the Western Allies; during the course of the war the United States alone furnished supplies

worth over US$1 1 billion. At the same time, by engaging considerable German resources, the Soviet Union gave the United States and Britain time to prepare to invade German-occupied western

Europe. Relations began to sour, however, when the war turned

in the Allies' favor. The postponement of the European invasion

to June 1944 became a source of irritation to Stalin, whose country meanwhile bore the brunt of the struggle with Germany. Then,

as Soviet armies pushed into eastern Europe, the question of the

postwar order increased the friction within the coalition. At the

Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin clashed with President

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill over

his plans to extend Soviet influence to Poland after the war. At

the same time, however, Stalin promised to join the war against

Japan ninety days after Germany had been defeated. Breaking the

neutrality pact that the Soviet Union had concluded with Japan

in April 1941 , the Red Army entered the war in East Asia several

days before Japan surrendered in August 1945. Now, with all com- mon enemies defeated, little remained to preserve the alliance between the Western democracies and the Soviet Union.

The end of World War II saw the Soviet Union emerge as one

of the world's two great military powers. Its battle-tested forces

occupied most of postwar Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union won

island holdings from Japan and further concessions from Finland

(which had joined in the German invasion in 1941) in addition to the territories the Soviet Union had seized as a consequence of the

Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. But these achievements had been

bought at a high cost. An estimated 20 million Soviet soldiers and

civilians perished in the war, the heaviest loss of life of any of the

combatant countries. The war also inflicted severe material losses throughout the vast territory that had been included in the war

zone. The suffering and losses resulting from the war made a last- ing impression on the Soviet people and leaders that cannot be over- looked.

Reconstruction and Cold War

Reconstruction Years

Although the Soviet Union was victorious in World War II, its economy had been devastated in the struggle. Roughly a quarter

of the country's capital resources had been destroyed, and industrial

77
Soviet Union: A Country Study

and agricultural output in 1945 fell far short of prewar levels. To

help rebuild the country, the Soviet government obtained limited

credits from Britain and Sweden but refused economic assistance

proposed by the United States under the Marshall Plan. Instead,

the Soviet Union compelled Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe to sup- ply machinery and raw materials. Germany and former Nazi satellites (including Finland) made reparations to the Soviet Union. The

Soviet people bore much of the cost of rebuilding because the reconstruction program emphasized heavy industry while neglecting

agriculture and consumer goods. By the time of Stalin's death in

1953, steel production was twice its 1940 level, but the production

of many consumer goods and foodstuffs was lower than it had been

in the late 1920s.

During the postwar reconstruction period, Stalin tightened

domestic controls, justifying the repression by playing up the threat

of war with the West. Many repatriated Soviet citizens who had

lived abroad during the war, whether as prisoners of war, forced

laborers, or defectors, were executed or sent to prison camps. The

limited freedoms granted in wartime to the church and to collec- tive farmers were revoked. The party tightened its admission stan- dards and purged many who had become party members during

the war. In 1946 Andrei Zhdanov, a close associate of Stalin, helped

launch an ideological campaign designed to demonstrate the su- periority of socialism over capitalism in all fields. This campaign,

colloquially known as the Zhdanovshchina (era of Zhdanov), at- tacked writers, composers, economists, historians, and scientists whose work allegedly manifested Western influence. Although

Zhdanov died in 1948, the cultural purge continued for several years afterward, stifling Soviet intellectual development. Another campaign, related to the Zhdanovshchina, lauded the real or purported

achievements of past and present Russian inventors and scientists. In this intellectual climate, the genetic theories of biologist Trofim

D. Lysenko, which were supposedly derived from Marxist principles but lacked scientific bases, were imposed upon Soviet science

to the detriment of research and agricultural development. The

anticosmopolitan trends of these years adversely affected Jewish

cultural and scientific figures in particular. In general, a pronounced

sense of Russian nationalism, as opposed to socialist consciousness,

pervaded Soviet society.

The Cold War

After World War II, the Soviet Union and its Western allies soon

parted ways as mutual suspicions of the other's intentions and

78
Monument at Babi Yar, Kiev,

Ukrainian Republic, in memory of the more than 100,000 Soviet citizens murdered by German

troops during World War II

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

actions flourished. Eager to consolidate influence over a number

of countries near the Soviet Union, Stalin pursued aggressive poli- cies after World War II that provoked strong Western reaction.

The United States worked to contain Soviet expansion in this period

of international relations that has come to be known as the Cold

War.

Mindful of the numerous invasions of Russia and the Soviet

Union from the West throughout history, Stalin sought to create a buffer zone of subservient East European countries, most of which

the Red Army (known as the Soviet armed forces after 1946) had

occupied in the course of the war. Taking advantage of its military occupation of these countries, the Soviet Union actively as- sisted local communist parties in coming to power. By 1948 seven

East European countries had communist governments. The Soviet

Union initially maintained control behind the "iron curtain" (to use Churchill's phrase) through troops, security police, and its diplomatic service. Unequal trade agreements with the East European

countries permitted the Soviet Union access to valued resources.

Soviet actions in Eastern Europe helped produce Western hostility

toward their former ally, but the Western powers could do nothing to halt consolidation of Soviet authority in that region short

of going to war. However, the United States and its allies had greater success in halting Soviet expansion in areas where Soviet influence was more tenuous. British and American diplomatic support for Iran

79
Soviet Union: A Country Study

forced the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops from the northeastern

part of that country in 1946. Soviet efforts to acquire territory from

Turkey and establish a communist government in Greece were

stymied when the United States extended military and economic

support to those countries under the Truman Doctrine in 1947.

Later that year, the United States introduced the Marshall Plan

for the economic recovery of other countries of Europe. The Soviet

Union forbade the countries it dominated from taking part in the

program, and the Marshall Plan contributed to reducing Soviet

influence in the participating West European nations.

Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union be- came especially strained over the issue of Germany. At the Potsdam

Conference ofJuly-August 1945, the Allied Powers confirmed their

decision to divide Germany and the city of Berlin into zones of

occupation (with the eastern sectors placed under Soviet administration) until such time as the Allies would permit Germany to es- tablish a central government. Disagreements between the Soviet

Union and the Western Allies soon arose over their respective oc- cupation policies and the matter of reparations. In June 1948, the

Soviet Union cut off the West's land access to the American, British, and French sectors of Berlin in retaliation for steps taken by

the United States and Britain to unite Germany. Britain and the

United States thereupon sponsored an airlift to keep the beleaguered

sectors provisioned until the Soviet Union lifted the blockade in

May 1949. Following the Berlin blockade, the West and the Soviet

Union divided Germany into two countries, one oriented to the

West, the other to the East. The crisis also provided the catalyst

for the Western countries in 1949 to form the North Atlantic Treaty

Organization (NATO), a collective security system designed to use conventional armies and nuclear weapons to offset Soviet forces. While the Soviet Union gained a new satellite nation in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), it lost its influence in

Yugoslavia. The local communists in Yugoslavia had come into

power without Soviet assistance, and their leader, Josip Broz Tito,

refused to subordinate the country to Stalin's control. Tito's defi- ance led the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform

founded in 1947 to partially replace the Comintern, which had been

abolished in 1943) to expel the Yugoslav party from the international communist movement in 1948. To guard against the rise of other independent leaders, Stalin purged many of the chief communists in other East European states. In Asia, the Chinese Communists, headed by Mao Zedong and

assisted by the Soviet Union, achieved victory over the Nationalists in 1949. Several months afterward, in 1950, China and the

80
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

Soviet Union concluded a mutual defense treaty against Japan and

the United States. Hard negotiations over concessions and aid between the two communist countries served as an indication that

China, with its independent party and enormous population, would

not become a Soviet satellite, although for a time their relations

appeared particularly close. Elsewhere in Asia, the Soviet Union

pursued a vigorous policy of support for national liberation movements, especially in Malaya and Indochina, which were still colonies of Britain and France, respectively. Thinking that the West

would not defend the Republic of Korea (South Korea), Stalin al- lowed or encouraged the Soviet-equipped forces of the Democratic

People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) to invade South Korea

in 1950. But forces from the United States and other members of

the United Nations came to the aid of South Korea, leading China

to intervene militarily on behalf of North Korea, probably on Soviet

instigation. Although the Soviet Union avoided direct participation in the conflict (which would end in 1953), the Korean War

inspired the United States to strengthen its military capability and

to conclude a peace treaty and security pact with Japan. Chinese

participation in the war also strengthened China's independent position in relation to the Soviet Union.

Death of Stalin

In the early 1950s, Stalin, now an old man, apparently permitted his subordinates in the Politburo (enlarged and called the

Presidium by the Nineteenth Party Congress in October 1952)

greater powers of action within their spheres. (Also at the Nineteenth

Party Congress, the name of the party was changed from the All- Union Communist Party [Bolshevik] to the Communist Party of

the Soviet Union—CPSU.) Indicative of the Soviet leader's waning strength, Secretary Georgii M. Malenkov delivered the politi- cal report to the Nineteenth Party Congress in place of Stalin (see

Party Congress, ch. 7). Although the general secretary took a

smaller part in the day-to-day administration of party affairs, he

maintained his animosity toward potential enemies. In January

1953, the party newspaper announced that a group of predominantly Jewish doctors had murdered high Soviet officials, including Zhdanov. Western historians speculate that the disclosure of

this "doctors' plot" may have been a prelude to an intended purge

directed against Malenkov, Molotov, and secret police chief

Lavrenty Beria. In any case, when Stalin died on March 5, 1953

(under circumstances that are still unclear), his inner circle, which

had feared him for years, secretly rejoiced.

81
Soviet Union: A Country Study

During his quarter-century of dictatorial control, Stalin had over- seen impressive development in the Soviet Union. From a comparatively backward agricultural society, the country had been

transformed into a powerful industrial state. But in the course of

that transformation, millions of people had been killed, and Stalin's use of repressive controls had become an integral function of

his regime. How Stalin's system would be maintained or altered

would be a question of vital concern to Soviet leaders for years after him.

The Khrushchev Era

Collective Leadership and the Rise of Khrushchev

Stalin died without naming an heir, and none of his associates

had the power to immediately claim supreme leadership. The deceased dictator's colleagues initially tried to rule jointly through

a collective leadership, with Malenkov holding the top positions

of prime minister (chairman of the Council of Ministers; the name

changed from Council of People's Commissars in 1946) and general

secretary (the latter office for only two weeks). The arrangement was first challenged in 1953 when Beria, the powerful head of the

security forces, plotted a coup. Beria's associates in the Presidium,

however, ordered Marshal Zhukov to arrest him, and he was secredy

executed. With Beria's death came the end of the inordinate power

of the secret police; the party has maintained strict control over

the state security organs ever since.

After the elimination of Beria, the succession struggle became more

subde. Malenkov found a formidable rival in Nikita S. Khrushchev,

whom the Presidium elected first secretary (Stalin's title of general secretary was abolished) in September. Of peasant background,

Khrushchev had served as head of the Ukrainian party organization during and after World War II and was a member of the

Soviet political elite during the Stalin period. The rivalry between

Malenkov and Khrushchev surfaced publicly through Malenkov'

s

support for increased production of consumer goods, while Khrushchev conservatively stood for development of heavy industry. After a poor showing by light industry and agriculture, Malenkov

resigned as prime minister in February 1955. The new prime

minister, Nikolai A. Bulganin, had little influence or real power;

Khrushchev was now the most important figure within the collec- tive leadership.

At the Twentieth Party Congress, held in February 1956, Khrushchev further advanced his position within the party by denouncing

Stalin's crimes in a dramatic "secret speech." Khrushchev revealed

82
Statue "Motherland" on Mamayev Hill, Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad),

Russian Republic. During the Battle of Stalingrad, some of thefiercestfighting took place here before the German troops surrendered in February 1943.

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

83
Soviet Union: A Country Study

that Stalin had arbitrarily liquidated thousands of party members

and military leaders (thereby contributing to the initial Soviet defeats

in World War II) and had established a pernicious cult of personality (see Glossary). With this speech Khrushchev not only dis- tanced himself from Stalin and from Stalin's close associates,

Molotov, Malenkov, and Lazar M. Kaganovich, but also abjured

the dictator's policies of terror. As a direct result of the "deStalinization" campaign launched by the speech, the release of political prisoners, which had begun in 1953, was stepped up, and some of Stalin's victims were posthumously rehabilitated (see Glossary). Khrushchev later intensified his campaign against Stalin at the Twenty-Second Party Congress in 1961, winning approval to remove Stalin's body from the Lenin Mausoleum, where it had

originally been interred. De-Stalinization encouraged many in

artistic and intellectual circles to speak out against the abuses of

the former regime. Although Khrushchev's tolerance of critical creative works vacillated during his years of leadership, the new cul- tural period—known as the "thaw"—represented a clear break with

the repression of the arts under Stalin.

After the Twentieth Party Congress, Khrushchev continued to expand his influence, although he still faced opposition. Khrushchev's rivals in the Presidium, spurred by reversals in Soviet for- eign policy in Eastern Europe in 1956, potentially threatening

economic reforms, and the de-Stalinization campaign, united to vote him out of office in June 1957. Khrushchev, however, demanded that the question be put to the Central Committee of the CPSU,

where he enjoyed strong support. The Central Committee over- turned the Presidium's decision and expelled Khrushchev's opponents (Malenkov, Molotov, and Kaganovich), whom Khrushchev

labeled the "anti-party group." In a departure from Stalinist procedure, Khrushchev did not order the imprisonment or execution

of his defeated rivals but instead placed them in relatively minor

offices. Khrushchev moved to consolidate his power further in the

ensuing months. In October he removed Marshal Zhukov (who

had helped Khrushchev squelch the "anti-party group") from the

office of defense minister, presumably because he feared Zhukov's influence in the armed forces. Khrushchev became prime minister

in March 1958 when Bulganin resigned, thus formally confirming

his predominant position in the state as well as in the party.

Despite his rank, Khrushchev never exercised the dictatorial

authority of Stalin, nor did he ever completely control the party even at the peak of his power. His attacks on members of the "antiparty group" at the Twenty-First Party Congress in 1959 and the

Twenty-Second Party Congress in 1961 suggest that his opponents

84
Room in the Livadia Palace

where Stalin, Churchill, and

Roosevelt met for the Yalta Conference in February 1945

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

f

/

still retained support within the party. Khrushchev's relative political insecurity probably accounted for some of his grandiose

pronouncements (for example, his 1961 promise that the Soviet

Union would attain communism by 1980). His desire to undermine opposition and mollify critics explained the nature of many

of his domestic reforms and the vacillations in his foreign policy

toward the West.

Foreign Policy under Khrushchev

Almost immediately after Stalin died, the collective leadership

began altering the conduct of Soviet foreign policy to permit better relations with the West and new approaches to the nonaligned

countries. Malenkov introduced a change in tone by speaking out

against nuclear war as a threat to civilization. Khrushchev initially

contradicted this position, saying capitalism alone would be destroyed in a nuclear war, but he adopted Malenkov' s view after securing his preeminent position. In 1955, to ease tensions between

East and West, Khrushchev recognized permanent neutrality for Austria. Meeting President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Geneva,

Switzerland, later that year, Khrushchev confirmed Soviet commitment to

' 'peaceful coexistence" with capitalism. Regarding the developing nations, Khrushchev tried to win the goodwill of their

national leaders, instead of following the established Soviet policy

of shunning the governments while supporting local communist

85
Soviet Union: A Country Study

parties. Soviet influence in the international alignments of India

and Egypt, as well as of other Third World countries, began in

the middle of the 1950s. Cuba's entry into the socialist camp in

1961 was a coup for the Soviet Union.

With the gains of the new diplomacy came reversals as well. By

conceding the independence of Yugoslavia in 1955 as well as by

his de-Stalinization campaign, Khrushchev provoked unrest in

Eastern Europe, where the policies of the Stalin era weighed heavily.

In Poland, riots brought about a change in communist party leadership, which the Soviet Union reluctantly recognized in October

1956. A popular uprising against Soviet control then broke out in

Hungary, where the local communist leaders, headed by Imre

Nagy, called for a multiparty political system and withdrawal from

the Warsaw Pact, the defensive alliance founded by the Soviet

Union and its East European satellites in 1955 (see Appendix C).

The Soviet army crushed the revolt early in November 1956, caus- ing numerous casualties. Although the Hungarian Revolution hurt

Soviet standing in world opinion, it demonstrated that the Soviet

Union would use force if necessary to maintain control over its satellite states in Eastern Europe.

Outside the Soviet sphere of control, China grew increasingly

restive under Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong.

Chinese discontent with the new Soviet leadership stemmed from

low levels of Soviet aid, feeble Soviet support for China in its dis- putes with Taiwan and India, and the new Soviet doctrine of peaceful coexistence with the West (which Mao viewed as a betrayal of

Marxism-Leninism). Against Khrushchev's wishes, China embarked on a nuclear arms program, declaring in 1960 that nuclear war could defeat imperialism. The dispute between militant China

and the more moderate Soviet Union escalated into a schism in

the world communist movement after 1960. Albania left the Soviet

camp and became an ally of China, Romania distanced itself from

the Soviet Union in international affairs, and communist parties

around the world split over orientation to Moscow or Beijing. The

monolithic bloc of world communism had shattered.

Soviet relations with the West, especially the United States,

seesawed between moments of relative relaxation and periods of

tension and crisis. For his part, Khrushchev wanted peaceful co- existence with the West, not only to avoid nuclear war but also

to permit the Soviet Union to develop its economy. Khrushchev's

meetings with President Eisenhower in 1955 and President John F. Kennedy in 1961 and his tour of the United States in 1959 demonstrated the Soviet leader's desire for fundamentally smooth rela- tions between the West and the Soviet Union and its allies. Yet

86
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

Khrushchev also needed to demonstrate to Soviet conservatives and

militant Chinese that the Soviet Union was a firm defender of the

socialist camp. Thus in 1958 Khrushchev challenged the status of

Berlin; when the West would not yield to his demands that the

western sectors be incorporated into East Germany, he approved

the erection of the Berlin Wall around those sectors in 1961. To

maintain national prestige, Khrushchev canceled a summit meeting with Eisenhower in 1960 after Soviet air defense troops shot

down a United States U-2 reconnaissance aircraft over Soviet ter- ritory. Finally, mistrust over military intentions hobbled East-West

relations during this time. The West feared the Soviet lead in space

technology and saw in the buildup of the Soviet military an emerging "missile gap" in the Soviet Union's favor. By contrast, the

Soviet Union felt threatened by a rearmed Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), by the United States alliance system encircling the Soviet Union, and by the West's superior strategic and

economic strength. To offset the United States military advantage

and thereby improve the Soviet negotiating position, Khrushchev

in 1962 tried to install nuclear missiles in Cuba, but he agreed to withdraw them after Kennedy ordered a blockade around the island

nation. After coming close to war in the Cuban missile crisis, the

Soviet Union and the United States took steps to reduce the nuclear

threat. In 1963 the two countries established the "hot line" between Washington and Moscow to reduce the likelihood of accidental nuclear war. In the same year, the United States, Britain, and

the Soviet Union signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which for- bade testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere.

Khrushchev's Reforms and Fall Throughout his years of leadership, Khrushchev attempted to carry out reform in a range of fields. The problems of Soviet agriculture, a major concern of Khrushchev, had earlier attracted the at- tention of the collective leadership, which introduced important

innovations in this area of the Soviet economy. The state en- couraged peasants to grow more on their private plots, increased

payments for crops grown on the collective farms, and invested more heavily in agriculture. In his dramatic virgin land campaign

(see Glossary) in the mid-1950s, Khrushchev opened to farming

vast tracts of land in the northern part of the Kazakh Republic

and neighboring areas of the Russian Republic. These new farmlands turned out to be susceptible to droughts, but in some years

they produced excellent harvests. Later innovations by Khrushchev, however, proved counterproductive. His plans for growing

maize and increasing meat and dairy production failed miserably,

87
Soviet Union: A Country Study

and his reorganization of collective farms into larger units produced

confusion in the countryside.

Khrushchev's reforms in industry and administrative organization created even greater problems. In a politically motivated move

to weaken the central state bureaucracy, in 1957 Khrushchev did

away with the industrial ministries in Moscow and replaced them

with regional economic councils. Although Khrushchev intended

these economic councils to be more responsive to local needs, the

decentralization of industry led to disruption and inefficiency. Connected with this decentralization was Khrushchev's decision in 1962

to reorganize party organizations along economic, rather than administrative, lines. The resulting bifurcation of the party apparatus into industrial and agricultural sectors at the oblast (see Glossary)

level and below contributed to the disarray and alienated many

party officials at all levels. Symptomatic of the country's economic

difficulties was the abandonment in 1963 of Khrushchev's special

seven-year economic plan (1959-65) two years short of its completion.

By 1964 Khrushchev's prestige had been injured in a number

of areas. Industrial growth slowed, while agriculture showed no new progress. Abroad, the split with China, the Berlin crisis, and

the Cuban fiasco hurt the Soviet Union's international stature, and

Khrushchev's efforts to improve relations with the West antagonized

many in the military. Lastly, the 1962 party reorganization caused

turmoil throughout the Soviet political chain of command. In October 1964, while Khrushchev was vacationing in Crimea, the

Presidium voted him out of office and refused to permit him to take his case to the Central Committee. Khrushchev retired as a

private citizen after his successors denounced him for his "harebrained schemes, half-baked conclusions, and hasty decisions." Yet

along with his failed policies, Khrushchev must also be remembered for his public disavowal of Stalinism and the cult of personality.

The Brezhnev Era

Collective Leadership and the Rise of Brezhnev

After removing Khrushchev from power, the leaders of the Polit- buro (as the Presidium was renamed in 1966 by the Twenty-Third

Party Congress) and Secretariat again established a collective leadership. As was the case following Stalin's death, several individuals,

including Aleksei N. Kosygin, Nikolai V. Podgornyi, and Leonid

I. Brezhnev, contended for power behind a facade of unity. Kosygin

accepted the position of prime minister, which he held until his

88
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

retirement in 1980. Brezhnev, who took the post of first secretary,

may have originally been viewed as an interim appointment by

his fellows. Born to a Russian worker's family in 1906, Brezhnev became

a protege of Khrushchev early in his career and through his in- fluence rose to membership in the Presidium. As his own power

grew, Brezhnev built up a coterie of followers whom he, as first secretary (the title reverted to general secretary after April 1966),

gradually maneuvered into powerful positions. At the same time,

Brezhnev slowly demoted or isolated possible contenders for his

office. He succeeded in elevating Podgornyi to the ceremonial position of chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the

highest legislative organization in the government, in December

1965, thus eliminating him as a rival. But Brezhnev's rise was very

gradual; only in 1971, when Brezhnev succeeded in appointing four

close associates to the Politburo, did it become clear that his was

the most influential voice in the collective leadership. After several more personnel changes, Brezhnev assumed the chairmanship

of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1977, confirming his

primacy in both party and state. The years after Khrushchev were notable for the stability of cadres

(see Glossary) in the party and state apparatus. By introducing the

slogan "Trust in Cadres" in 1965, Brezhnev won the support of

many bureaucrats wary of the constant reorganizations of the

Khrushchev era and eager for security in established hierarchies.

As an example of the new stability, nearly half of the Central Committee members in 1981 were holdovers from fifteen years earlier. The corollary to this stability was the aging of Soviet leaders; the

average age of Politburo members rose from fifty-five in 1966 to sixty-eight in 1982. The Soviet leadership (or the "gerontocracy,"

as it was referred to in the West) became increasingly conservative and ossified. Conservative policies characterized the regime's agenda in the

years after Khrushchev. Upon assuming power, the collective

leadership not only reversed such policies of Khrushchev's as the

bifurcation of the party but also halted de-Stalinization, and positive references to the dead dictator began to appear. The Soviet

Constitution of 1977, although differing in certain respects from

the 1936 Stalin document, retains the general thrust of the latter (see The 1977 Constitution, ch. 8). In contrast to the relative

cultural freedom tolerated during the early Khrushchev years, Brezhnev and his colleagues continued the more restrictive line of

the later Khrushchev era. The leadership was unwilling or unable

to employ Stalinist means to control Soviet society; instead, it opted

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

to exert repressive tactics against political dissidents even after the

Soviet Union acceded to the Helsinki Accords (see Glossary) in

1975. Dissidents persecuted during this time included writers and

activists in oudawed religious, nationalist, and human rights movements. In the latter part of the Brezhnev era, the regime tolerated

popular expressions of anti-Semitism. Under conditions of "developed socialism" (the historical stage that the Soviet Union

attained in 1977 according to the CPSU), the study of MarxismLeninism served as a means to bolster the authority of the regime

rather than as a tool for revolutionary action.

Foreign Policy of a Superpower

A major concern of Khrushchev's successors was to reestablish

Soviet primacy in the community of communist states by undermining the influence of China. Although the new leaders originally

approached China without hostility, Mao's condemnation of Soviet

foreign policy as "revisionist" and his competition for influence in

the Third World soon led to a worsening of relations between the

two countries. Sino-Soviet relations reached a low point in 1969 when

clashes broke out along the disputed Ussuri River in the Far East. Later the Chinese, intimidated by Soviet military strength, agreed

not to patrol the border area claimed by the Soviet Union; but

strained relations between the two countries continued into the early

1980s.

Under the collective leadership, the Soviet Union again used force in Eastern Europe, this time in Czechoslovakia. In 1968 reformminded elements of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia rapidly

began to liberalize their rule, loosen censorship, and strengthen

Western ties. In response, Soviet and other Warsaw Pact troops entered Czechoslovakia and installed a new regime. Out of these events arose the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine, which warned that the Soviet

Union would act to maintain its hegemony in Eastern Europe (see

Soviet-East European Relations, ch. 10). Soviet suppression of the

reform movement reduced blatant gestures of defiance on the part

of Romania and served as a threatening example to the Polish

Solidarity trade union movement in 1980. But it also helped dis- illusion communist parties in Western Europe to the extent that by

1977 most of the leading parties embraced Eurocommunism, which

freed them to pursue political programs independent of Moscow's

dictates. Soviet influence in the developing world expanded somewhat during this period. New communist or Marxist governments having

close relations with the Soviet Union rose to power in several countries, including Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua. In the Middle

90
Veterans of the Great Patriotic War (World War II) pose in Moscow.

Courtesy Irene Steckler

East, the Soviet Union vied for influence by backing the Arabs in

their dispute with Israel. After the June 1967 War, the Soviet Union

rebuilt the defeated Syrian and Egyptian armies, but it suffered a setback when Egypt expelled Soviet advisers from the country

in 1972 and subsequently entered a closer relationship with the

United States. The Soviet Union retained ties with Syria and supported Palestinian claims for their right to an independent state. But Soviet prestige among moderate Muslim states suffered in the

1980s as a result of Soviet military activities in Afghanistan. Attempting to shore up a communist government in that country,

Brezhnev sent in Soviet armed forces in December 1979, but a large

part of the Afghan population resisted both the occupiers and the

Afghan regime. The resulting war in Afghanistan continued to be an unresolved problem for the Soviet Union at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982.

Soviet relations with the West first improved, then deteriorated

in the years after Khrushchev. The gradual winding down of the

United States commitment to the war in Vietnam after 1968 opened

the way for negotiations between the United States and the Soviet

Union on the subject of nuclear arms. After the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons was signed in July 1968, the two

countries began the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) in

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

1969. At the Moscow Summit of May 1972, Brezhnev and President Richard M. Nixon signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

and the Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. Both agreements essentially froze the deployment of

strategic defensive and offensive weapons. A period of detente, or

relaxation of tensions, between the two superpowers emerged, with

a further agreement concluded to establish ceilings on the number

of offensive weapons on both sides in 1974. The crowning achievement of the era of detente was the signing in 1975 of the Helsinki

Accords, which ratified the postwar status quo in Europe and bound

the signatories to respect basic principles of human rights. But even

during the period of detente, the Soviet Union increased weapons

deployments, with the result that in the 1970s it achieved rough

parity with the United States in strategic nuclear weaponry (see

Arms Control and Military Objectives, ch. 17). The Soviet Union

also heightened its condemnation of the NATO alliance in an at- tempt to weaken Western unity. Although a second SALT agreement was signed by Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter in

Vienna in 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the Carter

administration withdrew the agreement from consideration by the

United States Senate, and detente effectively came to an end. In

reaction to the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, the United States imposed a grain embargo on the Soviet Union and boycotted the

Summer Olympics in Moscow in 1980. Tensions between the

United States and the Soviet Union continued up to Brezhnev's

death.

The Economy

Despite Khrushchev's tinkerings with economic planning, the

economic system remained dependent on central plans drawn up

with no reference to market mechanisms. Reformers, of whom the

economist Evsei Liberman was most noteworthy, advocated greater

freedom for individual enterprises (see Glossary) from outside controls and sought to turn the enterprises' economic objectives toward

making a profit. Prime Minister Kosygin championed Liberman's proposals and succeeded in incorporating them into a general eco- nomic reform program approved in September 1965. This reform

included scrapping Khrushchev's regional economic councils in

favor of resurrecting the central industrial ministries of the Stalin

era. Opposition from party conservatives and cautious managers,

however, soon stalled the Liberman reforms, forcing the state to abandon them.

After this short-lived attempt at revamping the economic sys- tem, planners reverted to drafting comprehensive centralized plans

92
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

of the type first developed under Stalin. In industry, plans stressed

the heavy and defense-related branches, with the light consumergoods branches slighted (see Economic Policy, ch. 1 1). As a developed industrial country, the Soviet Union by the 1970s found it increasingly difficult to maintain the high rates of growth in the

industrial sector that it had sustained in earlier years. Increasingly

large investment and labor inputs were required for growth, but

these inputs were becoming more difficult to obtain. Although the

planned goals of the five-year plans of the 1970s had been scaled

down from previous plans, the targets remained largely unmet.

The industrial shortfalls were felt most sharply in the sphere of con- sumer goods, where the public steadily demanded improved quality and increased quantity.

Agricultural development continued to lag in the Brezhnev years. Despite steadily higher investments in agriculture, growth under

Brezhnev fell below that attained under Khrushchev. Droughts oc- curring irregularly throughout the 1970s forced the Soviet Union

to import large quantities of grain from the West, including the

United States. In the countryside, Brezhnev continued the trend

toward converting collective farms into state farms and raised the

incomes of all farm workers. Despite the wage raises, peasants still devoted much time and effort to their private plots, which provided

the Soviet Union with an inordinate share of its agricultural goods

(see Policy and Administration, ch. 13).

The standard of living in the Soviet Union presented a problem

to the Brezhnev leadership after improvements made in the late 1960s gradually leveled off at a position well below that of many

Western industrial (and some East European) countries. Although

certain goods and appliances became more accessible during the

1960s and 1970s, improvements in housing and food supply were

slight. Shortages of consumer goods abetted pilferage of government property and growth of the black market. Vodka, however,

remained readily available, and alcoholism was an important fac- tor in both the declining life expectancy and the rising infant mortality that the Soviet Union experienced in the later Brezhnev years. Culture and the Arts

Progress in developing the education system was mixed during

the Brezhnev years. In the 1960s and 1970s, the percentage of

working-age people with secondary and higher education steadily

increased. Yet at the same time, access to higher education grew more difficult. By 1980 the percentage of secondary school graduates admitted to universities had dropped to only two-thirds of the

1960 figure. Students accepted into the universities increasingly

93
Soviet Union: A Country Study

came from professional families rather than from worker or peasant

households. This trend toward the perpetuation of the educated

elite was not only a function of the superior cultural background

of elite families but was also, in many cases, a result of their power

to influence the admissions procedures.

Progress in science also enjoyed varied success under Brezhnev.

In the most visible test of its ability—the race with the United States to put a man on the moon—the Soviet Union failed, but through

persistence the Soviet space program continued to make headway

in other areas. In general, despite leads in such fields as metallurgy and thermonuclear fusion, Soviet science lagged behind that

of the West, hampered in part by the slow development of computer technology.

In literature and the arts, a greater variety of creative works be- came accessible to the public than had previously been available.

True, the state continued to determine what could be legally published or performed, punishing persistent offenders with exile or

prison. Nonetheless, greater experimentation in art forms became

permissible in the 1970s, with the result that more sophisticated

and subdy critical work began to be produced. The regime loosened

the strictures of socialist realism; thus, for instance, many protagonists

of the novels of author Iurii Trifonov concerned themselves with

problems of daily life rather than with building socialism. In music,

although the state continued to frown on such Western phenomena

as jazz and rock, it began to permit Western musical ensembles

specializing in these genres to make limited appearances. But the

native balladeer Vladimir Vysotskii, widely popular in the Soviet

Union, was denied official recognition because of his iconoclastic

lyrics.

In the religious life of the Soviet Union, a resurgence in popular devotion to the major faiths became apparent in the late 1970s

despite continued de facto disapproval on the part of the authorities. This revival may have been connected with the generally growing interest of Soviet citizens in their respective national traditions

(see Manifestations of National Assertiveness, ch. 4). Death of Brezhnev

Shortly after his cult of personality began to take root in the

mid-1970s, Brezhnev began to experience periods of ill health. After

Brezhnev's first stroke in 1975, Politburo members Mikhail A.

Suslov and Andrei P. Kirilenko assumed some of Brezhnev's functions for a time. Then, after another bout of poor health in 1978,

Brezhnev delegated more of his responsibilities to Konstantin U.

Chernenko, a long-time associate who soon began to be regarded

94
Historical Setting: 1917 to 1982

as the heir apparent. His prospects of succeeding Brezhnev,

however, were hurt by problems plaguing the general secretary in

the early 1980s. Not only had economic failures hurt Brezhnev's

prestige, but scandals involving his family and political allies also damaged his stature. Meanwhile, Iurii V. Andropov, chief of the

secret police, the Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—KGB), apparently also began a campaign

to discredit Brezhnev. Andropov took over Suslov's functions after Suslov died in 1982, and he used his position to advance himself

as the next CPSU general secretary. Brezhnev himself, despite ill health following another stroke in March, would not relinquish his

office. Soon after reviewing the traditional Bolshevik Revolution

parade in November 1982, Brezhnev died.

Ultimately, the Soviet Union paid a high price for the stability

that prevailed during the years of the Brezhnev regime. By avoiding necessary political and economic change, the Brezhnev leadership ensured the economic and political decline that the country

experienced during the 1980s. This deterioration of power and prestige stood in sharp contrast to the dynamism that marked the Soviet

Union's revolutionary beginnings.

* * * A number of comprehensive texts covering the history of the

Soviet Union have recently appeared. Most worthy of recommendation to the nonspecialist is A History of Russia and the Soviet Union

by David MacKenzie and Michael W. Curran. A thoughtful sur- vey can be found in Geoffrey A. Hosking's The First Socialist Society.

Other general works covering the Soviet period include Robert V.

Daniels's Russia: The Roots of Confrontation, Donald W. Treadgold's

Twentieth Century Russia, and Adam B. Ulam's A History of Soviet Russia. There are also a number of excellent books on the various

phases of Soviet history. The recognized classic on the revolutionary and Civil War period is William H. Chamberlin's The Russian

Revolution, 1917-1921. Recommended for the Stalin era is Stalin by Adam B. Ulam. For Khrushchev, the reader is referred to Carl A. Linden's Khrushchev and the Soviet Leadership, 1957-1964.

Khrushchev's two-volume memoirs, Krushchev Remembers, are fas- cinating reading. Harry Gelman's The Brezhnev Politburo and the Decline of Detente treats the Brezhnev period in detail. (For further

information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

95

Chapter 3. Physical Environment

and Population
People of the Soviet Union against a backdrop of the Kremlin

in Moscow and mountains in the Georgian Republic
CURVING AROUND THE North Pole and the Arctic Ocean

like a huge arc, the Soviet Union spans almost half the globe from

east to west and about 5,000 kilometers from north to south. It

is the world's largest country, occupying the major portions of

Europe and Asia and including one-sixth of the earth's inhabited

land area. Its diverse terrain ranges from vast deserts to towering

mountains, yielding huge stores of natural resources and enabling

the country to satisfy almost all of its own essential natural resource needs. In terms of population, the Soviet Union ranks third after China and India. Its peoples, however, as its terrain, are as diverse

as those of any continent.

The Ural Mountains extend more than 2,200 kilometers, forming the northern and central boundary separating Asia from Europe.

The continental divide continues another 1,375 kilometers from

the Ural Mountains through the Caspian Sea and along the

Caucasus Mountains, splitting the Soviet Union into grossly unequal Asian and European parts. Roughly three-quarters of Soviet

territory encompass a part of Asia far larger than China and India

combined. Nevertheless, it is the western quarter, the European

part, that is home to more than 70 percent of all Soviet citizens. Surveys of Soviet geography and population have long pointed out

the acutely uneven distribution of human and natural resources throughout the country. Despite considerable attempts to setde people in Asian areas that are abundant in resources, this imbalance

persists. Rapid depletion of water and fuel resources in the European part has continued to outstrip development in resource-rich

Siberia, which is east of the Ural Mountains. From 1970 to 1989,

the campaign to settle and exploit the inhospitable frontier region

of western Siberia with its plentiful fuel and energy supplies was

costly but successful. Although the Soviet Union is richly endowed with resources,

several factors severely restrict their availability and use. The ex- treme climate and the northern position of the country, plus the

unfavorable location of major deposits, present formidable geographic impediments. Massive depopulation, firmly established pat- terns of settlement, and disparate birth rates have resulted in

regional labor shortages and surpluses.

In the years since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the inhabitants of the Soviet Union have suffered terrible hardships. Before

the 1950s, in each decade the population experienced a cataclysmic

99
Soviet Union: A Country Study

demographic event in the form of epidemics, wars, or famines and

in state-sanctioned mass killings. Only those persons born since

World War II (62 percent of the population in 1987) have been

spared the havoc that ravaged their grandparents' and parents'

generations. The long-term effects of these disasters on the population can hardly be overstated. The opportunity to examine in

relative tranquillity the national demographic situation is a post- war phenomenon. During this time, Soviet officials have become

increasingly aware of the importance of demographic issues. The

most visible signs of this are the policies aimed at influencing and

directing demographic processes such as reproduction and migration for the benefit of society and the economy.

Encouraged by glasnost' (see Glossary), in the 1980s Soviet and

foreign geographers and demographers engaged in spirited and open

discussions. Probing articles and books began appearing on previously sensitive or taboo topics. Alcohol and drug abuse, high rates of infant and adult mortality, environmental degradation, the

decline of the Soviet family, and the frequency of divorce were among them. Population problems stemming from sharp differ- ences in the reproduction rates and migration patterns of the numerous Soviet nationalities were also openly debated.

Physical Environment

Any geographic description of the Soviet Union is replete with

superlatives. Its inventory of land and water contains the world's

largest and deepest lakes, the most expansive plain, and Europe's

highest mountain and longest river. Desert scenes from Soviet Central Asia resemble the Australian outback. The Crimean coast on

the Black Sea is the Soviet Riviera, and the mountains rimming

the southern boundary are as imposing as the Swiss Alps. However,

most of the topography and climate resembles that of the northernmost portion of the North American continent. The northern

forests and the plains to the south find their closest counterparts

in the Yukon Territory and in the wide swath of land extending

across most of Canada. Similarities in terrain, climate, and settle- ment patterns between Siberia and Alaska and Canada are unmistakable.

After the Bolshevik Revolution and the ensuing Civil War

(1918-21), Soviet regimes transformed, often radically, the country's physical environment. In the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet citizens,

from the highest officials to ordinary factory workers and farmers,

began to examine negative aspects of this transformation and to

call for more prudent use of natural resources and greater concern

for environmental protection.

100
Physical Environment and Population

Global Position and Boundaries

Located in the middle and northern latitudes of the Northern

Hemisphere, the Soviet Union on the whole is much closer to the

North Pole than to the equator. Individual country comparisons are of littie value in gauging the enormous size (more than twice that

of the United States) and diversity of the Soviet Union. A far better perspective comes by viewing the country as a truly continentalsized landmass only slightiy smaller than North America and larger

than South America in both area and population.

The country's 22.4 million square kilometers include one-sixth

of the earth's inhabited land area. Its western portion, more than

half of all Europe, makes up just 25 percent of the Soviet Union;

this, however, is where the overwhelming majority (about 72 percent) of the people live and where most industrial and agricultural

activities are concentrated. It was here, roughly between the Dnepr

River and the Ural Mountains, that the Russian Empire took shape,

following Muscovy's gradual expansion that reached the Pacific

Ocean in the seventeenth century.

Although its historical, political, economic, and cultural ties bind

it firmly to Europe, the Soviet Union is largely an Asian country

because of Siberia. For centuries this land between the Urals and

the Pacific was infamous as a place of exile, a land of endless ex- panses of snow and frigid temperatures. In the post-World War

II period, however, Siberia has also become known as a new frontier

because of its treasure of natural resources. The Soviet Union measures some 10,000 kilometers from

Kaliningrad on the Gulf of Danzig in the west to Ratmanova Island

(Big Diomede Island) in the Bering Strait, or roughly equivalent

to the distance from Edinburgh, Scotland, east to Nome, Alaska.

From the tip of the Taymyr Peninsula on the Arctic Ocean to the

Central Asian town of Kushka near the Afghan border extend

almost 5,000 kilometers of mostly rugged, inhospitable terrain. The

east-west expanse of the continental United States would easily fit between the northern and southern borders of the Soviet Union

at their extremities.

Extending for over 60,000 kilometers, the Soviet border is not

only one of the world's most closely guarded but also is by far the

longest. Along the nearly 20,000-kilometer-long land frontier,

the Soviet Union abuts twelve countries, six on each continent. In Asia, its neighbors are the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

(North Korea), China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey;

in Europe, it borders Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland,

Finland, and Norway. Except for the icy eighty- six kilometers of

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

the Bering Strait, it would have a thirteenth neighbor—the United

States (see fig. 1). Approximately two-thirds of the frontier is bounded by water,

forming the longest and, owing to its proximity to the North Pole,

probably the most useless coastline of any country. Practically all of the lengthy northern coast is well above the Arctic Circle and,

with the important exception of Murmansk, which receives the

warm currents of the Gulf Stream, is locked in ice much of the

year. A dozen seas, part of the water systems of three oceans—the

Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific—wash Soviet shores.

Administrative-Political-Territorial Divisions

Since 1956 the enormous territory of the Soviet Union has consisted of fifteen union republics—the largest administrative and political units—officially known as Soviet republics or union republics

(see Glossary). Nationality (see Glossary), size of the population,

and location are the determinants for republic status. By far the

largest and most important of the union republics is the Russian

Republic, containing about 51 percent of the population (see table

6, Appendix A). Largely because it encompasses Siberia, the Russian Republic alone accounts for 75 percent of Soviet territory and

forms the heartland of both the European and the Asian portions

of the Soviet Union. Although in 1989 Russians made up over 51

percent of the Soviet population and were in many ways the

dominant nationality, they are just one of more than 100 nationality groups that make up Soviet society. Fourteen other major nationalities also have their own republics: in the European part are

the Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Belorussian, Ukrainian, and

Moldavian republics; the Georgian, Azerbaydzhan, and Armenian

republics occupy the Caucasus; and Soviet Central Asia is home

to the Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, Kirgiz, and Tadzhik republics

(see Nationalities of the Soviet Union, ch. 4; table 13, Appendix

A). The Soviet system also provides for territorial and administrative subdivisions called autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts, autonomous okruga, kraia, or most often oblasts (see Glossary).

These subdivisions make the country easier to manage and at times

serve to recognize additional nationalities. In terms of political and

administrative authority, the more than 130 oblasts and autonomous oblasts resemble to a limited degree counties in the United

States. Many oblasts, however, are about the size of states. For

example, Tyumenskaya Oblast, the storehouse of Soviet fuels, is only slighdy smaller than Alaska (see Fuels, ch. 12). A more appropriate comparison with counties, in terms of numbers and area,

102
Panoramic view from the Trans-Siberian Railway

Dnepr River in Kiev, Ukrainian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

103
Soviet Union: A Country Study

can be made with the more than 3,200 raiony (see Glossary), the

Soviet Union's smallest administrative and political subdivision.

Topography and Drainage

Most geographers divide the vast Soviet territory into five natural zones that generally extend from west to east: the tundra zone; the

taiga or forest zone; the steppe or plains zone; the arid zone; and

the mountain zone. Most of the Soviet Union consists of three plains

(East European Plain, West Siberian Plain, and Turan Lowland),

two plateaus (Central Siberian Plateau and Kazakh Upland), and

a series of mountainous areas, concentrated for the most part in

the extreme northeast or extending intermittentiy along the southern

border. The West Siberian Plain, the world's largest, extends east from the Urals to the Yenisey River (see fig. 6). Because the ter- rain and vegetation are uniform in each of the natural zones, the

Soviet Union, as a whole, presents an illusion of uniformity. Nevertheless, the Soviet territory contains all the major vegetation zones

with the exception of tropical rain forest. Almost 10 percent of Soviet

territory is tundra, that is, a treeless marshy plain. The tundra is the Soviet Union's northernmost zone of snow and ice, stretching

from the Finnish border in the west to the Bering Strait in the east and then running south along the Pacific coast to the earthquake

and volcanic region of northern Kamchatka Peninsula. It is the

land made famous by herds of wild reindeer, by "white nights"

(dusk at midnight, dawn shortly thereafter) in summer, and by

days of total darkness in winter. The long harsh winters and lack

of sunshine allow only mosses, lichens, and dwarf willows and

shrubs to sprout low above the barren permafrost (see Glossary).

Although the great Siberian rivers slowly traverse this zone in reaching the Arctic Ocean, drainage of the numerous lakes, ponds, and

swamps is hampered by partial and intermittent thawing. Frost weathering is the most important physical process here, shaping

a landscape modified by extensive glaciation in the last Ice Age.

Less than 1 percent of the Soviet population lives in this zone. The

fishing and port industries of the Kola Peninsula and the huge oil and gas fields of northwestern Siberia are the largest employers

in the tundra. The frontier city of Noril'sk, for example, with a population of 181 ,000 in 1987, is one of the largest setdements above

the Arctic Circle.

The northern forests of spruce, fir, cedar, and larch, collectively

known as the taiga, make up the largest natural zone of the Soviet

Union, an area about the size of the United States. Here too the

winter is long and severe, as witnessed by the routine registering of the world's coldest temperatures for inhabited areas in the

104

V

Figure 6. Topography and Drainage

106
Physical Environment and Population

northeastern portion of this belt. The taiga zone extends in a broad

band across the middle latitudes, stretching from the Finnish border

in the west to the Verkhoyansk Range in northeastern Siberia and

as far south as the southern shores of Lake Baykal. Isolated sec- tions of taiga are found along mountain ranges, as in the southern

part of the Urals, and in the Amur River Valley in the Far East. About 33 percent of the population lives in this zone, which, with

the mixed forest zone, includes most of the European part of the

Soviet Union and the ancestral lands of the earliest Slavic settlers. Long associated with traditional images of Russian landscape

and cossacks (see Glossary) on horseback are the steppes, which

are treeless, grassy plains. Although they cover only 15 percent of

Soviet territory, the steppes are home to roughly 44 percent of the

population. They extend for 4,000 kilometers from the Carpathian

Mountains in the western Ukrainian Republic across most of the

northern portion of the Kazakh Republic in Soviet Central Asia,

between the taiga and arid zones, occupying a relatively narrow band of plains whose chernozem (see Glossary) soils are some of

the most fertile on earth. In a country of extremes, the steppe zone, with its moderate temperatures and normally adequate levels of

sunshine and moisture, provides the most favorable conditions for human settlement and agriculture. Even here, however, agricultural yields are sometimes adversely affected by unpredictably low

levels of precipitation and occasional catastrophic droughts (see

Production, ch. 13).

Below the steppes, and merging at times with them, is the arid zone: the semideserts and deserts of Soviet Central Asia and, particularly, of the Kazakh Republic. Portions of this zone have be- come cotton- and rice-producing regions through intensive

irrigation. For various reasons, including sparse settiement and a comparatively mild climate, the arid zone has become the most

prominent center for Soviet space exploration.

One-quarter of the Soviet Union consists of mountains or mountainous terrain. With the significant exceptions of the Ural Mountains and the mountains of eastern Siberia, the mountains occupy

the southern periphery of the Soviet Union. The Urals, because

they have traditionally been considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia and because they are valuable sources of

minerals, are the most famous of the country's nine major ranges.

In terms of elevation (comparable to the Appalachians) and vegetation, however, they are far from impressive, and they do not serve

as a formidable natural barrier.

Truly alpine terrain is found in the southern mountain ranges.

Between the Black and Caspian seas, for example, the Caucasus

107
Figure (i. Topography and Dunnage

106

Soviet Union: A Country Study

Mountains rise to impressive heights, marking a continuation of the

boundary separating Europe from Asia. One of the peaks, Mount

El'brus, is the highest point in Europe at 5,642 meters. This range,

extending to the northwest as the Crimean and Carpathian mountains and to the southeast as the Tien Shan and Pamirs, forms an

imposing natural barrier between the Soviet Union and its neighbors to the south. The highest point in the Soviet Union, at 7,495

meters, is Mount Communism (Pik Kommunizma) in the Pamirs

near the border with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China. The Pamirs

and the Tien Shan are offshoots of the tallest mountain chain in

the world, the Himalayas. Eastern Siberia and the Soviet Far East

are also mountainous regions, especially the volcanic peaks of

the long Kamchatka Peninsula, which juts down into the Sea of

Okhotsk. The Soviet Far East, the southern portion of Soviet Central Asia, and the Caucasus are the Soviet Union's centers of seis- mic activity. In 1887, for example, a severe earthquake destroyed

the city of Vernyy (present-day Alma-Ata), and in December 1988

a massive quake demolished the Armenian city of Spitak and large

sections of Kirovakan and Leninakan. The 1988 quake, one of the

worst in Soviet history, claimed more than 25,000 lives. The Soviet Union's water resources are both scarce and abundant. With about 3 million rivers and approximately 4 million in- land bodies of water, the Soviet Union holds the largest fresh,

surface-water resources of any country. Unfortunately, most of these resources (84 percent), as with so much of the Soviet resource base, are at a great distance from consumers; they flow through sparsely

populated territory and into the Arctic and Pacific oceans. In contrast, areas with the highest concentrations of population, and there- fore the highest demand for water supplies, tend to have the warmest

climates and highest rates of evaporation. The result is barely adequate (or in some cases inadequate) water resources where they

are needed most.

Nonetheless, as in many other countries, the earliest settlements

sprang up on the rivers, and that is where the majority of the urban

population prefers to live. The Volga, Europe's longest river, is by

far the Soviet Union's most important commercial waterway. Three

of the country's twenty-three cities with more than 1 million inhabitants are located on its banks: Gor'kiy, Kazan', and Kuybyshev.

The European part of the Soviet Union has extensive, highly

developed, and heavily used water resources, among them the key

hydrosystems of the Volga, Kama, Dnepr, Dnestr, and Don rivers. As is the case with fuels, however, the greatest water resources are found east of the Urals, deep in Siberia. Of the sixty-three rivers

in the Soviet Union longer than 1,000 kilometers, forty are east of the Urals, including the four mighty rivers that drain Siberia

108
Siberian village in winter

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

as they flow northward to the Arctic Ocean: the Irtysh, Ob',

Yenisey, and Lena rivers. The Amur River forms part of the winding and sometimes tense boundary between the Soviet Union and

China. Taming and exploiting the hydroelectric potential of these

systems has been a monumental and highly publicized national

project. Some of the world's largest hydroelectric stations operate on these rivers. Hundreds of smaller hydroelectric power plants

and associated reservoirs have also been constructed on the rivers. Thousands of kilometers of canals link river and lake systems and

provide essential sources of irrigation for farmland.

The Soviet Union's 4 million inland bodies of water are chiefly a legacy of extensive glaciation. Most prominent among them are

the Caspian Sea, the world's largest inland sea, and Lake Baykal,

the world's deepest and most capacious freshwater lake. Lake Baykal

alone holds 85 percent of the freshwater resources of the lakes in

the Soviet Union and 20 percent of the world's total. Other water

resources include swampland, a sizable portion of territory (10 percent), and glaciers in the northern areas. Climate

Notorious cold and long winters have, understandably, been the

focus of discussions on the Soviet Union's weather and climate.

109
Soviet Union: A Country Study

From the frozen depths of Siberia have come baby mammoths perfectly preserved, locked in ice for several thousand years. Millions

of square kilometers experience half a year of subfreezing temperatures and snow cover over subsoil that is permanently frozen in

places to depths of several hundred meters. In northeastern Siberia,

not far from Yakutsk, hardy settlers cope with January temperatures that consistently average - 50°C. Transportation routes, in- cluding entire railroad lines, have been redirected in winter to traverse rock- solid waterways and lakes. Howling Arctic winds that produce coastal wind chills as low

as - 152°C and the burany, or blinding snowstorms of the steppe, are climatic manifestations of a relatively unfavorable position in

the Northern Hemisphere. The dominance of winter in the Soviet

Union is a result of the proximity to the North Pole—the southernmost point of the country is about on the same latitude as Oklahoma

City, Oklahoma—and remoteness from oceans that tend to moderate the climate. As a result, cold, high-pressure systems in the

east—the "Siberian high" —and wet, cold cyclonic systems in the

west largely determine the overall weather patterns.

The prolonged period of cold weather has a profound impact on almost every aspect of life in the Soviet Union. It affects where

and how long people live and work and what kinds of crops are grown and where they are grown (no part of the country has a year- round growing season). The length and severity of winterlike

weather, along with the sharp fluctuations in the mean summer

and winter temperatures, impose special requirements on many

branches of the economy: in regions of permafrost, buildings must

be constructed on pilings, and machinery must be made of specially tempered steel; transportation systems must be engineered

to perform reliably in extremely low and high temperatures; the

health care field and the textile industry are greatly affected by the

ramifications of six to eight months of wintry weather; and energy

demands are multiplied by extended periods of darkness and cold. Despite its well-deserved reputation as a generally snowy, icy

northern country, the Soviet Union includes other major climatic zones as well. According to Soviet geographers, most of their country is located in the temperate zone, which for them includes all of the European portion except the southern part of Crimea and

the Caucasus, all of Siberia, the Soviet Far East, and the plains

of Soviet Central Asia and the southern Kazakh Republic. Within

this belt are the taiga, the steppes, and the deserts of Soviet Central Asia. In fact, the climate in much of this zone is anything but

temperate; it varies from the moderate maritime climate of the Baltic

republics, which is similar to the American Northwest, to the

110
Apartment house in Spitak, Armenian Republic, destroyed by an

earthquake in December 1988 that registered 6.9 on the Richter scale. Such apartment houses were not designed, or built, to withstand seismic

activity of that magnitude. The earthquake claimed 25, 000 victims. Courtesy United States Geological Survey

111
Soviet Union: A Country Study

continental climate of the east and northeast, which is akin to that

of the Yukon Territory. Leningrad and Yakutsk, although roughly on the same latitude, have average January temperatures of - 7°C

and -50°C, respectively.

Two areas outside the temperate zone demonstrate the climatic

diversity of the Soviet Union: the Soviet Far East, under the in- fluence of the Pacific Ocean, with a monsoonal climate; and the

subtropical band of territory extending along the southern coast of the Soviet Union's most popular resort area, Crimea, through

the Caucasus and into Soviet Central Asia, where there are deserts

and oases. With most of the land so far removed from the oceans and the

moisture they provide, levels of precipitation in the Soviet Union

are low to moderate. More than half the country receives fewer

than forty centimeters of rainfall each year, and most of Soviet Central Asia and northeastern Siberia can count on barely one-half

that amount. The wettest parts are found in the small, lush subtropical region of the Caucasus and in the Soviet Far East along

the Pacific coast. Natural Resources

The Soviet Union is richly endowed with almost every major

category of natural resource. Drawing upon its vast holdings, it has become the world leader in the production of oil, iron ore, manganese, and asbestos. It has the world's largest proven reserves of

natural gas, and in 1984 it surpassed the United States in the

production of this increasingly important fuel. It has enormous coal reserves and is in second place in coal production (see fig. 7). Self-sufficiency has traditionally been a powerful stimulus for exploring and developing the country's huge, yet widely dispersed, resource base. It remains a source of national pride that the Soviet

Union, alone among the industrialized countries of the world, can

claim the ability to satisfy almost all the requirements of its econ- omy using its own natural resources. The abundance of fossil fuels supplies not only the Soviet Union's

domestic needs; for many years, an ample surplus has been ex- ported to consumers in Eastern Europe and Western Europe, where

it earns most of the Soviet Union's convertible currency (see Raw

Materials; Fuels, ch. 12).

However, as resource stocks have been depleted in the heavily

populated European section, tapping the less accessible but vital riches east of the Urals has become a national priority. The best

example of this process is fuels and energy. The depletion of readily accessible fuel resources west of the Urals has caused development

112
Physical Environment and Population

and exploitation to shift to the inhospitable terrain of western

Siberia, which in the 1970s and 1980s displaced the Volga-Ural

and the southern European regions as the country's primary supplier of fuel and energy (see table 7, Appendix A). Fierce cold,

permafrost, and persistent flooding have made this exploitation

costly and difficult. Environmental Concerns

In spite of a series of environmental laws and regulations passed

in the 1970s, authentic environmental protection in the Soviet

Union did not become a major concern until General Secretary

Mikhail S. Gorbachev came to power in March 1985. Without an

established regulatory agency and an environmental protection in- frastructure, enforcement of existing laws was largely ignored. Only

occasional and isolated references appeared on such issues as air and water pollution, soil erosion, and wasteful use of natural

resources in the 1970s. This lack of concern was prompted by several

factors. First, after collectivization in the 1930s, all of the land be- came state owned and managed. Thus, whenever air and water were polluted, the state was most often the agent of this pollution.

Second, and this was true especially under Joseph V. Stalin's leadership, the resource base of the country was viewed as limitless and

free. Third, in the rush to modernize and to develop heavy industry, concern for damage to the environment and related damage

to the health of Soviet citizens would have been viewed as detrimental to progress. Fourth, pollution control and environmental protection itself is an expensive, high-technology industry, and even

in the mid-1980s many of the Soviet Union's systems to control

harmful emissions were inoperable or of foreign manufacture.

Under Gorbachev's leadership, the official attitude toward the

environment changed. Various social and economic factors helped

produce this change. To maintain economic growth through the

1980s, a period in which the labor force had been declining significantly, intensive and more prudent use of both natural and

human resources was required. At the same time, glasnost' provided an outlet for widespread discussion of environmental issues, and

a genuine grass-roots ecological movement arose to champion causes

similar to the ecological concerns of the West. Public campaigns

were mounted to protect Lake Baykal from industrial pollution and

to halt the precipitous decline in the water levels of the Caspian

Sea, the Sea of Azov, and, most urgently, the Aral Sea. A grandiose scheme to divert the northern rivers southward had been

counted on to replenish these seas, but for both economic and en- vironmental reasons, the project was canceled in 1986.

113
Soviet Union: A Country Study
Physical Environment and Population

Without this diversion project, the Aral Sea, once a body of water

larger than any of the Great Lakes except Lake Superior, seemed

destined to become the world's largest salt flat as early as the year

2010. By 1987 so much water had been siphoned off for irrigation

of cotton and rice fields south and east of the sea that all shipping

and commercial fishing had ceased. Former seaports, active as late as 1973, were reported to be forty to sixty kilometers from the water's edge. Belatedly recognizing the gravity of the situation for the 3 million inhabitants of the Aral region, government officials declared it an ecological disaster area. With respect to air pollution, mass demonstrations protesting

unhealthful conditions were held in cities such as Yerevan in the

Armenian Republic. Official reports confirmed that more than 100

of the largest Soviet cities registered air quality indexes ten times worse than permissible levels. In one of the most publicized cases, the inhabitants of Kirishi, a city not far from Leningrad, succeeded

in closing a chemical plant whose toxic emissions were found to be harming—and in some cases killing—the city's residents. Fi- nally, separate, highly publicized cases of man-made disasters, the

most prominent of which was the Chernobyl' (see Glossary) nuclear

power plant accident in 1986, highlighted the fragility of the manproduction-nature relationship in the Soviet Union and forced a

reconsideration of traditional attitudes and policies toward industrialization and development.

As part of the process of restructuring (perestroika—see Glossary),

in the 1 980s concrete steps were taken to strengthen environmental

protection and to provide the country with an effective mechanism

for implementing policy and ensuring compliance. Two specific

indications of this were the inclusion of a new section devoted to environmental protection in the annual statistical yearbook and the

establishment of the State Committee for the Protection of Nature

(Gosudarstvennyi komitet po okhrane prirody—Goskompriroda)

early in 1988.

Despite these measures, decades of environmental degradation

caused by severe water and air pollution and land abuse were unlikely to be remedied soon or easily. Solving these critical problems

will require not only a major redirection of capital and labor but

also a fundamental change in the entire Soviet approach to industrial and agricultural production and resource exploitation and con- sumption.

Population

Seven official censuses have been taken in the Soviet Union (1920,

1926, 1939, 1959, 1970, 1979, and 1989). Both the quality and the

115
Soviet Union: A Country Study

quantity of the data have varied: in 1972 seven volumes totaling

3,238 pages were published on the 1970 census. In contrast, the

results of the 1979 census were published more than five years later in a single volume of 366 pages.

According to the census of 1989, on the day of the census, January

12, the population of the Soviet Union was estimated to be

286,717,000. This figure maintained the country's long-standing

position as the world's third most populous country after China

and India. In the intercensal period (1979-88), the population of

the Soviet Union grew from 262.4 million to 286.7 million, a 9

percent increase.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced

declining birth rates, increasing divorce rates, a trend toward

smaller nuclear families, and increasing mobility and urbanization.

Major problems associated with such factors as migration, tension

among nationality groups, uneven fertility rates, and high infant

and adult mortality became increasingly acute, and various social

programs and incentives were introduced to deal with them.

Vital Statistics

In the period after World War II, annual population growth rates gradually declined from a high of 1.4 percent during the 1961-65

period to 0.9 percent, the rate throughout the 1970s and most of

the 1980s. Such a rate of increase is typical for an industrialized

urbanized society, and it closely matched the 1.0 percent growth

rate recorded in the United States for the same period.

Between 1971 and 1986, average life expectancy fluctuated and

actually decreased in some years before stabilizing at about seventy

years (see table 8, Appendix A). The difference of eight to ten years

between male and female life expectancy in favor of women was

somewhat greater than in most Western countries. Life expectancy was longest (73.3 years in 1985-86) in the Armenian Republic and

shortest (64.8 years) in the Turkmen Republic.

More than any other demographic index, infant mortality underscored most sharply the tremendous regional differences in the population and its health care. Beginning in the mid-1970s, reporting

of infant mortality rates was discontinued; in October 1986,

however, Soviet sources revealed that infant mortality rates had

actually increased between 1970 and 1986, from 24.7 per 1,000

to 25.4 per 1 ,000 births. While the rate for the Russian Republic,

which is generally better supplied with health facilities, declined

by 19 percent, the rate increased for most Soviet Central Asian

republics. In one case, the Uzbek Republic, the rate increased by

almost 50 percent, to 46.2 per 1 ,000. In 1986 infant mortality was

116
ARAL'SK

V*

iUYNAK N

Satellite imagery of the Aral Sea in 1987. A catastrophic loss of 60 percent of the sea's volume of water followed the near total diversion of inflow for

agricultural irrigation south and east of the sea (see shaded areas). The dotted line shows the 1973 shoreline. The formerly active ports of

Aral'sk and Muynak were stranded in a desert forty to sixty kilometers from the water in 1987.

Courtesy United States Air Force Defense Meterological

Satellite Program and CIRES/National Snow and Ice Data Center

117
Soviet Union: A Country Study

lowest (11.6 per 1,000) in the Lithuanian Republic and highest

(58.2 per 1,000) in the Turkmen Republic.

Analysts proposed a number of reasons to explain what was

viewed as an abnormally high rate of infant mortality for a developed country. Among the reasons given were excessive consumption of alcohol and heavy smoking among women; widespread use

of abortion as a means of birth control, a procedure that could impair the health of the mother and of children carried to term; teenage

pregnancy; unsanitary conditions; and a deteriorating health care system (see Health Care, ch. 6). In the Soviet Union, virtually all national growth has been the

result of natural increase because of traditionally rigid control over immigration and emigration. Growth, however, varies considerably from region to region and from nationality to nationality. In

terms of population, there is a clear trend toward the Soviet Union's

becoming more Asian and less European. Birth rates in parts of

Soviet Central Asia are in some cases ten times higher than birth

rates among Slavs. In the intercensal period 1970-78, population

growth in the Asian part of the Soviet Union was almost triple the

rate of growth in the European section, 16.8 percent versus 5.9

percent.

Although most facets of the population were dynamic, some

demographic aspects remained constant: women have outnumbered

men since the Bolshevik Revolution, and the overwhelming majority

of the people have opted to live in the cities and on the collective

farms (see Glossary) and state farms (see Glossary) of the European

part of the country. In more than seven decades of Soviet power,

the population has experienced periodic cataclysmic demographic

events, some of them self-inflicted and some of them of external

origin. These wars, famines, purges, and epidemics have left an

enduring imprint on the society and on its ability to reproduce and

renew itself. The magnitude of human loss in the Soviet Union

can be shown by estimating the 1987 population as if it had grown

at a relatively modest annual rate of 1 percent from 1917 to 1987.

At that rate, the population would have reached approximately 325

million citizens by the seventieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Instead, that figure is expected to be reached only in 2016, a delay of more than one generation. The difference between this estimate of 325 million and the actual population in 1987 of 281

million suggests that some 45 to 50 million lives were lost in wars, famines, forced collectivization, and purges.

The single most devastating event by far was World War II, com- monly referred to in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War

(see The Great Patriotic War, ch. 2). Estimates vary, but an

118
Physical Environment and Population

absolute population decline of some 20 to 25 million seems quite

plausible. There were 194 million people reportedly living in the

Soviet Union in 1940. Only 209 million were counted by the census of 1959 instead of the roughly 234 million that might have been

expected, given a moderate rate of growth. Since the end of the

war, the population has increased by more than 100 million.

Age and Sex Structure

The aspect of the population most affected by the cataclysmic

demographic events was its age and sex structure. The consequences

of World War II ensured that the existing surplus of women would

persist for at least another generation; more than four decades after

its conclusion, women, most of whom were born before the war,

still outnumbered men by about 16 million (see table 9, Appendix

A). This imbalance has had a profound impact on the economy,

social structure, and population reproduction in the Soviet Union.

Before the war, just under 40 percent of women were in the work

force: since 1970 they have been a slight majority of all workers.

The female component of the work force since the start of the war

has become an indispensable feature of the Soviet economy, and

the overwhelming majority of working-age women were employed

in 1987.

Because a significant portion of an entire generation perished

in the war, marriages and births were fewer for some time thereafter. The decline in the marriage and birth rates produced a population pyramid with bulges and contractions in specific age and

sex groups and with significantly higher percentages of older women

at the top of the pyramid (see fig. 8). Expressed another way, in

1987 for every one dedushka (grandfather), there were almost three

babushki (grandmothers).

Because both the economic and the military might of a country

largely depend upon its labor force, the able-bodied population (defined in the Soviet Union as males sixteen to fifty-nine years of

age and females sixteen to fifty-four years of age) was for Soviet

planners an increasing cause of concern. Additions to the workingage population peaked in the 1970s, with a growth of almost 23

million; projected increases in the 1980s were expected to be onequarter that number, with a gradual improvement to one-half (11.6

million) in the 1990s. This slowed growth placed a strain on the

economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s by requiring continu- ous boosts in productivity (see Labor, ch. 11).

In 1985 the sexes were in rough balance, with a slight male

preponderance up to the population median age of 33.4 years. Beyond the median age, however, women outnumbered men in the

119
Soviet Union: A Country Study

AGE-GROUP

70 and over |

'

i 65-69 ! l/IALE 3 FEMALI =S 60-64

1

I ,1 55-59

50-54

i i i i '

45-49 40-44

35-39

r " m 1 30-34

25-29 If

, , , ,

, i

1 20-24 L-t— \

\

' , ~"

-

15-19

\\ r 4hh rmi »i

10-14 ! ; ' -

5-9

. , . ,

1 0-4 i

, i r t \ 1 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 POPULATION IN MILLIONS

Source: Based on information from "Naselenie SSSR," Vestnik statistiki [Moscow], No. 12, December 1987, 44.

Figure 8. Population Distribution by Age and Sex, 1987

population and in the work force. In some professions and eco- nomic sectors (health care, trade, food services, social services, and

physical education, for example), more than 80 percent of all workers were women.

Mortality and Fertility

Between 1970 and 1986, the mortality rate in the Soviet Union

increased from 8.2 per 1,000 to 9.8 per 1,000. Some of this in- crease was attributable to the aging of the population, as the number of old-age (fifty-five for women, sixty for men) pensioners grew

from 36.5 million to 47.4 million. Other factors, however, contributed to this upswing, one of the most disturbing of which was

an increase in the mortality of infants and able-bodied men. The

male mortality increase was highlighted by the almost ten-year

differential in male and female life expectancies. Intense urbanization and the attendant pressures of living and working in an ur- ban environment undoubtedly exacerbated the mortality rate. As

in most developed countries, the leading causes of death in the Soviet

Union were cardiovascular diseases, malignant tumors, and injuries and accidents. Suicide cases in 1987 were officially recorded

at 54,105, or 19.1 per 100,000 population.

120
Physical Environment and Population

Under Gorbachev a concerted effort has been made to reduce

mortality and improve productivity. The government initiated active campaigns to limit the number of deaths from accidents and

chronic degenerative diseases by drastically curtailing the availability of alcohol and by attempting to persuade the more than 70

million (in 1986 about 25 percent of the population) smokers to renounce the habit. The overall health of the population, the state of Soviet health care, and the environment became recurrent topics

of open discussion and debate. By 1986 these measures seemed to be having some effect: one year was added to average male life expectancy, and mortality started to decline. Some Soviet demographers stressed, however, that long-term improvements would

only be ensured by focusing on four factors that they believed to be major determinants of the level of mortality: the quality of life, including working and living conditions, nutrition, and clothing;

the quality of the environment; the quality and accessibility of health

care; and the people's sanitary and hygienic habits.

In the 1970-78 intercensal period, overall fertility rates in the

Soviet Union declined slightly. Regionally, however, there were

sharp differences. In Soviet Central Asia, for example, women consistently expected to have at least twice as many children as their

counterparts in the European part of the Russian Republic. The

Caucasus region registered rates between these two extremes. The

government addressed the issue of declining fertility by enacting

a series of measures in the late 1970s and early 1980s aimed at making it easier for women to cope with the onerous burden of being

mother, wife, and worker (see Population Problems and Policies,

this ch.; Role of Women, ch. 5). Urbanization

In a span of over seventy years, the Soviet Union has undergone a transition from a largely rural agricultural society to an urban

industrial society. In 1917 only about 17 percent of the population

lived in cities or urban settlements; in 1961 the urban and rural

population was in balance; and by 1987 two of every three Soviet

citizens were urban dwellers (see table 10, Appendix A).

The levels of urbanization in 1989 highlighted the uneven development of the regions and nationalities. The populations of the

Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Russian republics were 70 per- cent urbanized, approximating levels found in Western Europe and

the United States. Four of the five Central Asian republics (the

Kirgiz, Tadzhik, Uzbek, and Turkmen republics), however, con- tinued to have a majority of the population living in rural areas, and the Tadzhik Republic's 33 percent rate of urbanization was

121
Soviet Union: A Country Study

only slightly higher than that of Albania. In the European part,

the Moldavian Republic with a rural majority was an exception

to the rule of higher rates of urbanization.

Until the early 1980s, the growth of large cities and the concentration of industry there went mosdy unchecked. However, because

of such problems as a chronic housing shortage, pollution, and a

declining birth rate, authorities attempted to exercise greater control over migration to the major cities; among other things, the

government encouraged greater development and growth in small

and medium-sized cities. Nevertheless, the scope and tempo of bigcity growth has continued. In 1970 ten cities had a population of

1 million or more, but in 1989 the number had risen to twentythree (see table 11, Appendix A). Most of these cities, including

the three largest—Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev—were located

west of the Urals. Only five of the largest cities were east of the

Urals, and the largest city in the entire eastern half of the Soviet

Union (beyond the Yenisey River) was Vladivostok (615,000 in- habitants in 1987).

Despite its size and the length of its coastline, the Soviet Union's

global position and climate have restricted the number of seaports

to fewer than a dozen key cities (Leningrad, Odessa, Murmansk,

and Vladivostok, among them). Many of the largest cities, however,

are located on water, primarily on rivers, that have long been powerful settlement-forming influences and key transportation arteries. The Volga and its tributaries remain the key geographic features

toward which people and commerce continue to gravitate. Two of

the youngest and fastest growing cities, Tol'yatti and Naberezhnyye

Chelny, were boom towns that sprang up in the 1970s around giant

automobile and truck plants on the Volga and Kama rivers, respectively.

Migration

Two aspects of the Soviet system tended to act as impediments

to voluntary migration: state ownership of the land and, in theory

at least, a rigid system of internal passports that regulated where

people live and work. Despite these impediments, in the 1980s approximately 15 million citizens (5 percent of the total population), some with the state's approval and some without it, changed their

place of residence each year. The overwhelming majority of the

migrants were young males sixteen years of age and older. Many

of these were students. Millions of pioneers arrived at or departed

from newly explored territories in western Siberia or the Soviet

Far East. Many of the migrants abandoned the hard work and

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Physical Environment and Population

simple life on state farms and collective farms for the better pay

and amenities of the largest cities. By far the largest percentage of migration (40 percent) has been

from villages to cities: for example, between 1959 and 1979 the

agricultural work force in the nonchernozem region of the Russian Republic declined by 40 percent as a result of movement to

cities. Since the Bolshevik Revolution, the urban population grew

by almost 85 million people as a result of in-migration from rural areas alone. Between 1970 and 1979, more than 3 million people

left the countryside annually, and just 1.5 million moved in the

opposite direction. A substantial proportion of migration (34 percent) took place from city to city.

The pervasive influence of the severe climate exerted pressure on migration patterns. In some parts of Siberia, the climate and

working conditions were so harsh that shifts were set up, based on the recommendations of medical authorities, to return workers

to more hospitable climes after a tour of two or three years. As

an incentive to attract workers to sparsely settled areas such as western Siberia, the government established a system of bonuses

and added credit toward retirement. Between 1970 and 1985,

migration patterns began to adapt to the needs of the national econ- omy, and the long-standing maldistribution of natural and human

resources began to improve. The incentives helped to reverse, at least temporarily, the negative migration stream out of Siberia in

the first part of the 1970s. Still, the age- sex structure of the newly

exploited areas was one typical for frontiers. Disproportionate numbers of young males made the area far from conducive for establishing a stable population base and labor force. In the 1980s, the government continued to find it difficult to stimulate migration out of the southern parts of the country and

into the northern and eastern sections of the Soviet Union. Contrary to the desired migratory pattern, the areas with the greatest

levels of mobility were generally those with the lowest birth rates, in particular the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian republics. In Soviet Central Asia, where birth

rates were considerably higher, the levels of migration and population mobility were low. These demographic patterns were not

seen by planners as contributing to the long-term solution of labor

supply problems stemming from labor deficiencies in the central

European region and labor surpluses in Soviet Central Asia.

Because the government continued to maintain tight control over migration into or out of the country, between 1970 and 1985 the

population remained largely a "closed" one, in which increases or

decreases as a result of immigration or emigration were insignificant.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

According to figures released in 1989, some 140,000 persons

emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1987 and 1988. Authorities

expected the rate to stabilize at about 60,000 to 70,000 per year. Overall, observers estimated that as many as 500,000 emigres,

mostly Jews, Armenians, Germans, and Poles, were allowed to leave

between 1960 and 1985.

Distribution and Density

Because so much of its territory is poorly suited for human habitation, the Soviet Union on the whole is a sparsely populated country. In 1987 it registered an average density of twelve inhabitants

per square kilometer. The density varied greatly by region, however

(see fig. 9). In the mid-1980s, the density of the European portion

of the Soviet Union was thirty-four inhabitants per square kilo- meter, about the same as in the American South. The republics

with the greatest population density were the Moldavian, Armenian, and Ukrainian republics (see table 12, Appendix A).

Moskovskaya Oblast, largely because of its historical, cultural,

and political significance and the presence in it of the Moscow urban

metropolitan area, was one of the country's most thickly settled

oblasts. Despite attempts to limit the capital's growth, Moscow con- tinued to attract numerous migrants each year. The entire region

between the Volga and Oka rivers had a high concentration of set- tlements. The most sparsely populated regions of the country have

persistently been in the Far North, which is considerably more

sparsely settled than Alaska.

The "center of gravity" of the population is gradually moving

in a southeasterly direction and in the mid-1980s was located west

of the Urals just below the city of Kuybyshev. The main belt of set- tlement forms a wedge whose base is a line going from Leningrad

to the Moldavian Republic. In the European part of the Soviet

Union, its northern boundary runs through the cities of Cherepovets,

Vologda, and Perm'; the southern arm passes through Kherson,

Rostov-na-Donu, Volgograd, and Chelyabinsk. Significant concentrations of population outside this wedge were found in the Caucasus and in Central Asia. The roughly 10 percent of the population

in Siberia was concentrated in a rather narrow belt surrounding the

two major transportation arteries of the Trans-Siberian Railway (see

Glossary) and the Baykal-Amur Main Line (BAM—see Glossary)

and in the energy-producing region of western Siberia. Future population growth and settlement in Siberia and the Soviet Far East for the most part was expected to take place in the environs of the BAM.

The rural population was also concentrated in the southern and

central sections of the European part. Densities of more than 100

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Physical Environment and Population

persons per square kilometer were found in the Dnestr River Valley and in several parts of the Ukrainian Republic, the Soviet

Union's traditional breadbasket. Rural population density tapered

off in the taiga zone and sharply diminished in the tundra of the

European north. The arid steppes and semideserts in the southeast

European part were lightly settled. Starting in the 1970s, an active campaign was mounted to reduce

and consolidate the number of rural populated places in the Soviet

Union. The number of rural places in the nonchernozem region

of the Russian Republic alone declined from 180,000 to 118,000

between 1959 to 1979. Nationally, a reasonable estimate of the numbers of phased-out ("future-less settlements" in Russian) populated places, most with fewer than 200 inhabitants, was more than

100,000.

The ninth, tenth, and eleventh five-year plans (1971-85) provided

for stimulating further economic development and settlement in

Siberia and the Soviet Far East. Under Gorbachev, reports indicated a possible change in emphasis to stress modernization and

intensification of production by using existing capacity in the

European portion.

Marriage, Divorce, and the Family

As early as the mid-1970s, open acknowledgment and frank dis- cussions of demographic problems in the Soviet Union began to take place. The family, as

4 'the key social unit," was at the center of these discussions. For many years, population growth was taken

for granted. In the 1970s, however, authorities became concerned

about declining birth rates in the European part of the Soviet Union,

especially among Russians. In addition to urbanization and industrialization, other factors affecting family size were rising divorce

rates, an acute shortage of housing, and poor health care. Another

factor was that Slavic women had the world's highest abortion rates. The Twenty-Fifth Party Congress of the Communist Party of

the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1976 was the first to recognize that

the Soviet Union had a demographic problem, and it proposed measures to deal with "the aggravation of the demographic situa- tion." Two key areas pertaining to the family were mentioned as contributing to an intensification of population problems: the lowering of birth rates to levels below those necessary for replacement

and for guaranteeing an adequate supply of labor; and continuing

high rates of divorce. The Twenty-Sixth Party Congress (1981)

and the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress (1986) established a

pronatalist policy that probably accounted for a slight upswing in

fertility as the decade progressed.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

126
Physical Environment and Population

In the 1970s and 1980s, some population problems were associated with a developmental trend that the socialist system had traditionally encouraged, i.e., urbanization and industrialization. The

demographic price for this process is normally paid in declining

birth rates and shrinking family sizes. An efficient modern econ- omy ordinarily can adjust to a smaller work force. The Soviet econ- omy, however, has remained relatively labor intensive in the key

agricultural and industrial sectors, and as a result there were labor

shortages in many of the larger cities. The 1979 census registered more than 66 million families; by

the mid-1980s there were about 70 million families. In 1979 the

overwhelming majority (86.2 percent) of urban families consisted

of two to four members. In the urban areas of the European part,

in particular, the trend was to limit the number of children to two

and in many cases to only one. In 1979 about 60 percent of the

families with children under eighteen years of age had only one

child; 33 percent had two children. The negative consequences of

this trend, especially in the European part of the country, led the

government to begin an active campaign to encourage families to have a third child. Population Problems and Policies

Unless unfavorable trends can be reversed, the Soviet Union

eventually will have to deal with the threat of depopulation in much

of the European portion of the Russian Republic and in the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian republics,

the very political, military, and economic base of the country. Persistently low birth rates and a sharp downward trend in family size among most Soviet Europeans has been the root cause. The pat- tern became more obvious, and the alarms became louder, in the

late 1970s and 1980s.

The declining Russian representation in the multinational Soviet

population has caused great concern. Such a trend has serious in- ternational and national political, economic, social, and military

implications. For example, with fewer native speakers of Russian,

it becomes progressively more difficult to maintain Russian as the

national language. As the Russian language declines in importance,

the challenge of both raising the national level of education and

training a skilled labor force becomes more complicated and costly.

The armed forces, as well, face the prospect of adding to their ranks

a smaller percentage of Soviet Europeans and a greater share of

Soviet Asians, who may not serve with the dedication of the Slavs

and whose service imposes additional demands on the military in

terms of special training to improve communications skills.

127

Village in the Tadzhik Republic near Dushanbe at the foot of the Hissar

Mountains about 160 kilometers north of the Afghan frontier Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

In the 1970s and 1980s, the government introduced some key

initiatives that were intended to ameliorate demographic difficulties: occupations restricted to males for health and safety reasons were expanded; maternity leave was extended to one year after the

birth (eight weeks fully paid), and the leave was counted as ser- vice time; lump-sum cash payments for each birth were provided,

with higher premiums for the third and fourth child; child support

payments to low-income families were increased; and families were

to be given preferential treatment in the assignment of housing and

other services.

At the same time, campaigns were introduced aimed at raising

overall ' 'demographic literacy" (developing a citizenry better in- formed about the national demographic situation) and improving

public health. By far the most publicized and most controversial

of these campaigns was the attack on alcoholism and public

drunkenness. The sale of alcoholic beverages was sharply curtailed

in the mid-1980s. Soviet authorities felt that the elimination of this traditional social ill would have an immediate and direct impact on demographic processes by eliminating a major cause of divorce

and premature disability and death. In addition, promoting safe and healthful working and living conditions was one of the chief

aims of the growing numbers of officials and citizens concerned

with the environment.

The success of these government measures remained in doubt

in 1989. Persuasive evidence supported the view that patterns of

urbanization, extreme reluctance to migrate, and higher fertility rates in Soviet Central Asia have continued. These demographic

patterns, together with the strengths and limitations of the physical environment, have affected such critical issues as the cohesion

of the Soviet federation and its nationality representation, the

acutely uneven distribution of natural and human resources, in- vestment in industrial development, and the character and composition of the work force and the military.

* * * By far the most important English-language source of current information on the geography and population of the Soviet Union

is the monthly journal Soviet Geography. Much of the information

in the chapter derives from the excellent articles in this journal, some of which were written by its founder and editor, Theodore

Shabad, who was, until his death in 1987, the foremost expert on

the subject in the United States. Some standard texts on the geography of the Soviet Union are Paul E. Lydolph's Geography of the

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Physical Environment and Population

U.S.S.R; J. P. Cole's Geography of the Soviet Union; David Hooson's

The Soviet Union: People and Regions; G. Melvyn Howe's The Soviet Union: A Geographical Study; and William Henry Parker's The Soviet Union. Pending publication of the final results of the 1989 all-union census, the most important source of data on the Soviet population has been the statistical handbook Naselenie SSSR, 1987. In re- cent years, more information has been made available to both

Western and Soviet scholars on demographic developments in the

Soviet Union. As of 1989, among the experts on the subject in the

United States were Murray Feshbach, Stephen Rapawy, and W.

Ward Kingkade. All three, especially Feshbach, have written ex- tensively on various aspects of Soviet population (fertility, mortality, age and sex structure, and ethnicity). Particularly valuable was Kingkade 's article

' 'Demographic Trends in the Soviet Union."

(For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

131

Chapter 4. Nationalities and Religions
People of various nationalities and religions
ON FEBRUARY 17, 1988, General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev declared that the nationalities question in the Soviet Union

was a "crucially important vital question" of the times. He went on to call for a "very thorough review' ' of Soviet nationalities policy, an acknowledgment of the failure of the past Soviet regimes'

attempts to solve the problem of nationalities that was inherited

from tsarist Russia. With remarkable candor, Gorbachev admitted that the problem not only still existed but that it was more acute than ever. For close to seventy years, Soviet leaders had maintained that

frictions among the many nationalities of the Soviet Union had

been eliminated and that the Soviet Union consisted of a family

of nations living harmoniously together, each national culture adding to and enriching the new Soviet culture and promoting the development of a single Soviet nationality. However, the national

ferment that shook almost every corner of the Soviet Union in the

late 1980s proved that seventy years of communist rule had failed to obliterate national and ethnic differences and that traditional

cultures and religions would reemerge given the slightest opportunity. This unpleasant reality facing Gorbachev and his colleagues

meant that, short of relying on the traditional use of force, they

had to find alternative solutions in order to prevent the disintegration of the Soviet empire. Whether they succeed or fail in this task

will, to a large degree, determine the future of the Soviet Union.

The extensive multinational empire that the Bolsheviks (see Glossary) inherited after their revolution was created by tsarist expansion over some four centuries. Some nationality groups came into

the empire voluntarily, but most were brought in by force. Generally, the Russians and most of the non-Russian subjects of the

empire shared litde in common—culturally, religiously, or linguistically. More often than not, two or more diverse nationalities were

collocated on the same territory. Therefore, national antagonisms

built up over the years not only against the Russians but often

among some of the subject nations as well. Like its tsarist predecessor, the Soviet state has remained ethnically complex (see fig. 10). Indeed, the distinctions between the

various nationalities of the Soviet Union have sharpened during

the Soviet period. The concessions granted national cultures and

the limited autonomy tolerated in the union republics (see Glossary) in the 1920s led to the development of national elites and a

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

136
Nationalities and Religions

heightened sense of national identity. Subsequent repression and

Russianization (see Glossary) fostered resentment against domination by Moscow and promoted further growth of national consciousness. National feelings were also exacerbated in the Soviet

multinational state by increased competition for resources, services,

and jobs.

Nationalities of the Soviet Union

The official Soviet census of 1989 listed over 100 nationalities

in the Soviet Union (see table 13, Appendix A). Each had its own

history, culture, and language. Each possessed its own sense of national identity and national consciousness. The position of each

nationality in the Soviet Union depended to a large degree on its size, the percentage of the people using the national language as

their first language, the degree of its integration into the Soviet

society, and its territorial-administrative status. This position was

also dependent on each nationality's share of membership in the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the number of stu- dents in higher institutions, the number of scientific workers, and

the degree of urbanization of each nationality.

The various nationalities differed gready in size. On the one

hand, the Russians, who constituted about 50.8 percent of the population, numbered about 145 million in 1989. On the other hand,

half of the nationalities listed in the census together accounted for only 0.5 percent of the total population, most of them having fewer

than 100,000 people. Twenty-two nationalities had more than 1 million people each. Fifteen of the major nationalities had their

own union republics, which together comprised the federation

known as the Soviet Union.

The nationalities having union republic status commanded more

political and economic power than other nationalities and found

it easier to maintain their own language and culture. In 1989 some

nationalities formed an overwhelming majority within their own

republics; one nationality (the Kazakhs), however, lacked even a

majority. In addition to the fifteen nationalities having union republics, some others had their own territorial units, such as autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts, and autonomous okruga (see

table 14, Appendix A). The remaining nationalities did not have

territorial units of their own and in most cases only constituted

minorities in the Russian Republic (see table 15, Appendix A).

The nationalities that have had a significant political and eco- nomic impact on the Soviet Union include the fifteen nationalities

that have their own union republics and the non-union republic

nationalities that numbered at least 1 million people in 1989. They

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

are the Slavic nationalities, the Baltic nationalities, the nationalities of the Caucasus, the Central Asian nationalities, and a few

other nationalities.

Slavic Nationalities

Since the establishment of the Soviet Union, the most dominant

group of people numerically, politically, culturally, and economically have been the Slavs, particularly the East Slavs. Although

little is known of the early history of the Slavs, they had by the

seventh century A.D. divided into three distinguishable groups:

the West Slavs, ancestors of the Poles, the Czechs, and the Slovaks;

the South Slavs, ancestors of the Bulgarians, the Slovenes, the Serbs,

and the Croatians; and the East Slavs, ancestors of the Russians,

the Ukrainians, and the Belorussians. The East Slavic tribes set- tled along the Dnepr River in the present-day Ukrainian Republic in the first centuries after the birth of Christ and from there

spread northward and eastward. In the ninth century, these tribes

became part of the foundation of Kievan Rus', the medieval state of the East Slavs ruled by a Varangian dynasty (see The East Slavs

and the Varangians, ch. 1). The East Slavs enhanced their political union in the tenth cen- tury when they adopted Christianity as the state religion of Kievan

Rus'. Nevertheless, tribal and regional differences persisted and

became more marked as the realm of Kievan Rus' expanded. To

the northwest, East Slavic tribes mixed with the local Baltic tribes,

while in the north and northeast they mixed with the indigenous

Finno-Ugric tribes. By the time Kievan Rus' began to disintegrate

into a number of independent principalities in the twelfth century,

the East Slavs were evolving into three separate people linguistically and culturally: Russians to the north and northeast of Kiev,

Belorussians to the northwest of Kiev, and Ukrainians around Kiev

itself and to the south and southwest of Kiev. This process of ethnic differentiation and consolidation was accelerated by the Mongol

invasion of Kievan Rus' and its collapse as a political entity in the

thirteenth century. For several centuries, the three East Slavic nationalities remained related culturally, linguistically, and to a great extent religiously. Nevertheless, each of them has been influenced

by different political, economic, religious, and social developments,

further separating them from each other (see The Rise of Regional

Centers, ch. 1). Russians

Russians have been the largest and most dominant nationality

in both the Soviet Union and its predecessors, the Russian Empire

138
Nationalities and Religions

\ and Muscovy. From the time of Muscovy's rise as the dominant

principality in the northeast of the territory of Kievan Rus', a Russian state continually extended its territory and enabled Ivan III (1462-1505) to proclaim himself "Ruler of all Rus'." Peter the

Great (1682-1725) established the Russian Empire, which by the

end of the nineteenth century reached the Baltic Sea in the northwest and the Black Sea in the southwest, the Pacific Ocean in the

east, and the Pamirs in the south (see fig. 3). The Romanov

Dynasty, which promoted Russian administrative control over the

disparate nationalities in its domain, ruled for three centuries until

it was overthrown in February 1917 (according to the Julian calendar (see Glossary); March 1917 according to the Gregorian calendar). After the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in October 1917

(November 1917), Russian domination of political, economic, and

cultural life in the Soviet Union continued despite the rule of

Joseph V. Stalin, who was Georgian by birth. Yet throughout their

history, Russians themselves were subjected to oppressive rulers,

whether tsarist or communist. Particularly devastating since the

advent of communist rule in November 1917 were the Civil War

(1918-21), forced collectivization and industrialization, the Great

Terror (see Glossary), and World War II, each of which resulted

in extreme hardship and loss of great numbers of Russian people.

According to the 1989 census, some 145 million Russians constituted just over half of the population of the Soviet Union, although

their share of the total has been declining steadily. A low fertility rate among the Russians and a considerably higher fertility rate among the peoples of Soviet Central Asia may make Russians a minority nationality by the year 2000.

Most Russians lived in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist

Republic (Russian Republic), an immense area occupying threefourths of the Soviet Union and stretching from Eastern Europe

across the Ural Mountains and Siberia to the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Pacific Ocean. Many other nationalities lived in the

Russian Republic. Sixteen of the twenty autonomous republics were

located here, as well as five of the eight autonomous oblasts and

all ten of the autonomous okruga. But Russians also constituted substantial minorities in the populations of most non-Russian union

republics in the Soviet Union (see table 16, Appendix A). Only

a small percentage of Russians claimed fluency in the languages

of the non-Russian republics in which they resided.

In the late 1980s, Russians were the second most urban nationality in the Soviet Union (only Jews were proportionally more

urbanized). Russians constituted about two-thirds of the entire

urban population of the Soviet Union; all major cities in the Soviet

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Union had a large Russian population. In addition, Moscow, the

largest city and capital of the Soviet Union, served as the administrative center for the Russian Republic. The domination by Russians has been evident in almost every phase of Soviet life and has

increased in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1972, 62.5 percent of the members of the Politburo, the highest organ of the CPSU, were Russians. In 1986 the percentage of Russians rose to 84.6 and then

to 89 in 1989. Generally, Russians were the party second secretaries and the chiefs of the Committee for State Security (Komitet

gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—KGB) in non-Russian republics.

Russians also constituted a majority of CPSU membership, amounting to about 61 percent in the 1980s. Only Jews and Georgians

have also had representation in the party that was higher than their

proportion of the population. Russian dominance of the CPSU has

also helped them dominate Soviet society.

Russians held a high percentage of the most important positions

in government, industry, agriculture, education, science, and the

arts, especially in the non-Russian republics. The number of Russians attending higher education institutions also was disproportionate to their share of the population. Only Jews, Armenians,

and Georgians had a proportionally higher number of students at these institutions.

Russian language and culture has had special status throughout

the Soviet Union. The Russian language has been the common

language in government organizations as well as in most economic,

social, and cultural institutions. Higher education in many fields has been provided almost exclusively in Russian, and mastery of

that language has been an important criterion for admission to in- stitutions of higher learning. Administrative and supervisory posts

in non-Russian republics were often held by Russians having littie knowledge of the native language. In 1986 Russian was the language used to publish 78 percent of the books by number of titles and 86 percent of the books by number of copies. The publication

of magazines and newspapers printed in Russian and in the other

indigenous languages has been equally disproportionate.

The homeland of about 119.8 million Russians and over 27 million non-Russian people, the Russian Republic also provided substantial industrial, agricultural, and natural resources to the Soviet

Union. Nevertheless, in 1989 the Russian Republic, alone among

the fifteen union republics, had no party apparatus separate from

that of the CPSU. The functions performed in non-Russian republics by republic-level CPSU organizations were performed for the

Russian Republic by the central agencies of the CPSU.

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Nationalities and Religions

Ukrainians

Ukrainians trace their ancestry to the East Slavic tribes that in- habited the present-day Ukrainian Republic in the first centuries

after the birth of Christ and were part of the state of Kievan Rus'

formed in the ninth century. For a century after the breakup

of Kievan Rus', the independent principalities of Galicia and

Volhynia served as Ukrainian political and cultural centers. In the

fourteenth century, Galicia was absorbed by Poland, and Volhynia,

together with Kiev, became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1569 Volhynia and Kiev also came under Polish rule, an

event that significantly affected Ukrainian society, culture, language, and religion. Ukrainian peasants, except for those who fled to join the cossacks (see Glossary) in the frontier regions southeast

of Poland, were enserfed. Many Ukrainian nobles were Polonized.

The continuous oppression of the Ukrainian people by the Polish

nobility led to a series of popular insurrections, culminating in 1648,

when Ukrainian Cossacks joined in a national uprising. Intermittent wars with Poland forced the Ukrainian Cossacks to place

Ukraine under the protection of the Muscovite tsar. A prolonged war between Muscovy and Poland followed, ending in 1667 with

a treaty that split Ukraine along the Dnepr River. Ukrainian ter- ritory on the right (generally western) bank of the Dnepr remained

under Poland, while Ukrainian territory on the left (generally

eastern) bank was placed under the suzerainty of the Muscovite

tsar. Although both segments of Ukraine were granted autonomous

status, Muscovy and Poland followed policies to weaken Ukrainian

autonomy. A number of uprisings by Ukrainian peasantry led to the crushing of the remainder of Ukrainian autonomy in Poland

(see Expansion and Westernization, ch. 1). Ukrainian self-rule under the tsar ended after Mazepa, the Ukrainian hetman (leader),

defected to the Swedish side during the war between Muscovy and

Sweden at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1775

Catherine the Great dispersed the Ukrainian Cossacks and enserfed

those Ukrainian peasants who had remained free. The partitions

of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century placed most of the

Ukrainian territory on the right bank of the Dnepr River under

Russian rule. The westernmost part of Ukraine (known as western

Ukraine) was incorporated into the Austrian Empire.

The resurgence of Ukrainian national consciousness in the nineteenth century was fostered by a renewed interest among intellectuals in Ukrainian history, culture, and language and the founding of

many scholarly, cultural, and social societies. The Russian government responded by harassing, imprisoning, and exiling leading

141
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Ukrainian intellectuals. Ukrainian academic and social societies were disbanded. Publications, plays, and concerts in Ukrainian were forbidden. Finally, the existence of a Ukrainian language and

nationality was officially denied. Nevertheless, a Ukrainian national

movement in the Russian Empire persisted, spurred partially by

developments in western Ukraine, where Ukrainians in the more

liberal Austrian Empire had far greater freedom to develop their

culture and language.

After the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 and the AustroHungarian Empire in 1918, Ukrainians in both empires proclaimed

their independence and established national republics. In 1919 the

two republics united into one Ukrainian national state. This unifi- cation, however, could not withstand the aggression of both the

Red and White Russian forces and the hostile Polish forces in

western Ukraine. Ukraine again was partitioned, with western

Ukraine incorporated into the new Polish state and the rest of

Ukraine established as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in

March 1919, which was later incorporated into the Soviet Union

when it was formed in December 1922.

In the decade of the 1920s, the Ukrainian Republic experienced

a period of Ukrainization. Ukrainian communists enjoyed a great

deal of autonomy in running the republic, and Ukrainian culture

and language dominated. Stalin's rise to power, however, halted

the process of Ukrainization. Consequentiy, Ukrainian intellectual and cultural elites were either executed or deported, and leading

Ukrainian party leaders were replaced by non-Ukrainians. The

peasantry was forcibly collectivized, leading to a mass famine in

1932-33 in which several million peasants starved to death. Pointing to the fact that grain was forcibly requisitioned from the peasantry despite the protests of the Soviet government in the Ukrainian

Republic, some historians believe that Stalin knowingly brought

about the famine to stop national ferment in the Ukrainian Republic

and break the peasants' resistance to collectivization. When western

Ukraine was incorporated into the Soviet Union following the NaziSoviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939, the population suffered terror and mass deportations.

When the Germans attacked the Soviet Union in 1941 , Ukrainians anticipated establishing an independent Ukraine. As the Red

Army retreated eastward, Ukrainian nationalists proclaimed an in- dependent state, but the invading Germans arrested and interned

its leaders. Ukrainian nationalist forces consequently began a

resistance movement against both the occupying Germans and the

Soviet partisans operating in the Ukrainian Republic. When the

Red Army drove the Germans out of the Ukrainian Republic,

142
Russian children on the train to Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia,

Russian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

Armenian family celebrating

the New Year at a fair in the central square, Yerevan, Armenian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Ukrainian partisans turned their struggle (which continued until

1950) against the Soviet armed forces (the name Red Army was

dropped just after the war) and Polish communist forces in western

Ukraine. The Soviet regime deported Ukrainian intelligentsia to Siberia and imported Russians into the Ukrainian Republic as part

of their pacification and Russification (see Glossary) efforts. The vast majority of Ukrainians, the second largest nationality

in the Soviet Union with about 44 million people in 1989, lived

in the Ukrainian Republic. Substantial numbers of Ukrainians also lived in the Russian, Kazakh, and Moldavian republics. Many non- Ukrainians lived in the Ukrainian Republic, where the Russians,

with over 11 million, constituted the largest group.

Ukrainians have a distinctive language, culture, and history. In

1989, despite strong Russifying influence, about 81.1 percent of

Ukrainians residing in their own republic claimed Ukrainian as their first language.

By the 1980s, the majority of Ukrainians, once predominantly

agrarian, lived in cities. The major Ukrainian cities in 1989 were

Kiev, the capital of the Ukrainian Republic, with a population of

2.6 million, and Khar'kov, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, and Donetsk,

all with over 1 million people.

Although Ukrainians constituted about 15 percent of the Soviet

Union's population in 1989, their educational and employment opportunities appeared unequal to their share of the population. In

the 1970s, they ranked only eleventh out of seventeen major nationalities (the nationalities corresponding to the fifteen union republics plus Jews and Tatars) in the number of students in secondary

and higher education and ninth in the number of scientific workers in proportion to their share of the total population. Since the

death of Stalin in 1953, the number of Ukrainians in the CPSU

has steadily increased. Nevertheless, Ukrainians remained underrepresented in the party relative to their share of the population.

This was particularly true in the Ukrainian Republic, where in

the 1970s the Ukrainian proportion of party membership was substantially below their proportion of the population. The percentage of Russians in the CPSU in the Ukrainian Republic, however, was considerably higher than their share of the republic's population. Although in the past Ukrainians had held a disproportionately high percentage of seats on the CPSU Central Committee,

since 1961 their share of membership in this body has steadily

declined to 13 percent of the seats in 1986.

Belorussians

The ancestors of present-day Belorussians were among those East

Slavic tribes that settled the northwestern part of Kievan Rus'

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Nationalities and Religions

territory, mixing with and assimilating the indigenous Baltic tribes. After the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century and the col- lapse of Kievan Rus', Belorussian lands, together with the greater

part of Ukraine, became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

When in 1569 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania joined in dynastic

union with Poland to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,

Belorussians shared with Poles and Lithuanians a common king

and parliament. For the next two centuries, Polish influence in

Belorussia was dominant. Belorussian nobles, seeking the same

privileges as their Polish counterparts, became Polonized and converted from Orthodoxy to Catholicism. Only the peasants retained

their Belorussian national culture and Orthodox religion.

With the partitions of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century, Belorussian lands passed to the Russian Empire. The tsarist government viewed Belorussians as simply backward, somewhat

Polonized, Russians. It persecuted those Belorussians who had become Uniates in 1596 and forced them to reconvert to Orthodoxy

(see Catholic, this ch.). Nevertheless, in the second half of the nineteenth century Belorussians experienced a national and political

revival and developed a renewed awareness of their separateness

from both the Poles and the Russians. The fledgling Belorussian

political movement at the turn of the century reached its zenith

during the February Revolution in 1917 and culminated in the

establishment of the Belorussian Democratic Republic in March

1918. The newly created republic had its independence guaranteed by the German military. But when Germany collapsed, the new republic was unable to resist Belorussian Bolsheviks, who were

supported by the Bolshevik government in Russia. OnJanuary 1, 1919, the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was established and was subsequendy incorporated into the Soviet Union. The western

portion of Belorussia was ceded to Poland. At the end of World

War II, that territory was incorporated into the Soviet Union.

Numerically the smallest of the three East Slavic nationalities,

Belorussians in 1989 numbered about 10 million people and constituted about 3.5 percent of the Soviet Union's total population,

making them the fourth largest nationality in the country. Although

most of them lived in the Belorussian Republic, over 1.2 million

Belorussians lived in the Russian Republic, with sizable Belorussian minorities in the Ukrainian, Kazakh, and Latvian republics.

Belorussians, like Russians and Ukrainians, speak an East Slavic

language. Prior to 1917, both Latin and Cyrillic (see Glossary)

alphabets were used, but subsequently Cyrillic became the official alphabet. In 1989 about 71 percent of Belorussians in the Soviet

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Union considered the Belorussian language their first language,

while the remainder considered Russian their native tongue.

In the late 1980s, the Belorussian Republic was the third most

urbanized in the Soviet Union, with 64 percent of the republic's

population residing in urban areas in 1987—a jump of 33 percent

from 1959. Of the Belorussian population in the Soviet Union,

about half lived in urban areas. This apparent anomaly was caused

chiefly by the large number of Russians residing in the republic's

cities. The capital and largest city in the Belorussian Republic,

Minsk, had a population of almost 1 .6 million people in 1989. Other

major cities were Gomel', Mogilev, Vitebsk, Grodno, and Brest,

all of which had populations of fewer than 500,000.

Although Belorussians were the fourth most prevalent nationality in the Soviet Union, they ranked only fifteenth in the number

of students in higher education institutions and tenth in the number of scientific workers in the Soviet Union. They have fared much

better in terms of sharing political power, however. Between 1970

and 1989, Belorussian membership in the CPSU has been fairly

representative of their share of the population. In the CPSU Central Committee, Belorussians have actually held a somewhat higher

percentage of full-member seats than warranted by their share of

population. Paradoxically, they have not fared so well in their own

republic. Although Belorussians made up 78.7 percent of the population of the republic in 1989, they had only 70 percent of the party

membership in the Belorussian Republic. Russians, however, with

only 12 percent of the population of the republic, constituted about

19 percent of the party membership.

Other Slavs

Poles made up the largest of the West Slavic nationalities in the

Soviet Union. Although their numbers have been declining, in 1989 over 1 million Poles remained. Most of them lived in the western

republics—the Belorussian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Latvian

republics. Bulgarians, belonging to the South Slavic group, numbered nearly 379,000 in 1989. A majority of the Bulgarians lived

in the Ukrainian Republic, with a large number residing also in

the Moldavian Republic. In the 1980s, small numbers of Czechs

and Slovaks (members of the West Slavic group) and Croatians

and Serbs (members of the South Slavic group) also lived in the

Soviet Union.

Baltic Nationalities

Although each is a separate and distinct nationality, the three

Baltic peoples share many characteristics and experiences. Residing

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Nationalities and Religions

in the northwestern corner of the Soviet Union, the Baltic peoples

have been the most Western oriented of all the Soviet nationalities. They have had a strong and highly developed national consciousness, primarily because of the historic German and Polish

influences and the religious heritage of western Europe. They were

the only non-Russian nationalities to have experienced significant

periods of political independence after World War I. It should be

noted that the United States government has not recognized the

incorporation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into the Soviet

Union. Although in 1989 the approximately 5.6 million members

of the three Baltic nationalities made up only a small fraction of

the Soviet population, they have achieved a higher level of eco- nomic and industrial development and social modernization than

any other peoples in the Soviet Union.

Lithuanians

The ancestors of modern Lithuanians first settled in the presentday Belorussian Republic around 2000 B.C. Beginning in the fourth

century A.D., Lithuanian tribes were steadily pushed northwest

by Slavic tribes until they occupied the territory of the presentday Lithuanian Republic. United into a loose monarchy by King

Mindaugas at the beginning of the thirteenth century, Lithuanians

began to expand south and east. By the mid-fourteenth century,

Lithuania had become one of the largest kingdoms in medieval

Europe. With Vilnius as its capital, Lithuania encompassed much

of what had been Kievan Rus', including the present-day Belorussian and Ukrainian republics.

The marriage of the Lithuanian king to the Polish queen in 1385

began a period of dynastic union that culminated in the creation

of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569. The union with

Poland had a profound influence on Lithuanians. For example,

Polonized Western culture was superimposed on native Lithuanian culture, Catholicism was established as the national religion,

and Lithuanian nobility was almost completely Polonized.

By the end of the eighteenth century, most of Lithuania, along

with parts of Poland, was incorporated into the Russian Empire.

The remaining part of Lithuania, known as Lithuania Minor, be- came part of Prussia. After the Lithuanian national revival of the

nineteenth century emerged in Lithuania Minor, it spread to the

rest of Lithuania. When the Poles rose in an anti-tsarist, antiRussian revolt in 1830, Lithuanians joined them. They did so again

in 1863. And during the Revolution of 1905 in Russia, the Assembly of Vilnius raised the question of Lithuanian autonomy. By

the time of the revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War that followed,

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Lithuanians strove for nothing less than national independence.

To reach that goal, they had to fight not only the Red Army but

also the Germans and the Poles.

The independent Lithuanian state that emerged after the struggle was a democratic republic. It lasted until 1926, when it was

toppled by rightist forces, which then established a form of benevolent dictatorship. That government lasted until 1940, when Lithuania was absorbed by the Soviet Union following the Nazi-Soviet

Nonaggression Pact of 1939. Thousands of Lithuanians were

deported eastward by the Soviet government, the country's econ- omy was nationalized, the peasantry was collectivized, and Catholic

believers and Lithuanian intellectuals were persecuted. Not surprisingly, Lithuanians, like other nationalities in the western regions

of the Soviet Union, greeted the attacking German army in 1941

as liberators. When the Germans refused to recognize their independence, however, Lithuanian nationalists engaged in underground

resistance and partisan activity against them. After the Red Army's

recapture of Lithuania in 1944, nationalists turned against the Russians. Guerrilla warfare against Soviet occupation did not end until

the late 1940s.

In 1989 an overwhelming majority of the approximately 3 million Lithuanians resided in the Lithuanian Republic, the largest

of the three Baltic republics. Small communities of Lithuanians were also in other republics. Although Lithuanians have resisted

emigration, they have not been able to prevent immigration of Russians and other nationalities into the Lithuanian Republic. Lithuanians constituted about 80 percent of the residents of the republic

in 1989, while Russians and Poles made up most of the remainder.

Lithuanians speak an Indo-European language that is distinct

from both the Germanic and the Slavic languages. In 1989 the vast majority of Lithuanians considered Lithuanian their first language.

In 1987 about half of all Lithuanians were urban residents. But

because a large number of Russians in the Lithuanian Republic

lived in the cities, about 67 percent of the population of the republic was urban. The largest city in Lithuania was Vilnius, the capital of the republic, with a population of about 582,000 in 1989.

Four other cities had populations of over 100,000. Relative to their

share of the Soviet population, Lithuanians ranked high in terms

of education and technological advancement. Although Lithuanians were the twelfth most populous nationality in the Soviet Union,

they ranked seventh in the 1970s in both the number of students

in higher education institutions and the number of scientific workers. Lithuanian membership in the CPSU was not in equal

ratio to Lithuanians' share of the population. Also, Lithuanian

148
Panoramic view of Riga, Latvian Republic

Courtesy Jonathan Tetzlaff

representation on the CPSU Central Committee has been less than

their share of the population. Native Lithuanians, however, have

in the past held the most important positions in the party in the

Lithuanian Republic.

Latvians

Like the Lithuanians, Latvians are descended from the tribes

that migrated into the Baltic area during the second millennium

B.C. Subsequently, they mixed with the indigenous Finno-Ugric

tribes and formed a loose defensive union of Latvian tribes. Until

the end of the thirteenth century, these tribes were preoccupied

with the constant threat of invasion and subjugation, first by the

Vikings and the Slavs and later by the Germans. Early in the thir- teenth century, the Germanic Order of the Brethren of the Sword

forcibly began to convert the pagan Latvians to Christianity. They

were finally subdued by the Livonian Order of the Teutonic

Knights, which then established the Livonian Confederation, a state controlled by landowning German barons and Catholic clergy but

with no strong central authority. The Latvian people were reduced

to enserfed peasants. By the end of the sixteenth century, the power

of the Teutonic Knights had weakened considerably, and Latvia was partitioned between Sweden and Poland, with only the Duchy

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

of Courland remaining autonomous under the Polish crown. Russia, desiring to reach the Baltic Sea, also wanted Latvian territory.

These desires were realized in the reign of Peter the Great, when

Sweden was forced to cede its Latvian territory to Russia. With

the partitions of Poland in the late eighteenth century, the remainder

of Latvia fell under Russian control. In the nineteenth century,

Latvians experienced the same period of national reawakening as the other nations in European Russia.

When the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917, Latvians sought

national autonomy. Overrun by the German army, and formally

ceded to Germany by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918,

Latvian nationalists overcame both German and Soviet Russian

forces before they established an independent Latvian Republic

later in 1918. Latvian independence lasted until 1940, when the

Latvians, like the Lithuanians and Estonians, were forced first to allow Soviet troops to be stationed on their soil and then to accept a communist government. Shortly thereafter, Latvia was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Thousands of Latvians were killed or deported by the Soviet regime in 1940 and 1941 and again after the Red Army drove the Germans out of Latvia at the end of World

War II. The Latvian peasantry was forcibly collectivized. Like the

Lithuanians, Latvians carried on a guerrilla war against the Soviet

occupation forces until 1948.

The vast majority of the almost 1.5 million Latvians in the Soviet

Union in 1989 lived in the Latvian Republic, but they constituted a bare majority (52 percent) in their own republic. Russians made

up almost 34 percent of the republic's population, with about twice

as many Russians residing in the Latvian Republic as in the

Estonian Republic or the Lithuanian Republic. The rest of the

population consisted of considerable numbers of Belorussians,

Ukrainians, and Poles.

The Latvian language is a distinct language, although it belongs

to the same group of Indo-European languages as Lithuanian. The

first books in Latvian appeared in the early seventeenth century,

but literary Latvian was not fully established as a national language until the nineteenth century. In 1989 about 95 percent of

all Latvians in the Soviet Union and 97.4 percent of those living

in the Latvian Republic claimed Latvian as their first language.

The Latvian Republic was one of the most urbanized republics

in the Soviet Union. In 1989 about 70 percent of its population

resided in urban areas, which made it the third most urban republic.

The most populous city was the capital, Riga, with about 915,000

people; two other cities had over 100,000 people each. Latvian cities have become very Russified, however, by the continuous influx

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Nationalities and Religions

of Russians. The Latvian Republic also has a highly educated population. In 1986 the republic ranked fourth in the proportion of people

with higher or secondary education. The more urbanized Russians

in the republic, however, reaped most of the benefits of higher education. In the early 1970s, Latvians ranked only twelfth in the number of students in higher and secondary education and sixth in the

number of scientific workers compared with their share of the Soviet

population.

In 1984 the percentage of Latvians in the CPSU in the Latvian

Republic was well below the percentage of Latvians in the republic. In the past, non-Latvians or Russified Latvians, some of whom

could no longer speak Latvian, have held the top posts in the party

leadership of the republic.

Estonians

Although they have a shared history with the Lithuanians and

Latvians, Estonians are ethnically related to the Finns. The FinnoUgric tribes from which Estonians are descended migrated into the

present-day Estonian Republic thousands of years ago. They maintained a separate existence and fought off invaders until the thir- teenth century, when they were subdued by Germans and Danes.

With the Danish presence in Estonia more nominal than real, German control of Estonia lasted into the sixteenth century. Estonian

nobility was Germanized, and the peasantry was enserfed. Attempts

by German clergy to Christianize the Estonian peasantry were

firmly rebuffed, and it was not until the eighteenth century that

most of the Estonian population was finally converted to Lutheranism.

During the sixteenth century, Russians, Swedes, and Poles fought

for control of Estonia. Victorious Sweden held Estonia until the

beginning of the eighteenth century, when it was forced to cede

Estonia to Russia. By the beginning of the nineteenth century,

Estonia, granted autonomy under its own nobility, abolished serf- dom and enjoyed a period of national reawakening that lasted for

most of the century. In 1880, when the Russian government in- troduced a Russification policy for Estonia, the national conscious- ness had progressed too far to accept it. In 1918 Estonian

nationalists, after fighting both the Germans and the Russians,

declared the independence of Estonia. With the exception of a fouryear period of dictatorship, Estonia flourished as a democracy until

1940, when the Soviet Union absorbed it along with the other two

Baltic states. The Estonians suffered the same fate as the Lithuanians and Latvians. The Estonian peasantry was collectivized, and

the Estonian national elite was imprisoned, executed, or exiled.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Altogether about 10 percent of the Estonian population was deported eastward. The remaining population was subjected to a policy of Russification, made easier by the large influx of Russians

into the republic.

In 1989 Estonians were numerically the smallest nationality to have their own republic. According to the 1989 census, just over

1 million Estonians lived in the Soviet Union, fewer than nationalities without their own republics, such as the Tatars, Germans, Jews,

Chuvash, Bashkirs, and Poles. Almost 94 percent of the Estonians

lived in the Estonian Republic, the smallest and northernmost of

the three Baltic republics. In 1989 it had a population of almost 1 .6 million, of which Estonians made up just over 61 percent. The

largest national minority in the Estonian Republic was the Russians, constituting over 30 percent of the population. A small Es- tonian population resided in the Russian Republic.

Estonians, like Finns, speak a language that belongs to the FinnoUgric group of languages. Like the other two Baltic nationalities,

Estonians use the Latin alphabet. Of the three Baltic nationalities,

Estonians have been the most tenacious in preserving their own

language. In the 1989 census, 95.5 percent of the Estonians in the

Soviet Union and 98.9 percent of those residing in the Estonian

Republic considered Estonian their first language.

Estonians, the majority of whom live in cities and towns, ranked

as one of the most urbanized peoples in the Soviet Union. In 1989

the Estonian Republic was the second most urbanized republic,

with over 70 percent of its population residing in urban areas. However, only two cities in the Estonian Republic had a population of over 50,000: Tallin (482,000), the capital of the republic,

and Tartu (115,000).

The Estonian Republic ranked sixth among the republics in the

number of citizens with secondary and higher education per thousand people. Within the Estonian Republic, the percentage of

Estonians among the educated elite was very high, particularly in

cultural and educational fields. Estonians also ranked high in the

number of scientific workers. Whereas Estonians have dominated

the cultural fields in the republic, Russians have held political power

out of proportion to their share of the republic's population. Only

52 percent .of the party members in the Estonian Republic were

Estonians. In the past, Russians have not held the top posts in the

Estonian Republic's party leadership, but many of the top Estonian

leaders in the party were highly Russified.

Nationalities of the Caucasus

A small mountainous region in the southwestern portion of the

Soviet Union known as the Caucasus has been the home to three

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Nationalities and Religions

major nationalities—the Armenians, Georgians, and Azerbaydzhanis—and to twenty-four minor nationalities. The three major

nationalities had their own union republics along the southern slopes

of the Caucasus Mountains, sometimes known as the Transcaucasus. The other nationalities resided in their own autonomous

republics or autonomous oblasts, mostly along the northern slopes

of the Caucasus Mountains, or lived scattered within the boundaries of the three Caucasian republics or the Russian Republic.

Over 15.7 million people, or 5.5 percent of the total population

of the Soviet Union in 1989, lived in the Caucasus, a region not

much larger than the territory of the three Baltic republics. Although

they have shared historical experiences, the three major nationalities of the Caucasus have far greater differences than the three Baltic

nationalities or the three East Slavic nationalities. The differences are particularly sharp between the Azerbaydzhanis and the Armenians and Georgians. The Turkic-speaking Azerbaydzhanis are Muslims. Culturally and historically linked to both Iran and

Turkey, they have not experienced independent statehood except

for a brief period after the fall of the tsarist government in 1917.

Both Armenians and Georgians have been Christian since the fourth

century, and their history of independent statehood dates back to

classical antiquity.

Armenians

The first Armenians inhabited the territory of the present-day

Armenian Republic as early as the seventh century B.C. The first Armenian state, however, came into existence in the second cen- tury B.C. At least part of Armenia was able to retain a degree of

independence until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when

it was divided between the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Savafid

Empire. The fate of the Armenians was particularly harsh in the

Ottoman Empire. Persecution of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks

reached its peak in 1915, when the government forcibly deported

Armenians to Syria and Mesopotamia. Estimates of Armenians

who were killed or otherwise perished at that time range as high

as 1.5 million people. Only a small number of Armenians—about

120,000—remained in Turkey in the 1970s.

The Armenian Republic encompasses the territory of Persian

Armenia, which was conquered by Russia in 1828. Here, as else- where in the Russian Empire, cultural nationalism of the nineteenth

century was an important factor in the development of Armenian

national consciousness. With the coming of the Bolshevik Revolution, Armenian nationalists joined the Georgians and the Azerbaydzhanis to form the short-lived Transcaucasian Federated

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Republic. By May 1918, the union of the three peoples broke up

into three independent republics. Armenian independence lasted

only until November 1920, when, with the help of the Red Army,

the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed. In March

1922, the republic joined again with Georgia and Azerbaydzhan

to form the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic,

which—together with the Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian

republics—joined to form the Soviet Union in December of that year. In December 1936, the Soviet government broke the federation into three separate union republics.

In the 1920s, the Soviet regime gave Armenians the same opportunity as it gave other nationalities to revitalize their culture

and language. The onset of Stalin's rule at the end of the 1920s,

however, brought dramatic changes. Together with forced collec- tivization of agriculture and rapid industrial development, the Soviet

regime tightened political controls over the Armenian people and

applied to them, as to others, its policy of Russification.

Two-thirds of the more than 4.6 million Armenians living in the

Soviet Union resided in the Armenian Republic, the smallest and

least populous of the three Caucasian republics. The Armenian

Republic was the most ethnically homogeneous of all the Soviet

republics. Over 93 percent of the population of the Armenian Republic in 1989 were Armenians. Only the Azerbaydzhanis formed a substantial national minority in Armenia. No other republic, however,

had such a large percentage of its nationals living outside its borders.

Large numbers of Armenians lived in the Azerbaydzhan, Georgian,

and Russian republics.

Armenians speak a unique Indo-European language, which uses an equally unique alphabet. The vast majority of the Armenians

living in the Soviet Union and over 99 percent of the Armenians

in the Armenian Republic regarded Armenian as their first language.

The citizens of the Armenian Republic rank among the most

highly educated people in the Soviet Union. In the 1970s, the republic ranked second among the republics in the number of individuals with higher and secondary education per thousand people.

Armenians also ranked second among Soviet nationalities in the

number of scientific workers per thousand people.

Armenians were the third most urbanized nationality in 1970s.

Some 68 percent of the Armenian Republic's population resided

in towns and cities. The major city in the Armenian Republic was

Yerevan, the capital, with nearly 1.2 million people in 1989. Two

other cities, Leninakan and Kirovakan, had populations of more

than 100,000.

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Nationalities and Religions

Armenian representation in the CPSU has been quite high rela- tive to their share of the Soviet population. Armenians also dominated in the party apparatus of the Armenian Republic.

Georgians

Georgians possess perhaps the oldest culture among the major

nationalities of the Soviet Union. The ancestral Georgian tribes

appeared in the Caucasus probably during the second millennium

B.C. These tribes began to unite into larger political entities in

the first millennium B.C., and by the sixth century B.C. the first Georgian kingdom was established. From the first century A.D.

until the early twelfth century, Georgians endured a succession of

conquests by the Romans, Iranians, Arabs, and Seljuk Turks. After

each conquest, Georgians were able to regain their independence,

reaching a golden age during the late twelfth and early thirteenth

centuries, when Georgian power extended to include other parts

of the Caucasus. Between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries,

Georgia was invaded first by Chinggis Khan's and then by Tamerlane's hordes. The destruction wrought by these invasions and in- ternal feuding between the Georgian rulers and their vassals led

to the disintegration of Georgia at the end of the fifteenth century.

Beginning in the sixteenth century, the Georgians faced two new

powerful foes, Turkey and Iran. Unable to resist the threat of either,

the Georgians sought the aid of their Russian neighbors and in

1783 signed a treaty of friendship with imperial Russia, which

guaranteed Georgia's independence and territorial integrity. By

the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, Russia began

the process of annexation of Georgian lands, which was completed

in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The nineteenth-century nationalist reawakening that swept the

Russian Empire and aroused its nationalities had a much stronger

socialist content in Georgia than in any other non-Russian part

of the empire. From the beginning, it was closely identified with

Marxism (see Glossary), particularly the Menshevik (see Glossary)

branch of Russian Marxism. In 1918 Georgian Mensheviks, who

were in control of the revolutionary ferment in Georgia, declared

Georgian independence. In 1921 the Red Army invaded Georgia

in support of a Bolshevik coup there and established it as a Soviet

republic; in December 1922 the Georgian Republic entered the

union of Soviet republics as part of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic was established as a union republic of the Soviet Union in 1936.

According to the 1989 census, Georgians numbered almost 4

million, and 95 percent of them lived in the Georgian Republic.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Only the Baltic nationalities were as concentrated in their own

republics. Within its borders were also two autonomous republics,

the Abkhazian Autonomous Republic and the Adzhar Autonomous

Republic, and one autonomous oblast, the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast.

In 1989 over 5.4 million people lived in this densely populated

republic, of whom about 69 percent were Georgians. Armenians,

Russians, and Azerbaydzhanis were the largest national minorities in the republic. Since 1970 the number of Russians in the republic has steadily decreased.

Georgians speak an Ibero-Caucasian language that belongs to the Caucasian group of languages. Like the Armenian language,

the Georgian language has a distinct alphabet. The overwhelming

majority of Georgians living in the Soviet Union and 99.7 percent

of Georgians in their own republic considered Georgian their native tongue in 1989.

Georgians constitute one of the most highly educated nationalities in the Soviet Union. In 1971 Jews were the only nationality

having a greater percentage of students in higher education insti- tutions, and Georgians had the third highest number of scientific workers relative to their share of the population. Yet the Georgian

Republic was one of the least urbanized. In 1987 only 55 percent

of Georgian residents lived in towns and cities, and as of 1970 only

44 percent of all Georgians in the Soviet Union lived in urban areas. Among the major cities in the Georgian Republic were Tbilisi, the

capital with 1.3 million people, and Kutaisi with 230,000; three

other cities had populations over 100,000.

Traditionally, Georgians have been very active participants in the

CPSU. In 1983 Georgians ranked first, ahead of the Russians, in

the size of party membership relative to their share of the total population. The most famous Georgian CPSU member was Joseph V.

Stalin, whose surname was Dzhugashvili. Other prominent Georgians were the Bolshevik leader Sergo Ordzhonikidze and the

longtime chief of the secret police, Lavrenty Beria. Eduard A.

Shevardnadze, a full member of the Politburo and minister of for- eign affairs in the 1980s, was also a Georgian.

Azerbaydzhanis

The early inhabitants of the present-day Azerbaydzhan Republic were a mix of different people, as the country had endured many

invasions since the sixth century B.C. Until the ninth century A.D.,

however, the Iranians were dominant. The large migration of

Turkic tribes into the area between the tenth and twelfth centuries, and their subsequent mixing with the indigenous population,

156
Residents of Tbilisi reading declarations at a "democracy

wall" near the center of the Georgian capital

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

led to the formation of the Azerbaydzhan people. With time, the

Turkic element became culturally dominant except in religion. Unlike most Turkic Muslims, who were Sunni, most Azerbaydzhanis

became Shia Muslims akin to the Muslims of Iran. From the eleventh

to the early nineteenth century, Azerbaydzhan was almost continuously under Iranian control. In 1724 Peter the Great annexed the

Baku and Derbent regions of Azerbaydzhan, but Iran regained them

a dozen years later. Russian presence became permanent in the first half of the nineteenth century, when Azerbaydzhan was divided between Iran and Russia.

At first, Russian control of Azerbaydzhan had little effect on the

life of the people. In fact, the rise of Azerbaydzhan national consciousness in the late nineteenth century was influenced more by

the changes within Turkey and Iran than by the political and social events in imperial Russia. Rapid development of the oil in- dustry, the growth of such industrial centers as Baku, and the influx

of Slavs into Azerbaydzhan at the turn of the century, however,

drew Azerbaydzhanis closer to Russia. A secularized elite, modeled on the Young Turks, came into being. It soon split between a rela- tively urban Marxist faction and an Islamic faction closely tied to the rural areas of Azerbaydzhan. In 1918 the more rightist, Islamic

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

faction formed an independent republic with the help of the Turkish

army. The short-lived independence of the Azerbaydzhanis came

to an end in 1920 when the Red Army invaded and established a communist regime, which helped turn Azerbaydzhan into a Soviet

republic.

Although Soviet rule was accompanied by repressive measures,

tight political control, and collectivization, the Azerbaydzhan

Republic grew industrially and economically. Another result of

Soviet rule was the dramatic rise in literacy. In 1927 only 31.9 per- cent of the deputies in the Baku soviet were literate. By 1959 some

97 percent of the entire population of the Azerbaydzhan Republic was literate, according to Soviet statistics. The most populous of the three major nationalities in the Caucasus region, the Azerbaydzhanis have important characteristics

that distinguish them from the other two nationalities. Being Muslim and of Turkic origin, they differ ethnically and culturally from

the Armenians and Georgians. Also, they are separated by a long

international border from fellow Azerbaydzhanis in Iran with whom

they share their origins, culture, language, and religion. Occupying the southernmost part of the European Soviet Union, the

Azerbaydzhan Republic includes the Nakhichevan' Autonomous

Republic, which is separated from the rest of the Azerbaydzhan

Republic by the Armenian Republic, and the Nagorno-Karabakh

Autonomous Oblast, which is populated mostly by Armenians.

Like other Muslim groups in the Soviet Union, the Azerbaydzhanis have demonstrated a remarkable population growth since

the 1950s. In 1989 the Azerbaydzhanis numbered almost 6.8 million. Some 5.8 million of them lived in the Azerbaydzhan Republic, where they made up 83 percent of the population. The largest

national minorities within the borders of the Azerbaydzhan Republic were Russians and Armenians, who together made up about

11 percent of the population. About 37 percent of the Armenians

in Azerbaydzhan resided in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous

Oblast, where they constituted 77 percent of the population. The

number of Russians living in the Azerbaydzhan Republic in 1989 was slightly larger than the number of Armenians.

Azerbaydzhanis speak a Turkic language that belongs to the

southern branch of Altaic languages. Originally the language developed from a mixture of languages spoken by the Iranian and

Turkic tribes living there. It became a literary language late in the

nineteenth century when the Azerbaydzhan intelligentsia popularized literature written in their native language. In 1922 Soviet

officials replaced the original Arabic alphabet, first with the Latin

alphabet and then in 1937 with the Cyrillic alphabet. According

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Nationalities and Religions

to the 1989 census, about 97.6 percent of the Azerbaydzhanis in

the Soviet Union regarded the Azerbaydzhan language as their native tongue.

In 1987 the Azerbaydzhan Republic was among the least ur- banized republics, with only 54 percent of its population living in

urban areas. Large cities included the capital, Baku, with a population of over 1.1 million, Kirovabad with 270,000, and Sumgait

with 234,000.

The level of Azerbaydzhan education was high. Azerbaydzhanis

ranked fifth among the nationalities in the number of students in

institutions of higher education per thousand people, but they

ranked eighth in their share of scientific workers. In 1979 Azerbaydzhanis were seventh in CPSU membership.

Other Nationalities of the Caucasus

In addition to the three major nationalities in the Caucasus

region, about two dozen other nationalities and numerous subgroups resided there. Most of these nationalities lived in the

Dagestan Autonomous Republic located northeast of the Caucasus Mountains in the Russian Republic. In 1989 the more than

2 million people of the Dagestan Autonomous Republic were among

the most diverse populations, ethnically and linguistically, in the

world. The nationalities ranged in size from almost half a million

Avars to barely 12,000 Aguls and even smaller groups. The great

majority of the Dagestan people were Sunni Muslims; but small

numbers of Shia Muslims, Christians, and Jews were also present.

Central Asian Nationalities

Soviet Central Asia, a vast area of over 3.9 million square kilometers, is made up of the Kazakh, Kirgiz, Turkmen, Uzbek, and

Tadzhik republics. In 1989 some 49 million people, or over 17 per- cent of the population of the Soviet Union, lived there. About 37

million people, or over 75 percent of the population of Soviet Central

Asia, belonged to nationalities that were traditionally Islamic. In

the 1980s, they, like Muslims in other parts of the Soviet Union,

have been very resistant to the process of Russification. In 1989 some 98 percent of Soviet Central Asian Muslims spoke primarily

their own languages, and their fluency in Russian was low in comparison with other Soviet nationalities.

The five nationalities of Soviet Central Asia shared a number

of common characteristics. They had similar ethnic origins, ex- perienced similar historical development, and, most important, were

all part of an Islamic society. But regional and cultural differences were also present, especially between the Tadzhiks, who speak an

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Iranian language, and the rest, who speak Turkic languages with

various degrees of commonality. The life-styles of the five peoples

also differed, from the Tadzhiks, who have an ancient urban tra- dition, to the Kazakhs, some of whom were still nomadic as late as the 1920s.

Uzbeks

The history of the Uzbeks and their homeland is closely tied to that of Turkestan, an ancient territory stretching from the Caspian

Sea in the west and extending into China and Afghanistan in the

east, encompassing most of the areas of the present-day Turkmen,

Uzbek, Tadzhik, and Kirgiz republics and the southern portion

of the Kazakh Republic. In the centuries before the birth of Christ,

Turkestan was populated by people of Persian stock, and they

endured successive waves of invaders. In the sixth century B.C.,

Turkestan for the most part belonged to the Persian Achaemenid

Empire. Alexander the Great invaded Turkestan in the fourth cen- tury B.C. , and the Huns overran the area in the fifth century A.D.

Arabs conquered Turkestan in the seventh century A.D. and introduced the Islamic religion and culture. Another series of invasions

by predominantly Turkic peoples began at the end of the tenth cen- tury and continued into the thirteenth century when the great Mongol invasion swept the area. The Mongol invaders were soon

assimilated by the Turkic population and adopted their language,

culture, and religion.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Turkestan was con- quered by yet another wave of Turkic nomads, the Uzbeks. The

Uzbeks, whose name derives from Uzbek Khan, the ruler of the

Golden Horde (see Glossary) at the beginning of the fourteenth

century, were a mixture of Turkic tribes within the Mongol Empire. The center of the Uzbek state became the city of Bukhara.

Subsequendy, the independent Uzbek khanates of Khiva and

Kokand evolved. The khanates of Bukhara, Khiva, and Kokand

inherited aspects of the Iranian, Turkic, and Arabic civilizations. Their populations were mostly Uzbek, but within their borders also lived considerable numbers of Tadzhiks, Turkmens, and Kirgiz.

By the eighteenth century, the khans of Khiva, Bukhara, and

Kokand had extended their control over the innumerable independent tribal kingdoms and ruled central Turkestan. But the process

of consolidation was not complete, and many peripheral areas in

Turkestan remained almost totally independent of or in rebellion

against one or another of the three khanates. In the vast steppes

and deserts in the north, the Kazakhs grazed their herds as they

always had; the nomadic Turkmens roamed the wide stretches of

160
Kalyan Minaret (completed in 1127) and Kalyan Mosque (completed

in 1514) in the old section of Bukhara, Uzbek Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

pastureland to the west; the rebellious Kirgiz made their home in

the mountainous valleys in the east; and the Iranian- speaking

Tadzhiks maintained their traditional life-style in the southeast,

in the highlands north of the Hindu Kush.

Although Peter the Great attempted the first Russian invasion

of Turkestan in the beginning of the eighteenth century, systematic

Russian penetration of Turkestan was undertaken only in the midnineteenth century. By the end of the nineteenth century, the

khanates of Bukhara and Khiva, greatly reduced in size, had be- come vassal states of the Russian Empire. The rest of the territory

and the entire territory of Kokand was incorporated into Russian

Turkestan, created in 1867, which was divided into five provinces

and presided over by a Russian governor general. Turkestan,

together with the four provinces of Kazakhstan (see Glossary), constituted what came to be known as Russian Central Asia (subsequently Soviet Central Asia). In spite of tsarist toleration of the

Muslim religion and customs, Russian conquest of Turkestan had

an immediate impact on aspects of the indigenous culture and society. Early in the twentieth century, economic development came

to Turkestan, new towns sprang up, cotton grew where once nomads grazed their herds, and railroads linked Turkestan with

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markets in Russia. The nomadic Kirgiz, Kazakhs, and Turkmens

were especially resentful of the evolving changes. In 1916, when

the Russian government ended its exemption of Muslims from mili- tary service, much of Russian Central Asia rose in a general revolt

against Russian rule. In November 1917, the Bolsheviks established Soviet power in

the city of Tashkent. In April 1918, they proclaimed the Turkestan

Autonomous Republic. The great mass of the Muslim population,

however, took no part in these events. Only after the Bolsheviks

attacked the Muslim religion, intervened directly in native society

and culture, and engaged in armed seizure of food did the in- digenous population offer fierce resistance in a national and holy war against the Soviet regime, known as the Basmachi Rebellion

(see Glossary).

The autonomous soviet republics of Khorzem (formerly Khiva)

and Bukhara were established in 1920 and incorporated into the

Soviet Union. In 1924 and 1925, the entire Soviet Central Asian

territory was reorganized by an act known as the national delimitation process in Central Asia. The Turkestan Autonomous Republic was abolished and divided along ethnic and linguistic lines into

the Uzbek and Turkmen union republics, the Tadzhik Autonomous Republic within the Uzbek Republic, and the Kirgiz Autonomous Republic and the Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast within

the Russian Republic. At the same time, the Kazakh Autonomous

Republic within the Russian Republic was also established. The

Tadzhik Autonomous Republic became a union republic in 1929,

and the Kirgiz Autonomous Republic became a union republic in

1936. The Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast became an autonomous

republic in 1932 and was transferred to the Uzbek Republic in 1936.

The same year, the Kazakh Autonomous Republic was transformed

into a union republic.

In the 1980s, the Uzbeks were the most populous nationality in

Soviet Central Asia. Of the nearly 16.7 million Uzbeks in the Soviet

Union in 1989, most of them lived in the Uzbek Republic, which

lies in the middle of Soviet Central Asia. Most of the remaining

Uzbeks lived in the other four Central Asian republics. In the 1989

census, the population of the Uzbek Republic was slightiy over 19.9

million, with Uzbeks making up almost 71 percent. The largest

minority in the Uzbek Republic in 1989 was the Russians with over

1 .6 million, or 8.3 percent of the total population, followed by the

Tadzhiks (932,000), Kazakhs (808,000), and Tatars (468,000). In

addition, there were 411,000 Karakalpaks, most of whom lived

in the Karakalpak Autonomous Republic in the Uzbek Republic.

The Karakalpaks constituted only 3 1 percent of their autonomous

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Nationalities and Religions

republic's total population and were the second largest nationality, after the Uzbeks.

Uzbek, the language of the Uzbeks, belongs to the Turkic family

of languages and has both a variety of dialects and a mixed vocabulary of Arabic, Persian, and Russian loanwords. The original Arabic

alphabet was replaced in the 1920s by the Soviet government with an alphabet based on Latin script and subsequentiy with an alphabet

based on Cyrillic script. In 1989 about 98.3 percent of the Uzbeks

regarded Uzbek as their first language.

Uzbeks were among the least urbanized people in the Soviet

Union. In 1979 only about 25 percent of all Uzbeks lived in cities. Nevertheless, Tashkent, the capital of the Uzbek Republic, had

a population of nearly 2.1 million people in 1989, and five other

cities had populations over 200,000. The populations of these cities had a disproportionately high number of Russians and other non- Uzbeks, however.

Uzbeks were the third largest nationality in the Soviet Union

but in 1971 ranked tenth in the number of students in institutions

of higher education and fifteenth in the number of scientific workers per thousand. Uzbeks were also very underrepresented in the

CPSU. In the early 1980s, Uzbeks ranked twelfth among Soviet

nationalities in party membership. Although they made up about

4.8 percent of the total population of the Soviet Union in 1979,

they held only 1.5 percent of the seats on the CPSU Central Committee. Uzbek membership in the Uzbek Republic's party organization was also below their share of the republic's population.

Russians, in contrast, made up only about 8.3 percent of the population of the republic but held 21 percent of party membership.

Russians also had a majority in the Central Committee of the CPSU

in the Uzbek Republic and tended to occupy top party positions.

Kazakhs

The origins of the Kazakh people and their name itself are matters of historical debate. First emerging as an identifiable group

in the fifteenth century, they were a mix of indigenous Turkic tribes,

which had been in the area since the eighth century, and nomadic

Mongols, who invaded the area in the thirteenth century. Originally they differed little from their Turkic neighbors—the Uzbeks,

the Kirgiz, and the Karakalpaks—but political divisions and differ- ent economic development caused them to enter the nineteenth cen- tury as distinctly different from the other three peoples.

Russians had limited and intermittent contacts with the Kazakhs

between the mid-sixteenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Russia began to exert control over them.

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Harassed by their neighbors, particularly the Kalmyks, in 1731 the

nomadic Kazakhs placed themselves under the protection of the much

more powerful Russian state. Afterward, Russian penetration into

Kazakhstan was unremitting and included building a network of

forts and settling the land with Russian peasants. Despite a series of Kazakh rebellions against them, Russian expansion continued,

and by the second half of the nineteenth century Kazakhstan was

firmly under Russian control. The tsarist policy of ending Kazakh

nomadism and of setding the land with Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, and Jews continued. The new settlers received huge portions

of the most fertile land. An almost exclusively non-Kazakh class of

workers began to appear, and a budding industry, operated by the

new immigrants, began to grow. These developments threatened

to destroy the traditional form of existence of the Kazakh pastoral

nomads.

The indigenous population's resentment against the settlers, as well as against conscription of Muslims into the military, erupted

as a major rebellion in 1916 and, although quickly suppressed, set the stage for the nationalist movement in Kazakhstan following the

February Revolution of 1917. Kazakh nationalists established a

national government and engaged in an armed struggle against

both pro- and anti-Bolshevik Russian forces. By mid- 19 19, however,

weakened by the struggle, Kazakh nationalists sought accommodation with the Bolsheviks. In August 1920, the Kirgiz Autono- mous Republic was established for the Kazakhs (until the mid- 1920s

Soviet officials called them Kirgiz) within the Russian Republic.

In 1925 it was renamed the Kazakh Autonomous Republic and

became a union republic in 1936.

The Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War that followed fur- ther disrupted the traditional life of the Kazakhs. Many Kazakhs

left with their herds for China and Afghanistan. Almost a million

died from starvation in the famine of 1921-22. The rest were soon

faced with forced collectivization, and a continuous influx of Russians and other people gradually reduced the Kazakhs to a minority

in their own land. Kazakh leaders, even Kazakh communists, who

protested these policies were purged or executed, first in the late 1920s and then during the purges of the Great Terror in the 1930s.

In 1989 the 8.1 million Kazakhs constituted the fifth most

populous nationality in the Soviet Union. Over 6.5 million, or 80

percent of the Kazakhs, lived in the Kazakh Republic, by far the

largest of the five Soviet Central Asian republics. In fact, after the

Russian Republic, it was the second largest republic and had a ter- ritory of over 2.7 million square kilometers. It was also the least homogeneous of all the union republics. No nationality constituted

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

a majority of the 16.5 million people in the Kazakh Republic. The

Kazakhs, with nearly 40 percent of the population, were the most numerous nationality. Russians, with about 38 percent, were the

second most populous nationality in the Kazakh Republic. From

1959 to 1989, however, the Kazakhs have shown a steady increase

in their share of the republic's population. Simultaneously, the per- centage of Russians in the total population has declined. Ukrainians

and Germans, the next two largest national minorities, whose in- dividual shares made up about 5 percent and 6 percent of the population, respectively, also declined from 1959 to 1989. More than

1.5 million Kazakhs lived in other parts of the Soviet Union, with

the largest concentrations in the Uzbek and Russian republics.

The language of the Kazakhs belongs to the same family of Turkic

languages as the languages of the Kirgiz, the Uzbeks, and the Turkmens. Kazakh, a unique language with Arabic and Tatar elements,

became a literary language in the 1860s. Until 1926, Kazakh had

an Arabic script; from 1926 until 1940, it had a Latin alphabet;

and since 1940, it has had a Cyrillic alphabet. In spite of the significant numbers of Russians and other nationalities in the republic, the Kazakhs have retained very high usage of their own

language. In 1989 about 98 percent of the Kazakhs living in the

republic regarded Kazakh as their native tongue. Of the non- Kazakh residents of the Kazakh Republic, only 1 percent could converse fluently in the Kazakh language.

In 1987 the great majority of the Kazakhs lived in rural areas. Nevertheless, because of the large numbers of urban Russians and

other nationalities, 58 percent of the Kazakh Republic's population was urban. Many large cities were scattered throughout the

republic. The capital city of Alma-Ata, for example, had a population of over 1.1 million in 1989. Other large cities included

Karaganda (about 650,000) and five others having populations over 300,000.

In the 1980s, the Kazakh Republic ranked ninth among the

fifteen union republics in the educational level of its residents. But

the educational achievements of Russians residing in the republic were considerably higher than those of the indigenous Kazakhs.

In 1970 forty-two Russians for every thirty-one Kazakhs studied

in institutions of higher learning; and in special secondary schools

the ratio was eighty-six Russians to thirty-six Kazakhs. Kazakhs

ranked sixth among all nationalities in the number of students in

higher education institutions and thirteenth in the number of scientific workers per thousand.

Between 1969 and 1989, Kazakh membership in the CPSU was

considerably below their share of the country's population. In the

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Nationalities and Religions

Kazakh Republic, however, their membership in the party was somewhat higher than their share of the republic's population.

Kazakhs also held a relatively high percentage of the leadership

positions in the republic's party organization, with Russians or other

Slavs generally acting as their deputies. Kazakh representation in

the CPSU Central Committee nearly equaled their share of the

population in the Soviet Union.

Kirgiz

The term Kirgiz was first used in the eighth century in reference

to the tribes occupying the upper reaches of the Yenisey River.

Historians disagree on the early history of the Kirgiz; but in the

tenth century they apparently began migrating south searching for new pastures or driven by other people—particularly the Mongols

in the thirteenth century—until they settled in the present-day

Kirgiz Republic. By the early sixteenth century, they were the area's predominant people. Between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries, the Kirgiz people alternated between periods of tribal in- dependence and foreign conquest. They were overrun by the

Kalmyks late in the seventeenth century, the Manchus in the mideighteenth century, and the Kokand Khanate in the first half of

the nineteenth century.

Russian conquest of the Kirgiz began in the mid-nineteenth century, and by 1876 they were absorbed into the Russian Empire.

Kirgizia became a major area of Russian colonization, with Russians and other Slavs given the best land to settle, reducing considerably the grazing lands used by the Kirgiz nomads. Kirgiz

resentment against Russian colonization policies and conscription

for noncombatant duties in the army led to a major revolt throughout Russia's Central Asian territory, including Kirgizia. Casualties were high on both sides, and thousands of Kirgiz fled with their flocks to Afghanistan and China.

The tsarist government did not recognize the Kirgiz as a separate

national entity or political unit. Kirgizia, along with other Turkic

nations of Central Asia, was included in Russian Turkestan, created

in 1867. At first the Bolshevik attitude toward the Kirgiz was equally

unenlightened. Having defeated the nationalists, the White armies

(see Glossary), and foreign interventionists in Kirgizia by 1919,

the Bolsheviks included it in the newly established Turkestan Auton- omous Republic. In 1924 the Kara-Kirgiz Autonomous Oblast was

created (called Kara-Kirgiz to distinguish it from the Kazakh Auton- omous Republic, which was named the Kirgiz Autonomous Republic). In 1925 it was renamed the Kirgiz Autonomous Oblast and

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

in 1926 the Kirgiz Autonomous Republic. In 1936 it became a union republic.

In the first years of their rule, Soviet authorities continued the

colonization policies of the tsarist regime. The Soviet government

mitigated its policy, however, after the Basmachi Rebellion, a popular Turkic nationalist movement that swept former Turkestan from

1918 to 1924 and recurred periodically until 1931 . In the mid-1920s,

the Soviet government permitted traditional Kirgiz culture to flourish. It also promoted the creation of native leadership and slowed

the influx of Slavs into the region. In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, these policies were replaced by Stalin's program of

forced denomadization and collectivization and replacement of the

Kirgiz intelligentsia and leadership with an ideologically acceptable Stalinist elite. Some Kirgiz protested by slaughtering their herds

or driving them into China. Nevertheless, by 1933 about 67 per- cent of the nomads were collectivized. The Kirgiz intelligentsia was

decimated. Many Kirgiz members of the CPSU in the republic were purged. Despite the turmoil, the Kirgiz subsequendy achieved some industrialization, a higher standard of living, and substantial achievements in education.

According to the 1989 census, slightly more than 2.5 million

Kirgiz lived in the Soviet Union, 88 percent of them in the Kirgiz

Republic. About 175,000 Kirgiz also resided in the Uzbek Republic.

According to the 1989 census, the Kirgiz, with 52 percent of the

population, for the first time in decades constituted a majority within

their own republic. Russians, with almost 22 percent of the population, were second. Other large minorities included the Uzbeks,

Ukrainians, Germans, and Tatars. Like other Muslim groups in

the Soviet Union, the Kirgiz showed a phenomenal population

growth between 1959 and 1979. While the population of the Soviet

Union grew by 15.8 percent between 1959 and 1970, the Kirgiz

increased by 49.8 percent. As a result, the proportion of the Kirgiz

in the republic has been steadily increasing, while the Russian share

of the population has been declining despite their continuous immigration into the republic.

The Kirgiz language, which belongs to the Turkic group of languages prevalent in Soviet Central Asia, has three regional dialects. A Kirgiz literary language was not fully developed until the Soviet

period. It merges all three dialects and incorporates Iranian, Arabic,

and Russian elements. Like other Turkic languages of Soviet Central Asia, the Kirgiz language first used an Arabic script, which

later was replaced by a Latin script in 1928 and finally by a Cyrillic one in the early 1940s. According to the 1989 census, Kirgiz was

spoken as a native language by about 97.8 percent of all Kirgiz

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Nationalities and Religions

in the Soviet Union and 99.5 percent of those living in the Kirgiz

Republic.

The Kirgiz were the least urbanized major nationality in the

Soviet Union. During the 1970s, only 14.5 percent of the Kirgiz

lived in urban areas. In the Kirgiz Republic, they constituted less than one-fifth of the republic's urban population. Russians residing in the republic were the most urbanized segment of the population, with over half of them living in towns and cities. In 1989

the Kirgiz Republic was the second least urbanized republic in the

Soviet Union, with 40 percent of its population residing in urban

areas. Frunze, the capital and largest city, had a population of

616,000, and Osh had over 200,000; but only one other city had

a population of more than 50,000.

In the 1970s, the Kirgiz were eighth among the seventeen major

nationalities in number of students attending institutions of higher

education and fourteenth in the number of scientific workers per

thousand. In 1987 the Kirgiz Republic ranked eleventh among the

fifteen union republics in number of individuals with higher or secondary education per thousand residents.

In the 1980s, the Kirgiz ranked eleventh in CPSU membership

corresponding to their share of the population. The Kirgiz Republic

ranked twelfth among Soviet republics in the percentage of its citizens belonging to the CPSU, but Russians residing in the republic were clearly overrepresented.

Tadzhiks

Unlike the other nationalities of Soviet Central Asia who are eth- nically Turkic, the Tadzhiks trace their origins primarily to the

Persians who settled the area as early as the sixth century B.C.

and were part of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. From the seventh

century A.D. until the fourteenth century, the Tadziks were over- run, as were the other people of Central Asia with whom the

Tadzhiks developed a common civilization, first by the Arabs and

then by other invaders. By the fourteenth century, the Tadzhiks were distinguished from the other peoples of Central Asia primarily by their language and the fact that they were sedentary, not

nomadic like their neighbors. The name Tadzhik is derived from

a word used to distinguish the Turkic people from Iranian subjects of the Arab Empire. By the sixteenth century, however, it had come to mean a trader from Central Asia or simply a sedentary person.

Beginning in the fifteenth century, the Tadzhiks were under

Uzbek rule, and by the eighteenth century most of Tadzhik terri- tory was under the khanate of Bukhara. The Afghan conquest of

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Tadzhik territory from the south began in the mid-eighteenth century, and Russian expansion into Tadzhik lands from the north

followed a century later. By the end of the nineteenth century,

northern Tadzhikistan was under Russian rule, southern Tadzhikistan continued under the khanate of Bukhara, and the remaining

Tadzhik territory was within Afghanistan.

Russian conquest of Tadzhikistan and subsequent immigration

of Russian settlers had a minimal effect on traditional Tadzhik

society. The revolutionary movement in Tadzhikistan was composed of Russians, not Tadzhiks. Therefore, Soviet power was es- tablished in 1918, and, with little resistance, northern Tadzhikistan was included in the newly created Turkestan Autonomous Republic.

Nevertheless, when the Red Army invaded the khanate of Bukhara

in 1921, it met with fierce resistance from the growing Basmachi

movement. The movement continued until 1924 when the Tadzhik

Autonomous Republic was created and incorporated into the Uzbek

Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1929 the Tadzhik Autonomous Republic was made a union republic.

In 1989 the Tadzhiks numbered about 4.2 million, three-fourths

of whom lived in the Tadzhik Republic. They were divided into

the Tadzhiks proper (the Tadzhiks of the plain) and the Pamiris

(the Tadzhiks of the mountains). Most of the Pamiris lived in the

Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, located in the western

Pamirs in the southeastern Tadzhik Republic. The Soviet census

of 1989, however, did not distinguish between the two groups. Over

900,000 Tadzhiks also lived in the Uzbek Republic. In 1989 the

Tadzhiks made up only about 62 percent of the Tadzhik Republic's population. The largest national minority living in the Tadzhik

Republic was the Uzbeks, followed by the Russians.

The most distinguishing characteristic of the Tadzhiks is their

language, which is closely related to Persian and belongs to the

Southwest Iranian group of languages. The Tadzhik alphabet, like the alphabets of Turkic languages, was Arabic until 1930, Latin

in the next decade, and finally Cyrillic in 1940. Almost 98 percent

of the Tadzhiks regarded Tadzhik as their native language.

The Tadzhiks were among the least urbanized of all the nationalities in the Soviet Union. In 1989 about 67 percent of the Tadzhik Republic's population lived outside urban areas, making it the least urbanized republic. It was also the only republic to show

a decline in the percentage of urban population between 1970 and

1987. The Tadzhik Republic had only two large cities in 1989, the

capital, Dushanbe (595,000), and Leninabad (165,000).

The Tadzhiks rated very low in their level of education. Although

they had officially achieved 99 percent literacy by 1971 , the Tadzhiks

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Nationalities and Religions

ranked sixteenth among the seventeen major nationalities both in

the number of students in institutions of higher learning and in

the number of scientific workers per thousand.

In 1983 the Tadzhiks were the most underrepresented among

the nationalities in their share of CPSU members and very underrepresented in the Central Committee of the party.

Turkmens

The Orguz Turks, forebears of the Soviet Turkmens, migrated

into the territory of the present-day Turkmen Republic at the end

of the tenth century and beginning of the eleventh century. Composed of many tribes, they began their migration from eastern Asia

in the seventh century and moved slowly toward the Middle East

and Central Asia. By the twelfth century, they had become the

dominant group in the present-day Turkmen Republic, assimilating the original Iranian population as well as other invaders who

preceded them into the area. By the end of the fourteenth century,

the Orguz tribes had developed a common language and traditions,

and by the fifteenth century they were recognizable as a single people. Although they often became subjects of a neighboring state, their military skills and pastoral culture enabled them to enjoy an

independent existence. Forced into a cooperative and defensive al- liance first by the Mongol invasion and then by the Uzbek conquest, the Turkmens nevertheless retained their strong tribal divisions and failed to establish a lasting state of their own. The Turkmens opposed Russian expansion into Central Asia more vigorously than other nationalities. They defeated a Russian

force in 1717, when Peter the Great first attempted the conquest

of Central Asia. And, in the nineteenth century, when the Russians

resumed their expansion into the area, Turkmen cavalry posed determined and prolonged opposition. The conquest of Turkmenia

(also known as Turkmenistan) was not completed until 1885, and

the territorial boundary of Russian Turkmenia was not set until a decade later by an Anglo-Russian border treaty. That treaty sepa- rated the Turkmens of Russia from the roughly equal number of

their brethren in present-day Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Turkey.

Turkmenia became part of Russian Turkestan and was treated

by the tsarist government as a colonial territory where Russians

and other Slavs were encouraged to settle. A railroad was built,

and other features of modernity were introduced. Turkmens re- sented losing their grazing land and in 1916 joined a Muslim uprising throughout Russia's Central Asian territory.

After the February Revolution of 1917, several political forces

competed for power in Turkmenia. The Turkmens were divided

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

between Islamic traditionalists and the more progressive nationalist intelligentsia. At this time, both Bolshevik and White armies

sought the loyalty of Turkmenia's Russian population. A provisional government, established by Turkmen nationalists with support of the White forces and limited British assistance, was able

to maintain itself against the Bolsheviks until mid- 19 19. Thereafter, Turkmen resistance against the Bolsheviks was part of the

general Basmachi Rebellion, which reemerged sporadically until

1931. By 1920, however, the Red Army controlled the territory,

and in 1924 the Turkmen Republic was established in accordance

with the national delimitation process in Central Asia.

The Soviet policy of forced collectivization in the late 1920s and

early 1930s was particularly abhorrent to the nomadic Turkmens.

It led to enhanced national self-awareness and an opposition movement, which burst into an open rebellion in 1928-32. In response,

Soviet authorities arrested scores of native communist leaders and

broad segments of the Turkmen intelligentsia. Most perished in

the Great Terror of the 1930s.

The great majority of the over 2.7 million Soviet Turkmens lived

in the Turkmen Republic, the least populous of the Soviet Central Asian republics. Turkmens constituted nearly 72 percent of

the republic's 3.5 million population. Russians and Uzbeks were

the largest minorities.

The Turkmen language, which developed from several Turkic

dialects and has adopted some Arabic, Persian, and Russian loanwords, belongs to the southern group of Turkic languages. In the

1989 census, about 98.5 percent of the Turkmens considered it their

first language. Only slightly more than 25 percent of the Turk- mens had fluency in Russian.

In 1987 Turkmens were more rural than urban, even though

the population of the Turkmen Republic, which included a large

number of highly urban Russians, was almost evenly divided between urban and rural residents. The Turkmen Republic had only

a few large cities in 1989. Ashkhabad, the capital, had a population of 398,000; only Chardzhou and Tashauz also had populations over 100,000.

In 1971 Turkmens were fourteenth among the seventeen major

nationalities in the number of students in higher education insti- tutions and twelfth in the number of scientific workers per thousand. In 1986 the Turkmen Republic ranked tenth among the union

republics in the number of students in higher education per thousand.

Turkmens were among the least represented nationalities in the

CPSU. In 1984 they ranked thirteenth among the union republics.

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Man in native costume, Ashkhabad, Turkmen Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

Other Major Nationalities In addition to the nationalities just described, seven other nationalities numbered over 1 million people in the 1989 census: Moldavians, Tatars, Jews, Germans, Chuvash, Bashkirs, and Mordvins.

None of these nationalities fit into the preceding groups of nationalities, yet each was a significant part of the complex fabric constituting the multinational Soviet state, either because of their large

population or because of some other critical factor. Moldavians

Although Moldavians have their own union republic, the exis- tence of Moldavians as a separate nationality has been debatable.

Soviet authorities consider Moldavians a distinct nationality. But

most Moldavians see themselves as ethnic Romanians because they

do not differ from the population of Romania linguistically or culturally. They believe that the creation of the Moldavian Republic

and the "artificial" Moldavian nationality was, from its inception, an attempt to legitimize Soviet political claims to a portion of Romanian territory.

Ancient Moldavia, a territory that included portions of both

present-day Romania and the Soviet Union's Moldavian Republic, was part of Scythia. Later, it fell under partial control of the

Roman Empire. As the Roman Empire declined, Moldavia was

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

invaded by successive waves of barbarians moving into the empire. Between the tenth and twelfth centuries, part of Moldavia

belonged to Kievan Rus' and later to the principality of Galicia.

Between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, most of Moldavia was a vassal state of the Tatars. The first independent Moldavian state arose in the mid-fourteenth century and lasted until the

beginning of the sixteenth century when Moldavia became a vassal

state of Turkey. In the late eighteenth century, Russia attempted

to secure control of Moldavia and finally succeeded in 1812, when

the portion of Moldavia known as Bessarabia was ceded to Russia.

Despite tsarist efforts to Russify Bessarabia by setding large numbers of Russians, Ukrainians, and Jews there, at the time of the

February Revolution of 1917 most of the inhabitants considered

themselves Romanians. They established the Democratic Moldavian Republic soon after the onset of the revolution and then joined

with Romania, in April 1918.

In 1924 Soviet authorities created the Moldavian Autonomous

Republic for the Romanian-speaking population remaining in the

Soviet Union. But only about 30 percent of the inhabitants of the

newly created autonomous republic were "Moldavians," or Romanian speaking. The majority of the residents of the republic were

Ukrainians, Jews, or Russians. In 1940 the Soviet Union reincorporated Bessarabia and, together with the territory of the Moldavian

Autonomous Republic that contained a mostly Romanian-speaking

population, formed the Moldavian Republic. In 1944 Romania,

under pressure from the Soviet Union, formally recognized the existence of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. According to the 1989 census, over 3.3 million Moldavians lived in the Soviet

Union, of whom 83 percent resided in the Moldavian Republic. The

republic, the second smallest of the union republics in area, had

a population of over 4.3 million, of which nearly 2.8 million, or over 64 percent, were Moldavians. Ukrainians constituted 14 per- cent of the population, while Russians made up another 13 percent.

Only the Ukrainian and Russian republics had sizable Romanianspeaking minorities in their territory.

According to 1989 statistics, 91.6 percent of Moldavians in the

Soviet Union considered Moldavian their first language. Spoken

Moldavian did not differ from the language spoken in Romania;

however, Soviet authorities replaced the traditional Latin alphabet

with the Cyrillic alphabet.

The Moldavians were one of the least urbanized nationalities,

behind only the Kirgiz as the most rural people in the 1970s. In

1986 only 47 percent of the Moldavian Republic's population lived

in urban areas. This represented an increase of 15 percent from

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Nationalities and Religions

1970, when it was the least urbanized of all the union republics.

The overwhelming majority of Moldavians lived in rural areas, while Russians in the republic resided mostly in the cities. The largest city in 1989 was the capital, Kishinev, with a population of

665,000. Two other cities had populations of over 100,000.

In the 1970s, Moldavians were last among the major nationalities in the number of students in higher education institutions and

the number of scientific workers per thousand. The Moldavian

Republic also consistently ranked last among the union republics

in the number of students in higher education per thousand.

Moldavian representation in the CPSU as well as in its own

republic party organization has been among the lowest of all the

nationalities. In the 1980s, Moldavians were next to last among

union republic nationalities in their share of total party membership. In the republic, Russians and Ukrainians held a disproportionate number of seats in the party. Of the nine Moldavian

Republic's Central Committee members elected in 1971, five were

Russian, three were Ukrainian, and one was Moldavian.

Tatars

Three major Tatar groups reside in the Soviet Union: Volga

Tatars (the overwhelming majority of all Tatars in the Soviet

Union), Crimean Tatars, and Siberian Tatars. Most are descended

from the Turkic-speaking Buigars who came into the Volga-Ural

region in the seventh century and the Kipchak tribes who invaded

the area as part of the Mongol Empire. From the thirteenth to the

fifteenth century, they were part of the Golden Horde. In the

fifteenth century, the Golden Horde broke up into the Kazan',

Astrakhan', Crimean, and Siberian khanates. The Volga Tatars,

the descendants of the Kazan' and Astrakhan' hordes (see Glossary), were conquered by Russia in the sixteenth century. The

Siberian Tatars were incorporated into the Russian Empire later that century, and the Crimean Tatars were incorporated at the end

of the eighteenth century.

After their conquest by Russia, the Volga Tatars were subjected

to harsh political, economic, and religious policies. Only the Tatar

nobles who had intermarried with Russians and, in many instances,

gained positions of power and influence in the Russian state, es- caped persecution. Thousands of Tatars were deported north to work in Russian shipyards. Russians confiscated Tatar property,

destroyed their mosques and religious shrines, and pressured them

to convert to Christianity. After a series of Tatar revolts in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, the tsarist government began to change its policies. In 1788 Islam was given official status in Russia,

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

and in 1 792 Tatars were granted the right to trade with the Turkic

populations of Turkestan, Iran, and China.

Repressive measures by the Russian government against Crimean Tatars and Slavic immigration into Crimea forced many

Tatars to emigrate. Others were forcibly deported. During a cen- tury of Russian rule, the Tatar population in Crimea declined from

about 500,000 at the end of the eighteenth century to fewer than

200,000 by the end of the nineteenth century.

Siberian Tatars—mainly hunters, trappers, and horse breeders

scattered over a large territory—presented no threat to the Russian

state and for a time continued to live unmolested. In the nineteenth

century, many Siberian Tatars moved to the cities, seeking employment in the newly built sawmills and tanneries.

Despite renewed harassment in the second half of the nineteenth

century, Tatars formed the intellectual and political elite of the Muslim population in Russia. Tatars were active in the Revolution of

1905 in Russia. They participated in the First Duma of 1906 and

the Second Duma of 1907, and they were the leading proponents

of the pan-Turkic movement that emphasized racial, religious and

linguistic unity of all Turkic-speaking peoples.

After the February Revolution in 1917, the Volga Tatars tried

to established an independent federation of Volga-Ural states. This

dream proved impossible in the face of both Bolshevik and White

Russian opposition. Instead, with the help of the Red Army, the

Tatar Autonomous Republic was created in May 1920 as part of

the Russian Republic.

The Crimean Tatars' attempts to create an independent state in 1917 were also thwarted by the Bolsheviks, and in October 1921

the Soviet leaders created the Crimean Autonomous Republic.

Later, however, the Crimean Tatars were exiled from Crimea during World War II and scattered throughout Soviet Central Asia.

In the 1989 census, the Tatars, with over 6.6 million people, were the sixth largest nationality in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, they did not have their own union republic. Over 1.7 million

Tatars lived in the Tatar Autonomous Republic, one of sixteen

autonomous republics in the Russian Republic, where they had

a plurality of almost 48 percent of the population. About 1 million

others lived in the Bashkir Autonomous Republic, also located in

the Russian Republic, where they ranked second in population after the Russians and just ahead of the Bashkirs, a closely related Turkic

nationality. Another 2.6 million Tatars lived scattered throughout the rest of the Russian Republic. Of these, about 500,000 were

Siberian Tatars living in western Siberian towns and villages. Over

1 million Tatars—a majority of whom were probably exiled

176
Synagogue in Kishinev, Moldavian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

Crimean Tatars—were also found in Soviet Central Asia—mostly

in the Uzbek and Kazakh republics.

Each of the three Tatar groups speaks a distinct language, although

all belong to the West Turkic-Kipchak group of languages. The lan- guage of the Crimean Tatars also contains a large number of Arabic

and Persian loanwords. The Siberian Tatars have no written language of their own and use the literary language of the Volga Tatars. In 1989 over 83 percent of all Tatars and 96.6 percent of those

residing in the Tatar Autonomous Republic regarded Tatar as their

native language. A high percentage of Tatars were also fluent in

Russian. The educational level of Tatars in the Soviet Union varied.

Tatars living in their own autonomous republic or elsewhere in the

Russian Republic were not as well educated as the highly urbanized

Crimean Tatars who lived in the Soviet Central Asian republics.

Tatar representation in the CPSU both in the Soviet Union and

in the Tatar Autonomous Republic has been consistently low. In

the 1980s, they were particularly underrepresented in the Central

Committee of the CPSU.

Jews

Jews first appeared in eastern Europe several centuries before

the birth of Christ. By the first century A.D., Jewish settlements

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

existed along the northern shores of the Black Sea. In the eighth

century, the descendants of these early Jewish settlers converted

the nomadic Turkic Khazars to Judaism. Jewish communities

existed in Kiev and other cities of Kievan Rus'. They were destroyed, however, during the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth

century.

Persecuted in western Europe, Jews began migrating to Poland

in the fourteenth century, and from there they moved to the presentday Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian republics, where by

the mid-seventeenth century they numbered in the hundreds of

thousands. Although initially they were under royal protection and

enjoyed communal autonomy, life for the great majority of Jews

in Poland worsened, and they became as oppressed as Poland's

Christian subjects. Forbidden to own land, many Jews served as

estate managers and as middlemen between the Catholic Polish

landowning nobility and the Orthodox Ukrainian and Belorussian

enserfed peasants living on the nobles' estates. On the estates, they

often collected taxes for the nobles, controlled the sale of salt and

fish, ran the grain mills, and acted as overseers of peasant labor.

Jews also owned the local village taverns. Particularly insidious was

the Polish Catholic nobles' practice of making the Jews collect taxes on Orthodox churches. As a result, in addition to disliking them

as foreigners and non-Christians, the peasants held Jews directly

responsible for their oppressed and miserable lives. These early

resentments were the seeds of primitive anti-Semitism in eastern Europe and later in the Russian Empire. When the Orthodox

peasantry joined the Ukrainian Cossacks in the mid-seventeenth

century in a revolt against the Poles and the Catholic Church, thousands of Jews were also killed. When Russian armies swept into

Polish-Lithuanian territories following Muscovy's alliance with the

Ukrainian Cossacks in 1654, they killed additional thousands of

Jews, forcibly converting some to Christianity and driving others

into exile. From 100,000 to 500,000 Jews perished, some 700 Jewish

communities were destroyed, and untold thousands fled the war- ravaged areas. Although Jews had been expelled from Russia in 1742, the subsequent incorporation of Polish territory as a result of the partitions of Poland meant that by the end of the eighteenth century

Russia had the largest Jewish community in the world. The tsarist government prohibited Jews from living anywhere except in the area known as the Pale of Settlement, which included the Baltic

provinces, most of Ukraine and Belorussia, and the northern shore

of the Black Sea.

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Nationalities and Religions

About 1.5 million Jews lived in the Russian Empire in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Confined within the Pale of Set- tlement, they were subjected to stringent anti-Jewish regulations.

Although for the next century restrictions on Jews were periodically eased, they were reimposed or even made harsher during the

frequent periods of reaction that followed. Nicholas I (1825-55)

promoted forced induction of Jewish youth into military service,

where they were often coerced into being converted to Christianity. Jewish rights to lease land and keep taverns were rescinded,

and the Pale of Setdement was reduced in size. However, the reign

of Alexander II (1855-81) brought a relaxation of the restrictions

imposed on the Jewish population: some Jews were permitted to

settle outside the Pale of Settlement, to attend universities, and

to enter government service. After the assassination of Alexander

II, however, the old restrictions were reimposed, and persecution of Jews continued until the February Revolution in 1917.

Government-sanctioned pogroms against Jewish communities, during which Jews were beaten or killed and their personal property

destroyed, were particularly brutal. The pogroms were led by the

Black Hundreds, an officially sanctioned reactionary group composed largely of civil servants. In spite of persecution, the Jewish population in the Russian Empire expanded rapidly during the nineteenth century. Later, on

the eve of World War I, it was estimated at 5.2 million. Jewish

culture flourished within the bounds imposed on their community.

Jews became more active politically, and the more radical among

them joined the spreading revolutionary movements.

ForJews, World War I and the Civil War that followed the revolutions in Russia were great calamities. The Pale of Setdement was

the area where most of the prolonged military conflict took place,

and Jews were killed indiscriminately by cossack armies, Russian

White armies, Ukrainian nationalist forces, and anarchist peasant

armies. In addition, the emergence of an independent Poland,

Lithuania, and Latvia and the annexation of Bessarabia by Romania left large numbers ofJews outside the Soviet state borders. By

1922 the Jewish population in the Soviet Union was less than half

of what it had been in the former Russian Empire.

The early years of the Soviet state provided unusual opportunities for Jews to mainstream into Soviet society. Although the majority ofJews had opposed the Bolsheviks during the Civil War, many

supported the creation of the new, ''non-national" state, which

they expected would tolerate Jews. Hundreds of thousands ofJews

were integrated into Soviet cultural and economic life, and many

Jews occupied key positions in both areas. Jews were particularly

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

numerous in higher education and in scientific institutions. Official anti-Semitism ceased, restrictions on Jewish setdement were

banned, Jewish culture flourished, andJewish sections of the CPSU

were established. Many Jews, such as Leon Trotsky, Grigorii V.

Zinov'ev, Lev B. Kamenev, Lazar M. Kaganovich, and Maksim M.

Litvinov, occupied the most prominent positions in party leadership. The purges in the mid- to late 1930s, however, reduced considerably the Jewish intelligentsia's participation in political life, particularly in the party's top echelons.

The 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union was particularly

horrific for Soviet Jewry. About 2.5 million Jews were annihilated,

often by collaborators among the native populations in the occupied

territories who aided the Germans in killing Jews. Paradoxically,

in Soviet territories that escaped German occupation, anti-Semitism

also reemerged in the local population's resentment against the often

better educated, wealthier Jews who were evacuated there before

the advancing German armies.

Jews were the most dispersed nationality in the Soviet Union.

In 1989 a majority of the 1 .4 million Jews in the Soviet Union lived

in the three Slavic republics. Approximately 536,000 lived in the

Russian Republic, 486,000 in the Ukrainian Republic, and 112,000

in the Belorussian Republic. Large Jewish minorities also lived in

the Uzbek and Moldavian republics, and smaller numbers ofJews

lived in all the remaining republics.

Although the Jewish (Yevreyskaya) Autonomous Oblast in the

Soviet Far East was designated as the homeland of the Soviet Jews,

only 8,887 Jews lived there in 1989, just over 4 percent of the population of the oblast. Never high, the number ofJews in the Jewish

Autonomous Oblast has been declining—14,269, or 8.8 percent,

of the oblast's population in 1959 and 11,452, or 6.6 percent, in

1970.

Between 1959 and 1989, the Jewish population in the Soviet

Union declined by about 900,000. The decline was attributed to several factors—low birth rate, intermarriage, concealment of

Jewish identity, and emigration.

Although 83 percent of the Jews regarded Russian as their native language in 1979, Soviet authorities recognized Yiddish as the

national language of Soviet Jewry. Small groups of Soviet Jews

spoke other "Jewish" languages: in Soviet Central Asia some Jews

spoke a Jewish dialect of Tadzhik, in the Caucasus area Jews spoke

a form of Tat, while those in the Georgian Republic used their

own dialect of the Georgian language.

Soviet Jews were overwhelmingly urban. In 1979 over 98 per- cent of all Jews in the Soviet Union lived in urban areas. Four cities

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Nationalities and Religions

in particular—Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and Odessa—had large

concentrations ofJews. Along with being the most urbanized nationality, in the 1970s Jews also ranked first among all nationalities in educational level and in numbers of scientific workers per

thousand.

Traditionally, Jews have been highly represented in the CPSU,

and their membership exceeded considerably their proportion of

the total population. Soviet statistics show that 5.2 percent of all CPSU members in 1922 were Jews; in 1927 the figure declined

to 4.3 percent. In 1976 the figure was 1.9 percent, almost three

times the percentage of Jews in the general population.

Chuvash

Descended from the Finno-Ugric tribes of the middle Volga area and the Bulgar tribes of the Kama and Volga rivers, the Chuvash

were identifiable as a separate people by the tenth century A.D.

Conquered by the Mongols in the thirteenth century, they became

part of the Kazan' Horde. Since the mid-sixteenth century, they

have been under Russian rule. After the revolutions of 1917 and

the Civil War, the Soviet government established the Chuvash

Autonomous Oblast within the Russian Republic. In 1925 the oblast became the Chuvash Autonomous Republic.

The Chuvash were originally Muslim but were forced to convert to Christianity by the Russians. Many reconverted to Islam

in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the 1980s, some

were Orthodox Christians, others Sunni Muslims.

In 1989 the Chuvash population was over 1.8 million. Slightly over half lived in the Chuvash Autonomous Republic, within the

Russian Republic, where they constituted over 67 percent of the

population. Large concentrations of Chuvash also resided in the

Tatar Autonomous Republic, the Bashkir Autonomous Republic,

and other parts of the Russian Republic.

The Chuvash speak a unique language that includes a large number of Finno-Ugric and Slavic loanwords but that belongs to the

Bulgar group of Turkic languages. Because no written Chuvash

language had existed before the Russian conquest, it is the only

Turkic language in the Soviet Union to have always used a Cyrillic alphabet. In 1989 about 76.5 percent of the Chuvash considered

Chuvash as their first language.

In the 1980s, the Chuvash remained overwhelmingly rural and

agricultural. In 1987 Cheboksary, the administrative center of the

Chuvash Autonomous Republic, was the only city in the autonomous republic with over 100,000 people.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Bashkirs

The Bashkir nationality developed from a mixture of Finno-Ugric

tribes and a variety of Turkic tribes. They were recognized as a

distinct people by the ninth century, when they settled an area between the Volga, Kama, Tobol, and Ural rivers, where most Bashkirs still live. Conquered by the Mongols of the Golden Horde in

the thirteenth century, the Bashkirs were absorbed by different

hordes after the breakup of the Golden Horde. Since the sixteenth

century, they have been under Russian rule. Impoverished and

dispossessed of their land by Russian settlers, the once-nomadic

cattle breeders were forced to labor in the mines and new factories

being built in eighteenth-century Russia. For two centuries prior

to 1917, the Bashkirs had participated—together with the Chuvash,

the Tatars, and other nationalities in the area—in the many violent outbreaks and popular uprisings that swept the Russian Empire. After the revolutions of 1917, a strong Bashkir nationalist and

Muslim movement developed in the territory of the Bashkirs, where

much of the Civil War was fought. In their quest for an autonomous state, the Bashkirs sought the support of both the Bolsheviks

and the White forces. In the end, most joined with the Bolsheviks,

and in February 1919 the Bashkir Autonomous Republic was es- tablished, the first autonomous republic within the Russian

Republic.

The great majority of Bashkirs were Sunni Muslims. They had

originally adopted Islam in the tenth century, but many were forced

by the Russians between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries to convert to Christianity. Most, however, reconverted to Islam in

the nineteenth century.

In 1989 over 1.4 million Bashkirs lived in the Soviet Union.

Nearly 864,000 of them resided in the Bashkir Autonomous Republic, where they made up about 22 percent of the population. The

Bashkirs were only the third largest nationality in the Bashkir

Autonomous Republic, behind the Russians and the Tatars. The Bashkir language belongs to the West Turkic group of languages. Until the Soviet period, the Bashkirs did not have their

own literary language, using at first the so-called Turki language

and in the early twentieth century a Tatar language. Both languages

used an Arabic script as their written language. In 1940 Soviet

authorities gave the Bashkir language a Cyrillic script. In 1989 about

72 percent of the Bashkirs claimed Bashkir as their first language.

The Bashkirs remained predominantly rural and agricultural;

less than 25 percent of them lived in urban areas in the 1980s.

Although Ufa, the capital of the Bashkir Autonomous Republic,

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Nationalities and Religions

had over 1 million people in 1987, the overwhelming majority were

Russians.

Mordvins

Like the Chuvash, the Mordvins were another nationality having their own autonomous republic along the middle reaches of

the Volga River in the Russian Republic. The Mordvins, like the

Chuvash and the Bashkirs, were Finno-Ugric and like the Chuvash

had been a part of the Kazan' Horde prior to their incorporation

into the Russian Empire in the sixteenth century. Soviet authorities established the Mordvinian Autonomous Oblast in 1930, which

in 1934 became the Mordvinian Autonomous Republic.

The Mordvins, who numbered around 1.2 million people in

1989, were mostly scattered throughout the Russian Republic. Less

than a third lived in the Mordvinian Autonomous Republic.

Mordvins, who made up less than 32 percent of the population, were the second largest nationality in their autonomous republic,

while Russians, with 61 percent, constituted a majority.

A predominantly agricultural people, the Mordvins speak their

own language, which belongs to the Finno-Ugric group of languages. Their written language, which came into being under Soviet

rule, uses a Cyrillic alphabet. In 1989 about 67 percent of the

nationality claimed Mordvinian as their native tongue. Mordvin

religious believers were mostly Orthodox Christians.

Germans

About 2 million Germans lived in the Soviet Union in 1989. The

Kazakh Republic had the largest concentration of Germans (over

956,000), followed by the Russian Republic (841,000) and the

Kirgiz Republic (101 ,000). Prior to World War II, many Germans

lived in their own autonomous republic on the Volga River and

were referred to as Volga Germans. Stalin ordered their dispersal

into Soviet Central Asia and Siberia when Germany attacked the

Soviet Union in 1941 . Unrepatriated German prisoners of war fur- ther increased the German population in the Soviet Union. Since

World War II, however, a considerable number of Germans have

returned to German territory. In 1989 only 49 percent of the Germans claimed German as their first language.

Others In addition to the nationalities discussed in the preceding pages,

many other nationalities with populations of fewer than 1 million

have been recognized by Soviet authorities. Several of the larger

nationalities not previously mentioned had autonomous republics

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

of their own: the Buryat, the Yakut, the Ossetian, the Komi, the

Tuvinian, the Kalmyk, and the Karelian nationalities. Also, two

pairs of nationalities, the Chechen-Ingush and the KabardianBalkar, each shared an autonomous republic. About eighteen nationalities lived either in autonomous oblasts or in autonomous

okruga. All of these nationalities resided in the Russian Republic.

In many cases, Russians had either a majority or a plurality of

the population in these autonomous territorial units. Numerous

other nationalities without an administrative territory of their own

lived scattered throughout the Soviet Union, generally in the Russian Republic.

Religious Groups in the Soviet Union

Official figures on the number of religious believers in the Soviet

Union were not available in 1989. But according to various Soviet

and Western sources, over one-third of the people in the Soviet

Union, an officially atheistic state, professed religious belief. Christianity and Islam had the most believers. Christians belonged to various churches: Orthodox, which had the largest number of fol- lowers; Catholic; and Baptist and various other Protestant sects. The majority of the Islamic faithful were Sunni. Judaism also had

many followers. Other religions, which were practiced by a rela- tively small number of believers, included Buddhism, Lamaism,

and shamanism, a religion based on primitive spiritualism.

The role of religion in the daily lives of Soviet citizens varied

greatly. Because Islamic religious tenets and social values of Muslims are closely interrelated, religion appeared to have a greater

influence on Muslims than on either Christians or other believers.

Two-thirds of the Soviet population, however, had no religious beliefs. About half the people, including members of the CPSU and

high-level government officials, professed atheism. For the majority

of Soviet citizens, therefore, religion seemed irrelevant.

Orthodox

Orthodox Christians constituted a majority of believers in the

Soviet Union. They hold that the Orthodox Church is the true,

holy, and apostolic church and that it traces its origin directly to the church established by Jesus Christ. Orthodox beliefs are based on the Bible and holy tradition as defined by the seven ecumenical

councils held between A.D. 325 and 787. Orthodox teachings in- clude the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the inseparable but dis- tinguishable union of the two natures ofJesus Christ—one divine, one human. Mary is revered as the mother of God but is not

regarded as free from original sin. Other saints are also highly

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Nationalities and Religions

revered. Persons become saints simply by being recognized over

a long period of time by the whole church. No official canonization is required.

Orthodox believers recognize seven sacraments and punishment

after death for sins committed but do not recognize the concept

of purgatory. Baptism and the Eucharist are the two most important sacraments. After the ninth century, the sacrament of marriage became requisite for a valid marriage. Holy orders are conferred on both married and unmarried men, but only the lat- ter are eligible to become bishops.

Worship is an essential part of Orthodoxy and is centered on

the liturgical celebration every Sunday and holy day. Laity fully

participate in the liturgy, responding in unison to the priest and

singing hymns a cappella (organs and other musical instruments

are not allowed). Church services are notable for their splendor,

pageantry, profusion of candles, and bright colors. Priests' gar- ments, as well as altars and church vestments, are ornate and colorful. Icons—pictures of Christ, Mary, and the saints, as well as representations of biblical events—adorn church walls. An ornate

screen of icons, the iconostasis, separates the altar from the worshipers. Icons, often lit by candles, also adorn the homes of most

Orthodox faithful. Icons are venerated but not worshiped. Worship is reserved for God alone.

In the late 1980s, three Orthodox churches claimed substantial

memberships in the Soviet Union: the Russian Orthodox Church,

the Georgian Orthodox Church, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous

Orthodox Church. They, together with the much smaller Belorussian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, were members of the major

confederation of Orthodox churches in the world, generally referred

to as the Eastern Orthodox Church. The first two churches functioned openly and were tolerated by the regime. The Ukrainian

and Belorussian autocephalous Orthodox churches were not per- mitted to function openly.

Orthodox churches that make up Eastern Orthodoxy are autonomous bodies, sometimes referred to as autocephalous or self- governing. The highest authority in each church is either a patriarch or an archbishop who governs in conjunction with the Holy

Synod, an assembly of bishops, priests, monks, and laity. The Holy

Synod elects the head of its church, the patriarch or archbishop,

and in concert administers the church. Matters of faith or other

matters of importance are decided by ecumenical councils in which

all member churches of Eastern Orthodoxy participate. Decisions

of the councils regarding faith are accepted by the followers as

infallible.

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Eastern Orthodoxy does not have a strict hierarchical order with one head, but the ecumenical patriarchate in Istanbul is generally

recognized as the leading official. Individual churches, however,

share the same doctrine and beliefs. Russian Orthodox Church

The Russian Orthodox Church, which has the largest religious

following in the Soviet Union, traces its origins to Kievan Rus'

when in 988 Prince Vladimir made Byzantine Christianity the state religion. When Kievan Rus' disintegrated in the thirteenth century, the metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus' moved to Vladimir, one of the newly established principalities in the northeast. By the

fourteenth century, the metropolitan's seat was permanently established in Moscow, the capital of Muscovy. Until the fall of the

Byzantine Empire, the Russian church was subordinate to the

Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). Afterward, the Russian Orthodox Church considered itself independent

of the church in Constantinople, and in 1589 the title of patriarch was accorded to the metropolitan in Moscow (see The Golden Age

of Kiev; The Time of Troubles, ch. 1). The Russian Orthodox Church in Muscovy was closely tied to the state and was subservient to the throne, following a tradition

established by the Byzantine Empire. That subservience was reinforced during Moscow's drive to acquire the lands of Kievan Rus', a drive that the Russian Orthodox Church supported. Another

characteristic of the medieval Russian Orthodox Church was its emphasis on asceticism and the development of monasticism.

Hundreds of monasteries dotted the forests and remote regions of

medieval Russia. Monasteries not only served as the centers of

religious and cultural life in Russia but also played important social and economic roles as they settled and developed their surrounding land.

Isolated from the West, the Russian Orthodox Church was largely

unaffected by the Renaissance and Reformation and continued

its essentially inward orientation. The introduction of Westerninfluenced doctrinal and liturgical reforms by Ukrainian clergy in

the seventeenth century aroused deep resentment among Russian

Orthodox believers and clergy and led to a split within the church

(see Expansion and Westernization, ch. 1). Peter the Great, while transforming Muscovy into the Russian

Empire, further curtailed the minimal secular power the Russian

Orthodox Church had held previously. In 1721 Peter abolished

the patriarchate and established a governmental Holy Synod, an

administrative organ, to control the church. From that time through

186
Church of the Epiphany (completed in 1845), Moscow. A functioning

church, it is the seat of the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

the fall of the Russian monarchy in 1917, the Russian Orthodox

Church remained directly under state control. Its spiritual and

worldly power was further reduced after the Bolsheviks came to power (see Peter the Great and the Formation of the Russian

Empire, ch. 1). According to both Soviet and Western sources, in the late 1980s

the Russian Orthodox Church had over 50 million believers but

only about 7,000 registered active churches. Over 4,000 of the

registered Orthodox churches were located in the Ukrainian Republic (almost half of that number in western Ukraine, where much

of the population remained faithful to the banned Ukrainian Catholic Church). The distribution of the Russian Orthodox Church's

six monasteries and ten convents was equally disproportionate. Only

two of the monasteries were located in the Russian Republic.

Another two were in the Ukrainian Republic and one each in the

Belorussian and Lithuanian republics. Seven convents were located

in the Ukrainian Republic and one each in the Moldavian, Esto- nian, and Latvian republics; none were located in the Russian

Republic. Because most of the Orthodox believers in these western

Soviet republics were not Russian, many resented the word Russian

in the title of the Russian Orthodox Church. They viewed that

church as a willing instrument of the Soviet government's Russianization policy, pointing out that only Russian is used in the

liturgical services in most Russian Orthodox churches in Ukrainian

and Belorussian republics and elsewhere.

Georgian Orthodox Church

The Georgian Orthodox Church, another autocephalous member of Eastern Orthodoxy, was headed by a Georgian patriarch.

In the late 1980s, it had 15 bishops, 180 priests, 200 parishes, and

an estimated 2.5 million followers.

The spread of Christianity in Georgia began in the fourth century. It became the state religion in the sixth century, and in 1057

the Georgian Orthodox Church became autocephalous. In 1811

the Georgian Orthodox Church was incorporated into the Russian

Orthodox Church but regained its independence in 1917 after the

fall of tsarism. Nevertheless, the Russian Orthodox Church did

not officially recognize its independence until 1943.

Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church

When the metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus' moved to Moscow

in the fourteenth century, Ukrainian Orthodox believers were left without an ecclesiastical leader. From the mid-fifteenth to the late seventeenth century, the see of Kiev was under the jurisdiction of

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Nationalities and Religions

the patriarch of Constantinople and had its own metropolitan. In

1686, however, the Russian government's pressure on Constantinople led to a transfer of the metropolitan see of Kiev to the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Moscow.

The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church separated from

the Russian Orthodox Church in 1919, and the short-lived Ukrainian

state adopted a decree confirming autocephaly for the Ukrainian

Orthodox Church. The church's independence was reaffirmed by

the Bolshevik regime in the Ukrainian Republic, and by 1924 the

church had 30 bishops, almost 1,500 priests, nearly 1,100 parishes,

and between 3 and 6 million members.

From its inception, the church faced the hostility of the Russian

Orthodox Church in the Ukrainian Republic. In the late 1920s,

Soviet authorities accused the church of nationalist tendencies. In

1930 the government forced the church to reorganize as the

"Ukrainian Orthodox Church," and few of its parishes survived

until 1936. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox

Church continued to function outside the borders of the Soviet

Union, and it was revived on Ukrainian territory under the German occupation during World War II. In the late 1980s, some of

the Orthodox faithful in the Ukrainian Republic appealed to the

Soviet government to reestablish the Ukrainian Autocephalous

Orthodox Church.

Armenian Apostolic

The Armenian Apostolic religion is an independent Eastern

Christian faith. It follows Orthodox Christian beliefs but differs from most other Christian religions in its refusal to accept the doctrine of Christ's two natures—divine and human—promulgated

by the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

Armenians were converted to Christianity in the third century

and became the first people in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion. Despite seizing its property and subsequently per- secuting and harassing its clergy and faithful, the Soviet government has allowed the Armenian Apostolic Church to continue as the national church of the Armenian Republic.

In the 1980s, the Armenian Apostolic Church had about 4 million faithful, or almost the entire Armenian population of the country. The church was permitted 6 bishops, between 50 and 100

priests, and between 20 and 30 churches, and it had one theological seminary and six monasteries.

Catholic

Catholics accounted for a substantial and active religious body

in the Soviet Union. Their number increased dramatically with

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

the annexation of western Ukraine in 1939 and the Baltic republics in 1940. Catholics in the Soviet Union were divided between

those belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, recognized by the

government, and those remaining loyal to the Ukrainian Catholic

Church, banned since 1946.

Roman Catholic Church

The majority of the 5.5 million Roman Catholics in the Soviet

Union lived in the Lithuanian, Belorussian, and Latvian republics, with a sprinkling in the Moldavian, Ukrainian, and Russian

republics. Since World War II, the most active Roman Catholic

Church in the Soviet Union was in the Lithuanian Republic, where

the majority of people are Catholics. The Roman Catholic Church

there has been viewed as an institution that both fosters and defends Lithuanian national interests and values. Since 1972 a Catholic underground publication, The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, has spoken not only for Lithuanians' religious rights but

also for their national rights.

Ukrainian Catholic Church

The Ukrainian Catholic Church was established in 1596, when

a number of Ukrainian and Belorussian bishops, clergy, and faithful of the Orthodox Church recognized the supremacy of the Roman

Catholic pope at the Union of Brest. Nevertheless, the Uniates (see

Glossary) retained the administrative autonomy of their church and

preserved most of their traditional rites and rituals, as well as the

Old Church Slavonic (see Glossary) liturgical language. Belorussian Uniates were forced to reconvert to Orthodoxy after the partitions of Poland in the late eighteenth century when Belorussia

became part of the Russian Empire. The Ukrainian Catholic

Church, however, continued to function and grow in western

Ukraine, which was ceded to the Austrian Empire in the partitions.

By the twentieth century, it acquired standing as a national church

in western Ukraine. Its close identity with the national aspirations

of the Ukrainian people and the loyalty it commanded among its 4 million faithful aroused the hostility of the Soviet regime. In 1945

Soviet authorities arrested and deported the church's metropolitan and nine bishops, as well as hundreds of clergy and leading

lay activists. A year later, the Ukrainian Catholic Church, which

at that time had some 2,500 parishes, was declared illegal and for- cibly united with the Russian Orthodox Church. Nonetheless, the

Ukrainian Catholic Church continued to survive underground (see

Policy Toward Nationalities and Religions in Practice, this ch.).

190
Taza Pir Mosque (completed in 1906), Baku, Azerbaydzhan

Republic. An active mosque,

it is the largest in the Caucasus.

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

Various Protestant religious groups, according to Western

sources, collectively had as many as 5 million followers in the 1980s.

Evangelical Christian Baptists constituted the largest Protestant group. Located throughout the Soviet Union, some congregations were registered with the government and functioned with official approval. Many other unregistered congregations carried on reli- gious activity without such approval.

Lutherans, making up the second largest Protestant group, lived

for the most part in the Latvian and Estonian republics. In the

1980s, Lutheran churches in these republics identified to some extent with nationality issues in the two republics. The regime's

attitude toward Lutherans has been generally benign. A number

of smaller congregations of Pentecostals, Seventh-Day Adventists,

Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other Christian groups car- ried on religious activities, with or without official sanction.

Muslim

In the late 1980s, Islam had the second largest number of believers in the Soviet Union, with between 45 and 50 million people identifying themselves as Muslims. But the Soviet Union had

only about 500 working Islamic mosques, a fraction of the mosques

in prerevolutionary Russia, and Soviet law forbade Islamic religious

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

activity outside working mosques and Islamic schools. All working mosques, religious schools, and Islamic publications were

supervised by four "spiritual directorates" established by Soviet

authorities to provide governmental control. The Spiritual Directorate for Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the Spiritual Directorate

for the European Soviet Union and Siberia, and the Spiritual Directorate for the Northern Caucasus and Dagestan oversaw the reli- gious life of Sunni (see Glossary) Muslims. The Spiritual Directorate

for Transcaucasia dealt with both Sunni and Shia (see Glossary)

Muslims. The overwhelming majority of the Muslims were Sunnis;

only about 10 percent, most of whom lived in the Azerbaydzhan

Republic, were Shias.

Islam originated in the Arabian Peninsula in 610 when Muhammad (later known as the Prophet), a merchant in the Arabian town

of Mecca, began to preach the first in a series of revelations granted

him by God through the angel Gabriel. Muhammad's denunciation of the polytheism of his fellow Meccans earned him the bitter

enmity of the leaders of Mecca, whose economy was based largely on the thriving business generated by pilgrimages to the pagan

Kaabah shrine. In 622 Muhammad and a group of followers were

invited to the town of Yathrib, which came to be known as Medina

(meaning the city) because it was the center of Muhammad's activities. The move to Medina, called the hijra (hegira), marks the

beginning of Islam as a force in history; it also marks the first year

of the Muslim calendar. Subsequently, the Prophet converted the

people of the Arabian Peninsula to Islam and consolidated both

spiritual and temporal leadership of all Arabia in his person.

After Muhammad's death in 632, his followers compiled those

of his words regarded as coming directly from God as the Quran,

the holy,scripture of Islam; others of his sayings and teachings and

precedents of his personal behavior, recalled by those who had

known him during his lifetime, became the hadith. Together they

form the sunna, a comprehensive guide to the spiritual, ethical,

and social life of orthodox Muslims. Muhammad's followers spread

Islam to various parts of the world. Some oasis-dwelling people

of Central Asia were first converted to Islam in the seventh century. The Tatars of the Golden Horde, who converted to Islam

in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, spread Islam throughout Central Asia (see The Mongol Invasion, ch. 1). Most of the

Kirgiz and Kazakh tribes of Central Asia, however, converted to Islam in the nineteenth century while they were under Russian rule. In the Caucasus region, Islam was introduced in the eighth century, but not until the seventeenth century was it firmly established

there.

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Nationalities and Religions

Islam means submission (to God), and one who submits is a Muslim. The shahada (testimony or creed) states the central belief of

Islam: "There is no god but God [Allah], and Muhammad is his

Prophet." Muhammad is considered the "seal of the prophets";

his revelation completes for all time the biblical revelations received

by Jews and Christians.

The duties of Muslims form the five pillars of the faith. They

are the recitation of the creed (shahada), daily prayer (salat), almsgiving (zakat), fasting (sawm), and pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca. Believers pray while facing toward Mecca in a prescribed manner each

day at dawn, midday, midafternoon, sunset, and nightfall. When

possible, men pray in congregation at a mosque under a prayer

leader; on Fridays they are obliged to do so. Women generally pray

at home but may also attend public worship at a mosque, where

they are segregated from the men. A special functionary, the

muezzin, intones a call to prayer to the entire community at the

appropriate hour.

Since the early days of Islam, religious authorities have imposed

a tax (zakat) on personal property proportionate to one's wealth;

this is distributed, along with free-will gifts, to the mosques and

to the needy. The ninth month of the Muslim calendar is Ramadan,

a period of obligatory fasting (sawm) during daylight hours for all but the sick, the weak, children, and others for whom fasting would

be an unusual burden. Finally, all Muslims at least once in their

lifetime should, if possible, make the hajj, or pilgrimage, to the

holy city of Mecca to participate in special rites held there during

the twelfth month of the calendar.

Ideally every Muslim is expected to practice all five pillars of

the faith, but Islam accepts what is possible under the circumstances.

This acceptance is particularly significant for Soviet Muslims, who

can thus function both as Soviet citizens and as members of an

Islamic community. Soviet Muslims, however, have had difficulty

adhering to certain Islamic practices. For example, fasting during

the month of Ramadan was infrequently observed because of the

demands of meeting agricultural and factory work quotas. In the

late 1980s, permission to make the hajj was given only to about

twenty Soviet Muslims annually. A commonly observed practice,

however, was circumcision of young Muslim boys at around the

age of seven. Regardless of the degree of their adherence to all Islamic precepts, most Soviet citizens born to Muslim parents consider themselves Muslims.

A Muslim is in direct relationship with God; Islam has neither

intermediaries nor clergy. Those who lead prayers, preach sermons, and interpret the law do so by virtue of their superior knowledge

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

and scholarship rather than by virtue of special powers or prerogatives conferred by ordination.

The differences between Sunnis and Shias were originally political. After Muhammad's death, the leaders of the Muslim community chose Abu Bakr, the Prophet's father-in-law, as caliph (from

the Arabic word khalifa; literally, successor). Some persons favored

Ali, the Prophet's cousin and husband of his favorite daughter,

but Ali and his supporters (the Shiat Ali, or Party of Ali) eventually recognized the community's choice. Ali became the fourth

caliph in 656. A great schism followed, splitting Islam between the

Sunnis, who supported an elected caliph, and the Shias, who supported Ali's line as well as a hereditary caliph who served as spiritual

and political leader. Over the centuries, the Sunnis have come to be identified as the more orthodox of the two branches.

The differences between the Sunni and Shia interpretations

rapidly took on theological and metaphysical overtones. The Sunnis retained the doctrine of leadership by consensus, although Arabs

and members of the Quraysh, Muhammad's tribe, predominated

in the early years. Meanwhile, the Shia doctrine of rule by divine

right became more and more firmly established, and disagreements over which of several pretenders had the truer claim to the mystical power of Ali precipitated further schisms. Some Shia groups

developed doctrines of divine leadership far removed from the strict monotheism of early Islam, including belief in hidden but divinely

chosen leaders and in spiritual powers that equaled or surpassed

those of the Prophet himself.

Muslims in the Soviet Union are a disparate and varied group.

Although most of them reside in Central Asia, they can be found on the western borders of the Soviet Union as well as in Siberia

and near the border with China. Ethnically they include Turkic

people like the Azerbaydzhanis, Uzbeks, Tatars, and Uygurs;

Iranian people like the Tadzhiks, Ossetians, Kurds, and Baluchi;

Caucasian people like the Avars, Lezgins, and Tabasarans; and

several other smaller groups.

Soviet Muslims also differ linguistically and culturally from each

other. Among them, they speak about fifteen Turkic languages,

ten Iranian languages, and thirty Caucasian languages. Hence,

communication between different Muslim groups has been difficult. Although in 1 989 Russian often served as a lingua franca among

some educated Muslims, the number of Muslims fluent in Russian was low. Culturally, some Muslim groups had highly developed

urban traditions, whereas others were recently nomadic. Some lived

in industrialized environments; others resided in isolated mountainous regions. In sum, Muslims were not a homogeneous group

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Nationalities and Religions

with a common national identity and heritage, although they shared

the same religion and the same country.

In the late 1980s, unofficial Muslim congregations, meeting in tea houses and private homes with their own mullahs (see Glossary), greatly outnumbered those in the officially sanctioned

mosques. The mullahs in unofficial Islam were either self-taught or were informally trained by other mullahs. In the late 1980s, unofficial Islam appeared to split into fundamentalist congregations

and groups that emphasized Sufism (see Glossary).

Policy Toward Nationalities and Religions in Practice

Since coming to power in 1917, the Soviet regime has failed to develop and apply a consistent and lasting policy toward nationalities and religions. Official policies and practices have not only

varied with time but also have differed in their application from

one nationality to another and from one religion to another.

Although all Soviet leaders had the same long-range goal of developing a cohesive Soviet people, they pursued different policies

to achieve it. For the Soviet regime, the questions of nationality

and religion were always closely linked. Not surprisingly, therefore, the attitude toward religion also varied from a total ban on some religions to official support of others.

The Soviet Constitution, in theory, describes the regime's position regarding nationalities and religions. It states that every citizen of the Soviet Union is also a member of a particular nationality,

and a citizen's internal passport identifies that nationality. The Constitution grants a large degree of local autonomy, but this autonomy has always been subordinated to central authority. In addition,

because local and central administrative structures are often not

clearly divided, local autonomy is further weakened. Although

under the Constitution all nationalities are equal, in practice they

have not been. In 1989 only fifteen nationalities had union re- public status, granting them, in principle, many rights, including

the right to secede from the union. Twenty-two nationalities lived

in autonomous republics with a degree of local self-government

and representation in the Council of Nationalities in the Supreme

Soviet. Eighteen additional nationalities had territorial enclaves

(autonomous oblasts and autonomous okruga) but possessed very

little power of self-government. The remaining nationalities had

no right of self-management. Stalin's definition in 1913 that "A

nation is a historically constituted and stable community of people

formed on the basis of common language, territory, economic life, and psychological makeup revealed in a common culture" was

retained by Soviet authorities through the 1980s. But, in granting

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

nationalities a union republic status, three additional factors were

considered: a population of at least 1 million, territorial compactness of the nationality, and location on the borders of the Soviet

Union.

Although Vladimir I. Lenin believed that eventually all nationalities would merge into one, he insisted that the Soviet Union be

established as a federation of formally equal nations. In the 1920s,

genuine cultural concessions were granted to the nationalities. Communist elites of various nationalities were permitted to flourish and

to have considerable self-government. National cultures, religions,

and languages were not merely tolerated but in areas with Muslim populations were encouraged.

These policies toward the nationalities were reversed in the 1930s

when Stalin achieved dictatorial control of the Soviet Union. Stalin's watchwords regarding nationalities were centralism and conformity. Although Georgian, Stalin pursued a policy of drawing

other nationalities closer to the Russian nationality {sblizhenie—

see Glossary). He looked toward Russian culture and language as the links that would bind different nations together, creating in the

process a single Soviet people who would not only speak Russian

but also for all intents and purposes be Russian. Native communist elites were purged and replaced with Russians or thoroughly

Russified persons. Teaching the Russian language in all schools

became mandatory. Centralized authority in Moscow was strengthened, and self-governing powers of the republics were curtailed.

Nationalities were brutally suppressed by such means as the forced

famine of 1932-33 in the Ukrainian Republic and the northern

Caucasus and the wholesale deportations of nationalities during

World War II, against their constitutional rights. The Great Terror and the policies following World War II were particularly

effective in destroying the non-Russian elites. At the same time,

the onset of World War II led Stalin to exploit Russian nationalism. Russian history was glorified, and Soviet power was identified with Russian national interests. In the post-World War II victory celebration, Stalin toasted exclusively the Russian people

while many other nationalities were punished as traitors. The death of Stalin and the rise of Nikita S. Khrushchev to power

eliminated some of the harshest measures against nationalities.

Among the non-Russian nationalities, interest in their Culture, his- tory, and literature revived. Khrushchev, however, pursued a policy

of merger of nationalities (sliianie—see Glossary). In 1958 he implemented educational laws that furthered the favoring of the Russian language over native languages and aroused resentment among

Soviet nationalities.

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Nationalities and Religions

Although demographic changes in the 1960s and 1970s whittled

down the Russian majority overall, they also led to two nationalities (the Kazaks and Kirgiz in the 1979 census) becoming minorities in their own republics and decreased considerably the majority

of the titular nationalities in other republics. This situation led

Leonid I. Brezhnev to declare at the Twenty-Fourth Party Congress in 1971 that the process of creating a unified Soviet people

had been completed, and proposals were made to abolish the fed- erative system and replace it with a single state. The regime's optimism was soon shattered, however. In the 1970s, a broad national

dissent movement began to spread throughout the Soviet Union.

Its manifestations were many and diverse. The Jews insisted on

their right to emigrate to Israel; the Crimean Tatars demanded

to be allowed to return to Crimea; the Lithuanians called for the

restoration of the rights of the Catholic Church; and Helsinki watch

groups (see Glossary) were established in the Georgian, Lithuanian,

and Ukrainian republics. Petitions, samizdat (see Glossary) litera- ture, and occasional public demonstrations voiced public demands

for the rights of nationalities within the human rights context. By

the end of the 1970s, however, massive and concerted efforts by

the KGB had largely suppressed the national dissent movement.

Nevertheless, Brezhnev had learned his lesson. Proposals to dis- mantle the federative system were abandoned, and a policy of fur- ther drawing of nationalities together (sblizhenie) was pursued.

Language has often been used as an important tool of the nationality policy. According to the Constitution, the Soviet Union

has no official language, and all languages are equal and may be

used in all circumstances. Citizens have the right to be educated

in their own language or any language chosen by them or by their

parents. Nevertheless, demography and Soviet policies have made

Russian the dominant language. Under Brezhnev, Soviet officials emphasized in coundess pronouncements that the Russian language

has been ' 'voluntarily adopted" by the Soviet people as the language of international communication, has promoted the " social,

political, and ideological unity" of Soviet nationalities, has enriched

the cultures of all other nationalities in the Soviet Union, and has

given "each Soviet people access to the treasure of world civiliza- tion." Russian has been a compulsory subject in all elementary

and secondary schools since 1938. In the schools of all the republics, where both a national language and Russian were used, science

and technical courses have been mainly taught in Russian. Some

higher education courses have been available only in Russian. Russian has been the common language of public administration in

every republic. It has been used exclusively in the armed forces,

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

in scientific research, and in high technology. Yet despite these measures to create a single Russian language in the Soviet Union,

the great majority of non-Russians considered their own native lan- guage their first language. Fluency in Russian varies from one non- Russian nationality to another but is generally low, especially among

the nationalities of Soviet Central Asia. A proposal in the 1978

Georgian Republic's constitution to give the Russian language equal

status with the Georgian language provoked large demonstrations

in Tbilisi and was quickly withdrawn.

Soviet policy toward religion has been based on the ideology of

Marxism-Leninism (see Glossary), which has made atheism the

official doctrine of the Soviet Union. Marxism-Leninism has consistently advocated the control, suppression, and, ultimately, the

elimination of religious beliefs. In the 1920s and 1930s, such or- ganizations as the League of the Militant Godless ridiculed all religions and harassed believers. Propagation of atheism in schools

has been another consistent policy. The regime's efforts to eradi- cate religion in the Soviet Union, however, have varied over the

years with respect to particular religions and have been affected

by higher state interests. Soviet officials closely identified religion with nationality. The

implementation of policy toward a particular religion, therefore,

has generally depended on the regime's perception of the bond between that religion and the nationality practicing it, the size of the

religious community, the degree of allegiance of the religion to outside authority, and the nationality's willingness to subordinate it- self to political authority. Thus the smaller the religious community

and the closer it identified with a particular nationality, the more

restrictive were the regime's policies, especially if in addition it recognized a foreign religious authority such as the pope.

As for the Russian Orthodox Church, Soviet authorities have

sought to control it and, in times of national crisis, to exploit it for the regime's own purposes; but their ultimate goal has been

to eliminate it. During the first five years of Soviet power, the

Bolsheviks executed 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and over 1,200

Russian Orthodox priests. Many others were imprisoned or exiled.

Believers were harassed and persecuted. Most seminaries were

closed, and publication of most religious material was prohibited.

By 1941 only 500 churches remained open out of about 54,000 in

existence prior to World War I. The German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 forced Stalin to

enlist the Russian Orthodox Church as an ally to arouse Russian patriotism against foreign aggression. Religious life revived within the

Russian Orthodox Church. Thousands of churches were reopened

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Nationalities and Religions

and multiplied to 22,000 before Khrushchev came to power. The

regime permitted religious publications, and church membership

grew.

The regime's policy of cooperation with the Russian Orthodox

Church was reversed by Khrushchev. Although the church re- mained officially sanctioned, in 1959 Khrushchev launched an anti- religions campaign that was continued in a less stringent manner

by his successor. By 1975 the number of operating Russian Orthodox churches was reduced to 7,000. Some of the most prominent

members of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy and activists were

jailed or forced to leave the church. Their place was taken by a

docile clergy who were obedient to the state and who were sometimes infiltrated by KGB agents, making the Russian Orthodox

Church useful to the regime. The church has espoused and

propagated Soviet foreign policy and has furthered the Russiflcation of non-Russian believers, such as Orthodox Ukrainians and

Belorussians.

The regime applied a different policy toward the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Belorussian Autocephalous

Orthodox Church. Viewed by the government as very nationalistic, both churches were suppressed, first at the end of the 1920s

and again in 1944 after they had renewed themselves under German occupation. The leadership of both churches was decimated;

/ large numbers of priests—2,000 Belorussian priests alone—were

shot or sent to labor camps, and the believers of these two churches were harassed and persecuted.

The policy toward the Georgian Orthodox Church has been

somewhat different. That church has fared far worse than the Russian Orthodox Church under the Soviet regime. During World War

II, however, the Georgian Orthodox Church was allowed greater

autonomy in running its affairs in return for the church's call to

its members to support the war effort. The church did not, however,

achieve the kind of accommodation with the authorities that the

Russian Orthodox Church had. The government reimposed tight

control over it after the war. Out of some 2,100 churches in 1917,

only 200 were still open in the 1980s, and the church was forbidden to serve its faithful outside the Georgian Republic. In many

cases, the regime forced the church to conduct services in Old

Church Slavonic instead of in the Georgian language.

The Soviet government's policies toward the Catholic Church

were strongly influenced by Soviet Catholics' recognition of an outside authority as head of their church. Also, in the two republics

where most of the Catholics lived, the Lithuanian Republic and

the Ukrainian Republic, Catholicism and nationalism were closely

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

linked. Although the Roman Catholic Church in the Lithuanian

Republic was tolerated, large numbers of the clergy were imprisoned, many seminaries were closed, and police agents infiltrated the remainder. The anti-Catholic campaign in the Lithuanian

Republic abated after Stalin's death, but harsh measures against

the church were resumed in 1957 and continued through the

Brezhnev era. Soviet religious policy was particularly harsh toward the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Ukrainian Catholics fell under Soviet rule

in 1939 when western Ukraine was incorporated into the Soviet

Union as part of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. Although

the Ukrainian Catholic Church was permitted to function, it was

almost immediately subjected to intense harassment. Retreating

before the German army in 1941, Soviet authorities arrested large

numbers of Ukrainian Catholic priests, who were either killed or deported to Siberia. After the Red Army reoccupied western Ukraine

in 1944, the Soviet regime liquidated the Ukrainian Catholic

Church by arresting its metropolitan, all of its bishops, hundreds

of clergy, and the more active faithful, killing some and sending

the rest to labor camps, where, with few exceptions, they perished.

At the same time, Soviet authorities forced some of the remaining

clergy to abrogate the union with Rome and subordinate themselves to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Prior to World War II, the number of Protestants in the Soviet

Union was low in comparison with other believers, but they have

shown remarkable growth since then. In 1944 the Soviet government established the Ail-Union Council of Evangelical Christian

Baptists to give the government some control over the various Protestant sects. Many congregations refused to join this body, however, and others that initially joined the council subsequently left. All found that the state, through the council, was interfering in

church life. The regime's policy toward the Islamic religion has been affected, on the one hand, by the large Muslim population, its close ties to national cultures, and its tendency to accept Soviet authority and, on the other hand, by its susceptibility to foreign influence. Since

the early 1920s, the Soviet regime, fearful of a pan-Islamic movement, has sought to divide Soviet Muslims into smaller, separate

entities. This separation was accomplished by creating six separate

Muslim republics and by fostering the development of a separate

culture and language in each of them. Although actively encouraging atheism, Soviet authorities have permitted some limited reli- gious activity in all the Muslim republics. Mosques functioned in

most large cities of the Central Asian republics and the Azerbaydzhan

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Nationalities and Religions

Republic; however, their number had decreased from 25,000 in

1917 to 500 in the 1970s. In 1989, as part of the general relaxation

of restrictions on religions, some additional Muslim religious asso- ciations were registered, and some of the mosques that had been

closed by the government were returned to Muslim communities.

The government also announced plans to permit training of limited numbers of Muslim religious leaders in courses of two- and

five-year duration in Ufa and Baku, respectively.

Although Lenin found anti-Semitism abhorrent, the regime was

hostile toward Judaism from the beginning. In 1919 Soviet authorities abolished Jewish community councils, which were traditionally responsible for maintaining synagogues. They created a special

Jewish section of the party, whose tasks included propaganda against

Jewish clergy and religion. Training of rabbis became impossible,

and until the late 1980s only one Yiddish periodical was published.

Hebrew, because of its identification with Zionism, was taught only

in schools for diplomats. Most of the 5,000 synagogues functioning prior to the Bolshevik Revolution were closed under Stalin,

and others were closed under Khrushchev. For all intents and purposes, the practice ofJudaism became impossible, intensifying the

desire of Jews to leave the Soviet Union.

Manifestations of National Assertiveness

Gorbachev's policy of glasnost' (see Glossary) exposed the official corruption, economic malaise, and general discontent that had per- meated Soviet society for some time prior to his assumption of power.

Gorbachev encouraged public discussion of sensitive issues, including

the question of nationalities and religions in the Soviet Union. These

policies led to a renewed ferment among the nationalities throughout the Soviet Union. By 1987 the Baltic nationalities, Armenians,

Ukrainians, Soviet Muslims, Belorussians, Georgians, and others,

including native Russians themselves, were expressing their national

and religious grievances and calling on the regime to redress them.

Baltic Nationalities

In the 1980s, the most extensive movements among the Soviet

nationalities, in terms of both participation and far-reaching demands, took place in the Baltic republics. In 1986 peaceful demonstrations began in Riga, the capital of the Latvian Republic, and

from there quickly spread to the other two republics. Originally,

the demonstrations were held to denounce Stalin's crimes and to demand that the Soviet government reveal the truth about the forced

annexation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union in 1940. In

the late 1980s, public demonstrations of 100,000 people or more

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

occurred in all three republics. The republics' parliaments declared

their native languages as official and replaced the republics' flags

with their pre- 1940 national flags. All demanded sovereignty in

managing their political and economic affairs, formed quasi-political

popular fronts, and replaced their respective CPSU first secretaries

with less conservative and more nationalistic party leaders. The

Soviet regime made concessions to the Catholic Church in the

Lithuanian Republic, permitting the pope to elevate one of the

bishops to cardinal. Churches were reopened for worship in all three

republics, and a more tolerant attitude toward religion was generally accepted.

Armenians

The complexity of the nationalities question and the potential

danger it has raised for the Soviet regime were clearly demonstrated

in the nationalist movements in the Armenian Republic in 1988.

In the past, Armenians had been one of the nationalities most loyal

to Moscow. Nevertheless, in February 1988 hundreds of thousands

of Armenians staged a four-day demonstration in Yerevan, the

republic's capital, demanding the return to the Armenian Republic of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, an autonomous

region that had been under the administration of the Azerbaydzhan Republic since the early 1920s but was populated largely

by Armenians. When Soviet authorities showed some sympathy

for Armenian demands, infuriated Azerbaydzhan residents of the

city of Sumgait, which had a considerable Armenian population,

went on a rampage that left 32 dead and 197 wounded, according

to official accounts. The regime recognized that altering nationality borders could provoke dire consequences and refused the

Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast' s request to unite with the

Armenian Republic. When the Nagorno-Karabakh soviet voted

to secede from the Azerbaydzhan Republic, the regime declared

the vote illegal, arrested and expelled the leader of the NagornoKarabakh Committee, which had been formed in the Armenian

Republic, and sent armed troops into Yerevan, the capital of the

Armenian Republic. Other members of the Nagorno-Karabakh

Committee were arrested and taken to Moscow. But the aroused

passions continued, and the Armenian national movement gathered

momentum in September 1988, when 100,000 people demonstrated

in Yerevan.

Ukrainians

National assertiveness was awakened much more slowly in the

Ukrainian Republic. Although Gorbachev seemed willing to grant

202
Nationalist demonstrators gather in 1989 in Baku's

central square, Azerbaydzhan Republic.

Young men in Yerevan, Armenian Republic, raise their fists to protest service in the Soviet armed forces. Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

203
Soviet Union: A Country Study

extensive concessions to the small Baltic nationalities, he was much

less inclined to allow them for the much more numerous Ukrainians, whose natural, agricultural, and industrial resources have been

vital to the Soviet Union and whose size has contributed significantly to the country's large Slavic majority. Ukrainian nationalists were viewed by the regime as a severe threat, and Soviet

authorities have used harsh measures against Ukrainian national

and religious leaders. Nevertheless, a democratic national move- ment gained momentum in the late 1980s. It was particularly strong

in the western regions of the Ukrainian Republic, where the population had not been exposed as long to a policy of Russification

as had the people of the eastern regions of the Ukrainian Republic. A democratic front with a program similar to the Baltic popular fronts, a Ukrainian cultural club to preserve Ukrainian culture

and history, and an ecological movement have been formed and

have gained an increasing following. The crucial issue for Ukrainians in the late 1980s was the use of the Ukrainian language as the official language of the republic and as the language of instruction in the republic's schools. Ukrainians raised demands for trans- forming the Soviet Union into a voluntary confederation of free republics.

Another important development in the Ukrainian Republic was

the revived activity of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Several

bishops and clergy and thousands of believers of the illegal church

appealed to the Supreme Soviet in 1988 for the church's legalization. Also, clergy and thousands of faithful began to defy the

authorities by holding open religious services.

Central Asian Nationalities

National discontent in Soviet Central Asia erupted during the

mid-1980s. The discontent began over the removal for corruption

of the native CPSU first secretaries in the Kirgiz, Tadzhik, and

Turkmen republics. When the CPSU first secretary of the Kazakh

Republic was also ousted and replaced with an ethnic Russian in

December 1986, however, an unprecedented two days of rioting

followed, with a large number of casualties. The riots demonstrated

the local population's resentment against Russians' occupying the

most prestigious jobs in the republic, a grievance that was shared

by the native populations of the other Central Asian republics.

Other commonly held grievances of Central Asian nationalities in- cluded resentment against the government's decision to drop the

diversion of Siberian rivers, which would have brought badly needed

water to the area, and the continuous distortion of their national

history by pro-Russian historians.

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Nationalities and Religions

Russians

The rise of Russian nationalism was another notable development during the first years of Gorbachev's rule. Begun as a move- ment for preservation and restoration of historic monuments and

for a more balanced treatment of the tsarist past, it increasingly

assumed a politically conservative character. The chauvinistic, anti- Semitic, and xenophobic group called Pamiat (Memory) won considerable public support among Russians and official toleration in

Moscow and Leningrad. In a more positive manifestation of Russian nationalism, the government granted new visibility and prestige to the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russian Orthodox

hierarchy was given favorable exposure in the Soviet media, and

in 1988 the government sponsored celebrations in Moscow of the

millennium of the adoption of Christianity in Kievan Rus'. The

regime, in an unprecedented event, permitted the broadcast of a

televised Easter Mass celebrated by the Russian Orthodox Church.

It also handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church some of the

most important shrines and hundreds of churches, many of which

had previously belonged to Ukrainian religious denominations.

Other Nationalities

In the late 1980s, other nationalities, including the Belorussians,

Moldavians, Georgians, and Jews, demanded that measures be

taken to preserve their cultures and languages. Belorussians centered their demands primarily on recognition of the Belorussian

language as the official language of the republic. Moldavians asked

the government to allow them to use the Latin alphabet, as do other

Romanian speakers, while Georgians appealed for greater religious

concessions. Soviet officials, meanwhile, had changed their policy

toward Jews and were allowing greater numbers to emigrate. The

Soviet press was also giving increased and positive coverage to Jewish cultural activity, and Soviet authorities had promised to per- mit the teaching of Hebrew and to allow the opening of a kosher

restaurant in Moscow, a Jewish museum, and a Jewish library.

* * *

English-language sources on nationalities in the Soviet Union are abundant. The Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities, edited by Zev

Katz, provides a very good overview of the fifteen nationalities that

have their own union republics, as well as the Tatars and the Jews.

Stephen Rapawy's ' 'Census Data on Nationality Composition and

Language Characteristics of the Soviet Population: 1959, 1970, and

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

1979" and W. Ward Kingkade's "USSR: Estimates and Projections of the Population by Major Nationality, 1979 to 2050" give

comprehensive statistical analyses of the nationalities listed in the

Soviet census of 1979. The Soviet government's Natsionalnyi sostav

naseleniia, Chast' II gives data on the 1989 census. Excellent essays on various aspects of the nationality question and on particular nationalities in the Soviet Union can be found in The Last Empire,

edited by Robert Conquest; in Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices, edited by Jeremy R. Azrael; and in Soviet Nationality Problems,

edited by Edward Allworth. The availability of English-language

secondary sources on particular nationalities varies. The history,

religion, culture, and demography of Soviet Muslims are covered

in great detail in such recent works as Shirin Akiner's Islamic Peoples of the Soviet Union and Alexandre Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush's Muslims of the Soviet Empire. Equally comprehensive is the

treatment of Estonians in Toivo U. Raun's Estonia and the Estonians;

of Kazakhs in Martha Brill Olcott's The Kazakhs; and of Tatars

in Azade-Ayse Rorlich's The Volga Tatars and in Tatars ofthe Crimea,

edited by Edward Allworth. Nora Levin's two-volume The Jews

in the Soviet Union since 1917, Benjamin Pinkus's TheJews of the Soviet Union, and Mordechai Altshuler's SovietJewry since the Second World

War are some of the available sources on Soviet Jewry. Orest

Subtelny's Ukraine: A History is an excellent general treatment of

the relationship between Ukrainians and Russians, while Jaroslaw

Bilocerkowycz's Soviet Ukrainian Dissent is particularly valuable for the period since the 1960s. Alexander R. Alexiev's Dissent and

Nationalism in the Soviet Baltic sets the scene for the stormy events

that took place in the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian republics in the late 1980s. Few or no monographs are available in English on such major ethnic groups as Belorussians, Moldavians, Poles,

and Germans or on the large number of smaller nationalities.

Analyses of current developments regarding these and other Soviet

nationalities are provided, however, by Radio Free Europe/Radio

Liberty's weekly publication Report on the USSR.

The status of various religions in the Soviet Union and their rela- tionship with the Soviet regime are treated extensively in such works

as Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twentieth Century, Cross and

Commissar, and Religion and Nationalism in Soviet and East European

Politics, all three edited by Pedro Ramet, as well as in Christianity

and Government in Russia and the Soviet Union by Sergei Pushkarev,

Vladimir Rusak, and Gleb Yakunin. John Anderson's Religion and

the Soviet State deals primarily with religious repression in the 1980s

and with Soviet authorities' varying treatment of the different

religions. An analysis of the basis of Soviet atheism and a historical

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Nationalities and Religions

analysis of Soviet religious policy is provided in Dmitry V. Pospielovsky's A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Antireligious

Policies and Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and Persecutions. A detailed,

extensive, and most readable account of Russian Orthodoxy can be found in Jane Ellis's The Russian Orthodox Church, while Bohdan

R. Bociurkiw presents a clear and concise history of the Ukrainian

Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox

Church in his Ukrainian Churches under Soviet Rule. (For further in- formation and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

207

Chapter 5. Social Structure
Statue commemorating an industrial worker and a collective farmer
SINCE 1917 THE SOVIET UNION has transformed itself from

a predominantly agricultural, rural, and developing-capitalist

society into an industrial, urban, socialist (see Glossary) society.

Its social structure developed from the imposition of a centralist,

Marxist state on a geographically, ethnically, and culturally diverse

population.

Western sociologists generally categorized Soviet society into four

major socio-occupational groupings: the political-governmental elite and cultural and scientific intelligentsia; white-collar workers; bluecollar workers; and peasants and other agricultural workers. Soviet

ideology held that Soviet society consisted solely of two nonantagonistic classes—workers and peasants. Those engaged in nonmanual

labor (from bookkeepers to party functionaries) formed strata in

both classes. Social position was determined not only by occupation but also

by education, party membership, place of residence, and even nationality. Membership in the ruling group, the Communist Party

of the Soviet Union (CPSU), aided career advancement. Those

who worked full time for the party received political power, special privileges, and financial benefits. Social status increased the

higher one was promoted in the party, but this power was derived

from position and could neither be inherited from nor be bequeathed

to relatives. Unlike in the West, private property played no role in social

stratification, and income generally was a consequence of social

position, not its determinant. In general, the higher the social position, the greater the pay, benefits, access to scarce goods and ser- vices, and prestige. The Soviet regime glorified manual labor and

often paid higher wages to certain types of skilled laborers than

to many white-collar workers, including physicians, engineers, and

teachers. These professionals, however, enjoyed higher social prestige than the better-paid laborers. Considerable differences existed

among the country's various social and economic groups. Soviet

statistics showed that the income for many occupations was not

sufficient to support a family, even if both spouses worked. These

statistics on income, however, did not take into account money

or benefits derived from the unofficial economy, that is, the black

market in goods and services.

The social structure of the Soviet Union has shown some signs

of immobility and self-perpetuation. Children of the political elite,

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

intelligentsia, and white-collar workers had a better chance to receive

university educations than those of unskilled laborers and agricultural workers. Most children of agricultural workers began their careers without higher education and remained at the same sociooccupational level as their parents.

The largest official social organizations, such as the trade unions,

youth organizations, and sports organizations, were tightly controlled by the state. Unofficial organizations, once banned, were becoming increasingly evident in the late 1980s.

Under the Soviet Constitution, women possessed equal rights

with men and were granted special benefits, such as paid maternity

leave for child-bearing. At the same time, women as a group were

overrepresented in the lower-paid occupations and underrepresented

in high positions in the economy, government, and the party. If married, they performed most of the homemaking chores in addition to their work outside the home. This overwork, coupled with

crowded housing conditions, contributed to a high rate of divorce

and abortion, which was higher in the European part of the country than in the Asian part.

Families in the southern and Islamic parts of the country were

larger than those in the northern and non-Islamic sections. The

increased size reflected the more traditional Islamic cultural norms

and the inclusion of other relatives, particularly grandparents, in

families.

Formation of Soviet Society

From 1861 to early 1917, the population of the Russian Empire

officially consisted of six social categories: the nobility, clergy, dis- tinguished citizens (professionals), merchants, townspeople (a catchall term for city artisans, clerks, and workers not included in the

other groups), and peasants. The intelligentsia, consisting of those

who created and disseminated culture and often served as social

critics, was not considered a separate class but rather, as one scholar

put it, "a state of mind."

The upper level of the nobility and military officers were fur- ther hierarchically ordered according to the Table of Ranks issued

by Peter the Great in 1722, which based rank on service to the

tsar rather than on birth or seniority. This table continued in use, with some modifications, until abolished in 1917. The tsar was at the apex of this system, from which Jews, Muslims, and many of

the smaller non-Russian nationalities were excluded.

The peasants, who were liberated in 1861 from serfdom and

obligatory service on private or government lands, were at the bottom of the pre- 19 17 social pyramid. Before 1905 the government

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Social Structure

required peasants to obtain permission from the local peasant

community—the mir (see Glossary)—before leaving the land.

Although much of the peasant migration before the Bolshevik Revolution was seasonal, some permanent migration into the cities did

occur, especially during the 1890s and after 1906, when the peasants were freed from obligations to the mir. The move from village to

city was naturally accompanied by the move from farm to factory.

Between 1895 and 1917, the factory labor force tripled to more

than 3 million as Russia began to industrialize. The urban population of Russia increased from 9 percent in 1860 to 16 percent

in 1910. Traditionally, urban life in Russia had been connected

with government administration; but at the turn of the century,

it began to be tied to industry.

The revolutions of 1917 overturned the old social order. In that year, the new Bolshevik (see Glossary) government nationalized

private estates and church lands, and it abolished class distinctions

and privileges. Workers' councils (soviets—see Glossary) took over

the operation of factories and were given the right to set production goals and remuneration levels. Banking was declared a state monopoly. Thus, the economic foundations of the old social order

crumbled. The new ruling elite, the Bolshevik-Marxist intelligentsia,

drew its support from what it called the proletariat—workers, landless peasants, and employees—while the formerly privileged—the

clergy, nobility, high-ranking civil servants, and merchants—found

themselves stripped of their property and even hindered in obtaining

housing, education, and jobs. The Bolsheviks lifted some of the

restrictions a short while later when they realized that they needed

the professional knowledge and skills of some former members of

the elite to operate the government and the economy. Yet the chil- dren of the formerly privileged were barred from educational and

career opportunities for nearly two decades after the Bolshevik

Revolution.

9 Vladimir I. Lenin's nationalization of the land, factories, and

financial institutions destroyed the prerevolutionary social system.

In turn, Joseph V. Stalin's forced collectivization of agriculture,

which began in 1929, annihilated the more prosperous peasantry

during the early 1930s, while his industrialization program destroyed the new elite class that had developed as a result of Lenin's

New Economic Policy (NEP—see Glossary). Seeking political scape- goats in the 1930s, the government directed widespread purges

against the technical experts operating fledgling industries. In the

late 1930s, Stalin's purges also destroyed much of the military and

party elite. During the 1930s, the social system adapted to the industrializing economy. Stalin ended the official leveling of incomes in 1931

,

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

when he announced that needed increases in production could be

effected only by paying more to skilled workers and the intelligentsia. The new system provided incentives for workers and partly

ended legal discrimination against some of the former privileged

classes. Official discrimination against the former "exploiting

classes" (nobles, priests, and capitalists) was abolished by the 1936

constitution.

Other events at that time reflected Stalin's move away from the

egalitarian ideas that the regime had promoted during its first decade. In 1934 egalitarianism itself was repudiated, in 1935 military ranks were introduced, and in 1939 the Stalin Prize was created

to reward favored artists. In 1940 school fees were reestablished

for the final year of secondary school and for universities, and in

1943 and 1945 inheritance laws were made more favorable to inheritors.From Stalin's death in 1953 to the late 1970s, an expanding Soviet

economy continued to provide ample opportunity for career and

social advancement. The state increased incomes of and benefits

for the lowest-paid strata of society while providing more privileges

for the elite. Beginning in the 1960s, however, access to higher education became increasingly restricted, thus impeding social advancement by this means. In the early 1980s, a stagnant economy reduced

overall social mobility, a situation that highlighted differences

among social groups.

In 1989 Marxism-Leninism, the official Soviet ideology, held

that social classes have been historically defined by their relationship to the means of production, i.e., land and factories. The offi- cial view was that Soviet society represented "a new and distinctly

different human community, free from traditional class antagonisms

and contradictions." Soviet society supposedly consisted of two

classes, workers and peasants, with those who engaged in non- manual or intellectual labor forming a stratum within both (see

table 17, Appendix A). These two classes were considered to be

nonantagonistic because neither exploited the other and because

they jointly owned the means of production.

Stratification in the Soviet Union, according to Soviet officials, was based only on merit and not on the ownership of private

property. Privilege proceeded from one's position in society and

not the reverse. Soviet ideology held that this stratification would

disappear in the future as Soviet society progressed from social- ism to communism. In contrast, capitalist society, according to Soviet ideology, was torn by class conflict between the capitalists, or those who owned the means of production, and the workers.

The capitalists ruthlessly exploited the workers, who had only their

214
Newlyweds at the Lenin Mausoleum, Moscow

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

labor to sell. This exploitation, Marxist-Leninists believed, created

class antagonisms and inevitable conflict. The official ideology ignored some very profound cleavages in

Soviet society, and it created some that, in fact, had not existed.

For example, despite overwhelming similarities in income, life- style,

education, and other determinants of social position, only those

employed in agricultural work on a collective farm (see Glossary) were considered to be peasants, while those employed in agricul- ture on a state farm (see Glossary) were called workers. Moreover,

a bookkeeper on a collective farm, a schoolteacher, and an armed

forces general, all of whom performed mental labor, were considered

to belong to the nonmanual labor strata, often and imprecisely called the intelligentsia. This classification also failed to take into account

the role political power and party membership played in social

stratification within a one-party state. If under capitalism power

flows from ownership, then under communism power confers the

effect of ownership because political power in the Soviet Union

determined who controlled collective property.

Stratification of Soviet Society

Western authorities on the Soviet Union divide Soviet society

into various groupings or strata based primarily on occupation but

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

also on education, pay and remuneration, place of residence, nationality, party membership, life- style, and, to a lesser extent,

religion. Because the state owned virtually all property, private

ownership played no role in social stratification. The influence of

private enterprise was negligible because of its small-scale and often

tenuous nature. Political decisions, not market forces, determined

who had access to resources and therefore played the predominant

role in social stratification. Socio-Occupational Groupings

Western analysts have divided Soviet society into four broad

socio-occupational groupings. At the apex of this social pyramid

were the elite or intelligentsia, followed by white-collar workers,

blue-collar workers, and, last, agricultural workers.

The Elite

The uppermost socio-occupational group, the elite, included lead- ing party and state officials; high-ranking military, Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—KGB), and

diplomatic personnel; directors of the largest enterprises (see Glossary) and of the largest educational, research, and medical establishments; and leading members of the cultural intelligentsia, e.g., academics, editors, writers, and artists. These groups received the

most income and had access to goods and services that those lower

in the social hierarchy found difficult or even impossible to obtain.

Unlike Westerners, members of the Soviet elite were not allowed

to amass great wealth and bequeath it to their offspring. When a member of the elite died, even luxury items such as a dacha (a

country cottage) or an automobile could revert to the state. White-Collar Workers

Soviet sociologists have grouped many of those who perform non- manual labor into a category comparable to Western * 'white-collar

workers." The approximately 25 million members of this group

ranged from specialists who possessed high educational qualifications to administrators and clerks. The group included the majority

of party and government bureaucrats, teachers, scientists, scholars, physicians, military and police officers, artists, writers, actors, and business managers. In the late 1980s, about 30 percent

of white-collar workers belonged to the CPSU; the more prestigious occupations within this group had the highest percentage of

CPSU members. White-collar workers on the average received

higher wages and more privileges than the average Soviet worker,

216
Social Structure

although physicians and schoolteachers who were just starting out

earned less than the national average for all employees.

Blue-Collar Workers and Manual Laborers

The category of blue-collar workers included those who per- formed manual labor in industrial enterprises as well as those on

collective farms and state farms engaged in transport, construction, and other nonfarming activities. In the late 1980s, blue-collar

workers and their families made up about two-thirds of the country's population.

The CPSU has always loudly proclaimed blue-collar workers to be the backbone of the state and the most honored segment of

society. Although newspaper accounts and photographs glorified

their labor accomplishments, blue-collar workers were masters in

name only. Only 7 percent belonged to the CPSU, the ruling group,

and their pay and benefits were close to the national average and

considerably less than those of the elite. Agricultural Workers

Agricultural workers, on both state farms and collective farms,

formed the bottom layer of the social structure in 1989. They were

the least well paid and the least educated, and they were severely

underrepresented in the CPSU. Most agricultural workers per- formed unspecialized labor. Where specialization existed, it did

so only to the extent that raising poultry or livestock demanded

greater skill than growing crops. In general, mechanized agricul- ture benefited men more than women because men tended to operate the tractors while women continued to perform manual work.

Although all farmers cultivated state-owned farmland, in 1989

farm workers were divided into two categories. State farmers were

technically employees of the state. Working with government-owned

machinery and seed, they received wages from the state for their

labor. In contrast, collective farmers theoretically owned their

machinery and seed and shared the proceeds from the produce sold. Other Determinants of Social Position

Social position in the Soviet Union in 1 989 was determined not

only by occupation but also by le^vel of education, party membership, place of residence (urban or rural), and nationality. Education level and party affiliation were by far the most important

nonoccupational determinants.

Education

Education was the chief prerequisite for social mobility, playing an important role in determining one's occupation and hence

217
Soviet Union: A Country Study

one's position in society. Few opportunities for advancement existed for individuals who lacked formal education. In general, the

person who had an incomplete secondary education, that is, left school after eight years, received only a factory apprenticeship or an unskilled job. The person who completed secondary education,

that is, finished school through the eleventh year, was placed in a skilled or perhaps a low-level white-collar position, depending on the type of secondary school attended (see Institutions of Learning, ch. 6). Professional and bureaucratic positions required an even

higher level of education.

Access to higher education, however, was not equal for all social groups. In general, the higher the parents' status in the social

hierarchy, the better were the children's chances of entering a

university. This advantage was only partially attributable to the

parents' better connections and influence. Children from these

families also received better primary and secondary educations,

which made it more likely that they would pass difficult university

entrance examinations. In addition, their parents could more easily

afford tutoring for these examinations if it were needed. They could

also better afford the expense of school tuition in the absence of a stipend. Because of their better educational backgrounds, the chil- dren of white-collar workers and the elite were more likely to obtain higher positions in the social structure than the offspring of

agricultural and blue-collar workers. Since education was the chief means of social advancement in the Soviet Union, this unequal

opportunity greatly hindered upward social mobility and tended

to perpetuate the intelligentsia and political elite. Party Membership

Membership in the CPSU for both political and nonpolitical careers was absolutely essential for advancement above a certain

level in society. All of the key positions of power in the Soviet Union

were subject to the nomenklatura (see Glossary), the list of positions over which a given party committee had the right of confirmation.

Power and authority increased the higher one rose in the party,

as did monetary and nonmonetary benefits. Also, party membership often brought an opportunity denied to most Soviet citizens

the right to travel abroad.

Nationality

In 1989 Russians possessed an inherent social advantage in the

Soviet Union. They, and to a lesser extent other Slavs, dominated

the central government, party, economy, military, and security hier- archies. Possessing a higher educational level and a higher rate of

218
Social Structure

party membership than most of the non-Russian nationalities, Russians also were overrepresented in skilled labor, white-collar, and

elite positions. The Russian language was the official language of

the state and the language of interethnic communication, which gave an advantage to Russians over non-Russians, who needed to master

Russian as a second language for socioeconomic advancement. NonRussians also generally possessed a lower rate of urbanization than

Russians, who thus enjoyed better access to higher-paying employment and to education institutions. Jews, as well, were overrepresented in certain areas of the arts, science, academe, and certain professions; but this predominance

did not stem from an inherent advantage, as with the Russians,

but rather from achievement. Unlike Russians, Jews were subject

to discriminatory quotas for admission to academe and some professions and, according to one Western scholar, were excluded from

foreign trade organizations.

Within the non-Russian republics and smaller administrative

divisions, local ethnic hierarchies or

' 'mafias" existed, especially

in those regions where the clan system was still pervasive, such as the Caucasus and Central Asia. These patronage systems flourished

during the era of Leonid I. Brezhnev, but Mikhail S. Gorbachev

has attempted to weaken their economic and political power.

Intermarriage among nationalities has produced social mobility, particularly in the case of offspring, who legally must identify

themselves by the nationality of either their mother or their father. In this case, upward mobility has occurred if the children have

chosen the larger or more dominant nationality in the area, especially if it were Russian.

Benefits of Social Position

In the Soviet Union income and related benefits generally derived from one's social position and not the reverse. Ordinarily,

the higher one's social position in the Soviet Union, the higher one's

total benefits, which included not only better wages but also in- creased access to scarce goods and services. Access to goods and

services more accurately reflected social status than cash income

because social groups did not have equal access to them and be- cause perpetual shortages of goods and services diminished the usefulness of cash earned. Other benefits, such as government subsidies

for transportation, food, and housing, were not obtained by virtue

of one's social status but were equally enjoyed by all. Occupational

prestige appeared to be related to both income and occupation,

although some professional positions, despite their higher prestige,

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

were worth less in wages than certain jobs requiring skilled manual labor.

Monetary Compensation

Within the general pay hierarchy, the order, going from the

highest to the lowest level of pay, was as follows: the upper crust of the political and artistic elites; the professional, intellectual, and

artistic intelligentsia; the most highly skilled workers; white-collar

workers and the more prosperous farmers; the average workers;

and, at the bottom, the average agricultural laborers and workers

with few skills. The policy of wage differentiation, put into practice

in the 1930s, has continued into the late 1980s. Western scholars,

however, have disagreed about the exact level of such differentiation. During the 1970s, the salary ratio of the highest 10 percent

of all wage earners to the lowest 10 percent has been estimated as ranging from four to one to ten to one. A leading French expert on Soviet society, Basile Kerblay, has stated that within the same

enterprise the salaries of senior executives ranged from ten to fifty

times that of workers. Most industries had six grades of pay, and

most workers had incomes near to but not at the bottom of the

pay scale (see table 18, Appendix A).

As a group, leaders in the government, party, and military

received the highest pay. In February 1989, the editor of a Soviet

journal admitted to a Western reporter that the top marshals and

generals in the Ministry of Defense earned the highest salaries, as much as 2,000 rubles (for value of the ruble—see Glossary) per

month. Gorbachev, the head of the Soviet state and the CPSU,

was said to receive 1,500 rubles a month, while other Politburo

members earned 1,200 to 1,500 rubles a month. Another Soviet

official has acknowledged that entertainers and other artists with

nationwide recognition received about 1,000 rubles a month, as did seasonal construction workers, whose work sent them to vari- ous areas of the country. Western sources have estimated that the

government leaders at the republic level earned 625 rubles a month.

Those receiving high incomes often were awarded extra pay in the

form of a

'

' thirteenth month" or

' 'holiday increment."

At the lower end of the pay scale were those workers employed

in what one Western sociologist called the "traditionally neglected

economic areas,

' ' which not only paid lower wages but also awarded

smaller bonuses and fringe benefits. In the 1980s, an estimated 7 million people worked in low-paying industrial sectors, such as light

industries (textiles, clothing, and footwear) and food processing.

Another 30 million workers were employed in low-paying jobs in- volving retail trade, food service, state farming, education, public

220
Social Structure

amenities, and health care. Those who performed unskilled supportive functions, the so-called "assistant workers" and "junior

service personnel," such as janitors, watchmen, and messengers,

also received low wages, as did office personnel in all sectors. And

although the income of collective farmers had improved greatly since

the 1960s, their average monthly income in 1986 was only 83 per- cent of the average wage of 195.6 rubles.

Not all individuals in positions requiring higher or specialized

education were paid more than those requiring less education, even though they received greater prestige. Low-paid specialists included

engineers, veterinarians, agronomists, accountants, legal advisers,

translators, schoolteachers, librarians, organizers of clubs and cul- tural events, musicians, and even physicians. Women dominated

these professions (see table 19, Appendix A). In 1988 the average

monthly wage of medical personnel who had completed secondary

or higher education was 160 rubles, or 82 percent of the average

wage.

Lack of official statistics made it difficult to determine the number of Soviet citizens living in poverty. Until Gorbachev assumed

power in 1985, Soviet officials claimed that poverty could not exist in their country, although they did admit to the problem of "underprovisioning" (maloobespechennost

7). In the late 1980s, however,

Soviet economists acknowledged that 20 percent of the population

lived under the poverty threshold, which was estimated at 254 rubles a month for an urban family of four. Mervyn Matthews, a British

expert on Soviet poverty, estimated that 40 percent of blue-collar

workers and their dependents lived below the poverty threshold.

Matthews calculated that in 1979 the poverty threshold was 95 per- cent of the average income of a family of four that had two parents

working outside the home. Similar figures for the late 1980s were

unavailable in the West. Many pensioners likewise appear to fall under the official poverty level. The 56.8 million pensioners in 1986

received an average of only 38 percent of the average wage, while

pensioners from collective farms averaged only 25 percent (see

Welfare, ch. 6).

The official statistics reflected income obtained from the state- controlled economy. They did not include income that was obtained

legally or illegally outside of the official economy (see Nature of

the National Economy, ch. 11). Unofficial income included earnings from such varied sources as private agricultural production,

goods produced on official time with company resources and then

sold privately, and profit realized from illegal currency exchanges.

Western specialists had little information on the exact extent of this activity but acknowledged that it was widespread, especially in

221
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus. However, the extent to which

income derived from unofficial sources raised the per capita in- come of the average Soviet citizen in 1989 was undetermined.

Noncash Benefits and Access to Goods and Services

Besides wages, citizens received two types of noncash benefits.

The first, artificially low prices for food, transportation, and housing, amounted to approximately 42 percent of the average salary

in 1986. These subsidies and other types of transfer payments were

available to all and were not awarded according to status. Other types of noncash benefits were allotted according to social position. For example, high-ranking party and government offi- cials received such benefits as chauffeurs, domestic staff, living

quarters (size and quality dependent on status), priority tickets for entertainment and travel, special waiting rooms at public places,

and passes allowing them to jump lines to make purchases. As a

rule, those receiving the least pay received the fewest noncash

benefits. This group included unskilled workers, lower level whitecollar and service workers, farm workers, many pensioners, and

the temporarily unemployed. Farm workers, who generally received

the lowest pay, were able to supplement their incomes with the pro- ceeds from their private agricultural plots.

Social position also determined access to goods and services, an

important benefit in a country where, as Matthews has written, " Deprivation is a recognized but unpublicized feature of . . . life." Those in the party, military, security, and cultural elites had the

right to shop at special restricted stores that required either for- eign currency or so-called certificate rubles. In such stores, imported

goods or goods not available in the public markets could be purchased. The average citizen, in contrast, was obligated to stand

in line for hours at public markets where many goods, including

clothing and foodstuffs, were either in short supply or unavailable.

Some occupations, however, bestowed privileges that were not offi- cially recognized or that offered opportunities for blat (see Glossary). For example, managers of businesses and business activities had higher standards of living than their positions implied because

they could demand special favors in exchange for the scarce goods

and services they controlled. In turn, shop personnel possessed low

occupational prestige but enjoyed high, albeit unofficial and sometimes illegal, fringe benefits. In addition, some blue-collar occupations could be put into this group.

Social position also played a significant role in the allocation of

living space. The perennial shortage of urban housing meant that

222
Social Structure

insufficient individual apartments existed for those who desired

them. Income played only a small role in housing distribution be- cause the state owned most of the housing and charged artificially

low rents. (A small number of cooperative apartments were sold,

but these were beyond the means of most people.) The elite received

the most spacious and best quality housing, often as a job benefit.

The elite also possessed more influential friends who could help

them bypass the usually long waiting periods for apartments. The

average family, in contrast, either shared an apartment with other

families, using the bathroom and kitchen as common areas, or lived

in a very small private apartment. A 1980 article in a prestigious

Soviet journal on economics stated that about 20 percent of all urban

families (53 percent in Leningrad) lived in shared apartments,

although for the country as a whole this percentage was decreasing in the late 1980s. The housing situation for young unmarried,

and often unskilled, workers was worse. They often could find liv- ing space only in a crowded hostel operated by the enterprise in

which they worked or in the corner of a room in a shared apartment. Until they could find their own apartment, young married

people often lived with one set of parents. Housing in rural areas was more spacious than that found in urban apartments, but it usually had few amenities.

Other forms of unequal access that favored those of higher social status included better holiday facilities, better medical care, and better education for children. The special schools that taught

advanced languages, arts, and sciences were generally attended by

the children of the privileged. Official state honors, both civilian

and military, also brought benefits in the form of better travel, lodging, and holiday accommodations.

Occupational Prestige

In surveys questioning Soviet citizens about occupational prestige, professional and technical positions, especially those in science,

medicine, and the arts, ranked high consistently; unskilled manual labor, agricultural labor, and sales and service jobs consistently

ranked low. In general, Soviet citizens viewed the scientific professions as the most prestigious. While manual labor was glorified

by the party and the press, it was not pursued and was even looked

down upon. Nonmanual labor was considered cleaner, less tiring,

and more prestigious. Agricultural jobs were considered less desirable than industrial jobs even in cases where the qualifications re- quired for the job were equivalent. Urban work was considered more desirable than rural work, which was considered backbreaking, dirty, and offering few possibilities for advancement. The city

223
Soviet Union: A Country Study

also offered more amenities than the countryside, where most of

the underpaid, unskilled jobs were located.

Earnings and benefits seemed to play a key, although not exclusive, role in this social ranking. Generally, nonmanual workers

received higher wages than manual laborers, but pay scales often

overlapped, and many exceptions existed. For example, the lowprestige jobs, such as unskilled manual or nonmanual labor, were

low paying, but not all of those in the high-prestige positions

received high wages. Medical doctors, for instance, were highly

esteemed, but their income was not high. Low prestige was attached

to mid-level white-collar jobs because of their low pay and reduced

benefits; coal miners, in contrast, had greater prestige because of

good pay and benefits.

Urban-Rural Cleavage

The difference between urban and rural life in the Soviet Union

has been called by Basile Kerblay ' 'the most obvious gulf within

Soviet society." This gulf remained despite the rapid urbanization that the society has undergone since the Bolshevik Revolution and the urbanization of rural life itself. Between 1917 and 1987,

the urban population increased by 156.9 million; in contrast, the

rural population decreased by 38.2 million. By 1968 the Soviet

Union had become more urban than rural (see table 20, Appendix A). A Soviet village, officially defined as a community with

fewer than 2,000 inhabitants, had, on the average, 225 inhabitants.

Differences in Life-Styles

Rural dwellers faced culture shock when moving from the countryside to the city. Until they were assimilated into their new way

of life, they were marked by their dress, speech, and behavior. The

rural existence they left behind was slower paced and socially and

economically more homogeneous than life in the cities. They no

longer received essential services, such as housing, medical care, job training, and entertainment, from their village communities

but rather from their urban employers. Their new urban neighbors not only saved less of their wages each month but also spent an average of three times as much on leisure and culture.

The difference between urban and rural society was also reflected in housing conditions. Rural inhabitants traditionally lived in

detached houses and had access to private garden plots. These rural

gardens provided produce either for home consumption or for sale. City dwellers, in contrast, did not usually have this extra source

of income. And although rural housing sometimes lacked indoor

plumbing and other features of urban housing, it was roomier.

224
Ukrainian thatched-roof cottage at the Museum

of Folk Architecture, Kiev, Ukrainian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

One major legal difference between urban and rural dwellers

disappeared in 1976, when collective farmers were issued internal

passports (see Glossary) required for travel outside of their particular district. Before 1976 collective farmers were obliged to obtain

the permission of employers before such travel was allowed.

Structure of Rural Society

Rural society reflected the predominance of agriculture as the

major employer and the CPSU as the sole political organization.

In 1989 the village community was controlled by an economic in- stitution, the farm (collective or state), and an administrative one,

the village soviet (sel'sovet). These organizations employed the elite of rural society, at the very top of which were the ' 'heads' ' (golovki),

who were either party members or party appointees. Golovki in- cluded the party secretary for the raion (see Glossary), the chairman of the collective farm or state farm (in the 1980s most were

university-trained specialists, but a few were those who had learned on the job), the chairman of the sel'sovet, and the secretaries of the

party cells in the state farm or collective farm. Men occupied most

of the top positions on collective farms.

225
Soviet Union: A Country Study

The rural nonpolitical elite consisted of agronomists, veterinary

surgeons, engineers, and schoolteachers. Their life- style resembled

that of urban dwellers. Among this group, rural society held

schoolteachers in high esteem, in part because they played a role in selecting which of their students could continue their studies and

thus have increased opportunity for upward social mobility. For

rural women, regional teacher-training colleges offered the best

chance to rise in the social hierarchy. Despite the relatively high

esteem in which they were held, teachers were poorly paid and,

in general, were forced to maintain private garden plots to support themselves.

An emerging group in the rural social structure consisted of

agricultural machinery specialists. This group included truck drivers or other heavy machinery drivers and mechanics who had completed their secondary education and whose income was higher than

many white-collar workers.

Workers who remained in the countryside had fewer avenues

for upward mobility than did urban dwellers. Tractor drivers, for example, were more upwardly mobile than most rural laborers.

Managers and white-collar workers employed in rural regions were

generally brought in from urban areas. Decreasing Social Differences

In the late 1980s, rural depopulation and modernization were

eroding those aspects of rural society that distinguished it from its urban counterpart. Depopulation resulted from the migration of

young people to the city to study and acquire a trade. This migration was especially apparent in the European part of the Russian

Republic and in the Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian republics,

where annually 2 to 3 percent of the rural population moved from

the countryside to the city. (In Soviet Central Asia, the reverse was true; the rural population continued to increase because of high

birthrates and a reluctance to move out of the countryside.) The

loss of young people made rural society older, and because of the

loss of males in World War II, the older age-groups were pre- dominantly female (see fig. 8). Concurrent with the increased flight from rural areas was the

urbanization of members of the rural areas themselves. The government, for example, merged many villages to form urban- style centers for rural areas. Farming itself had become more professional, requiring a higher level of education or training obtainable

only in cities. Additionally, in the late 1980s farming became more

industrialized as rural processing industries were developed, as stock

breeding become more industrialized, and as more agro-industrial

226
Social Structure

organizations were formed. The modernization of rural areas developed unevenly, however; modernization was more evident in

the Baltic area and the fertile northwest Caucasus and less evident

in the southeast Caucasus and Central Asia. Rural areas also ex- perienced a constant influx of urbanites: people who had moved

to the cities but returned to visit, urban residents vacationing in

the countryside, and seasonal workers and students mobilized for

the harvest. During each harvest, the government organized about

900,000 city dwellers and 400,000 to 600,000 students to assist in

gathering crops. All of these factors lessened the decreasing, al- though still profound, distinction between urban and rural society.

The reverse process—the "ruralization" of urban society—has

not occurred in the Soviet Union, despite the rural origin of many

unskilled urban laborers. The percentage of rural-born unskilled

workers in the urban work force was declining in the 1980s as more

urban-born workers reached working age. This process also was

occurring in industry, where the percentage of urban workers with

peasant backgrounds was greater among older workers. Workers

in skilled industrial positions generally had urban backgrounds.

Social Mobility

Social mobility, or an individual's movement upward or downward through the strata of society, has been facilitated in the Soviet

Union through changes in occupation, marriage, education, and

political or even ethnic affiliation. Nepotism and cronyism have

also played a significant role in social advancement. In addition,

social mobility has stemmed from geographic mobility, such as the

move of an agricultural worker to the city to work in industry. For

non-Russians, social mobility has also involved learning the Russian language and culture.

Given the centralized and bureaucratic official structure of the

Soviet Union in 1989, citizens could not legally become wealthy

or achieve high social status outside official channels. Therefore,

the paths for advancement remained fairly fixed, and an individual's

upward progress was usually slow. In the past, political purges and

an expanding economy had created positions for the ambitious.

The faltering of the economy in the mid-1980s, however, restricted

upward mobility, and as of 1989 Gorbachev's attempt to restruc- ture the economy had not created new opportunities for social mobility.

In the 1980s, downward mobility was less of a problem than it had been during the Stalin era, when high-level government

bureaucrats were demoted to menial jobs. However, even though

elite positions had become more secure under Brezhnev, children

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

of the elite who lacked higher education did not necessarily retain

their parents' social position. In 1989 upward social mobility tended to be "inter-generational"

(advancement to a social position higher than the one occupied by

parents) rather than "intra-generational" (advancement to a higher

social position during one's own adult life). Thus, social mobility

had slowed down. Soviet studies from the 1960s to the mid-1980s

also showed that children of manual laborers were less likely to obtain high-level educational qualifications than children of non- manual laborers. Nearly four-fifths of the children of unskilled

manual laborers began their work careers at the same social level as their parents.

Social Organizations

Social organizations were strictly controlled by the party and

government except for a small number of unofficial groups that

continued to be tolerated by the authorities in the late 1980s. The

largest social organizations in the country were the trade unions

and DOSAAF (see Glossary); next in line were the youth and sports

organizations.

Trade Unions

The trade union system consisted of thirty unions organized by

occupational branch. Including about 732,000 locals and 135 million members in 1984, unions encompassed almost all Soviet employees with the exception of some 4 to 5 million collective farmers.

Enterprises employing twenty-five or more people had locals, and

membership was compulsory. Dues were about 1 percent of a per- son's salary. The Ail-Union Central Council of Trade Unions

served as an umbrella organization for the thirty branch unions

and was by far the largest public organization in the Soviet Union.

Like the CPSU, the trade unions operated on the principle of

democratic centralism (see Glossary), and they consisted of hierarchies of elected bodies from the central governing level down to the factory and local committees. Union membership influenced

union operations only at the local level, where an average of 60

percent of a union's central committee members were rank-andfile workers.

Unlike labor unions in the West, Soviet trade unions were, in

fact, actually governmental organizations whose chief aim was not

to represent workers but to further the goals of management,

government, and the CPSU. As such, they were partners of management in attempting to promote labor discipline, worker morale,

and productivity. Unions organized "socialist competitions" and

228
Pool players in Baku, Azerbaydzhan Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

awarded prizes for fulfilling quotas. They also distributed welfare

benefits, operated cultural and sports facilities, issued passes to health and vacation centers, oversaw factory and local housing construction, provided catering services, and awarded bonuses and

prepaid vacations.

Although unions in the Soviet Union primarily promoted production interests, they had some input regarding production plans,

capital improvements in factories, local housing construction, and

remuneration agreements with management. Unions also were empowered to protect workers against bureaucratic and managerial

arbitrariness, to ensure that management adhered to collective

agreements, and to protest unsafe working conditions. After the

Polish labor union movement, Solidarity, had achieved some success in Poland, Soviet labor unions became more vocal in protecting workers' interests. Youth Organizations

To instill communist values into the younger generation, the

CPSU employed a system of nationwide youth organizations: the

Young Octobrists, the Pioneers, and the Komsomol (see Glossary).

Of the three organizations, the Komsomol was, in the late 1980s,

by far the largest and most active organization, with over 40 million

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

members ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-eight. The Komsomol's structure mirrored the party's structure, from its primary

units in schools and workplaces to its first secretary. The congress

of the Komsomol met every five years and elected a central committee, which in turn elected a bureau and secretariat to direct the

organization's day-to-day affairs between central committee meetings. Komsomol members were encouraged to take part in politi- cal activities of the CPSU and to assist in industrial projects and

harvesting. Most important, its members received preference for entry into higher education, employment, and the CPSU.

The other two youth groups, the Young Octobrists and the Pioneers, were organizations devoted to the political indoctrination

of children through age fifteen. The Young Octobrists prepared

children ages six to nine for entry into the Pioneers, which in turn

prepared them for entry into the Komsomol beginning at age fourteen. Sports Organizations

In 1989 the Soviet Union had thirty-six sports societies, consisting of an urban and rural society for each of the fifteen union republics and six all-union (see Glossary) societies. All but two of these

organizations were operated by the trade unions. The State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports served as the umbrella or- ganization for these societies. Each society built its own sports

facilities, secured equipment for its members, and hired a permanent staff of coaches and other personnel. Each held local and all- union championships for various sports, and each society's teams

played against the teams of other societies. Although in theory the

Soviet Union had no professional sports, each society supported

athletes who played sports full time. Furthermore, the best, or

4 'master sportsmen," received additional pay from the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports.

Gender and Family Roles

In 1989 the Soviet Union resembled other modernized Europe- an societies in terms of divorce rates, roles of men and women in

marriage, and family size, structure, and function. The twin pres- sures of urbanization and industrialization have radically changed

gender and family relations in the Soviet Union since 1917. These

changes, however, were less evident among the non-Russian populations of Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Role of Women

Article 35 of the Soviet Constitution clearly states that women

and men "have equal rights" and possess equal access to education

230
Social Structure

and training, employment, promotions, and remuneration and to participation in social, political, and cultural activity. Women also receive special medical and workplace protection, including incentives for mothers to work outside the home and legal and material

support in their role as mothers; the latter support includes 112

days of maternity leave at full pay. At the conclusion of their maternity leave, women may take up to a year of leave without pay and

return to the same job if they desire. Employers may not dis- criminate against pregnant or nursing women by reducing their

pay or dismissing them, and mothers with small children have the

right to work part time.

Nevertheless, both within society in general and within the family, the position of women in 1989 was not equal to that of men.

Soviet authorities have often pointed to the high percentage of

women in certain fields as proof of gender equality in the country.

For example, in the 1980s women constituted just over half the

country's work force, four-fifths of its health workers, more than

two-thirds of its physicians and economists, and three-quarters of

those employed in education. The authorities neglected to add,

however, that the average pay for most women in these fields was

below the country's average pay. Moreover, the higher the level in a profession, the smaller the percentage of women. For instance,

in 1984 women constituted 83 percent of elementary school directors but only 42 percent of secondary school directors and 38 per- cent of middle school directors. In the early 1980s, 46 percent of

all collective farm workers were women, but they constituted only

1.9 percent of collective farm chairpersons.

Women were also underrepresented in the CPSU and its leadership. In 1983 women constituted only 27.6 percent of the membership of the party and only 4.2 percent of the Central Committee;

in 1986 they were totally absent from the Politburo (see Social Composition of the Party, ch. 7). Male-Female Relationships

Male-female relationships in the Soviet Union reflected not only

the stresses generally present in urban and industrial societies, plus

those peculiar to communist societies, but also the influence of differ- ent cultural traditions. Predictably, the non-Russian Central Asian

and Caucasian nationalities exhibited more traditional attitudes

regarding marriage, divorce, and abortion than did the European

population of the country.

Marriage

Unless specified otherwise by the laws of the individual republics, Soviet citizens may marry at age eighteen without parental

231
Soviet Union: A Country Study

permission. The Latvian, Estonian, Moldavian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Kazakh, and Kirgiz republics have lowered this age to seven- teen years. In 1980 approximately 73 percent of the brides and 62

percent of the grooms were under twenty-five years of age. Onethird of all marriages involved persons under twenty years of age, and in 20 percent of the marriages involving persons under that

age the bride was pregnant.

In the larger cities, newly married couples often lived with either

set of parents; often the honeymoon consisted of a short private

stay in the parents' home. About 70 percent of childless young couples lived with parents during the first years of marriage because

of low income or a shortage of housing.

Cultural compatibility played a larger role in the selection of a mate than did race, religion, occupation, or income. Soviet sur- veys also pointed to love, mutual attraction, and common interests as important reasons given for marriage. British sociologist David

Lane has observed that "companionship" between spouses has been

a more important notion in the West than in the Soviet Union,

where couples have often taken separate vacations while the chil- dren were sent to camp.

Roles in Marriage

Most married women in the Soviet Union worked outside the

home in addition to fulfilling their roles of wife, mother, and

homemaker. As in other industrialized countries, women had

difficulty reconciling the demands of career and home. At home,

Soviet women spent more than twice as much time on housework

as men—an average of twenty-eight hours a week as opposed to twelve—and women resented this. Before marriage, the average

woman was said to have had forty-two hours a week of free time,

but after marriage this number was cut in half. Not surprisingly,

Soviet research has shown that marital happiness was direcdy con- nected to the extent a husband shared in domestic work. Husbands

and wives from the elite tended to share decisions and housework

to a greater extent than those from other social strata. In blue-collar

and agricultural families, the husband was considered head of the

household, although the wife held the purse strings.

Nationality appeared to be less of an influence on marital roles than social status and place of residence. By the mid-1970s, even most Muslim husbands were willing to share in some housework

with their wives; the higher the socioeconomic status of the family,

the more the husband shared the work. In Muslim families and

in other nationality groups where the patriarchal system has re- mained strong, the husband was regarded as the head of the family

232
Social Structure

and made most of the major family decisions. Among younger and

better educated Muslims, however, and in the European part of

the Soviet Union, the husband and wife shared in the decision making, a practice that may have resulted from the wife's increasing

contribution to family income.

Divorce

With a rate of 3.4 divorces per 1,000 people, the Soviet Union

was second only to the United States (4.8 divorces) among industrialized countries in 1986. David Lane has asserted, however, that

the real family disintegration rate between these two countries was

comparable because the legal difficulties and expense of a divorce

in the Soviet Union encouraged "unofficial" divorces or separations.

The Soviet divorce rate varied according to region and population density. In Soviet Central Asia, it was two to three times lower

than in European areas; the rate was also higher in cities and in

newly developed regions. Divorce rates in rural areas averaged

about 40 percent of those in cities. Surveys have shown that couples divorced for a variety of rea- sons. Drunkenness, incompatibility, and infidelity were major

causes; jealousy of the spouse, separation, and physical incompatibility were minor causes. In the Muslim areas of the country, conflict between the wife and the husband's parents was a major reason

for divorce; however, Muslim women were less likely to initiate divorce than women in other regions of the Soviet Union. Stronger

devotion to family life and the nature of marriage itself lowered

acceptance of divorce in Muslim areas. Soviet surveys have shown

that 87 percent of urban and 84 percent of rural Uzbeks opposed

divorce for couples with children, whereas only 54 percent of urban

Russians and 51 percent of urban Estonians held this view.

Housing problems and the lack of privacy contributed significantly to the high rate of divorce. One study showed that nearly

20 percent of divorces occurring during the first years of marriage were attributed to housing problems and about 1 8 percent to conflicts with parents. In 1973 in Leningrad, 31.7 percent of divorcing couples had lived with parents or in a hostel, 62.3 percent in a shared apartment, and only 5.1 percent in a separate apartment.

Divorces cost between 60 and 200 rubles depending on income

and were granted more quickly if the couple had no children. In

general, divorces were relatively simple to obtain, but the court always attempted to reconcile the couple first. Courts also generally

awarded the mother custody of the children.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Sex and Contraception

Soviet society in general did not approve of unmarried couples

living together but was somewhat more tolerant of occasional pre- marital sexual relations. The lack of suitable contraceptive devices,

combined with rare public discussion about contraception, led to a large number of unwanted pregnancies. Studies in Leningrad

have shown that 38 percent of all babies born in Leningrad in 1978 were conceived before marriage. A Soviet study revealed that the

number of children born out of wedlock in the Soviet Union

amounted to nearly 10 percent of all births, ranging from 22 per- cent in the Estonian Republic to 3 percent in the Azerbaydzhan

Republic. Courts could order an unmarried father to pay child sup- port if he lived with the child's mother; otherwise, the law was not

firm, especially where proof of paternity was insufficient. No social stigma was attached to illegitimate children, and unmarried

women received maternity benefits. Sex for sale—prostitution

however, was illegal and punishable by law. The Soviet penal code

severely punished individuals running a brothel, pimping, or

soliciting.

Although women were officially discouraged from having abortions, they were legal and were the chief form of birth control in

the country. An estimated 8 million took place each year. Abortions were free for working women and cost 2 to 5 rubles for other

women, depending on where they lived. Despite their availability, an estimated 15 percent of all abortions in the Soviet Union

were illegally performed in private facilities. The approximate ratio

of abortions to live births was nearly three to one. In Muslim regions, the rate of abortion was much lower than

in the European part of the country, although the higher her sta- tus or the more Russified the Muslim woman was, the more likely

she was to have an abortion. Ironically, in European areas the sit- uation was reversed; less educated couples were more likely to seek

abortions than better educated couples, who were likely to use

effective contraception.

The Soviet Family

The Soviet view of the family as the basic social unit in society

has evolved from revolutionary to conservative; the government

first attempted to weaken the family and then to strengthen it. According to a 1968 law, Principles of Legislation on Marriage

and the Family of the USSR and the Union Republics, parents

are ' 'to raise their children in the spirit of the moral code of a builder

of communism, to attend to their physical development and their

instruction in and preparation for socially useful activity."

234
Social Structure

Evolution of the Soviet Family

The early Soviet state sought to remake the family, believing

that although the economic emancipation of workers would deprive

families of their economic function, it would not destroy them but

rather base them exclusively on mutual affection. Religious marriage was replaced by civil marriage, divorce became easy to obtain, and unwed mothers received special protection. All children,

whether legitimate or illegitimate, were given equal rights before

the law, women were granted sexual equality under matrimonial

law, inheritance of property was abolished, and abortion was

legalized.

In the early 1920s, however, the weakening of family ties, combined with the devastation and dislocation caused by the Civil War

(1918-21), produced a wave of nearly 7 million homeless children.

This situation prompted senior party officials to conclude that a more stable family life was required to rebuild the country's econ- omy and shattered social structure. By 1922 the government allowed some forms of inheritance, and after 1926 full inheritance rights were restored. By the late 1920s, adults had been made more

responsible for the care of their children, and common-law marriage had been given equal legal status with civil marriage.

During Stalin's rule, the trend toward strengthening the family

continued. In 1936 the government began to award payments to women with large families and made abortions and divorces more

difficult to obtain. In 1942 it subjected single persons and childless married persons to additional taxes. In 1944 only registered

marriages were recognized to be legal, and divorce became subject to the court's discretion. In the same year, the government

began to award medals to women who gave birth to five or more

children and took upon itself the support of illegitimate children.

After Stalin's death in 1953, the government rescinded some of

its more restrictive social legislation. In 1955 it declared abortions

for medical reasons legal, and in 1968 it declared all abortions legal.

The state also liberalized divorce procedures in the mid-1960s but

in 1968 introduced new limitations.

In 1974 the government began to subsidize poorer families whose

average per capita income did not exceed 50 rubles per month (later

raised to 75 rubles per month in some northern and eastern regions).

The subsidy amounted to 12 rubles per month for each child below

eight years of age. It was estimated that in 1974 about 3.5 million

families (14 million people, or about 5 percent of the entire population) received this subsidy. With the increase in per capita income,

however, the number of children requiring such assistance decreased.

235
Soviet Union: A Country Study

In 1985 the government raised the age limit for assistance to twelve

years and under. In 1981 the subsidy to an unwed mother with

a child increased to 20 rubles per month; in early 1987 an esti- mated 1.5 million unwed mothers were receiving such assistance, or twice as many as during the late 1970s.

Family Size

Family size and composition depended mainly on the place of

residence—urban or rural—and ethnic group. The size and composition of such families was also influenced by housing and in- come limitations, pensions, and female employment outside the

home. The typical urban family consisted of a married couple, two

children, and, in about 20 percent of the cases, one of the grandmothers, whose assistance in raising the children and in housekeeping was important in the large majority of families having two wage

earners. Rural families generally had more children than urban

families and often supported three generations under one roof. Families in Central Asia and the Caucasus tended to have more

children than families elsewhere in the Soviet Union and included

grandparents in the family structure. In general, the average family

size has followed that of other industrialized countries, with higher

income families having both fewer children and a lower rate of infant

mortality. From the early 1960s to the late 1980s, the number of

families with more than one child decreased by about 50 percent

and in 1988 totaled 1.9 million. About 75 percent of the families

with more than one child lived in the southern regions of the country, half of them in Central Asia. In the Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Moldavian, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian republics,

families with one and two children constituted more than 90 per- cent of all families, whereas in Central Asia those with three or more children ranged from 14 percent in the Kirgiz Republic to 31 percent in the Tadzhik Republic. Surveys suggested that most

parents would have had more children if they had had more living space. Beginning in the mid-1980s, the government promoted family

planning in order to slow the growth of the Central Asian indigenous

populations. Local opposition to this policy surfaced especially in

the Uzbek and Tadzhik republics. In general, however, the government continued publicly to honor mothers of large families. Women

received the Motherhood Medal, Second Class, for their fifth live birth and the Heroine Mother medal for their tenth. Most of these

awards went to women in Central Asia and the Caucasus (see table

21, Appendix A).

236

Soviet Union: A Country Study

Family and Kinship Structures

The extended family was more prevalent in Central Asia and

the Caucasus than in the other sections of the country and, generally, in rural areas more than in urban areas. Deference to parental wishes regarding marriage was particularly strong in these areas, even among the Russians residing there.

Extended families helped perpetuate traditional life-styles. The

patriarchal values that accompany this life-style affected such issues as contraception, the distribution of family power, and the roles of individuals in marriage and the family. For example, traditional

Uzbeks placed a higher value on their responsibilities as parents

than on their own happiness as spouses and individuals. The younger and better educated Uzbeks and working women, however, were more likely to behave and think like their counterparts in the

European areas of the Soviet Union, who tended to emphasize in- dividual careers. Extended families were not prevalent in the cities. Couples lived

with parents during the first years of marriage only because of eco- nomics or the housing shortage. When children were born, the couple usually acquired a separate apartment.

Function of Family

The government has assumed many functions of the pre- Soviet

family. Various public institutions, for example, have taken responsibility for supporting individuals during times of sickness, incapacity,

old age, maternity, and industrial injury. State-run nurseries, preschools, schools, clubs, and youth organizations have taken over a

great part of the family's role in socializing children. Their role in socialization has been limited, however, because preschools had places

for only half of all Soviet children under seven. Despite government

assumption of many responsibilities, spouses were still responsible

for the material support of each other, minor children, and disabled

adult children.

The transformation of the patriarchal, three-generation rural

household to a modern, urban family of two adults and two chil- dren attests to the great changes that Soviet society has undergone

since 1917. That transformation has not produced the originally en- visioned egalitarianism, but it has forever changed the nature of what was once the Russian Empire.

* * *

Excellent monographs analyzing Soviet society include Soviet Econ- omy and Society by David Lane and Modern Soviet Society, originally

238
Social Structure

published in French, by Basile Kerblay. In Poverty in the Soviet Union

and other articles and books, Mervyn Matthews discusses the

problems of poverty and low wages in certain sectors of the Soviet

economy. Providing a general overview of the Soviet Union, Vadim

Medish's The Soviet Union contains useful insights into Soviet soci- ety, as does the Cambridge Encyclopedia ofRussia and the Soviet Union. In their monograph Modernization, Value Change, and Fertility in the Soviet Union, Ellen Jones and Fred W. Grupp provide useful information on the position of women in Soviet society and on male

and female roles. Genia K. Browning's Women and Politics in the USSR focuses on the position of Soviet women in society in general and Soviet feminism in particular. Gail Warshofsky Lapidus

has written several informative books and articles on Soviet women.

(For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

239


Newborn baby and nurse, young children, and pensioner
THE SOVIET CONSTITUTION GUARANTEES to Soviet

citizens free, universal, and multilingual education; free, qualified

medical care provided by state health institutions; provision for old age, sickness, and disability; and maternity allowances and subsidies to families with many children. In quantitative terms, Soviet

regimes have made impressive strides in these areas since 1917.

The quality of the education and care, however, often fell below

standards achieved in the West.

Before the Bolshevik Revolution (see Glossary), education was

available to only an elite minority, consisting largely of the aristo- cratic upper class; tsarist Russia's literacy rate was barely 25 percent. By the mid-1980s, more than 110 million students—about

40 percent of the population—were enrolled in the Soviet Union's

government-controlled coeducational schools, universities, and institutes. The nation's literacy rate reached nearly 100 percent

proclaimed by Soviet officials as the highest in the world. Western

authorities stressed, however, that the quality of Soviet education

often lagged behind that of the West, in large measure because of

the high degree of centralization and standardization of Soviet

schools, the emphasis on political indoctrination, and the reliance on learning by rote and memorization.

On the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution, medical care was avail- able to only a minority of the population, made up largely of

aristocrats and upper-level civil servants. The annual death toll from

epidemics and famine was in the millions. By the mid-1980s, the

Soviet Union had the world's highest ratio of physicians and hospital

beds per inhabitant, and basic medical care was available to the

large majority of the Soviet population, although the quality of

health care, in general, was considered low by Western standards.

Apart from limited assistance provided by private and church- run charitable organizations, no nationwide welfare programs

provided for the needs of the old, disabled, and poor before the

Soviet era began. In the 1980s, social security and welfare programs were providing modest support to over 56 million veterans

and old-age pensioners, millions of invalids and disabled children

and adults, expectant mothers, and multichildren families.

During the regimes ofJoseph V. Stalin and Nikita S. Khrushchev, Soviet authorities established the underlying principles and

basic organization of education, health care, and welfare programs.

The common denominator linking these programs was the country's

243
Soviet Union: A Country Study

concern with establishing a technically skilled, well-indoctrinated,

and healthy labor force. A hallmark of Soviet education was its primary political function, originally enunciated by Vladimir I. Lenin, as a tool for remaking society. Political indoctrination

the inculcation of Marxist-Leninist (see Glossary) ideals—thus re- mained a constant throughout the uneven, decades-long process

of educational expansion and reform, and it set the Soviet system

of schooling apart from contemporary Western models.

With the coming to power of General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev in 1985 and the introduction of his policy of glasnosV

(see Glossary), the achievements made in education, health, and

welfare since 1917 were being increasingly overshadowed by open

criticism and even growing alarm over serious failures in these

spheres. By the mid-1980s, the Soviet leadership and public alike

finally acknowledged what Western observers had been noting for some time, namely, that the decades-long emphasis on quantitative expansion had come at the expense of quality. Schools were

failing to develop the technically skilled work force needed to achieve

the goals of perestroika (see Glossary) and to create a modern and

technologically developed economic system on a par with the advanced economies of the Western world.

The situation in Soviet health care was even more serious. In

the 1970s and 1980s, significant increases in infant mortality and

considerable declines in life expectancy accompanied an alarming

deterioration in the quality of health care. Pension and welfare programs were also failing to provide adequate protection, as evidenced

by the large segment of the population living at the poverty

threshold. In the mid-1980s, Soviet leaders openly acknowledged

these problems and introduced a number of reforms in an effort to rectify them.

Education

From its inception, Soviet education had Marxist-Leninist

philosophical underpinnings, including the dual aim of educating

youth and shaping their character. These aims were brought

together, as well, in the notion of "polytechnical education," defined loosely as integrating education with life —ideally connecting formal schooling with practical training in all kinds of schools

and at all levels of education—with the aim of providing a dedicated and skilled work force. The government operated all schools, except for a handful of

officially approved church-run seminaries, which had an enroll- ment of only several hundred people. Other characteristics were

the leading role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

244
Education, Health, and Welfare

(CPSU) in all aspects of education; the centralized and hierarchically structured administrative organs; and an essentially conservative approach to pedagogy. The contemporary system also reflected some holdovers from tsarist schools, including the five- point grading scale, a formal and regimented classroom environment, and school uniforms—dark dresses with white collars (and

white pinafores in the lower grades) for girls and dark pants and

white shirts for boys—in the secondary schools.

Educational reforms in the 1980s called for increased funding

and changes in curriculum, textbooks, and teaching methods to correct serious shortcomings in the schools and improve the quality of education nationwide. An important aim of the reforms was

the creation of a "new school" that could meet fully the economic

and social demands of the greatly modernized and technologically

advanced nation the Soviet leadership wished to create as it led

the country into the twenty-first century.

Philosophy and Aims

The philosophical underpinnings and ultimate goals of Soviet

education were closely interwoven and could be expressed through

two Russian words: vospitanie (upbringing or rearing) and obrazovanie (formal education). Marxist-Leninist ideology, the philosophical

foundation of Soviet education, stressed the proper upbringing of

youth to create the "new Soviet man" (see Glossary). To this end,

the school system bore the lion's share of forming character by instilling and reinforcing Marxist-Leninist morals and ethics, beginning with preschool and kindergarten and continuing throughout

the entire schooling process. Lenin stressed the moral goal of education, declaring after the Bolshevik Revolution: "The entire purpose of training, educating, and teaching the youth . . . should be

to imbue them with communist ethics." The schools taught chil- dren key socialist (see Glossary) virtues, such as love of labor, the

atheist (scientific-materialist) view of life, Soviet patriotism and devotion to the homeland, and the primacy of the collective, namely,

the need to place the interests of society before those of the in- dividual.

The extent to which Soviet education bore the responsibility for the rearing, or socialization, of youth set it apart from contemporary

Western education systems and led many Western observers to see a similarity between modern Soviet schools and American parochial

schools of the past. Another uniquely Soviet feature was the close

integration of the schools with other major areas of society—cultural,

political, economic, and mass media—all of which served to reinforce the political indoctrination process.

245
Soviet Union: A Country Study

The role of the family in child-rearing was not ignored, however,

and beginning in the 1980s Soviet leaders renewed emphasis on

the family's central role in character formation. Parents were en- couraged to create a nurturing and loving environment at home

and to cooperate actively with the schools, which generally led the

way, in fostering in their children the personal qualities considered

essential to a socialist morality: "Soviet patriotism, devotion to

socially useful labor, and a feeling of being part of a social group."

The task of molding the "builders of communism" was advanced

as well through extracurricular activities centered on youth organizations that had close ties to the CPSU. Almost all schoolchildren

belonged to these groups: the Young Octobrists, for ages six to nine,

and the Pioneers, ages ten to fifteen. Most of the students in the

upper classes of secondary school belonged to the Komsomol (see

Glossary) for ages fourteen to twenty-eight, which was specifically

tasked with providing active assistance to the CPSU in building a communist society. To this end, Komsomol members supervised

and guided the two younger groups in a wide range of activities,

including labor projects, sports and cultural events, field trips, sum- mer camp programs, and parades and ceremonies commemorating national holidays (for example, May Day and Lenin's birthday),

to develop in them proper socialist behavior and values and to at- tract them, even at these early stages, to "socially beneficial" work.

In addition to molding socialist morality, Soviet schools provided

formal academic education, transmitting the knowledge and skills to provide the nation's economy with a qualified and highly skilled labor force needed to sustain the country in a modern technological age. The dual concept of rearing and educating was brought

together as well in the notion of "polytechnical education," which

stressed the inclusion of practical training at all levels of schooling. The polytechnical approach to education, which had waxed

and waned since the era of Khrushchev, was receiving renewed

emphasis in the late 1980s under Gorbachev. Polytechnical schooling had three key components: cognitive—gaining knowledge about

production sectors and industrial processes and organization,

production tools and machinery, and energy and power sources; moral—developing respect for, and dedication to, both intellec- tual and physical endeavor and eradicating the distinction between

mental and manual labor; and practical—acquiring sound work

habits through direct involvement in the production or creation

of goods and services. A polytechnical approach was important not

only to provide the dedicated, highly technically trained, and

productive workers needed to realize Gorbachev's program of eco- nomic restructuring and modernization but also to adhere to a

246
Education, Health, and Welfare

central, publicly stated, aim of higher education, namely, the cre- ation of a classless society.

Control and Administration

As was the case in every other major area of Soviet life in the

late 1980s, the CPSU exercised ultimate control over the development and functioning of the nation's education system. Designated

by the Constitution as "the leading core of all organizations of the

working people, both public and state," the Central Committee

of the CPSU made major policies and decisions regarding all aspects

of education (see Central Committee, ch. 7). The party leadership accepted fully Lenin's dictum about the inseparability of politics and schooling/schools, and it appreciated the far-reaching

power of education as a tool for refashioning the country's social

fabric, "an instrument for the formation of a Communist society."

Specifically, the Central Committee's Science and Education Insti- tutions Department initiated education policies to ensure ideological conformity in all instruction. Together with the committee's

Ideological Department, it issued laws and regulations governing

all major spheres of education. The Council of Ministers and the

Supreme Soviet, in turn, gave pro forma ratification to party directives and executed them (see Central Government, ch. 8). Administration of the school system was carried out by the government's

education ministries under the direct authority of the Council of

Ministers. In the late 1980s, the two chief administrative organs were the Ministry of Education, which administered primary and

general secondary schools, and the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education, which oversaw institutions of higher

learning and specialized secondary schools. These central, unionrepublic ministries (see Glossary) operated through similarly named

republic ministries, which were further broken down into province,

district, and local school committees. The republic ministries and

their administrative organs at the province, district, and local levels were responsible for implementing the laws, regulations, and directives concerning school curricula, methods of instruction, and text- books, and they also supervised the allocation of funds at their

respective levels. Other main administrative organs (with counterpart agencies at lower governmental levels) were the Ministry of Culture, which

operated special schools of art, ballet, and music, and the All-Union

Central Council of Trade Unions, which oversaw vocational and

technical schools. Management of higher education institutions

involved administrative agencies from the various party organs

and government ministries, such as those involved with health,

247
Soviet Union: A Country Study

agriculture, communications, and civil aviation. Not surprisingly,

these numerous entities spawned a huge bureaucracy, one that

represented a formidable obstacle to implementation of major school

reforms introduced in the mid-1980s.

In the 1980s, overbureaucratization was openly criticized by the

official press and by leading educators as a major cause of the seri- ous lack of quality in education. For example, management of tech- nical training, the most critical area for the success of economic

reform, was excessive: seventy-four ministries and administrative

departments oversaw institutions of higher learning, with thirty

of these ministries directing only one or two institutes each. Another

200 administrative departments were in charge of specialized sec- ondary schools.

Traditionally, the party apparatus had exercised control over not

only the direction of educational development but also the implementation of policies and directives. The essentially parallel struc- ture between party and government provided the main mechanism

for this oversight. Furthermore, most administrators in central,

republic, and local education posts were party members, as were

the majority of school directors and many teachers, particularly

at the higher levels (one-sixth of secondary school teachers belonged

to the GPSU). The large body of Komsomol members in the upper

grades of secondary schools and in institutions of higher learning

also aided party oversight.

Pedagogy and Planning

Under the administrative oversight of the Academy of Sciences

(see Glossary) and the Ministry of Education, the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences was responsible for conducting research and development in education. The Academy of Pedagogical Sciences had

thirteen institutes, several experimental schools, and other facili- ties. Each institute focused on a specific area of research, such as curriculum and teaching methods, general and pedagogical psychology, visual teaching aids and school equipment, labor training, and professional orientation. The academy's research efforts also included special education (for the physically and mentally impaired), teacher training, testing methodology, and textbook preparation.

The academy brought together the country's leading researchers in the pedagogical sciences, prominent teachers, and a small

number of foreign (mostly East European) education specialists.

The efforts of these pedagogues and educators were guided by the

academy's dual mission: first, developing a socialist mentality by

inculcating a Marxist-Leninist worldview; and, second, providing

248
Education, Health, and Welfare

highly qualified and committed workers for the nation's econ- omy.

The first component—developing a Marxist-Leninist worldview

and communist ethics—was geared to general character training

as well, impressing upon youth basic ideas of good and bad, honesty,

modesty, kindness, friendship, self-discipline, love of studies and

conscientiousness, and "correct social behavior." Although the political content of school subjects had to be ideologically correct, the

materials were not necessarily overwhelmingly politicized, as in- dicated by a Western study of reading topics in secondary schools

that found less than one-third of them dealt with clear-cut sociopolitical themes.

The second chief concern of Soviet pedagogy was upgrading vocational education and labor training in the general secondary school. A related central goal was inculcating in youngsters a respect for blue-collar work. This remained a difficult if not insurmountable

challenge because of Soviet society's traditional view of manual

labor as intrinsically inferior to work that involved purely mental

or intellectual effort. The most important Soviet pedagogue historically was Anton

S. Makarenko (1888-1939), whose theories on child-rearing and

education, which rejected corporal punishment and stressed per- suasion and example, served as the foundation of contemporary

education and parenting. His methodology also emphasized development of good work habits, love of work, self-discipline, and

collective cooperation. Makarenko's approach to discipline re- mained the norm in Soviet schools in the 1980s. Physical punishment was forbidden; disciplinary measures included oral reprimands

by teachers, collective pressure (peer disapproval), bad marks in

record books (demerits), consultations with parents, and, only as a last resort, expulsion from school.

Change in pedagogy's predominantly conservative approach came very slowly. Old-fashioned teaching methods, a regimented

and formal classroom environment, and the rote method of

learning—holdovers from tsarist Russia that became firmly en- trenched in the Stalin era—were still the norm in the Soviet schools

of the 1980s. But during the second half of the 1980s, theories and

practices of a number of progressive educators were being advanced

in conjunction with efforts to reform schooling. One of the important figures in this area was Leonid V. Zankov, an education theorist who had been influenced by the writings and philosophy of

American educator John Dewey and who had advocated in the

1960s the elimination of the rote-learning approach. The leading

figures in the 1980s among those striving to develop the philosophy

249
Soviet Union: A Country Study

and methodology for a "new school" were sociologist Vladimir N.

Shubkin, mathematician Mikhail M. Postnikov, and innovative

teacher M. Shchetinin.

The State Planning Committee (Gosudarstvennyi planovyi

komitet—Gosplan; see Glossary), part of the Council of Ministers,

played a major role in Soviet education by influencing the training and distribution of specialists in institutions of higher learning. Its task was to ensure graduation of sufficient numbers of people

trained in certain specialties to meet the work force requirements

of the nation's economy. By directing the higher schools to admit

only a limited number of students in each specialty, Gosplan in

effect established a quota for student admissions.

But despite extensive planning efforts, Gosplan consistently did more to cause than to alleviate the country's manpower problems,

primarily because planning was based on immediate rather than

long-term needs. The situation was particularly serious in the 1980s,

when the push to modernize the economy with high technology

and automation was seriously hampered by the lack of skilled en- gineering and technical workers. Although the schools graduated

a large number of engineers, their training was often too theoretical, narrow in scope, and limited in practical experience. Broader

training and multiple- skill capability were needed. The shortsightedness of the planning apparatus was exacerbated by a con- tinuing contradiction between student preferences and economic

and social demands, as well as by an inability to attract enough

young people into lower level technical fields. Institutions of Learning

To provide free, universal, and multilingual education to all citizens, the government operated a vast network of learning in- stitutions, including preschools, general secondary schools, specialized secondary schools, vocational-technical schools, trade schools,

and special education schools, as well as universities and other in- stitutions of higher learning (see fig. 11). Completion of the sec- ondary school program, roughly equivalent to American high

school, became compulsory in 1970. By 1987 more than 120 million people, out of a population of nearly 282 million, had completed secondary and higher education; another 43.7 million had

finished at least eight years of schooling.

The common threads linking all institutions of learning were the

central aims of rearing and educating youth; thus, political indoctrination and the education and training of specialists and skilled workers remained of pivotal concern at all levels of schooling.

Curricula, textbooks, and teaching methods were standardized

250
Education, Health, and Welfare

nationwide, Except for a low enrollment fee for preschool, all tui- tion was free, and the majority of students in specialized secondary schools and institutions of higher learning received monthly

stipends. Although the degree of standardization and centralization was very great, the school system was not totally monolithic,

and it reflected the multiethnic diversity of the country's fifteen republics as well as considerable differences, particularly in quality, between urban and rural schools.

About 600 schools specialized in teacher training. Many university graduates also joined the ranks of secondary school teachers. In general, although salaries were not always commensurate with

status, Soviet society had a great deal of respect for the teaching

profession.

Preschool

In 1986 the Soviet Union operated approximately 142,700

preschool institutions on a year-round basis, with an enrollment

of over 16.5 million; this represented 57 percent of all preschoolage children and was 1 .6 million below demand. To eliminate this shortage, as well as to encourage women with infants or toddlers

to return to the work force, the government planned to make avail- able new preschool facilities for another 4.4 million youngsters during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (1986-90).

Preschool institutions included nurseries (iaslt) and kindergartens (detskie sady), often housed in the same buildings and located

in urban and suburban neighborhoods, as well as at factory sites and on collective farms. Nurseries accepted children between the

ages of six months and three years, but the percentage of youngsters under two years of age was typically low. Many mothers

preferred to stay home with their infant children through the first year (working women were granted a full year of maternity leave),

and frequently a grandmother or another family member or friend

provided child care to toddlers. (In 1979, for example, 8 to 9 million preschool children were cared for by grandmothers.) The more common practice was to enroll children of about three years of age

in preschool. The government subsidized 80 percent of preschool

tuition, requiring parents to pay fairly low fees of 12 rubles (for

value of the ruble—see Glossary) a month for nursery care and

about 9 rubles a month for kindergarten; in certain cases—for

example, for children from large families—enrollment was free. By freeing women for the work force, the preschool system was

economically beneficial both to the state and to the family, which

generally needed two incomes. Kindergarten combined extended

day care (as a rule, from 8:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M.) with some

251
Soviet Union: A Country Study

AGE

22

2120

19

18

17

1615

14

1312

1110

9

87

6

5

4

3

2

1

YEAR OF

STUDY

16

15

14

1312

1

1

10

GRADUATE STUDY

UNIVERSITIES, INSTITUTES, ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, MILITARY ACADEMIES: THREE YEARS FOR A GRADUATE DEGREE

SPECIAL SPECIAL SCHOOLS SCHOOLS

FOR FOR THE MENTALLY GIFTED: AND BALLET, PHYSICALLY MUSIC, HANDICAPPED MATH

HIGHER EDUCATION

UNIVERSITIES, INSTITUTES, MILITARY ACADEMIES:

FULL-TIME, PART-TIME, OR CORRESPONDENCE;

FOUR OR FIVE YEARS FULL-TIME FOR A DEGREE

ALTERNATIVE ROUTES

l(FULL-TIME, PART-TIME, OR CORRESPONDENCE)

SECONDARY

SPECIALIZED SCHOOL

SECONDARY

VOCATIONAL

TECHNICAL SCHOOL

VOCATIONAL

TECHNICAL SCHOOL

MILITARY SCHOOL

DIRECT \ ROUTE

\

\

\\ GENERAL

SECONDARY SCHOOL

KINDERGARTEN

NURSERY OR HOME

Source: Based on information from David Lane, Soviet Economy and Society, New York, 1985,

272; and Vadim Medish, The Soviet Union, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1987, 197.

Figure 11. Structure of the Education System, 1987

academic preparation for entry into the first grade (the starting age was gradually lowered to six years of age in the mid-1980s).

In addition to providing children with a head start for regular

school, preschools began the important process of instilling societal

252
Education, Health, and Welfare

values and molding socialist character. The children's daily activities, which included story-telling, drawing, music, games, and out- door play, were highly structured and consistently conducted in

groups, fostering a sense of belonging to the collective, the primacy

of the needs of the group over those of the individual, and the prefer- ence for competition among groups rather than individuals. Political indoctrination at this level consisted of songs and slogans,

celebration of national holidays, and stories about Lenin and other

heroes of the Bolshevik Revolution. Preschoolers were also taught

respect for authority, patriotism, obedience, discipline, and order.

Children were provided hot meals and snacks, child-size beds for nap time, and basic health care. Western visitors to Soviet preschools in the 1970s and early 1980s

reported seeing children who were happy, healthy, and well cared

for. But this positive image was sharply contradicted in 1988 with

the publication in a Soviet newspaper of an article titled "Attention: Children in Trouble!" The article was endorsed by a group

of specialists (including R. Bure, doctor of pedagogical sciences

and head of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences Preschool Scientific Research Laboratory) who participated in a seminar called

"Kindergarten in the Year 2000." According to the newspaper

piece, a crisis in preschool education was emerging: the ratio of

twenty-five children per teacher was far too high; teachers and other

staff were poorly trained; and children's health was suffering be- cause of inadequate medical care. Children were entering first grade

unprepared intellectually and physically. More than 50 percent were

"neurotic," two-thirds suffered from allergies, 60 percent had poor

posture, and 80 percent suffered from upper-respiratory infections.

The large majority had not mastered the most basic norms of con- duct and social interaction.

Secondary Education

In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union had in place a vast and complex network of secondary schools comprising general secondary

schools (grades one through eleven), secondary vocational-technical

schools, specialized secondary schools, special education schools,

and extramural schools (part-time, evening, and correspondence

programs). In 1970 compulsory secondary education was extended to ten years from eight. The 1984 reform of general secondary

schools and secondary vocational-technical schools lowered the start- ing age for first grade from age seven to age six and increased compulsory schooling to eleven years. In 1987 the Soviet Union operated 138,000 general secondary

schools, with a total enrollment of 43.9 million students. There were

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

roughly three phases to the general secondary program of study,

reflecting differences in curriculum and total time in class: the

primary grades, one through three; intermediate, four through

eight; and upper secondary, nine and ten. The 1984 reform added

a year at the beginning level, modifying these grade groupings as

follows: one through four, five through nine, and ten and eleven.

As a rule, secondary schools in urban areas combined all grades,

but rural schools were small, with only four or eight grades in the same building.

The school year ran approximately from September 1 (the offi- cial Holiday of Learning) to June 1 . Classes were held Monday

through Saturday, and total class time ranged from about twentyfour hours a week in the primary grades to thirty- six at the upper

levels (following the reform, the range of class time was reduced

to twenty to thirty-four hours). At all levels, class periods lasted

forty-five minutes, with ten-minute breaks and a half-hour for lunch.

The 1986-87 school year marked the wide-scale entry of six-yearolds into secondary schools; by September 1987, an estimated 42

percent of all six-year-olds were enrolled in first grade. In some

republics, e.g., the Georgian, Lithuanian, and Belorussian, the

transition was nearly completed; but because of lack of space and

school equipment (a chronic problem), many schools had to operate on double and even triple shifts to accommodate the additional

new entrants. The primary curriculum emphasized reading, writing, and arith- metic. Children spent from ten to twelve periods a week learning

to read and write in Russian or the native language and six periods a week on mathematics. The curriculum was rounded out with

art and music classes, physical education, and vocational training.

Children attending non-Russian schools—representing a total of

forty-four different Soviet nationalities in 1987 —began learning

Russian, the lingua franca in the Soviet Union, in the second grade,

resulting in an even heavier academic load for them (see Nationalities of the Soviet Union, ch. 4). Foreign language study, with English the most popular, began

in the fifth grade. The curriculum in the intermediate and upper

classes included courses in literature, history, social studies, geography, mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry, and technical

drawing. Consistent with the 1984 school reform's call for achieving computer literacy, the schools introduced computer training

in the upper grades in the mid-1980s (see Computers, ch. 9). Vocational counseling was also introduced in the upper grades in an

effort to direct more students to pursue training in technical areas

254
Typical classroom, Moscow

Courtesy Irene Steckler

requiring high-level skills. The new curriculum for grades ten and

eleven included courses called "Ethics and Psychology of Family

Life' ' and "Elementary Military Training. '

' From one to four hours

per week of "socially beneficial" labor was made compulsory for grades two through eleven.

General secondary schools emphasized mathematics and science;

science courses were designed not only to teach the fundamentals

but also to develop the official scientific-materialist worldview.

Teaching of history and literature was particularly politicized and

biased, through selection and interpretation, toward inculcation

of communist values and ideology. As an outgrowth of the deStalinization effort under Gorbachev, the official Soviet press denounced elementary and secondary school history books as "lies,"

and, to the students' glee, school authorities canceled final history

examinations in the spring of 1987.

On the whole, final examinations were rigorous and comprehensive, and they included both written and oral parts. Performance was graded on a number scale of one (failure) to five (outstanding). The general secondary school diploma was roughly equivalent to a high school diploma in the United States. Completion of

this program offered the most direct route to entrance into an in- stitution of higher learning.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

After the eighth or ninth grade, students who chose not to fin- ish the final two years of the general secondary school had several

options. The most popular in the 1980s was enrollment in secondary vocational-technical schools or specialized secondary schools.

In 1987 nearly 25 percent of students chose the former and almost

1 3 percent the latter route (more than 60 percent continued in the

general secondary school).

The secondary vocational-technical school {srednee professional'notekhnicheskoe uchilishche—SPTU) combined a full secondary education

with training for skilled and semiskilled jobs in industry, agriculture, and office work. In 1986 more than 7,000 such schools were

in operation; the period of instruction was two or three years. Graduates received diplomas and could apply to institutions of

higher education. An incomplete secondary education trade school

variant, vocational-technical schools (professionaUno-tekhnicheskie

uchilishcha—PTU), numbering about 1,000 in the mid-1980s, provided training in skilled and semiskilled jobs.

At the beginning of the 1986-87 school year, 4,506 specialized

secondary schools (srednie spetsiaVnye zavedeniid), commonly called

technicums (tekhnikumy), had an enrollment of nearly 4.5 million

students (2.8 million in regular daytime programs and 1.7 million

in evening or correspondence schools). The course of study lasted

from three to four years and combined completion of the final two

grades of general secondary schooling with training at a paraprofessional level. Technicums offered over 450 majors, most of them

in engineering and technical areas, as well as paraprofessional-level

training in health care, law, teaching, and the arts. Graduates

received diplomas and could obtain jobs as preschool and primary

school teachers, paramedics, and technicians; they could also apply

to higher education institutions. A technicum education cor- responded roughly to an associate degree or two years of study in an American junior college or community college.

In 1986 another school reform stressed the specialized secondary

school system and higher education. The qualitative improvement

of the technicums, which traditionally had served as an important

source of technically trained workers, was a key component in

providing skilled, technically qualified manpower required for the

success of economic restructuring and modernization. To this end,

the reform called for revamping both technicums and secondary

vocational-technical schools to train specialists with diverse technical skills and hands-on experience with computer technology and

automated production processes, as well as a more independent,

creative, and responsible approach to their jobs.

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Education, Health, and Welfare

Special Education

Special schools included those for physically and mentally handicapped children as well as those for intellectually and artistically

gifted youth. They also included military schools for secondarylevel cadet training.

In 1987 about 500,000 youngsters with mental and/or physical

impairments were enrolled in 2,700 schools designed to meet their

special needs. Schools for the mentally retarded strived to help chil- dren acquire as much of a general or vocational education as their

abilities permitted and also encouraged them to become as self- reliant as possible. The blind and those with partial sight could

complete the regular secondary program and/or vocational training in schools with a modified curriculum and special physical

accommodations. There were also schools for deaf children, deafmutes, and the hearing impaired.

Universities operated a small number of advanced academic pro- grams for exceptionally bright children who demonstrated outstanding abilities in the sciences and mathematics. Schools also specialized

in a specific foreign language, for example, English or German.

About 50 percent of all subjects were taught in the given language.

These highly prestigious schools provided complete secondary

schooling, and their graduates were guaranteed entrance into in- stitutions of higher learning.

The Ministry of Culture operated a small network of schools for

artistically gifted youngsters, which combined regular secondary

education with intensive training in music, ballet, or the arts. These

special schools were located primarily in Moscow, Leningrad, and

other large Soviet cities. First established during World War II, military boarding schools

continued to provide free care and education to war orphans of

military personnel and to train future officers of the armed forces. With enrollments of between 150 to 500 students, the eight Suvorov

military schools and the Nakhimov Naval School offered a regular, general school curriculum supplemented by a heavy load of

mathematics, political and military training, and physical education. Most graduates of these schools entered higher military in- stitutions (see Officers, ch. 18).

Higher Education

In 1987 the Soviet Union had 896 institutions of higher learning (vysshie uchebnye zavedeniia—VUZy), of which only 69 were

universities. The remainder included more than 400 pedagogical,

medical, and social science institutes and art academies and

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

conservatories of music; over 360 institutes of specialized engineering and natural sciences; and about 60 polytechnical institutes. VUZy were located in major cities, including the union republic

and autonomous republic capitals, with the highest concentrations

in Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev. Enrollment was over 5 million

students, with nearly 50 percent (2.4 million) attending part time.

Women made up 56 percent of the student body. Forty-one per- cent of the students came from the working (blue-collar) class, 9

percent from the collective farm (see Glossary) sector, and 50 per- cent from families working in the services (white-collar) sector. With nearly 587,000 students enrolled, universities offered a broad range of disciplines in the arts and sciences, while concentrating on the theoretical aspects of the given field. Institutes and

polytechnics were more specialized and stressed specific applied

disciplines, for example, engineering, education, and medicine.

The approach to higher education traditionally focused on acquiring knowledge and comprehension rather than on developing skills of analysis and evaluation.

As the country's major scientific and cultural centers, universities produced the leading researchers and teachers in the natural

and mathematical sciences, social and political sciences, and humanities, e.g., literature and languages. They also developed text- books and study guides for disciplines in all institutions of higher

learning and for university courses in the natural sciences and humanities.

On the whole, Soviet society considered universities the most

prestigious of all institutions of higher learning. Applicants considerably exceeded openings, and competition for entrance was stiff. Officially, acceptance was based on academic merit. In addition

to successful completion of secondary schooling, prospective entrants had to pass extremely competitive oral and written examinations, given only once a year, in their area of specialization, as well as in Russian and a foreign language. Students commonly

employed private tutors to prepare for university entrance ex- aminations. Beyond this generally accepted practice, other less honest methods were used widely and included drawing on per- sonal connections of parents and even resorting to bribes. Party

or Komsomol endorsement strengthened an applicant's chances

for admission.

Moscow University, established in 1755, was the Soviet Union's

largest, most prestigious, and second oldest institution of higher

learning (the Ukrainian Republic's L'vov University was founded

in 1661). It comprised seventeen colleges or schools (in Russian,

fakultety—faculties), divided into 274 departments, each offering

258
Turkmen University, Ashkhabad, Turkmen Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

a wide range of related subjects. A major research center, the state university had a library of over 6.5 million volumes. A teaching

staff of about 7,000 full-time and part-time professors and instructors

taught over 30,000 students (more than half attended on a parttime basis).

Full-time higher education took 4 to 5.5 years of study, depending on the area of specialization, for example, 5.5 years for medicine;

5 years for engineering; 4.5 years for agriculture; and 4 years for law, history, journalism, or art. The programs combined lectures,

seminars, practicums, and research. At the final stage, students

had to complete an approved thesis and defend their work before

the State Examination Committee; they also had to pass extensive

examinations in their field of specialization. Graduates were awarded diplomas; depending on the course of study and institu- tion, the diploma fell roughly between a bachelor's degree and

master's degree in the United States. Tuition at all institutions of higher learning was free; in the

1986-87 school year, 78 percent of full-time students received

monthly stipends ranging from 40 to 70 rubles. Students paid only

minimum room and board because dormitories (albeit crowded and

lacking most modern amenities) and cafeterias were subsidized by

the government. The universities also provided basic medical care

259
Soviet Union: A Country Study

at no cost, as well as free passes to rest and recreation homes and

summer and winter resorts. Graduates were expected to repay the government's generosity

by devoting two or three years to a job assigned by the government. This practice was becoming an increasingly serious problem

with respect to labor distribution in the 1980s. Among the major

contributing factors were Gosplan's failure to forecast correctly the

country's needs for specialized labor cadres (graduates frequentiy were assigned to jobs totally unrelated to their areas of specialization) and the often outright refusal by graduates to accept jobs in

undesirable (remote or rural) parts of the country.

Graduate training could be pursued at all universities and selected

institutes and polytechnics. Relative to the number of undergraduates, the number of Soviet graduate students was small, about

100,000 in the mid-1980s. Many pursued their studies on a parttime basis while continuing to work in their field. Two advanced degrees, the candidate of science and the doctor

of science (kandidat nauk and doktor nauk), were available. To be admitted to a course of study for the candidate degree, applicants had

to pass competitive examinations in a foreign language, philosophy

(primarily Marxism-Leninism), and the field of specialization. Completion of this degree required three years of course work, training

and research, and a dissertation dealing with an original topic and

representing a significant contribution to the given field. The thesis had to be defended publicly before an academic panel and was published. In the 1980s, about 500,000 specialists, primarily university

and institute faculty staff and members of the scientific and research

community, held candidate degrees. These degrees might be equated

to the master's and doctor of philosophy degrees in the United States, depending on the specialization and the institution attended.

A much smaller group (fewer than 45,000) of scholars and sci- entists held a doctor of science degree, also commonly called a

doktorat. It was conferred on a selective basis to well-established ex- perts whose considerable research and publications represented

original major contributions to their specialized areas. Doctoral

work was generally part of the individual's professional or teaching activity. A one-year paid leave of absence was granted for the

writing and defense of a doctoral thesis. The doctorate was also sometimes conferred for outstanding past achievements. According to Vadim Medish, holders of this advanced degree represented

"the elite of the Soviet scientific establishment and academe."

Teacher Training

Soviet society generally held the teaching profession in high es- teem, continuing the long prerevolutionary tradition, although

260
Education, Health, and Welfare

teachers' salaries were not commensurate in this regard. With start- ing pay as low as 140 to 150 rubles per month (compared with the

average worker's salary of 200 rubles), teachers' salaries, especially

at the primary and secondary school levels, were on the lower rungs

of the pay scale. The most common Western explanation for this disparity was the preponderance of women in the field. In 1987

nearly three-fourths of the more than 2.6 million secondary school

teachers and school directors were women. Among secondary school

teachers, 77.7 percent had completed higher education, 16.3 per- cent had completed secondary school teacher training, 3.5 percent

had completed a portion of their higher education, and 2.5 per- cent had completed specialized or general secondary education.

In the 1986-87 school year, more than 2 million students were

enrolled in teacher training programs in about 400 specialized

secondary-school teachers' schools and more than 200 pedagogical institutes. Teacher training focused on the chosen specialty; a

significant amount of time was devoted to the study of MarxismLeninism, as well as courses in education and applied psychology.

Because the university curriculum included courses in teaching

methodology, university graduates also often taught upper-level

secondary grades.

The salaries and prestige of teachers at universities, institutions

of higher learning, and specialized secondary schools were considerably higher than those of general secondary-school teachers. About

750,000 professors and instructors, of whom only about one-third were women, belonged to this elite group of professionals.

Quality, Reform, and Funding

A "report card" for Soviet education in the 1980s based on comments from government leaders, educators, and rank-and-file

teachers, as well as from the public at large, indicated the schools were failing in serious ways. The picture that emerged from arti- cles published in the Soviet press revealed inadequate facilities,

crowded classrooms, and schools operating on two- and even threeshift schedules. Shortages of school materials and equipment were

serious. The quality of teaching was often low. These deficiencies were particularly acute in rural areas and in the Soviet Central

Asian republics. Abuses, such as cheating by students and grade

inflation by many teachers, were widespread as well. The schools were failing to meet the nation's labor needs: shortages of adequately

skilled workers existed in almost every sector of the economy, and,

although institutions of higher learning were graduating large

numbers of engineers and specialists, their training was theoretical and narrow and lacked practical applicability. These limitations,

261
Soviet Union: A Country Study

together with excessive bureaucracy, led to poor performance (see

The Administration of Science and Technology, ch. 16). Industrial accidents, most notably the Chernobyl' nuclear power plant

accident, were openly attributed to inappropriate training and tech- nical incompetence.

The schools were failing as well in the task of inculcating youth

with Marxist-Leninist ideals and socialist morality. Young people were becoming increasingly cynical about official ideology; they were motivated more and more by the pursuits of material things,

personal comforts, societal status, and privilege. Moreover, the

school system's emphasis on uniformity and conformity, rote learning, and memorization quashed students' creativity and the development of critical thinking and individual responsibility.

The 1984 reform of the general and vocational schools together

with the 1 986 reform of higher and specialized secondary education aimed at fundamental perestroika (restructuring) and demokratizatsiia (democratization) of the education system. The Soviet

leadership saw the role of teachers as central to this endeavor; in

addition to increased wages, they promised that teachers would have

greater autonomy and flexibility and that the "command mentality, formalism, and overbureaucratization" produced by the multilayered administrative bureaucracies would be eradicated. Articles

in the official Soviet press called for the "teacher-creator" to take

the "path of freedom," with a "freely searching mind . . . tied

to no one and to no thing."

Implementation of these reforms would require major increases

in funding, which in the mid-1980s was about 12 billion rubles for general secondary schools. The state spent about 1,200 rubles per

student for higher education and 780 rubles for secondary specialized study. Calling allocation of less than 8 percent of a nation's

income to education a sign of societal degradation, Soviet education specialists expressed alarm that the country was currently al- locating only about 4 percent of its national income to its schools.

But the greater, and perhaps insurmountable, obstacle to genuine

reform of education in the 1980s remained the overriding importance assigned to ideological purity in all aspects of schooling.

Health Care

The Soviet system of socialized medicine, introduced during the

Stalin era, emphasized "quantitative" expansion. The system was

driven by three basic underlying principles: provision by government health institutions of readily available and free, qualified medical care to all citizens; an emphasis on the prevention of illness; and the related goal of guaranteeing a healthy labor force for the

262
Education, Health, and Welfare

nation's economy. Indeed, the individual citizen's health was

viewed not only as a personal matter "but as part of the national

wealth."

In the mid-1980s, the government operated a huge network of

neighborhood and work site clinics to provide readily accessible

primary care and large hospitals and polyclinic complexes for diagnosis and treatment of more complicated illnesses and for sur- gery. Health care facilities included numerous women's consultation centers and pediatric clinics, emergency ambulance services,

and sanatoriums and rest homes for extended and short-term ther- apy and relaxation. Psychiatric care remained the most outdated

and abuse-ridden area of the country's medical system.

The mid-1980s were marked by growing concern on the part of officials and the public over the serious decline in the country's health

and the low quality of medical services available to the general populace. In addition to Gorbachev's war against alcoholism, which was

seen as a principal contributing factor in increased male mortality

rates, reforms in the 1980s called for eliminating overbureaucratization of medical services, improving medical training and salaries, expanding fee-for- service care, and significantly increasing

funding to improve the quality of health care nationwide.

Provision of Medical Care

Having emphasized quantitative expansion of medical services,

the Soviet Union, by the 1980s, took first place worldwide with

respect to the number of hospital beds and physicians per 10,000

people and had in place a huge network of hospitals, polyclinics,

consultation centers, and emergency first-aid stations throughout

the country. As in the education system, administration and control of these numerous medical facilities was carried out by a

centralized, hierarchically structured government apparatus. In

cooperation and consultation with CPSU organs, the Ministry of

Health set basic policies and plans for the entire nationwide health care system. These in turn were transmitted through the administrative chain of command, starting with the republic-level health

ministries down through the territorial, regional, district, municipal,

and local levels. In coordination with Gosplan, the Ministry of Health developed

nationwide annual programs for all aspects of health care services.

The ministry's planning effort reflected an overwhelming concern "with numbers and complex formulas," such as setting norms,

standards, and quotas with virtually no flexibility, spelling out the

number of new 1,000-bed hospitals to be built, the number of

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

patient visits and medical exams to be performed, and even the

number of sutures per given type and size of laceration.

The numerous administrative entities and planning offices spawned a huge bureaucracy, with all the attendant problems of

overbureaucratization, red tape, and paper deluge. Most affected

and afflicted were physicians, who devoted 50 percent of their time

to filling out medical forms and documentation.

A large portion of the Soviet annual health care budget (about

18 billion rubles) was allotted to construction of a vast and complex network of medical facilities, including polyclinics, consultation and dispensary centers, emergency first-aid stations and

ambulance services, hospitals, and sanatoriums. In 1986 more than

40,000 polyclinics provided primary medical care on an outpatient

basis. They ranged in size from huge urban complexes staffed by

hundreds of physicians and responsible for the health care needs

of up to 50,000 people, to small rural clinics consisting of several

examination rooms and three or four doctors, whose training was

often at the physician's assistant or paramedic (fel'dsher) level. Generally, the first place turned to for medical assistance was

the polyclinic. Individuals and families were assigned to a specific

polyclinic, based on their place of residence, and could not choose

their physician within the polyclinic system. Outpatient services

stressed prevention and provided only the most basic medical treat- ment, including preliminary diagnosis and evaluation by a general practitioner or internist (tevrapet). If the patient's condition was

determined to be a more serious or complicated one (hypertension,

heart disease, or cancer, for example), the individual usually was

referred to another specialist and/or was hospitalized for more ex- tensive diagnosis and treatment. The polyclinic system was delivering 90 percent of the country's medical care in the 1980s.

An important facet of medical care was the provision of services

at the place of work, reflecting the country's focus on maintaining

a healthy labor force. Large production enterprises (see Glossary),

factories, and plants, as well as many other institutions, such as research facilities and universities, had their own clinics or medical units. The railroad workers' union operated its own autonomous health care system, including rest homes and sanatoriums.

Consonant with the nation's concern with worker productivity

and loss of valuable production time, workplace clinics allowed

workers to get medical attention without leaving the work site. They

also monitored and controlled worker absenteeism through issu- ance of sick leave certificates. In 1986 approximately 4 million workers (about 3 percent of the total work force) were on sick leave each

264
Schoolchildren in Vyborg, Russian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

day; about 700,000 of them, mostly women, stayed home to care

for sick children.

Nationwide, in 1986 there were 23,500 hospitals with more than

3.6 million beds. In an effort to eliminate duplication of medical

services by combining general and specialized hospital care, beginning in the mid-1970s the Ministry of Health began building

large urban hospital complexes that provided specialized care in

the hospital and on an outpatient basis. A 1,600-bed hospital was

built in Novosibirsk; Rostov-na-Donu had a 1,700-bed hospital tower; huge multidepartment hospitals appeared in other cities as

well. Although the thrust of hospital care was to provide diagnosis and

treatment of more complicated health problems and to provide facilities for surgery, people suffering from such minor illnesses as influenza or gastroenteritis were often hospitalized. This exacer- bated the already serious crowding problem in hospitals despite

the large number of hospital beds per capita. The situation stemmed

in part from official specification of exact periods of hospitalization for each and every type of medical problem, for example, ten days for childbirth, appendectomy, or gallbladder surgery; two

weeks for a hysterectomy; and eight weeks for a heart attack. These

prescribed "recovery" periods were strictly adhered to, even when

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

the patient clearly no longer needed further hospital care. In the

early 1980s, one-quarter of the population was hospitalized each

year. The average hospital stay was 15 days, with a nationwide

average of 2.8 hospital days per person per year (the average hospital

stay in the United States was 5 days, with 1.2 hospital days per

person per year).

The propensity for medically unwarranted, extended hospitalizations reflected old-fashioned practice, the inefficiency of hospitals (for example, delays in diagnostic tests caused by excessive

paperwork and shortages in medical equipment), and the difficulty for patients to recover at home because of crowded living conditions. In addition, patients tended to prefer hospitalization to curative treatment in the clinics because hospitals were generally better

equipped and better staffed. A pivotal concern of the public health system was the care and

treatment of women and children. More than 28,000 women's consultation centers, children's polyclinics, and pediatric hospital facilities focused on prevention and cure of women's and children's

health problems. A number of institutes of pediatrics, obstetrics,

and gynecology conducted research to improve diagnosis and treat- ment of disease and contribute to overall health and well-being,

especially of pregnant women, infants, and young children. All

maternity services were free, and women were encouraged to obtain regular prenatal care; expectant mothers visited maternity clin- ics and consultation centers on an average of fourteen to sixteen

times. About 5 percent of physicians specialized in obstetrics and

gynecology. Women had ready access to free routine examinations,

Pap smears, and prenatal care. Abortions were also available on demand but sometimes required a small fee. The Ministry of Health operated an extensive network of emergency first-aid facilities. This ''rapid medical assistance" {skoraia

meditsinskaia pomoshch') system consisted of more than 5,000 emergency first-aid stations and included 7,700 specialized ambulance

teams. Dialing "03" on any telephone (pay telephones did not re- quire the usual 2 kopek coin) called out an ambulance {skoraia, as

it was popularly called). Most often ambulances were equipped with

only the barest first-aid basics: stretcher, splints and fracture boards,

oxygen equipment. But specialized antitrauma ambulances with

portable equipment, such as an electrocardiograph, electric heart

defibrillator, and anesthesia equipment were available for major

emergencies. After administration of first aid, patients with major

medical problems or severe trauma were taken to special emergency hospitals because most regular hospitals were not equipped

266
Education, Health, and Welfare

with emergency rooms. In the early 1980s, the average ambulance

arrival time was eight minutes in Moscow and eleven in Leningrad.

Rounding out the nation's health care system, and giving it a uniquely Soviet coloration, was the country's large network of

sanatoriums, rest homes, and health resorts, which was both an

integral part of Soviet health care and extremely popular among

the people. Labor unions controlled about 80 percent of the sanato- riums; generally, a person's place of work granted the highly desir- able putevka (ticket) to such facilities. Some sanatoriums were

specialized, providing therapy for children, diabetics, or hypertensives; many health resorts offered mud baths, mineral springs, and

herbal therapies; all of them offered a much-welcomed period of

rest and recreation in pleasant natural surroundings along seacoasts and in forests with fresh air. Demand for such facilities, dubbed

"functional equivalents of tranquilizers" by one Western observer,

far exceeded availability. In 1986 over 15,800 sanatoriums and rest homes served more than 50.3 million people, less than 20 percent

of the population.

The most outdated and abuse-ridden area of health protection was the system of psychiatric services. In the mid-1980s, psychiatric care continued to operate primarily on the outdated principles on

which it was originally based in the 1950s: Pavlovian (conditionedresponse) psychology, a black-and-white approach to diagnosis of

mental illness, heavy reliance on psychotropic drug therapies, very

little practice of individual or group counseling, and an emphasis on work as the best form of treatment and therapy. The average

citizen avoided seeking psychiatric help, convinced it was "better

to suffer" than have one's life ruined—an almost certain outcome

of Soviet psychiatric clinics and services.

Among the corrupt practices (including bribery and blatant dis- regard of individual rights), the gravest and most infamous abuses

in Soviet psychiatric medicine were political, namely, using mental hospitals as prisons for political dissenters. Along with schizophrenics and violent prisoners, dissenters were institutionalized in

special psychiatric hospital-prisons operated by the Ministry of

Internal Affairs (see The Ministry of Internal Affairs, ch. 19). Anyone who actively disagreed with the official Soviet ideology could

be easily and swiftly declared "insane" by a committee of psychiatrists, locked up in a mental institution, and subjected to compulsory treatment with powerful, at times permanently damaging,

psychotropic drugs. In the mid-1980s, estimates of the total number of political prisoners in Soviet psychiatric facilities numbered

from 1,000 to several thousand.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

A harbinger of possible reform of the psychiatric system came

in January 1988 with the issuance of a decree by the Presidium

of the Supreme Soviet transferring the special psychiatric hospitals from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Health,

which operated a system of regular psychiatric hospitals and polyclinics. A number of government-sponsored private psychiatric

clinics offered slightly better levels of therapy and counseling, for a fee. In 1985 Soviet officials began publishing limited statistics on the

incidence of mental illness among the population, reporting 335

cases of schizophrenia per 100,000 people and over 1.3 million chil- dren suffering from mental retardation. A total of 335,200 hospital beds were devoted to psychiatric care in 1986, compared with

863,000 for general medicine, 526,900 for surgery, and 411,500

for pediatrics.

Between 1960 and 1986, the number of physicians and dentists

increased from 400,000 to 1.2 million, and mid-level personnel

increased from 1.4 to 3.2 million. Medical training for physicians

(vrachi) required six or seven years. The emphasis was on practical

training with little exposure to basic research or pure science (of

ninety-two medical institutes, only nine were attached to universities). Beginning in the 1970s, specialization began early, in the

third year, and became increasingly more narrow, resulting in a

serious decline in the number and quality of general or family practitioners. The majority of doctors were women. As was the case

in teaching and other social services areas, their salaries were low

(in the mid-1980s, physicians earned about 180 to 200 rubles per

month compared with 200 rubles per month for industrial workers).

Mid-level medical personnel included physician's assistants, or paramedics, midwives, and nurses. These categories required only

two years of practical training and little or no scientific background.

These mid-level health practitioners frequently served as physician

surrogates in rural areas, where the shortage of trained physicians was serious.

Although the underlying principle of Soviet socialized medicine was equality of care and access, the reality was a multitiered, highly

stratified system of care and facilities. The disparity between the

services provided to the general populace and to special groups was

great. The so-called "fourth department" of the Ministry of Health

operated a separate network of clinics, hospitals, and sanatoriums

exclusively for top party and government officials as well as for other elite groups, such as writers, musicians, artists, and actors. These special facilities were far superior to those found in ordinary health care networks. They provided the best care, were staffed

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Education, Health, and Welfare

by top-ranking physicians, and had the latest equipment, including Western-made modern diagnostic and treatment units. The

medical care available in cities, which tended to have the better

equipped hospitals and clinics, differed considerably from that avail- able in rural areas, which often lacked specially constructed medical facilities. Similarly, although in principle health care was free, citizens often

paid money or gave bribes to receive better treatment. Moreover,

hospital patients routinely paid for basic services, such as changes

of bed linen and meals.

Declining Health Care in the 1970s and 1980s

After Evgenii Chazov became the minister of health in February 1987 and Gorbachev's policy of glasnosV was extended to the

realm of health care, Soviet authorities finally acknowledged what

Western observers had suspected for some time, namely, that major

health indicators depicted a disturbing picture of the nation's health.

Statistics for the 1970s and 1980s showed rising infant mortality

rates, falling life expectancy (particularly among the male population), increases in infectious diseases, rises in sexually transmitted

illnesses, and a high rate of new cases of tuberculosis among chil- dren and adolescents.

Statistics on the major causes of death were not published for the total population but were published for the working-age group

(sixteen to fifty-nine for men and sixteen to fifty-four for women).

In 1986 the greatest number of deaths among those of working age

(the total number of deaths was 401 per 100,000) was caused by

cardiovascular disease (120 per 100,000); accidents, poisoning, and

traumas (109 per 100,000); cancer (94 per 100,000); and lung dis- ease (20 per 100,000). On a population-wide basis, official Soviet sources ranked the major causes of death somewhat differently:

cardiovascular diseases, malignant tumors, and accidents and in- juries. Statistics on sex-specific death rates and cause of death by

age-group have not been published since the early 1970s.

A key contributing factor in the major causes of death, particularly among the male population, was the high level of alcoholism

a long-standing problem, especially among the Slavic peoples (Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian). Alcoholism was often referred

to as the * 'third disease," after cardiovascular illness and cancer. Soviet health organizations and police records put the total number of alcoholics at over 4.5 million, but Western experts contended

that this number applied only to those at the most advanced stage

of alcoholism and that in 1987 the real number of alcoholics was

at least 20 million.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Soon after coming to power, Gorbachev launched the most massive antialcohol campaign in Soviet history and voiced his concern

not only about the health problems stemming from alcohol abuse

but also about the losses in labor productivity (up to 15 percent)

and the increased divorce rate. The drive appeared to have an

almost immediate effect on the incidence of diseases directly re- lated to alcohol: for example, cirrhosis of the liver and alcohol

poisoning decreased from 47.3 per 1,000 in 1984 to 23.3 per 1,000

in 1986. The biggest declines were in the Russian and Ukrainian

republics, where the problem was the most widespread. Some at- tributed the modest rise in male life expectancy between 1985 and

1986 to success in the battle against the "green snake," a popular

Russian term for vodka. But to counter the major cut in government production of alcohol, people distilled their own alcoholic

beverages at home. One-third of illicit alcohol reportedly was

produced using government agricultural facilities. To succeed in the battle against alcoholism, Soviet health care had to expand significantly its alcohol-abuse treatment and education programs. Of particular concern was increased alcohol con- sumption and another major health problem—smoking—among

women and teenagers. The rise in infant mortality, as well as other

early childhood disease and abnormalities (8 to 10 percent of chil- dren reportedly suffered from congenital or infantile abnormalities), was linked to increased drinking and smoking among females

in their childbearing years. A Soviet statistical study (based on a 1987 survey of 62,000 families) indicated that about 70 million people smoked—nearly 70 per- cent of men and nearly 5 percent of women more than eighteen

years of age. Although an antismoking campaign was also under

way in the 1980s, it was on a much smaller scale than the campaign against alcohol, and the government did far less to decrease

production of tobacco products. In fact, output reached 441 bil- lion cigarettes in 1987, which was an increase of 23 percent over 1970 production.

In addition to increased infant mortality rates in the 1970s and

1980s, the Caucasian and Central Asian republics experienced a

rise in infectious diseases, such as typhoid fever and other gastrointestinal illnesses, and viral hepatitis. Poor sanitation and con- taminated water supplies were largely responsible for outbreaks of

typhoid fever and other gastrointestinal infections; the lack of dis- posable syringes was blamed for the upsurge in hepatitis infections.

Deteriorating environmental factors, crowded living conditions,

and poor nutrition were seen as principal contributors to negative

health trends. But the low quality of health care available to the

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Education, Health, and Welfare

general populace was a major culprit and stemmed in large measure from the widespread lack of modern medical equipment, tech- nology, and pharmaceuticals. For example, the low life expectancy,

particularly for males, was linked in part to the lack of medical

equipment needed to perform bypass surgery and angioplasty proce- dures in the treatment of heart disease. Indeed, deaths from cardiovascular diseases increased from 88 per 100,000 to 120 per 100,000

between 1970 and 1986.

With glasnost ' came publication in Soviet newspapers of numerous articles and letters—written by physicians as well as by ordinary citizens—highlighting the crisis in the country's health care

system. Frequendy attacked was the severe shortage of modern medical equipment in medical facilities; for example, women's consultation centers had no fetal heart monitors, ultrasound units, or equipment for monitoring labor and delivery, resulting in thousands of additional infant deaths. Poor training of physicians was

singled out as the cause of 600 to 700 deaths of women each year

in childbirth and following abortions in the Russian Republic alone.

The poor treatment and care of terminally ill cancer patients was

openly decried; mentioned were the serious shortage of beds in cancer wards, lack of painkillers, blatant neglect, and absence

of compassion from medical staff. The widespread and longstanding practice of exchanging bribes and gifts for slightly better

medical care and attention was specifically attacked, as were over- bureaucratization and its major product, "paper fever," and the

common practice of falsifying medical statistics to fulfill planned

quantitative quotas. People also wrote to newspapers documenting personal tragedies involving the deaths of small children—deaths

that need not have happened and that were caused by gross negligence on the part of hospital staff and physicians.

Glasnost' brought into the open other previously taboo subjects, as the press began to publish articles on drug abuse, venereal dis- ease, and even acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

Drug abuse and venereal disease were reported to be on the rise in some regions of the country, most notably in the Georgian

Republic. The number of drug addicts nationwide varied depending

upon the official source: the Ministry of Health claimed 50,000;

police records documented 130,000 addicts.

In early 1987, the Soviet press began publishing a number of

articles about AIDS, referring to the deadly virus by the Russian

acronym SPID (sindrom priobretennogo immunodefitsita). Although litde concrete advice was being made available to the public regarding

prevention and high-risk groups, by the summer of 1987 a number of AIDS testing centers had been opened, and a Moscow center

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

reportedly was testing about 100 people each day. Claiming the

infection was "imported," Soviet medical authorities required mandatory testing of all foreign students in the country; they also re- quired compulsory testing of suspected Soviet carriers, namely,

prostitutes and members of other high-risk groups. In August 1987,

the Supreme Soviet passed the strictest anti-AIDS law in the world,

making the knowing transmittal of an AIDS infection a criminal

offense punishable by up to eight years in prison.

By the time the law was passed, 130 AIDS cases were officially

registered; only 19 of these were said to be Soviet citizens. But numerous Soviet sources indicated the actual number of cases was

in the thousands; this figure still represented a minuscule percentage of the population compared with AIDS incidence in the United

States and other Western countries. Nevertheless, Soviet virology

specialists foresaw serious spread of the infection, noting that domestic production of AIDS testing equipment had to be significantly

increased. They claimed that the 1987 output of 2 million units was 8 million short of the required number and anticipated that

20 million test sets would be needed within two or three years. Public

education about AIDS transmission and infection was hampered

by general Soviet prudishness about sex, but of greater importance was the fact that the government ranked homosexual activity and

prostitution as criminal offenses punishable by imprisonment, which

meant that these high-risk groups were unlikely to cooperate in the

batde against AIDS. The chronic shortage of condoms (which Soviet

medical officials euphemistically called "Article Number 2") fur- ther increased the threat of the spread of AIDS among the Soviet

population. But the widespread shortage of disposable hypodermic

syringes in hospitals and clinics, which often led to the repeated

use of unsterilized needles, posed the greatest danger to checking

the spread of AIDS in the Soviet Union. This fact was shockingly

demonstrated by the tragic case involving the infection with the

AIDS virus of up to forty-one children and eight mothers in late 1988 at a children's hospital in the Kalmyk Autonomous Republic.

Major reforms of the health care system were announced in

November 1987, underscoring the growing alarm over the nation's

deteriorating health. The reforms reaffirmed the antialcohol and

antismoking campaigns and called for improving personal hygiene

and physical fitness training of the population in general and of

schoolchildren in particular. The reforms stressed improving the

quality of care, as opposed to the past practice of quantitative ex- pansion alone, and advocated increasing the salaries and prestige

of medical personnel. They called for shifting physician training

from the narrow specialization of the past to family or general

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Education, Health, and Welfare

practice, as well as expansion and improvement in certification of

medical school graduates and periodic recertification of practicing

physicians. The central role of mid-level medical personnel—such

as physician's assistants, nurses, and pharmacists—was reaffirmed,

and improvements in the quality of their training were promised.

The quality of medical teaching was to be raised by directly in- volving medical teachers in research and development in the country's leading medical research institutes. The reforms also stressed

expansion of biotechnical and other advanced medical research and

called for increasing domestic production of the most modern medical equipment, high-quality pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology

products.

Special efforts were planned to rectify the low level of health care found in rural areas, where 80 percent of the 18,000 polyclinics

and outpatient facilities did not have specially constructed medical buildings. A majority—65 percent—of regional hospitals in rural areas had no hot water supply; 27 percent were not equipped with

sanitation systems; and 17 percent had no water supply at all. To

correct these serious deficiencies, plans called for construction of more than 14,000 outpatient clinics equipped with pharmacies, as well as living quarters for medical and pharmaceutical personnel.

Along with continued emphasis on providing outpatient polyclinic

care, a significant expansion—a fivefold increase—of fee-for-services medical care was planned by the year 2000.

The country's need for maternity wards and pediatric facilities was to be met by 1995; the population's outpatient and hospital

needs were to be met by the year 2000. To this end, the reforms

called for a significant increase—between 100 and 150 percent

in capital expenditures for renovation, equipment, and construction of polyclinics and hospital complexes. A final goal was the

establishment by the year 2000 of a ' 'unified system of health care"

for the entire population.

To achieve these ambitious goals and to ensure the full health

of its population, the Soviet Union would have to increase substantially the level of funding allocated to its health care system.

Since the 1960s, the percentage of the gross national product

(GNP—see Glossary) spent on health had continuously eroded,

dropping from a high of 6.6 percent of GNP in 1960 to about 4

percent in the mid-1980s. (In 1986 the United States spent 11.1

percent; the Federal Republic of Germany [West Germany], 8.1

percent; and Britain, 6.2 percent of GNP for medical services.)

According to Minister of Health Chazov, more than 8 percent

would be needed to meet fully the medical needs of the entire Soviet

population.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Welfare

In the 1980s, the Soviet government maintained a comprehensive system of social security and social insurance that included

old-age retirement and veterans pensions, disability benefits and

sick leave compensation, maternity leave and allowances, and subsidies to multichildren and low-income families. Soviet workers did

not contribute directly to their social security and insurance coverage; funding was provided by the government and from compulsory deductions from industrial and agricultural enterprises. Most

welfare funds were spent on retirement pensions and disability

benefits.

Pension System

In 1987 the Soviet Union had 56.8 million pensioners; of this number, 40.5 million were retired with full pensions on the basis

of twenty years of service and age eligibility—sixty for men and

fifty-five for women. Reduced pensions were paid to those who met

the age eligibility requirement and had worked at least five years, three of them uninterrupted, just prior to retirement. Miners and

those working under other arduous or hazardous conditions could

retire five to ten years earlier. In 1987 Soviet authorities were reducing the retirement age for other groups as well. Pensions, on the whole, were quite low. The average monthly

pension in 1986 was 75.1 rubles, with considerable disparity between the average monthly pension of blue- and white-collar workers

(averaging 81.2 rubles for the two categories of workers) and col- lective farm workers (48 rubles). In fact, the average pension was

only slighdy above the unofficial level of poverty—or "underprovisioning' ' {maloobespechennost')—of 70 rubles per month per person.

It was likely that millions of pensioners lived under or close to this poverty threshold. Indeed, pensioners made up the majority of the poor. According to figures published in an official Soviet newspaper,

in 1985 a minimum of 13.7 million pensioners were receiving pensions far below 70 rubles per month. About 12 million old-age pensioners continued to work, many of them in extremely low-paying

jobs, for example, as cloakroom attendants in restaurants and

theaters or sweeping metro station interiors and street pavements.

Retirees who lived with their children (a common situation, given

the extreme housing shortage) obtained some financial relief and

in return helped with housework, cooking, and care of small grandchildren. In 1988 about 1 million pensioners lived alone and were by far the worst off, living in almost total neglect and near desti- tution.

274
Senior citizen resting

in a Moscow park

Courtesy Irene Steckler \

\

Not all pensions were this low, however. A special category of

"personal pensions" could be awarded for outstanding political,

cultural, scientific, or economic service to the state. In 1988 over 500,000 personal pensioners, including essentially all of the CPSU

administrative elite, were receiving pensions of 250 rubles, and even up to 450 rubles, per month. A separate but similar retirement

program, known as long-service pensions, was maintained for some

groups of white-collar workers, including teachers, academic and

medical personnel, and military retirees. Lowered retirement ages

and/or pension augmentations were provided to disabled workers

and mothers of large families.

The government operated a small network of homes for the

elderly, invalids, and disabled children. In 1986 these "total-care"

facilities accommodated 388,000 people, but another 90,000 were on waiting lists. In 1988-89 the State Committee for Labor and Social Problems

(Gosudarstvennyi komitet po trudu i sotsial'nym voprosam—Goskomtrud) was developing a new pension law to replace the outdated

laws of 1956 and 1964. Although not expected to become fully effec- tive before 1991, the new law envisioned a guaranteed subsistence

wage, a higher ceiling on old-age pensions, and regular cost-of-living

increases. Workers could also obtain supplemental pension cover- age through a voluntary payroll deduction program introduced in January 1988 and administered by the Main Administration for State Insurance.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Workers' Compensation

In the 1980s, workers were covered by disability insurance. In- dividuals who were permanently disabled as a result of on-the-job

injuries received a pension equal to 100 percent of their wages,

irrespective of their length of service. Compensation for sickness or injury causing temporary incapacity to work but unrelated to employment required appropriate physician certification of the ill- ness or injury. Benefits depended on length of service: 50 percent

of full wages was paid for fewer than three years of uninterrupted

work; 80 percent for three to five years; and 100 percent for more

than eight years. Service in the armed forces, time spent in party

or government posts, and maternity leave were not considered

breaks in employment. Sick leave was also paid to workers (usually

working mothers) who stayed home to care for ill family members.

In 1987 the government extended the period of paid leave for the care of a sick child to fourteen days.

Maternity allowances were fairly generous. Expectant mothers were granted a total of 1 12 days of maternity leave, 56 days before

and 56 days after the birth of a child, with payment of full wages,

irrespective of length of employment. The postnatal leave period was extended to seventy days for women who had multiple or abnormal births. Mothers were entitled to unpaid leave up to the

child's first birthday, without a break in their employment record

and with the guarantee of returning to their original job.

Other Assistance

Since the mid- 1940s, the government has provided financial subsidies to mothers with ' 'many children," meaning two or more.

This program had three facets: mothers received a lump-sum grant

upon the birth of the third and each subsequent child; they received a monthly subsidy upon the birth of the fourth and each subsequent child; and, beginning with the Eleventh Five-Year-Plan

(1981-85), one-time maternity grants (50 rubles for the first child

and 100 for the second) were given to working women or female

students on a leave-of-absence basis. In 1986 the government paid

monthly subsidies to almost 2 million mothers having four or more

children. In addition to pensions and financial subsidies, veterans, invalids,

and multichildren families received a number of nonmonetary

benefits, such as top consideration for housing, telephones, and

priority services in shops and restaurants. In 1985 and again in

1987, the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of

Ministers, and the Ail-Union Central Council of Trade Unions

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Education, Health, and Welfare

issued resolutions to improve living conditions of the "underprovisioned," including pensioners, invalids, old people living alone,

and single-parent families with three or more children under the

age of eighteen and with an average monthly per capita income

of 50 rubles (75 rubles in certain regions, for example, the Soviet

Far East). This program provided free school, sports, and youth

organization uniforms and free breakfasts for children up to the

age of sixteen. The resolutions also called for child- support payments by the absent parent of at least 20 rubles per month per child

up to the age of eighteen, as well as a government subsidy of 12

rubles per month for each child up to the age of eight. Underprovisioned families were provided free sanatorium and rest-home stays;

the children were sent to summer youth camps, as well, at government expense.

Although no official calls for comprehensive restructuring of welfare programs were made, by 1987 and 1988 the policy of glasnosV

embraced the topic of poverty in the Soviet Union. Numerous articles appeared in the press reflecting a growing concern—on the

part of both Soviet officials and the general public—about the number of poor in the Soviet Union, estimated in 1988 to include 20

percent of the population.

The leadership under Gorbachev fully acknowledged the press- ing need for improving the quality and availability of education,

health care, and welfare services nationwide and seemed genuinely committed to achieving these objectives by the year 2000. But

the obstacles to reforms in these spheres were numerous and for- midable. The country had to significantly raise funding for these

programs, and to do so would require a shift in spending priorities. Moreover, excessive centralization and overbureaucratization

in the administration of social services had to be overcome. And

the incompatibility of maintaining ideological purity in all aspects

of education, on the one hand, and developing in youth the ability to think critically, comparatively, and creatively, on the other hand,

had to be reconciled.

* * *

Inside Soviet Schools by Susan Jacoby, an American educator, offers a comprehensive view of the upbringing of Soviet youth from in- fancy through secondary school. Kitty D. Weaver's Russia's Future examines the role of the youth organizations (Young Octobrists,

Pioneers, and Komsomol) in the education process. The Making

of the Soviet Citizen, edited by George Avis, covers school reforms

of the 1980s, the dual concept of character formation and formal

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

education, the role of political indoctrination, and vocational training.

Soviet Politics and Education by Frank M. Sorrentino and Frances R.

Curcio, includes several articles dealing with the role of ideology

and political indoctrination in Soviet education. Vadim Medish's

The Soviet Union provides an excellent chapter on the education sys- tem, from the nursery school level through the university level. Inside Russian Medicine by William A. Knaus, M.D. , an American

physician who observed Soviet health care first hand, covers polyclinic and hospital care, emergency services, and psychiatric treat- ment. The Medical and Pharmaceutical Sectors of the Soviet Economy by

Christopher Davis discusses the organization and financing of medical care, the medical industry, pharmaceuticals, and foreign trade

in medical products. Economic Welfare in the Soviet Union by Alastair

McAuley discusses the historical background, organization, eligibility requirements, and payments provided by Soviet welfare programs. Poverty in the Soviet Union by Mervyn Matthews includes some

recent information on old-age pensions and child support payment.

Matthews also discusses these topics in his article "Aspects of

Poverty in the Soviet Union." (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

278
Chapter 7. The Communist Party
Clockwise from bottom: Gorbachev, Brezhnev, Khrushchev, and Stalin
THE COMMUNIST PARTY of the Soviet Union (CPSU)

governs the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union).

In 1917 the party seized power in Russia as the vanguard of the

working class, and it has continued throughout the Soviet period

to rule in the name of the proletariat. The party seeks to lead the

Soviet people to communism, defined by Karl Marx as a classless society that contains limitless possibilities for human achievement.

Toward this end, the party has sought to effect a cultural revolution and create a ' 'new Soviet man" bound by the strictures of a higher, socialist morality.

The party's goals require that it control all aspects of Soviet

government and society in order to infuse political, economic, and

social policies with the correct ideological content. Vladimir I. Lenin, the founder of the Bolshevik (see Glossary) party and the

leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, justified these controls. Lenin

formed a party of professional revolutionaries to effect a proletarian

revolution in Russia. In the late 1980s, however, the party no longer

sought to transform society and was apparently attempting to withdraw itself from day-to-day economic decisions. Nevertheless, it continued to exert control through professional management. Members of the party bureaucracy are full-time, paid officials. Other

party members hold full-time positions in government, industry,

education, the armed forces, and elsewhere. In addition, Lenin

argued that the party alone possesses the correct understanding of

Marxist ideology. Thus, state policies that lack an ideological foundation threaten to retard society's advance toward communism.

Hence, only policies sanctioned by the party can contribute to this goal. Lenin's position justifies party jurisdiction over the state. The

CPSU enforces its authority over state bodies from the all-union

(see Glossary) level to that of the district and town. In the office,

factory, and farm, the party has established its primary party organizations (PPOs) to carry out its directives.

The role of ideology in the political system and the party's ef- forts to enforce controls on society demonstrate the party leadership's continuing efforts to forge unity in the party as well as among

the Soviet people. Democratic centralism, the method of intraparty

decision making, directs lower party bodies unconditionally to ex- ecute the decisions of higher party bodies. Party forums from the

town and district levels up to the Central Committee bring together

party, government, trade union, and economic elites to create a

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

desired consensus among policy makers. Party training, particularly for officials of the CPSU's permanent bureaucracy, shapes

a common understanding of problems and apprises students of the

party's current approaches to ideology, foreign affairs, and domestic

policy. Party training efforts demand particular attention because

of the varied national, class, and educational experiences of CPSU

members.

The party exercises authority over the government and society

in several ways. The CPSU has acquired legitimacy for its rule; that is, the people acknowledged the party's right to govern them.

This legitimacy derives from the party's incorporation of elites from

all parts of society into its ranks, the party's depiction of itself as the representative of the forces for progress in the world, and the

party's postulated goal of creating a full communist society. Paradoxically, the party's legitimacy is enhanced by the inclusion of

certain prerevolutionary Russian traditions into its political style,

which provides a sense of continuity with the past. A different source of authority lies in the power of PPO secretaries to implement party

policies on the lowest rungs of the Soviet economy. The CPSU

obligates members participating in nonparty organizations to meet

regularly and ensure that their organizations fulfill the directives

the party has set for them. Finally, as part of the nomenklatura sys- tem, the party retains appointment power for influential positions

at all levels of the government hierarchy (higher party bodies hold

this power over lower party bodies as well). Taken together, the

legitimacy accorded to it and the prerogatives it possesses enable

the party to perform its leading role within the Soviet political

system.

Lenin's Conception of the Party

The origins of the CPSU lie in the political thought and tactical conceptions of Lenin, who sought to apply Marxism to economically backward, politically autocratic Russia. Toward this end,

Lenin sought to build a highly disciplined, monolithic party of

professional revolutionaries that was to act as the general staff of

the proletarian movement in Russia. Lenin argued that this underground party must subject all aspects of the movement to its control so that the actions of the movement might be guided by the

party's understanding of Marxist theory rather than by spontane- ous responses to economic and political oppression. Lenin envisaged

democratic centralism as the method of internal party decision making best able to combine discipline with the decentralization neces- sary to allow lower party organs to adapt to local conditions.

Democratic centralism calls for free discussion of alternatives, a

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The Communist Party

vote on the matter at hand, and iron submission of the minority

to the majority once a decision is taken. As time passed, however,

centralism gained sway over democracy, allowing the leadership

to assume dictatorial control over the party.

Theoretical Underpinnings

Lenin's ideas about the proletarian revolutionary party differed

from the ideas of Marx. According to Marx, the working class,

merely by following its own instincts, would gain rational insight

into its plight as the downtrodden product of capitalism. Based on

that insight, Marx held, the workers would bring about a revolution leading to their control over the means of production. Further, Marx predicted that the seizure by the proletariat of the means

of production (land and factories) would lead to a tremendous in- crease in productive forces. Freedom from want, said Marx, would

liberate men's minds. This liberation would usher in a cultural revo- lution and the formation of a new personality with unlimited creative possibilities.

As he surveyed the European milieu in the late 1890s, Lenin

found several problems with the Marxism of his day. Contrary to what Marx had predicted, capitalism had strengthened itself over

the last third of the nineteenth century. The working class in western

Europe had not become impoverished; rather, its prosperity had

risen. Hence, the workers and their unions, although continuing

to press for better wages and working conditions, failed to develop

the revolutionary class consciousness that Marx had expected. Lenin

also argued that the division of labor in capitalist society prevented

the emergence of proletarian class consciousness. Lenin wrote that

because workers had to labor ten or twelve hours each workday

in a factory, they had no time to learn the complexities of Marxist

theory. Finally, in trying to effect revolution in autocratic Russia,

Lenin also faced the problem of a regime that had outlawed almost

all political activities. Although the autocracy could not enforce a ban on political ideas, until 1905—when the tsar agreed to the for- mation of a national duma (see Glossary)—the tsarist police suppressed all groups seeking political change, including those with

a democratic program.

Based on his observations, Lenin shifted the engine of proletarian revolution from the working class to a tightly knit party of intellectuals. Lenin wrote in What Is to Be Done (1902) that the ' 'history

of all countries bears out the fact that through their own powers

alone, the working class can develop only a trade-union conscious- ness." That is, history had demonstrated that the working class could engage in local, spontaneous rebellions to improve its position

283
Soviet Union: A Country Study

within the capitalist system but that it lacked the understanding

of its interests necessary to overthrow that system. Pessimistic about

the proletariat's ability to acquire class consciousness, Lenin ar- gued that the bearers of this consciousness were declasse intellec- tuals who made it their vocation to conspire against the capitalist

system and prepare for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin

also held that because Marx's thought was set forth in a sophisticated body of philosophical, economic, and social analysis, a high

level of intellectual training was required to comprehend it. Hence,

for Lenin, those who would bring about the revolution must de- vote all their energies and resources to understanding the range

of Marx's thought. They must be professional activists having no

other duties that might interfere with their efforts to promote revolution.

Lenin's final alteration of Marx's thought arose in the course

of his adaptation of Marxist ideology to the conditions of Russia's

autocracy. Like other political organizations seeking change in Russia, Lenin's organization had to use conspiratorial methods and

operate underground. Lenin argued for the necessity of confining

membership in his organization to those who were professionally

trained in the art of combating the secret police.

The ethos of Lenin's political thought was to subject first the

party, then the working class, and finally the people to the politically conscious revolutionaries. Only actions informed by conscious- ness could promote revolution and the construction of socialism

and communism in Russia.

The CPSU continues to regard itself as the institutionalization

of Marxist-Leninist consciousness in the Soviet Union, and therein lies the justification for the controls it exercises over Soviet soci- ety. Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution refers to the party

as the "leading and guiding force of Soviet society and the nucleus

of its political system, of all state organizations and public organizations." The party, precisely because it is the bearer of MarxistLeninist ideology, determines the general development of society,

directs domestic and foreign policy, and "imparts a planned, sys- tematic, and theoretically substantiated character" to the struggle

of the Soviet people for the victory of communism.

Democratic Centralism

Democratic centralism involves several interrelated principles:

the election of all leadership organs of the party from bottom to top; periodic accounting of party organs before their membership

and before superior organs; strict party discipline and the subordination of the minority to the majority; unconditional obligation

284
Lenin Mausoleum, Red Square, Moscow

House where Lenin was born, Ulyanovsk

(formerly Simbirsk), Russian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

285
Soviet Union: A Country Study

by lower party bodies to carry out decisions made by higher party

bodies; a collective approach to the work of all organizations and

leadership organs of the party; and the personal responsibility of

all communists to implement party directives.

According to American specialist on Soviet affairs Alfred G.

Meyer, democratic centralism is primarily centralism under a thin

veil of democracy. Democratic centralism requires unanimity on

the part of the membership. The concept requires full discussion

of policy alternatives before the organization, as guided by the

leadership, makes a decision. Once an alternative has been voted

upon, however, the decision must be accepted by all. In principle,

dissent is possible, but it is allowed only before a decision becomes

party policy. After the party makes a decision, party norms dis- courage criticism of the manner of execution because such criti- cism might threaten the party's leading role in Soviet society.

The principles of democratic centralism contradict one another.

One contradiction concerns the locus of decision making. Democratic centralism prescribes a collective approach to the work of

all organizations, which connotes participation of all party members in decision making. Yet, democratic centralism also holds that

criticism of agreed-upon policies is permissible only for the top

leadership, not for rank-and-file party members. Hence, discussion of these policies can take place only after the leadership has

decided to permit it. The leadership will not allow discussions of

failed policies, for fear that such discussions will undermine its power

and authority.

A second contradiction concerns the issue of accountability.

Democratic centralism holds that lower party bodies elect higher

party bodies and that the latter are accountable to the former.

Nevertheless, democratic centralism also prescribes the unconditional subordination of lower party bodies to higher party bodies.

In reality, superiors appoint those who nominally elect them to their

positions and tell them what decisions to make (see Nomenklatura,

this ch.).

Democratic centralism undermines intraparty democracy because

the party has formally proscribed factions. The Tenth Party Congress in 1921 adopted a ' 'temporary" ban on factions in response

to the Kronshtadt Rebellion (see Revolutions and Civil War, ch. 2). In 1989 this ban remained in effect. Every party member has the

right to express an opinion in the party organization to which he

or she belongs. Before a decision is taken, however, party members cannot appeal to other members in support of a given position. Moreover, party members cannot engage in vote trading. In

democratic systems, a party member holding a minority position

286
Banner across a Moscow

street reflects the regime's

policies in 1989.

Breads, "PERESTROIKA,

DEMOKRA TIZA TSIIA,

GLASNOST'. "

Courtesy Jonathan Tetzlaff

May Day banner

depicting Lenin,

Engels, and Marx,

Red Square, Moscow

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard
Soviet Union: A Country Study

on an issue can exercise influence if allowed to organize people with

similar views and if allowed the opportunity to persuade others.

Without these opportunities, democratic procedures remain an empty formality.

Devoid of democratic content, the political and organizational

logic of democratic centralism contributed to the emergence of dictatorship in the Soviet Union. Despite the formal ban, in the early

1920s factions emerged in the party because Lenin failed to work

out orderly procedures for leadership succession (see The Era of

the New Economic Policy, ch. 2). In the absence of these procedures, new leaders had to attempt to cloak their policies in the mantle of ideological orthodoxy. To prevent criticism from rivals, the

new leader could label real and potential opponents a faction and,

according to the Party Rules (see Glossary), which banned factions,

take steps to remove them from the party. For example, Nikita

S. Khrushchev took these steps against his opponents in 1957 (see

Collective Leadership and the Rise of Khrushchev, ch. 2). The

leader thus could eliminate real and potential rivals, but ultimately,

however, only success in action could prove a leader's policies correct. Success in action required the commitment of the party, and

commitment of the party demanded that ordinary party members

perceive that the leader possessed infallible judgment. Democratic

centralism provided a necessary condition for the leader's claim

to infallibility because it prevented ordinary party members from

criticizing the policies of the party elite. Party Legitimacy

Western political scientists define legitimacy as the acceptance

by the people of their government's right to rule. Legitimacy

emerges from a broad range of sources. In democratic countries,

the citizenry holds governments legitimate because citizens participate in the selection of their rulers, and these governments are

subject to laws that the people or their representatives have made.

Tradition also is a persuasive source of legitimation because it places

the origins of institutions and political values in a distant and mythical past. Other governments may acquire legitimacy because they

have proved themselves able to ensure the well-being of their people. Legitimacy also may emanate from an ideology (such as com- munism, fascism, religious orthodoxy, and nationalism) whose

adherents portray it as the key to understanding human history

and resolving all social problems. In reality, the legitimacy of any

government emanates from a combination of these sources. The legitimacy of the CPSU, too, derived from various sources. The party has managed to recruit a significant percentage of

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The Communist Party

members having occupations carrying high status in Soviet soci- ety. In addition, the party has served as a vehicle of upward mobility for a significant share of the citizenry. By joining the party,

members of the working class could ensure a secure future for themselves in the political apparatus and access for their children to a good education and high-status jobs. The party also justified its right to rule by claiming to embody the ' 'science" of MarxismLeninism and by its efforts to lead society to full communism. In

addition, the CPSU appealed to the patriotism of the citizenry.

In the more than seventy years of the party's rule, the Soviet Union

has emerged as a superpower, and this international status is a

source of pride for the Soviet people. Finally, tradition bolstered

the legitimacy of the CPSU. The party located its roots in Russian history, and it has incorporated aspects of Russian tradition

into its political style.

The CPSU is an elite body. In 1989 it comprised about 9.7 per- cent of the adult population of the Soviet Union. Among the

"movers and shakers" of society, however, the percentage of party

members was much higher. In the 1980s, approximately 27 per- cent of all citizens over thirty years of age and with at least ten years of education were members of the party. About 44 percent

of all males over thirty with at least ten years of education belonged

to the CPSU. Hence, in the words of American Soviet specialist

Seweryn Bialer, males over thirty with at least an elementary education formed a "strong, politicized, and involved stratum which

provides a buttress of the system's legitimacy within society."

Among certain occupations, party saturation (the percentage of

party members among a given group of citizens) was even higher. In 1989 some occupations were restricted to party members. These

positions included officers of youth organizations, senior military

officers, and officials of government bodies such as the ministries,

state committees, and administrative departments. Occupations

with saturation rates ranging from 20 to 50 percent included positions as mid-level economic managers, scholars and academics, and

hospital directors. Low saturation existed among jobs that carried

low status and little prestige, such as industrial laborers, collective

farmers, and teachers. Thus, the party could represent itself as a

legitimate governing body because it commanded the talents of the

most talented and ambitious citizens in society.

The CPSU derived some legitimacy from the fact that it acted

as a vehicle for upward mobility in society. People who have entered the party apparatus since the 1930s have come from a workingclass background. The party widely publicized the working-class

origins of its membership, which led members of that class to believe

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

they could enter the elite and be successful within it (see Social Composition of the Party, this ch.).

Another source of party legitimacy lay in Marxist-Leninist ideology, which both promises an absolute good—communism—as the

goal of history and shrouds its understanding of the means to that

goal with the aura of science. The party justified its rule as leading

to the creation of a full communist society. Hence, the CPSU

claimed that the purpose of its rule was the common good and not

the enrichment of the rulers. The party also identified MarxismLeninism and the policies that it developed on the basis of this ideol- ogy with the absolute truth of science. The CPSU maintained that

the laws of this science hold with the same rigor in society as the

laws of physics or chemistry in nature. In part, the party justified

its rule by claiming that it alone could understand this science of

society.

Soviet society has not reached full communism, and so the party

has altered its ideology to ensure its continued legitimacy despite

the inability to fulfill the promises contained in Marxism-Leninism.

One modification has been the rejection of some of MarxismLeninism's original ideological tenets. For example, in the early

1930s the party renounced an egalitarian wage structure. A second

modification has been the indefinite postponement of goals that

cannot be realized. Thus, the party continued to assure the populace

that the achievement of economic abundance or the completion

of proletarian revolutions in developed Western countries would

take place, but it did not specify a date. A third modification has

been the ritualization of some of the goals whose fulfillment the

party has postponed. American scholar Barrington Moore has

written that on party holidays CPSU leaders reaffirmed various

ideals that no longer served as guides for policy. For example, in

his first public address as general secretary in 1984, Konstantin U.

Chernenko averred that concern for the development of the new

Soviet man remained an essential part of the CPSU's program.

In the late 1980s, few accorded that goal much practical import,

but the reaffirmation of that objective probably reassured the party

faithful that the new leadership would remain true to the CPSU's

ideology and traditions.

The party attempted to strengthen its legitimacy with appeals

to the pride Soviet citizens feel for their country. The party has

led Soviet Russia from the devastation the country suffered in

the Bolshevik Revolution and Civil War (1918-21) to victory in

World War II over an ancient Russian enemy and then to superpower status. In 1989, moreover, the CPSU could still claim

to lead a world communist movement (see Communist Parties

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The Communist Party

Abroad, ch. 10). Since World War II, Soviet influence has extended

to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. A feeling of patriotic pride

for these accomplishments united the Soviet elite, and it bound the

elite to the masses. The CPSU has incorporated aspects of traditional Russian cul- ture into its political style. The party drew upon Russia's revolutionary tradition and represented itself as the culmination of a

progressive and revolutionary movement that began with the "Decembrists' revolt" of 1825 (see War and Peace, 1796-1825, ch. 1). Most aspects of this revolutionary tradition centered on Lenin. The

fact that the state preserved his remains in a mausoleum on Red

Square echoed an old Russian Orthodox belief that the bodies of

saints do not decay. In addition, the regime bestowed Lenin's name

on the second largest city of the Soviet Union, a bust or picture

of Lenin decorated all party offices, and quotations from his writings appeared on billboards throughout the country. All Soviet leaders since Lenin have tried to show that they follow Lenin's policies.

The CPSU has sought to maintain and strengthen its legitimacy

by drawing upon the legacy of this charismatic figure.

Another element of old Russian culture that has entered the

CPSU's political style was the cult of the leader (also referred to as cult of personality—see Glossary). The Soviet cult of the leader

appropriated a cultural form whose sources lay deep in the Russian past. Cults of saints, heroes, and the just tsar had long existed

in Russia. In the 1920s, the cult of Lenin emerged as part of a

deliberate policy to gain popular support for the regime. Joseph V.

Stalin, who built the most extensive cult of the leader, was reported

to have declared that the "Russian people is a tsarist people. It needs a tsar." Stalin assumed the title of generalissimo during

World War II, and throughout his rule he was referred to by the

title vozhd' (leader). Other titles appropriated by Stalin included

Leader of the World Proletariat, Great Helmsman, Father of the

Peoples, and Genius of Mankind.

Soviet leaders since Stalin have also encouraged the development

of their own cults, although on a smaller scale than that of Stalin.

These cults of the party leaders replicated that of the just tsar. Like

the cult of the just tsar, who was depicted as having remained true

to his faith of Russian Orthodoxy, the cults of party leaders such

as Khrushchev and Leonid I. Brezhnev represented them as leaders

who remained true to their faith in Marxism-Leninism. Like the

just tsar, who was depicted as being close to the common people,

these leaders represented themselves as having the interests of the

common people at heart.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Central Party Institutions

In a political organization like the CPSU, which aims to be

monolithic and centralized, central party institutions assume supreme importance. Central institutions in the CPSU included

the party congress, the Central Committee, the Central Auditing

Commission, the Party Control Committee, the Politburo (politi- cal bureau), the Secretariat, and the commissions. These organs

made binding decisions for intermediate and local party bodies down

to the PPO (see fig. 12).

According to the Party Rules, the party congress was the highest

authority in the party. This body was too large and unwieldy to exert any influence, however, and its members were appointed

either directly or indirectly by those whom it ostensibly elected to the Central Committee and Politburo. Moreover, the party congress met only once every five years. Another large party body of

note was the party conference, which met infrequently upon the

decision of the Central Committee. The Central Committee itself, which met every six months, theoretically ruled the party between

congresses. Although more influential than the party congress and

the party conference, the Central Committee wielded less power

than the Politburo, Secretariat, and the party commissions.

The Politburo, the Secretariat, and the party commissions

paralleled a set of central governmental institutions that included

the Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet

(see Central Government, ch. 8). The distinction between party

and government institutions lay in the difference between policy

formation and policy implementation. Stated briefly, the central

party institutions made policy, and the government carried it out. The distinction between policy formation and policy implementation was often a narrow one, however, and party leaders frequently

involved themselves in carrying out policies in the economic, domestic political, and foreign policy spheres. This problem, known in

the Soviet Union as podmena (substitution), occurred throughout

all party and government hierarchies (see Intermediate-Level Party

Organizations, this ch.).

The distinction between policy formation and policy execution

also characterized the differences between the Politburo, on the one

hand, and the Secretariat and the commissions, on the other hand.

The Politburo made policy for the party (as well as for the Soviet

Union as a whole). The Secretariat and, apparently, the party commissions produced policy alternatives for the Politburo and, once

the latter body made a decision, carried out the Politburo's

directives. In fulfilling these roles, of course, the Secretariat often

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The Communist Party

made policy decisions itself. The Secretariat and the commissions

administered a party bureaucracy that numbered in the hundreds

of thousands. Through this apparatus, the CPSU Secretariat and

the party commissions radiated their influence throughout the middle and lower levels of the party and thereby throughout the government, economy, and society.

The general secretary, as a member of the Politburo and the

leader of the Secretariat, was the most powerful official in the CPSU.

The general secretary was the chief policymaker, enjoyed the

greatest amount of authority in party appointments, and represented

the Soviet Union in its dealings with other states. The absence of a set term of office and the general secretary's lack of statutory duties

meant that candidates for this position had to compete for power

and authority to attain it. Once having been elected to this position, the general secretary had to maintain and increase his power

and authority in order to implement his program.

Party Congress

According to the Party Rules, the party congress was "the supreme

organ" of the CPSU. The First Party Congress took place in 1898

in Minsk, with 9 delegates out of a party membership of about

1,000. In 1986 the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress had 5,000

delegates, or 1 for every 3,670 party members. Delegates were for- mally elected by republic party congresses or, in the case of the

Russian Republic, by conferences of kraia (see Glossary), oblasts

(see Glossary), and autonomous republics (see Glossary). Attendance at a party congress was largely honorific. Approximately half

the delegates were luminaries in the party. The Twenty-Seventh

Party Congress included 1,074 important party functionaries, 1,240

executive government officials, 147 distinguished scholars and scientists, 332 high-ranking military officers, and 279 writers and artists. The party reserved the remainder of delegate positions for rankand-file party members. For the rank and file, attendance at a party

congress was a reward for long years of service and loyalty.

Relative to other central party institutions, the size of the party

congress was inversely proportional to its importance. Lack of debate and deliberation have been characteristic of party congresses

since the Tenth Party Congress in 1921 (see Democratic Centralism, this ch.). Party congresses convened every year until 1925.

Thereafter, they began to lose their importance as an authoritative party organ, and the intervals between congresses increased

to three or four years. From 1939 to 1952, the party neglected to hold a congress. After Stalin's death in 1953, the party elite decided to convene congresses more frequently. Since the mid-1950s,

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

294
The Communist Party

the Party Rules have stipulated that congresses be held every five years. Since 1925, however, some notable congresses have taken place.

The Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934 praised collectivization

and the successes of the First Five-Year Plan (1928-32), and it con- firmed Stalin as head of the party and the country. In 1956, at the Twentieth Party Congress, Khrushchev criticized Stalin's cult of personality (see The Khrushchev Era, ch. 2). In 1986, at the

Twenty-Seventh Party Congress, General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev attempted to break with Stalin's legacy by enunciating policies calling for more openness (glasnost'—see Glossary) in

Soviet life and for restructuring (perestroika—see Glossary).

The party congress normally met for about a week. The most

important event occurred when the general secretary delivered the

political report on the state of the party, reviewed Soviet economic

and foreign policy over the preceding five years, cited achievements

and problems of the world communist movement, and delivered a prospectus for the next five years. In another important speech,

the chairman of the Council of Ministers presented the targets for the next five-year plan. These two speeches provided the setting

for a number of shorter speeches that followed. Republic party secretaries, oblast committee (oblast' komitet—obkom) secretaries, and

government officials offered very formalized comment on the policies enunciated by the general secretary. The central apparatus also selected a few rank-and-file members to give speeches praising party

policies. Finally, the congress listened to brief reports given by secre- taries of foreign communist and workers' parties friendly to Moscow. Some party congresses adopted a broad statement called

the party program (see Glossary).

While in session, the party congress voted on several kinds of

issues. All decisions were unanimous. The congress enacted a series of resolutions that stemmed from the general secretary's politi- cal report, and those resolutions became party policy until the next

congress. In addition, the party leadership could offer changes in

the Party Rules to the congress. Most important, the party congress

formally elected the members of the Central Committee, which it charged to govern the party until the next congress.

Party Conference

Similar in size to the congress was the party conference, although

unlike the congress it did not meet regularly. The Nineteenth Party

Conference—the most recent—took place in 1988. (The Eighteenth

Party Conference had been convened in 1941 .) Officially, the conference ranked third in importance among party meetings, after

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

the congress and the Central Committee plenum. Oblast and district party leaders handpicked most of the delegates to the

Nineteenth Party Conference, as they had for party congresses in

the past, despite Gorbachev's desire that supporters of reform serve

as delegates. Nevertheless, public opinion managed in some in- stances to pressure the party apparatus into selecting delegates who

pressed for reform.

The Nineteenth Party Conference made no personnel changes

in the Central Committee, as some Western observers had expected.

However, the conference passed a series of resolutions signaling

policy departures in a number of areas. For example, the resolution "On the Democratization of Soviet Society and the Reform

of the Political System" called for the creation of a new, powerful

position of chairman of the Supreme Soviet, limited party office- holders to two five-year terms, and prescribed multicandidate elec- tions to a new Congress of People's Deputies (see Congress of

People's Deputies, ch. 8). The conference passed other resolutions on such topics as legal reform, interethnic relations, economic re- form, glasnost\ and bureaucracy.

By convening the Nineteenth Party Conference approximately

two years after initiating his reform program, Gorbachev hoped

to further the democratization of the party, to withdraw the party

from many aspects of economic management, and to reinvigorate

government and state institutions. He also sought to rouse the party

rank and file against the bureaucracy. In this vein, the conference was a success for Gorbachev because it reaffirmed his program of

party-directed change from above.

Central Committee

The Central Committee met at least once every six months in

plenary session. Between party congresses, the Party Rules required

that the Central Committee "direct all the activities of the party

and the local party organs, carry out the recruitment and the as- signment of leading cadres, direct the work of the central governmental and social organizations of the workers, create various

organs, institutions, and enterprises of the party and supervise their

activities, name the editorial staff of central newspapers and journals working under its auspices, disburse funds of the party budget and verify their accounting." In fact, the Central Committee,

which in 1989 numbered more than 300 members, was too large

and cumbersome to perform these duties; therefore, it delegated

its authority in these matters to the Politburo and Secretariat.

The history of the Central Committee dates to 1898, when the

First Party Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party

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The Communist Party

elected a three-person body to run its affairs. In May 1989, the

Central Committee had 251 full members and 109 candidate members. (Candidate members do not have the right to vote.)

Western scholars know little about the selection processes for membership on the Central Committee. British Sovietologists

Ronald J. Hill and Peter Frank have suggested that the party leader- ship drew up a list of candidates before the party congress. Party

leaders then discussed the list and presented it to the congress for

ratification. Both personal merit and institutional affiliation determined selection, with the majority of members selected because

of the positions they held. Such positions included republic party

first and second secretaries; obkom secretaries; chairmen of republic, provincial, and large urban governmental bodies; military leaders; important writers and artists; and academics.

During periods of policy change, turnover in the Central Committee occurred at a rapid rate. A new leadership, seeking to carry

out new policies, attempted to replace officials who might attempt

to block reform efforts with its own supporters. Thus, at the TwentySeventh Party Congress, the first for Gorbachev as general secretary, the rate of turnover for full members was 41 percent, as compared with 25 percent at the Twenty-Sixth Party Congress in 1981

.

In addition, of the 170 candidate members elected by the TwentySeventh Party Congress, 116 (or 68 percent) were new. Gorbachev effected further changes at the April 25, 1989, Central Committee plenum. As a result of personnel turnover because

of death, retirement, or loss of position since the Twenty-Seventh

Party Congress, a significant percentage of the Central Committee had come to be classified as ''dead souls," that is, people who

no longer occupied the position that had originally gained them

either full or candidate status in the Central Committee. At the

April 25 plenum, seventy-four full members resigned their Central Committee positions. Twenty-four members received promotion to full-member status. (The Party Rules dictate that only the

party congress can name new candidate members and that a plenum can only promote new full members from among the pool

of candidate members.)

The changes signified a reduction of influence for both the party

apparatus and the military. Party apparatchiks (see Glossary)

declined from 44.5 percent to 33.9 percent of the full members.

The military's representation fell from 8.5 percent to 4.4 percent

among the full members.

Worker and peasant representation rose from 8.5 percent to 14.3

percent. But because members of these groups lacked an independent political base, they usually supported the general secretary.

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Thus, the changes indicated a victory for Gorbachev. He eliminated many Central Committee members who lost power under

his rule and were therefore considered opponents of reform.

Gorbachev also increased the number of his own supporters in the

Central Committee.

The Central Committee served significant functions for the party.

The committee brought together the leaders of the most important institutions in Soviet society, individuals who had the same

rank in the institutional-territorial hierarchy. The Central Committee thus provided a setting for these organizational and territorial interests to communicate with one another, articulate their concerns, and reconcile their positions on various issues. Membership

in the Central Committee defined the political elite and reinforced

their high status. This status lent the committee members the

authority necessary to carry out policies in their respective institu- tions. Members also possessed a great deal of expertise in their

respective fields and could be consulted by the Central Committee apparatus in preparing policy recommendations and resolutions

for plenums, party conferences, and party congresses.

Central Auditing Commission

Every party congress elected a Central Auditing Commission,

which reviewed the party's financial accounts and the financial

activities of its institutions. The commission also investigated the

treatment accorded to letters and complaints by the party's central institutions. The status of membership on the Central Auditing Commission appeared to fall just below that of candidate status on the Central Committee. In 1989 the commission had seventy

members. The commission elected a bureau, which in May 1989 was headed by Deputy Chairman Alia A. Nizovtseva.

Party Control Committee

The Party Control Committee, which was attached to the Central Committee, investigated violations of party discipline and

administered expulsions from the party. Because it examined the

work of party members in responsible economic posts, this committee could involve itself in financial and economic management.

The Party Control Committee also could redress grievances of party

members who had been expelled by their PPO. In 1989 its chairman was Boris K. Pugo.

Politburo

Two weeks before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the Bolshevik leadership formed the Politburo as a means to further centralize

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The Communist Party

decision making and to permit effective adaptation of party policies to rapidly changing circumstances. Since the Bolshevik Revolution, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU has

consisted of the highest party and government officials in the Soviet

Union. Despite the importance of this body, only a small amount

of space was devoted to it in the Party Rules, which noted only that

the Central Committee chose the Politburo for "leadership of the

work of the party between plenums of the Central Committee."

The Politburo formed the highest decision-making body in the

Soviet Union. Its full and candidate members served on the Politburo by virtue of their party or government positions.

The Politburo was a standing subcommittee of the Central Committee. Like the Central Committee, the Politburo was composed

of full and candidate (nonvoting) members. The Party Rules neither

specified the size of the Politburo nor mentioned candidate status. Four general career patterns determined accession to membership in the Politburo. Officials of the central party apparatus could

rise within that hierarchy to acquire a position that led to a seat on the Secretariat. In 1989 several secretaries of the Central Committee sat on the Politburo. Other officials, such as Mikhail A.

Suslov (the party's leading ideologist under Brezhnev) and

Aleksandr N. Iakovlev, who also made his career in ideology, at- tained membership in the Politburo because of their expertise. The

technical or economic specialist was a third pattern. For example,

Nikolai Sliun'kov probably was brought into the Politburo because

of his expertise in economic administration. Finally, a successful career in the provinces often led to a call to Moscow and a career

in the central apparatus. Volodymyr Shcherbyts'kyy exemplified

this career pattern.

Several interlocking trends have characterized the Politburo since

Stalin's death in 1953. Membership in the Politburo has become

increasingly representative of important functional and territorial interests. Before 1953 the party leadership concentrated on building the economic, social, and political bases for a socialist society. In the post-Stalin period the leadership has sought instead to manage

society and contain social change. Management of society required a division of labor within the Politburo and the admission of people with specialized expertise. Stalin kept the lines of responsibility ambiguous, and he tightly controlled the kinds of information

his comrades on the Politburo received. Since 1953 Politburo members have had greater access to information and hence more opportunity to develop consistent policy positions. Because the party

leadership eliminated violence as an instrument of elite politics and

restrained the secret police after Stalin's death, Politburo members

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

began advancing policy positions without fear of losing their seats on this body, or even their lives, if they found themselves on the

wrong side of the policy debate.

Secretariat

Until September 1988, the Secretariat headed the CPSU's central apparatus and was solely responsible for the development and

implementation of party policies. The Secretariat also carried political weight because many of its members sat on the Politburo

(see fig. 13). In 1989 eight members of the Secretariat, including

the general secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee

of the CPSU, served as full members of the Politburo. One member,

Georgii P. Razumovskii, was a candidate member of the Politburo.

Those officials who sat on the Politburo, served in the Secretariat,

and chaired a party commission were the most powerful in the

Soviet Union.

After the formation of the party commissions in the fall of 1988,

lines of authority over the central party bureaucracy became very

unclear because the responsibilities of the secretaries and the responsibilities of the commissions considerably overlapped. Of the nine

secretaries, excluding the general secretary, six chaired party commissions. One Western observer, Alexander Rahr, believed that

this factor limited the power of the Secretariat because the influence

of the secretaries who chaired the commissions was restricted to

specific areas of competence as defined by their commission chairmanships. In addition, the secretaries became answerable to the

commissions they chaired. Finally, in one case, a secretary served

as a subordinate to another secretary in the latter' s role as the chairman of a commission. Viktor P. Nikonov, a secretary responsible

for agriculture, was deputy chairman of the Agrarian Policy Commission, which was chaired by Egor K. Ligachev, another party

secretary.

Western specialists poorly understood lines of authority in the

Secretariat. It was clear that the members of the Secretariat supervised the work of the Central Committee departments. Department

chiefs, who normally sat on the Central Committee, were subordinate to the secretaries. For example, in 1989 Aleksandr S. Kapto, the chairman of the Ideological Department, answered to Vadim A. Medvedev, party secretary for ideology, and Valentin A.

Falin, the head of the International Department, answered to Iakovlev, party secretary for international policy. Most department

heads were assisted by a first deputy head (a first deputy administrator in the case of the Administration of Affairs Department) and

from one to six deputy heads (deputy administrators in the case

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The Communist Party

of the Administration of Affairs Department). However, the Inter- national Department had two deputy heads.

In 1989 a variety of departments made up the CPSU's central

apparatus. Some departments were worthy of note. The Party

Building and Cadre Work Department assigned party personnel

in the nomenklatura system (see Nomenklatura, this ch.). The State and Legal Department supervised the armed forces, the Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti

KGB), the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the trade unions, and the

Procuracy.

Before 1989 the apparatus contained many more departments

responsible for the economy. These departments included one for the economy as a whole, one for machine building, and one for the chemical industry, among others. The party abolished these

departments in an effort to remove itself from the day-to-day

management of the economy in favor of government bodies and

a greater role for the market. In early 1989, Gorbachev suggested

that the agrarian and defense industry departments might be dis- banded as well as part of his ongoing reform efforts. Commissions

At the September 30, 1988, plenum of the Central Committee,

the CPSU announced that six new commissions would be formed

to develop policy and oversee its implementation in a series of key

areas. A resolution of the November 1988 plenum that actually

established the commissions maintained that their purpose was to

'

' facilitate the involvement of Central Committee members and

candidate members in active work on major directions of domestic and foreign policy."

Several factors led to the formation of these new party bodies.

First, Gorbachev probably sought to strengthen reformist influence

at the top of the party hierarchy. Second, the move was designed

to reduce the party's day-to-day involvement in the economy. Thus,

only one of the six commissions was concerned with economic policy, while another dealt with agriculture. Finally, Gorbachev's desire

to reduce the power of his conservative rival, Ligachev, also helped

to explain the move. Prior to September 1988, Ligachev had been

the party's second secretary, the official who usually chaired meetings of the Secretariat. By limiting the influence of the Secretariat

and by placing Ligachev in charge of agriculture—the Achilles heel

of the economy—Gorbachev eliminated Ligachev as a competitor

for power.

As of May 1989, the actual work of the commissions belied the

significance the party attached to them. In their first six months,

301
Soviet Union: A Country Study

POLITBURO

|

]

1

1

'

AGRARIAN POLICY

1

. SECRETARIAT

n

' DEPARTMENTS

IDEOLOGICAL - ADMINISTRATION

OF AFFAIRS INTERNATIONAL POLICY - AGRARIAN

-

LEGAL POLICY DEFENSE INDUSTRY PARTY BUILDING AND

CADRE POLICY GENERAL

IDEOLOGICAL SOCIOECONOMIC POLICY INTERNATIONAL PARTY BUILDING AND

CADRE WORK

SOCIOECONOMIC

STATE AND LEGAL

Figure 13. Central Apparatus of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,

1988

none of the commissions had met more than once. All the com- muniques reporting on their meetings have been devoid of substance. General Secretary: Power and Authority

That certain policies throughout Soviet history have been so

clearly identified with the general secretary of the CPSU demonstrated the importance of that position as well as of the stakes in

302
The Communist Party

the succession struggle upon a general secretary's death or removal

from office. As general secretary, Stalin determined the party's poli- cies in the economy and foreign affairs and thus gave his name

to a whole era in Soviet history. Khrushchev put his stamp on a

variety of policies, including peaceful coexistence with the West

and the virgin land campaign (see Khrushchev's Reforms and Fall,

ch. 2). Soviet and Western observers identified Brezhnev with

detente and the Soviet military buildup (see The Brezhnev Era,

ch. 2). In the late 1980s, Gorbachev associated his name with the

policies of openness, restructuring, and democratization.

The general secretary possessed many powers. As chairman of

the Politburo, the general secretary decided the agenda and timing of its deliberations. The general secretary acted as chief executive of the party apparatus and thus supervised the nomenklatura. The general secretary also chaired the Defense Council, which

managed the Soviet military-industrial complex (see Defense Council, ch. 18). Finally, through attendance at summit meetings with

world heads of state, the general secretary acquired symbolic legitimation as the Soviet Union's top ruler. Once selected for this position by other members of the Politburo and confirmed by the Central Committee, the general secre- tary had to proceed to build a base of power and strengthen his

authority. Officials considered eligible for the position of general

secretary held a great amount of power to begin with; they always

occupied seats on the Politburo and Secretariat, and they developed a large number of clients throughout the party and government bureaucracies. The general secretary's efforts to extend this power base involved placing loyal clients in strategic positions

throughout party and government hierarchies. One measure of the

success of the general secretary's efforts in this regard was turnover

in the Central Committee at the first party congress following the

secretary's accession to the position (see Central Committee, this ch.). The general secretary used these clients to promote desired

policies at all levels of the party and government bureaucracies and

to ensure accurate transmission of information about policy problems up the hierarchy (see Nomenklatura, this ch.).

To secure his rule and advance his policies, the general secre- tary also had to increase his authority. American Sovietologist

George Breslauer has written that efforts to build authority involved

legitimation of the general secretary's policies and programs and

demonstration of his competence or indispensability as a leader.

The general secretary strove to show that his policies derived from

Lenin's teachings and that these policies have led to successes in

socialist construction. Moreover, the general secretary strove to

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

demonstrate a unique insight into the teachings of Marx and Lenin

and into the current stage of world development. The general secre- tary also emphasized personal ties to the people and a leadership

motivated by the interests of the workers and peasants (see Party

Legitimacy, this ch.). One further means to strengthen the legitimacy of the general secretary's power has been the acquisition of

high government offices. Thus in October 1988, Gorbachev be- came chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, which was

the titular head of the Soviet state. He retained his position as head

of state when in May 1989 the newly elected Congress of People's

Deputies chose a new Supreme Soviet and elected Gorbachev to the just created position of chairman of the Supreme Soviet. In

the past, the head of the Soviet state sometimes had been referred

to as ' 'president" in Soviet and Western media, although such a

position was not identified in the Constitution.

Another means that Soviet general secretaries have used to ensure their authority is the cult of the leader. The cult of the leader

has several intended audiences. For example, the general secre- tary used the cult of the leader to intimidate actual or potential

rivals and thus force them to accept and follow his policies. In addition, the cult of the leader reassured those members of the party

and government hierarchies whose careers depended upon the success of the general secretary's policies. The cult of the leader provided inspiration to those who wished to identify with a patriarchal

figure.

Breslauer has written that Soviet general secretaries since Stalin have attempted to build their authority by creating a sense of

national elan. For example, Iurii V. Andropov, general secretary

from November 1982 to February 1984, sought to rouse Soviet

society with his campaign against alcoholism and corruption. The

general secretary has also sought to play the role of problem solver. For example, in the mid- and late 1980s, Gorbachev sought to reverse a decline in economic efficiency by promoting economic

policies designed to curb the ministries' role in Soviet economic

life and thereby encourage enterprise initiative (see Reforming the

Planning System, ch. 11).

Since the death of Lenin, the party elite has been unable to institute regulations governing the transfer of office from one general secretary to the next. The Nineteenth Party Conference called

for limiting party officeholders to two five-year terms. However,

it was unclear whether this proviso would apply to the general secre- tary and other top leaders. The party leadership has yet to devise

procedures by which the general secretary may relinquish the office. The powers of the office were not set; neither were its rights and

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The Communist Party

duties. These factors combined to generate a high degree of unpredictability in selecting a new leader and a period of uncertainty

while the new general secretary consolidates power.

Three stages have characterized the efforts of various general

secretaries to consolidate their power and authority. The first stage

begins while the incumbent leader is in power and lasts through

his death or ouster. Potential successors seek to place themselves

in more powerful positions relative to their rivals. For example,

under Konstantin U. Chernenko (general secretary from February 1984 to March 1985) Gorbachev chaired Politburo meetings

in the general secretary's absence and also assumed responsibilities for cadre policy. These responsibilities enabled Gorbachev to

set the agenda for Politburo meetings and to place persons loyal

to him in important positions throughout the regime. Gorbachev's

unsuccessful rivals for power, Grigorii V. Romanov and Viktor V.

Grishin, had fewer such opportunities to influence the outcome of

the struggle to succeed Chernenko.

The second stage occurs with the transfer of authority to the new

leader and both the accumulation of positions and the authority

that goes with them. This stage can occur over a prolonged period

of time and coincide with the next stage. For example, only in 1977

did Brezhnev, named general secretary in 1964, become chairman

of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and thus de facto head of

state. The third stage involves two steps: consolidation of the new

leader's power through the removal of his predecessor's clients and

those of his actual and potential rivals for power; and the installa- tion of the new leader's clients in key positions. This stage probably lasts for the duration of the general secretary's tenure. A succession struggle entails opportunities and problems for the

new party leader and for the Soviet leadership as a whole. Transfer of office from one general secretary to another can improve the

possibilities for change. Seweryn Bialer has written that "ambition, power, and the desire for innovation all meet in a succession

struggle and so prepare the ground for change." Succession dis- rupts the normal pattern of business. Also, policy initiatives are a critical means of consolidating a new leader's position. Khrushchev's condemnation of Stalin represented an appeal to party

officials dissatisfied with Stalinism and an effort to define and control a new program that would better meet the needs of the party and

society. Similarly, in the late 1980s Gorbachev's initiatives appealed

to officials and citizens who were dissatisfied with the inertia of

the late Brezhnev period and who sought to modernize the Soviet

economy.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Yet, a succession struggle can also occasion serious difficulties for the leadership. A succession struggle increases the probability

for personal and policy conflicts. In turn, these conflicts can lead

to political passivity as the rivals for power turn their attention to that struggle rather than to policy development and execution.

When the general secretary lacks the influence necessary to promote desired policies, a sense of inertia can debilitate the political

system at the intermediate and lower levels. This factor partially

explains the resistance that Khrushchev and, in the late 1980s,

Gorbachev met in their respective efforts to alter the policies of

their predecessors.

Intermediate-Level Party Organizations

The intermediate-level party structure embraced the republic,

oblast, raion (see Glossary), and city levels of the hierarchy. The

organizational scheme of each of these levels resembled the others.

In addition, at each of these levels the party organization cor- responded to a similar layer in the government administration.

According to the Party Rules, the authoritative body at each of these

levels was the congress (republic level) or conference. These bodies elected a committee that, in turn, chose a bureau with several

members (including a first secretary) and a secretariat. Conferences

at one level elected delegates to the conference or congress at the

next highest level. Thus, the rural or city conference designated

delegates to the oblast conference or, in the case of the smaller

republics, directly to the republic party congress. The oblast conference elected delegates to congresses of the larger republics. In

May 1989, the Russian Republic had no party congress. Delegates

from provinces (oblasts, kraia, and autonomous subdivisions) in

that republic were elected directly to the all-union party congress.

Of course, at each level of the hierarchy the term election generally was a euphemism. By the norms of democratic centralism, party

leaders at each level approved the makeup of the party conference

or congress that ostensibly elected them, as well as the composition of party bodies on the next lowest level. Republic Party Organization

The republic party organization replicated the party structure on the all-union level except for the Russian Republic, which had

no republic-level party organization in 1989. A congress, made up

of delegates from the oblast or district and town organizations,

elected a central committee to govern the republic in the five-year

interval between party congresses. The central committee of the

republic, which held a plenum once every four months, named a

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The Communist Party

bureau (in the case of the Ukrainian Republic, this body was called a politburo) and a secretariat to run the affairs of the republic between plenums of the central committee.

Full and candidate (nonvoting) members of republic bureaus in- cluded officials who held seats on this body by virtue of their party

or government positions. Party officials who sat on the republic

party bureaus normally included the first secretary of the republic

and the second secretary for party-organizational work, as well as others selected from among the following: the first secretary of the

party organization in the capital city of the republic, the chairman

of the republic party control committee, and the first secretary of an outlying city or province. Government officials who could serve on the republic bureau were elected from among the following: the

chairman of the republic's council of ministers, the chairman of

the presidium of the republic's supreme soviet, the first deputy

chairman of the republic's council of ministers, the republic's KGB

chairman, and the troop commander of the Soviet armed forces

stationed in the republic.

In 1989 the secretariats of the fourteen republic party organizations included a second secretary for party-organizational work and

a secretary for ideology. The number of departments has, however,

shrunk as the party has attempted to limit its role in economic

management. Some sources also indicated the formation of commissions similar to those of the central party apparatus. Thus, the

republic first secretaries in the Kazakh, Latvian, Lithuanian, and

Moldavian republics and the second secretaries in the Belorussian

and Turkmen republics assumed the chairmanships of their republics' commissions on state and legal policy.

With the exception of the Kazakh Republic (where a Russian,

Gennadii Kolbin, served as first secretary), the first secretaries of

the republic party organizations in 1989 were all members of their

republic's dominant nationality. However, in 1989 the officials responsible for party-organizational work—the second secretaries

were predominandy Russians. (The Kazakh party's second secre- tary was Sergei M. Titarenko, a Ukrainian; the second secretary

in the Ukrainian Republic was a Ukrainian.) The second secre- tary supervised cadre policy in the republic and hence managed

the republic's nomenklatura appointments. As an official whose

primary loyalty was to Moscow, the second secretary acted as a

vehicle for the influence of the CPSU's central apparatus on the

affairs of the republic's party organization and as a watchdog to ensure the republic organization's adherence to Moscow's demands.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Oblast-Level Organization

Below the all-union organization in the Russian Republic (which

sufficed for the Russian Republic's party organization in 1989) and

the union republic party organizations in the Azerbaydzhan,

Belorussian, Georgian, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Tadzhik, Turkmen, Ukrainian, and Uzbek republics stood the oblast party organization, 122

of which existed in the Soviet Union in 1989. (Six large, thinly

populated regions in the Russian Republic have been designated

by the term krai; these regions are treated herein as oblasts.) The

Armenian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Moldavian republics had no oblasts. An oblast could embrace a large city or nationality unit. According to the Party Rules, the authoritative body

in the province was the party conference, which met twice every

five years and consisted of delegates elected by the district or city

party conference. Between oblast party conferences, an oblast committee {obkom) comprising full and candidate members selected by

the conference supervised the provincial party organization and,

through it, the province as a whole. The oblast party committee

met once every four months. That committee chose a bureau made

up of voting and nonvoting members and a secretariat.

The bureau integrated officials from the most important sectors of the provincial party, economic, and governmental organizations

into a unified political elite. Membership on the bureau enabled

these officials to coordinate policies in their respective administrative spheres.

American Sovietologist Joel C. Moses found that as of the

mid-1980s five different kinds of specialists served on the obkom

bureau. The first category, composed of agricultural specialists,

could be selected from among the obkom agricultural secretary, the

agricultural administration of the oblast, or the obkom first secre- tary in predominantly rural regions. A second category of bureau

membership consisted of industrial specialists, who were drawn from

among the obkom industry secretary, the first secretary of the provincial capital (where most provincial industries were located), the

provincial trade union council chairman, the first secretary of a

large industrialized city district, or the obkom first secretary. Ideology specialists made up the third category. They were selected from

the obkom secretary for ideology, the editor of the provincial party

newspaper, or the first secretary of the Komsomol (see Glossary). A fourth category was the cadres specialist, who supervised

nomenklatura appointments in the province. The cadres specialist on the provincial party bureau normally occupied one of the

308
Monument in a Moscow

park honoring Pavlik

Morozov (1918-32).

During collectivization the Soviet youth was

murdered by local

villagers for informing

authorities about the illegal

activities of his kulak

relatives. Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

following positions: obkom first secretary, head of the obkom partyorganizational department, chairman of the provincial trade union

council, or obkom cadres secretary. "Mixed generalists" made up

the fifth category. These officials served on the obkom bureau to

fulfill positions that required a broader background than those

possessed by the functional specialists. A wide range of roles pre- pared the mixed generalists to carry out their tasks. Prior to serv- ing on the provincial party bureau, these officials generally worked

in industry, agriculture, party administration, or ideology.

Reform of the party's central apparatus, however, portended

significant changes at the regional level. According to Georgii

Kriuchkov, a senior official of the Central Committee, "the party

is shedding the functions of dealing with day-to-day problems as they arise, because these problems are within the competence of

the state, managerial, and public bodies." Hence, parts of the obkom

bureau that paralleled government and managerial bodies—mainly

in the area of economic management—were to be dismantled.

The first secretary of the party obkom was the most powerful offi- cial in the province. Paradoxically, much of that power stemmed

from Soviet economic inefficiency. According to the norms of

democratic centralism, the obkom secretary had to carry out decisions made by leaders at the all-union and republic levels of the party

hierarchy. Nevertheless, the obkom secretary preserved some scope

for independent political initiative on issues of national importance.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Initiative, perseverance, and ruthlessness were necessary characteristics of the successful obkom secretary, who had to aggregate

scarce resources to meet economic targets and lobby central plan- ners for low targets. Soviet emigre Alexander Yanov has argued

that the interest of the obkom secretary, however, lay in preserving an inefficient provincial economy. Yanov has written that the ob- kom secretaries were "the fixers and chasers" after scarce resources who made the provincial economy work. If the economy were decentralized to allow greater initiative and if efforts were made to ensure greater agricultural productivity, one element of the obkom

secretary's power—the ability to find resources to meet the plan

would diminish. For this reason, the obkom secretaries formed an

important source of resistance to Khrushchev's efforts at economic

reform (see Khrushchev's Reforms and Fall, ch. 2). Western observers held that these officials were an important source of opposition to Gorbachev's economic reforms because these reforms

envisaged a greater role for the government and the market at the

expense of the party.

District- and City-Level Organization

In 1988 more than 3,400 district (raion) organizations made up

the position in the CPSU hierarchy below that of the oblast. Of

these organizations, 2,860 were located in rural areas and 570 in

wards of cities. In addition, this hierarchical level encompassed 800

city (gorod) organizations.

The structure of these organizations resembled that of organizations on the republic and oblast levels. In theory, the party conference, with delegates selected by the PPOs in each district or city,

elected a committee composed of full and candidate members. In

practice, the party leadership in the district or town chose the

delegates to the party conference and determined the composition

of the district or town committee. Party conferences took place twice

every five years. In the interim, the district committee (raion

komitet—raikom) or city committee (gorodskoi komitet—gorkom) was the

most authoritative body in the territory. The committee consisted

of party officials, state officials, local Komsomol and trade union

officers, the chairmen of the most important collective farms, the

managers of the largest industrial enterprises, some PPO secretaries, and a few rank-and-file party members.

The raikom or gorkom elected a bureau and a secretariat, which

supervised the daily affairs of the jurisdiction. The bureau numbered between ten and twelve members, who included party offi- cials, state officials, and directors of the most important economic

enterprises (see Glossary) in the district or city. The composition

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The Communist Party

of the bureau at this level varied with location. For example, the

gorkom had no specialist for agriculture, and the rural raikom had

no specialist for industry. The raikom and gorkom bureaus met two

to three times per month to review the affairs of the district or city

and to examine the reports of the PPOs.

The first secretary of the raikom or gorkom bureau headed the party

organization at this level. As part of its nomenklatura authority, the

oblast party organization made appointments to these positions.

In 1987, however, reports of multicandidate elections for first secre- tary of a raikom appeared in the Soviet press. Two candidates competed for the position of raikom secretary in the Kemerovo and

Vinnitsa districts. In the case of Kemerovo, Pravda reported that

the oblast party secretary nominated the candidates, and the party

conference at the district level setded the contest in a secret ballot. The Nineteenth Party Conference called for the institutionalization of multicandidate elections for these and other party positions.

The secretariat of a raikom and gorkom resembled that of the oblast party committee. In contrast to the party committee of the oblast level, however, the composition of this body varied with

location. All had a department for agitation and propaganda; an

organizational department, which staffed the positions for PPO

secretaries and supervised the performance of the PPOs; and a

general department, which coordinated the affairs of the district and city party organizations by circulating documents, administering party work, and preparing the agenda and materials for conferences, plenums, and bureau meetings. In 1988 the raikom or gorkom included a department for either agriculture or industry,

which supervised those elements of the Soviet economy on the district level. In contrast to efforts to reduce the number of departments at higher levels of the party apparatus, no such reduction on the district level was planned as of early 1989.

As in the oblast, until the late 1980s the party organization in

the district and city tended to involve itself in economic administration and production, which Gorbachev intended to place within

the purview of the government. The CPSU judged its officials on

their ability to meet and exceed the state economic plan. Party offi- cials used their power as the representatives of the leading politi- cal institution in the country to engage themselves in economic

administration. For fear of offending party officials and in the

expectation that the party would solve their problems, until the

late 1980s government and economic administrators were reluc- tant to exercise initiative and take responsibility in economic

matters. The ability of raikom and gorkom secretaries to involve themselves in government activities formed one aspect of their power

311
Soviet Union: A Country Study

and influence within their respective jurisdictions. During the

Khrushchev era, these officials resisted reforms that led to a diminution of their responsibilities (see Khrushchev's Reforms and Fall,

ch. 2). Primary Party Organization

In 1987 primary party organizations (PPOs) numbered 441 ,851

.

The PPO was the lowest rung on the party's organizational ladder. (PPOs were called party cells until 1934.) One PPO existed

in every factory, office, collective farm, military unit, and education institution having more than three party members (see table

22, Appendix A). According to the Party Rules, the highest organ

of the PPO was the party meeting, which comprised all party members in a given work unit. PPOs having more than fifty members

could be divided into groups led by steering committees. Party meetings generally convened at least once a month, although the in- terim could be longer for PPOs having more than 300 members.

The party meetings elected a bureau of two or three persons to supervise the affairs of the PPO. The secretary of the PPO, nominally elected by the party meeting but actually appointed by the

next highest party organization, managed the work of the PPO and was a full-time, salaried member of the party.

The PPO performed many important tasks. It admitted new

members into the party; apprised rank-and-file party members of

their duties, obligations, and rights within the party; organized agitation and propaganda sessions to educate party members in the

ideology of Marxism-Leninism; stimulated productivity in the enterprise; encouraged efficiency and effectiveness of production

methods and innovation; and disciplined party members for derelic- tion of their duties. An enumeration of the activities of the PPO

only begins to suggest the importance of this organization to the

party. For several reasons, the PPO was an important factor underlying the party's control over society. The PPO possessed what was known as the right of verification (pravo kontrolia), checking how

managers met the demands of their position and how faithfully they

implemented the plan for their enterprise. This power led to the

PPO secretary's involvement in the day-to-day affairs of the enterprise. Moreover, factory managers or chairmen of collective farms,

as well as chiefs of the enterprise trade unions normally were party

members; consequently, they were bound by democratic centralism to follow the orders and suggestions of their party leader, the

PPO secretary. Thus, the PPO secretary and not the manager car- ried primary responsibility to the party for the work of the enterprise.

312
The Communist Party

The PPO itself was also critical to the implementation of the eco- nomic plan. The state devised its economic plan on the basis of

party requirements. The government implemented the party's plan,

and therefore the norms of democratic centralism obligated the

PPOs to enforce it. At the enterprise level, the principal activity

of the PPO secretary and of all party members was to stimulate

production. Party members had to set an example with their work

and encourage nonmembers to fulfill their production quotas and

improve their labor productivity.

The PPO not only conveyed party policies to nonmembers in

the enterprise but also apprised the party hierarchy of the mood

of the masses and prevented the formation of groups to promote

grass-roots change. Rank-and-file party members were scattered

throughout the Soviet Union. Party members had hands-on ex- perience in their jobs and knew nonparty members personally. Be- cause of this intimate knowledge of their surroundings, party

members were in a position to inform their superiors about the concerns and problems of people in all walks of life. With this knowledge, the party could take steps to stem potential sources of

unrest, to institute new methods of control, and, more generally,

to tailor its policies toward the maintenance of the population's

political quiescence.

Nomenklatura

The nomenklatura referred to the CPSU's authority to make appointments to key positions throughout the governmental system,

as well as throughout the party's own hierarchy. Specifically, the

nomenklatura consisted of two separate lists: one was for key positions, appointments to which were made by authorities within

the party; the other was for persons who were potential candidates

for appointment to those positions. The Politburo, as part of its nomenklatura authority, maintained a list of ministerial and ambassadorial positions that it had the power to fill as well as a separate

list of potential candidates to occupy those positions.

Coextensive with the nomenklatura were patron-client relations.

Officials who had the authority to appoint individuals to certain

positions cultivated loyalties among those whom they appointed.

The patron (the official making the appointment) promoted the

interests of clients in return for their support. Powerful patrons,

such as the members of the Politburo, had many clients. Moreover, an official could be both a client (in relation to a higher-level patron) and a patron (to other, lower-level officials).

Because a client was beholden to his patron for his position, the

client was eager to please his patron by carrying out his policies.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

The Soviet power structure essentially consisted of groups of vassals (clients) who had an overlord (the patron) . The higher the patron, the more clients the patron had. Patrons protected their clients and tried to promote their careers. In return for the patron's ef- forts to promote their careers, the clients remained loyal to their

patron. Thus, by promoting his clients' careers, the patron could

advance his own power.

The Party's Appointment Authority

The nomenklatura system arose early in Soviet history. Lenin wrote

that appointments were to take the following criteria into account:

reliability, political attitude, qualifications, and administrative ability. Stalin, who was the first general secretary of the party, also was known as "Comrade File Cabinet" (Tovarishch Kartotekov)

for his assiduous attention to the details of the party's appointments.

Seeking to make appointments in a more systematic fashion, Stalin built the party's patronage system and used it to distribute his

clients throughout the party bureaucracy (see Stalin's Rise to Power,

ch. 2). Under Stalin's direction in 1922, the party created departments of the Central Committee and other organs at lower levels that were responsible for the registration and appointment of party

officials. Known as uchraspredy, these organs supervised appointments to important party posts. According to American Sovietologist Seweryn Bialer, after Brezhnev's accession to power in October

1964, the party considerably expanded its appointment authority.

However, in the late 1980s some official statements indicated that

the party intended to reduce its appointment authority, particularly in the area of economic management, in line with Gorbachev's

reform efforts. At the all-union level, the Party Building and Cadre Work Department supervised party nomenklatura appointments. This department

maintained records on party members throughout the country,

made appointments to positions on the all-union level, and approved

nomenklatura appointments on the lower levels of the hierarchy. The

head of this department sometimes was a member of the Secretariat

and was often a protege of the general secretary.

Every party committee and party organizational department

from the all-union level in Moscow to the district and city levels

prepared two lists according to their needs. The basic (osnovnaid)

list detailed positions in the political, administrative, economic, mili- tary, cultural, and educational bureaucracies that the committee

and its department had responsibility for filling. The registered

(uchetnaid) list enumerated the persons suitable for these positions.

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The Communist Party

Patron-Client Relations

An official in the party or government bureaucracy could not

advance in the nomenklatura without the assistance of a patron. In

return for this assistance in promoting his career, the client car- ried out the policies of the patron. Patron-client relations thus help

to explain the ability of party leaders to generate support for their

policies. The presence of patron-client relations between party offi- cials and officials in other bureaucracies also helped to account for the control the party exercised over Soviet society. All of the 2 million members of the nomenklatura system understood that they held

their positions as a result of a favor bestowed on them by a superior

official in the party and that they could be replaced if they manifested disloyalty to their patron. Self-interest dictated that members of the nomenklatura submit to the control of their patrons in

the party.

Clients sometimes could attempt to supplant their overlord. For

example, Khrushchev, one of Lazar M. Kaganovich's former proteges, helped to oust the latter in 1957. Seven years later, Brezhnev, a client of Khrushchev, helped to remove his boss from power.

The power of the general secretary was consolidated to the extent

that he placed his clients in positions of power and influence (see

General Secretary: Power and Authority, this ch.). The ideal for the general secretary, writes Soviet emigre observer Michael

Voslensky, "is to be overlord of vassals selected by oneself."

Several factors explain the entrenchment of patron-client rela- tions. First, in a centralized nondemocratic government system,

promotion in the bureaucratic-political hierarchy was the only path

to power. Second, the most important criterion for promotion in

this hierarchy was not merit but approval from one's supervisors,

who evaluated their subordinates on the basis of political criteria and their ability to contribute to the fulfillment of the economic

plan. Third, political rivalries were present at all levels of the party

and state bureaucracies but were especially prevalent at the top.

Power and influence decided the outcomes of these struggles, and

the number and positions of one's clients were critical components

of that power and influence. Fourth, because fulfillment of the eco- nomic plan was decisive, systemic pressures led officials to conspire together and use their ties to achieve that goal.

The faction led by Brezhnev provides a good case study of patronclient relations in the Soviet system. Many members of the Brezh- nev faction came from Dnepropetrovsk, where Brezhnev had served

as first secretary of the provincial party organization. Andrei P. Kirilenko, a Politburo member and Central Committee secretary

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

under Brezhnev, was first secretary of the regional committee of

Dnepropetrovsk. Volodymyr Shcherbyts'kyy, named as first sec- retary of the Ukrainian apparatus under Brezhnev, succeeded

Kirilenko in that position. Nikolai A. Tikhonov, appointed by Brezh- nev as first deputy chairman of the Soviet Union's Council of

Ministers, graduated from the Dnepropetrovsk College of Metallurgy and presided over the economic council of Dnepropetrovskaya

Oblast. Finally, Nikolai A. Shchelokov, minister of internal affairs under Brezhnev, was a former chairman of the Dnepropetrovsk

soviet. Patron-client relations had implications for policy making in the

party and government bureaucracies. Promotion of trusted subordinates into influential positions facilitated policy formation and

policy execution. A network of clients helped to ensure that a patron's policies could be carried out. In addition, patrons relied on

their clients to provide an accurate flow of information on events throughout the country. This information assisted policy makers

in ensuring that their programs were being implemented.

Party Membership

The CPSU placed stringent requirements on its membership.

Party members had to work indefatigably on the party's behalf,

actively participate in the political life of the country, and set a moral and political example for those who were not members of

the party. Despite these obligations, the benefits of membership

compelled many to join the party. Membership in the CPSU was

a requirement for career advancement. In addition, a career in

the party could also serve as a means for upward mobility from

the working class or peasantry into white-collar positions. Moreover,

for those interested in political activities, the party was a vehicle

for political participation.

Party members had a duty to increase their political knowledge

and qualifications. Such efforts indicated a willingness to make a

career of party work. The CPSU has set up a series of party schools

whose courses range in difficulty from the elementary to the advanced. These schools were located at the local, intermediate, and

all-union levels of the political system. Training in party schools

strengthened the ideological, political, and administrative abilities of party members, especially officials of the CPSU apparatus.

Although the stated purpose of party training was to better equip

party members to perform their jobs, it acted as one additional means to promote a common outlook and ideological perspective

among members of the party apparatus.

316
Honor boards, such as this one in Narva, Estonian Republic,

recognized the work of CPSU members.

Courtesy Jonathan Tetzlaff

Selection Procedures

The standards for admission into the CPSU required that a per- son be at least eighteen years old, have a good personal record,

and possess some knowledge of the principles of Marxism-Leninism.

Those who wanted to become party members had to secure refer- ences from at least three party members of at least five years' standing. In the case of prospective members entering the party from

the Komsomol, one of the references had to have been written by

a member of the Komsomol city or district committee. These refer- ences attested to the candidate's moral, civic, and professional qualities.Only the PPO general meeting could accept or reject an application for membership (see Primary Party Organization, this ch.).

Before the general meeting, however, the PPO secretary reviewed

that person's application, and the secretary's recommendations

counted heavily in the selection process. The district or town party

committee then confirmed the acceptance of the prospective member. Upon acceptance, the individual became a candidate (nonvoting) member of the party for one year. The new candidate paid an admission fee of 2 rubles (for value of the ruble—see Glossary)

317
Soviet Union: A Country Study

and monthly dues that varied from 10 kopeks to 3 percent of salary,

depending on the person's income.

During the candidate stage, the individual had to faithfully carry

out responsibilities assigned by the party. Candidates had to demonstrate their ability to cope with the obligations of party membership, which included attendance at party meetings, improvements

in labor productivity, and efforts to strengthen one's understanding of Marxism-Leninism. After one year, the candidate had to again solicit recommendations from three members of five years'

standing and undergo a review by the PPO secretary. The PPO

general meeting then voted on the candidate's application for full membership, and the district or city organization confirmed the

acceptance of the full member.

The Party Rules defined many obligations for CPSU members.

For example, the party member had to resolutely execute the general

line and directives of the party, explain to the nonparty masses the

foreign and domestic policies of the CPSU, and facilitate the

strengthening of the party's bonds with the people. In addition,

party members had to strive to increase productivity in their regular

jobs, improve the quality of their work, and "inject into the econ- omy the achievements of science and technology." The Party Rules

required that members participate in party activities, broaden their

political horizons, and struggle against any manifestation of bourgeois ideology and religious prejudices. Party members had to

strictly observe the norms of communist morality, place social in- terests higher than personal interests, and exhibit modesty and

orderliness. Party members also undertook criticism of other members and self-criticism in meetings. Criticism and self-criticism un- covered conflicts, mistakes, and shortcomings that resulted from

personal or organizational inadequacies. Once flaws were uncovered, criticism and self-criticism generated peer pressure to re- move the problem. Finally, party members had to consistently

promote the foreign policy of the Soviet Union and work to strength- en the defense forces of the country.

In addition to their obligations, full members of the CPSU had

certain rights. They participated in elections of candidates to party

organs, and they could be chosen for positions in the hierarchy.

At party meetings, conferences, meetings of party committees, and

in the party press, party members could freely discuss issues con- nected with the policy and activities of the party. According to the

Party Rules, party members could criticize any party organ and any

other party member (including members of the leadership) at party

meetings, plenums and conferences, and congresses at all levels of

the party hierarchy. The norms of democratic centralism precluded

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The Communist Party

such criticism, however. Any party member brave enough to make

such criticism would have been subject to party discipline and possible exclusion from the CPSU. A party member had the right to participate in party meetings, bureau sessions, and committees

when these bodies discussed that person's activities or behavior. In addition, a party member could submit questions, statements,

and suggestions to any party body, including the Central Committee, and demand a reply.

The party could take several forms of disciplinary action against

members who broke its rules. The lightest penalty was a reprimand,

followed by a censure. Both of these measures were entered into

the member's permanent party record. A harsher punishment was

reduction to candidate status for one year. For severe rule infractions, a party member could be expelled. The stigma attached to expulsion from the party remained with the individual throughout his life and precluded career advancement, access to better housing facilities, and educational opportunities for the person's children.

In some instances, expelled party members have lost high-status

positions.

Another form of disciplinary action, which occurred on a wider

scale, was the so-called "exchange of party documents." This entailed a review of the party's membership and discussions between

party members and their superiors, followed by replacement of old

party cards. The exchange of party documents provided an occasion for the CPSU to rid itself of members who breached party

discipline. Party sources reported that exchanges of party cards were

not purges (see The Period of the Purges, ch. 2). Nevertheless,

the Russian word chistka, which means purge, was the term the

party used to describe these exchanges. The last exchange of party

documents occurred in 1975.

Several reasons accounted for the desire of Soviet citizens to join

the party, despite the stringent obligations it placed upon its members and the formal nature of their rights. The primary reason for joining the party was opportunity for career advancement and social mobility. Party membership was a prerequisite for promotion

to managerial positions in Soviet society. In addition, party membership opened up the possibility for travel abroad, admission to special shops for consumer goods, access to Western media, and

cash bonuses for work. Party membership also provided the chance

for upward mobility from the working class or peasantry into professional, white-collar positions in the party apparatus. Children of

lower-class parents tended to enter this "political class" in order

to raise their status. Having become members of this class, these

319
Soviet Union: A Country Study

people could then ensure their offspring access to the amenities

Soviet life has to offer. Party membership had other, less tangible rewards. It enabled an individual to claim membership in an organization linked to Russian historical tradition, to the Bolshevik Revolution, and to the world-historical movement the CPSU claimed to lead. In addition, as the dominant political institution in society, the party

offered the most important outlet for political participation. These

benefits encouraged a feeling of in-group solidarity with other members of the CPSU and a sense of civic efficacy.

Training

The CPSU obligated its members constantly to improve their

understanding of Marxism-Leninism and political qualifications.

Toward these goals, the party operated a series of schools to train

party members in Marxism-Leninism, to recruit rank-and-file

members into its administration, and to communicate party principles and policies to the membership, particularly to officials in

the apparatus.

Party schools operated at all levels of the hierarchy. The primary

party schools formed the elementary level of the training system.

These schools were informal; they could be as simple as a circle of workers who met after work to discuss the life of Lenin, politi- cal and economic affairs, or current party policies. Since the

mid-1960s, enrollments in these schools have been declining be- cause of the increased education level of the population. These

courses were open to nonmembers, whose participation could be

used to demonstrate a desire to join the party. Trade unions and

the Komsomol administered schools with similar levels of instruction. Trade unions operated "people's universities" and "schools

of communist labor." The former treated a variety of topics and

enrolled students in a group that advanced as a class from level to level. Schools of communist labor were oriented to problems of

production. Lectures often dealt with the correct attitude toward

work.

The party had a variety of schools at the intermediate level. Schools of the Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, administered

by district and city party committees, required some knowledge

of Marxism-Leninism. Classes were small, which permitted in- dividual attention to students and the examination of subject matter in detail. Courses in these schools reviewed the fundamentals

of party doctrine and included subjects such as party history, political economy, and Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Since the

mid-1970s, enrollment in these schools has grown. In 1981 the party

320
The Communist Party

formed the Schools for Young Communists. These institutions

offered instruction to candidate members of the party and to people who had recently become full members.

The Schools of Scientific Communism offered more specialized

instruction at the intermediate level. In 1989 topics included cur- rent events in domestic and international affairs. Schools for the

party's economic specialists offered training in such areas as party

direction of trade unions, economic policy, and the theory of developed socialism. Schools for ideological specialists included courses

for PPO secretaries and group leaders, party lecturers, and media

personnel. These schools offered courses on the principles of

Marxism-Leninism and on the means and methods of the party's

control over ideological affairs. Party training at the intermediate level also encompassed seminars in Marxist-Leninist theory and methods. Members of the scientific intelligentsia and professors at institutions of higher education

attended these seminars. Subjects included philosophical and social science topics: the scientific-technical revolution, economics,

the theory of proletarian internationalism, communist morality,

and socialist democracy.

Finally, the party offered courses for raising the qualifications

of party and soviet officials at the provincial and republic levels. These courses involved supplementary training in a variety of subjects first treated in lower-level party schools. Party officials also could take correspondence courses offered either by the higher party

school of their republic or under the auspices of the Academy of

Social Sciences of the CPSU Central Committee.

At the all-union level, the Higher Party School and the Academy of Social Sciences in Moscow were staffed with instructors

attached to the CPSU Central Committee departments (see

Secretariat, this ch.). These schools trained officials to enter the

party elite at the all-union level. The Higher Party School graduated about 300 students per year; the Academy of Social Sciences

graduated approximately 100.

Training at party schools served a variety of purposes. Willingness to participate in party courses at the lowest level could indi- cate an aspiration to join the party or ensure advancement from

candidate status to that of full member. Once in the party, participation in training courses demonstrated a desire to enter into

full-time, salaried party work. Indeed, such coursework was a

prerequisite for this kind of a career. Party training also created an in-group consciousness among those who attended courses, particularly at the intermediate and all-union levels. Various kinds

of specialists from wide-ranging backgrounds took these courses;

321
Soviet Union: A Country Study

hence, party schools integrated officials from all sectors of the party

and government bureaucracies and inculcated a shared conscious- ness of their duties and status. Equally important, party schools,

according to American Soviet specialists Frederick C. Barghoorn

and Thomas F. Remington, underscored the CPSU's legitimacy

by providing a theoretical basis for its policies. Courses in party

schools examined current events and policy issues from the party's

perspective. Thus, party training counteracted the insular viewpoints that could arise as a result of officials' attention to their nar- row fields of specialization.

Social Composition of the Party

The Bolshevik organization began as a tightly knit group of

revolutionaries whose leadership was dominated by members of

the Russian, Jewish, and Polish intelligentsia but whose mass base

consisted mainly of industrial workers from Russia's largest cities. By the late 1980s, for the most part the social characteristics of the

party membership reflected the social and economic changes the

Soviet Union had undergone over the more than seventy years of

its existence. Consequently, professionals made up a percentage

of party membership that exceeded their percentage of the population, and the number of party members with a secondary or higher

education has constantly risen since the mid- 1930s. Similarly, the

party has recruited its members from all nationalities. As a result,

the gap between the ethnic groups that dominated the party and

other ethnic groups in the early years has narrowed. However, this gap has not disappeared completely. By contrast, the percentage

of women in the party has continued to lag behind the percentage

of women in the population. Altogether, the social characteristics

of party members confirmed their status as an elite in the society.

The social composition of the party reflected the decision made by

Stalin in the 1930s and reaffirmed since that time both to make

professional achievement and merit the primary criteria for admission into the party and to strive for the proportional representation of all groups within the party's ranks.

In 1987 the CPSU numbered more than 19 million members

(see table 23, Appendix A). Party members constituted about 9.7

percent of the adult population. This figure represented an increase

of 4 percent since 1956. Most of that increase, however, reflected

the CPSU's rapid growth between 1956 and 1964 under the leadership of Khrushchev. Since 1971 the share of party membership in

the adult population has risen only 0.3 percent.

In general, party members possessed a high occupational status

in society, which belied the party's claims to be the vanguard of

322
The Communist Party

the working class. The party did not publish statistics on the social

status of its membership. Nevertheless, the CPSU did publish statis- tics on its membership's • 'social position," which denoted the class affiliation of members at the time they joined the CPSU. Workers

and peasants who joined the party often used their membership

to advance into white-collar positions. Were statistics available on

the social status of party members, they would reveal the disproportion^ representation of white-collar professionals in party ranks.

Available figures on the social position of party members, however,

also indicated the importance of professionals in the party (see table 24, Appendix A). In 1987 persons who were members of the whitecollar professions when they joined the CPSU made up 43.1 per- cent of the party, while those who were members of the working

class made up 45 . 3 percent and those who were peasants made up

11.6 percent. By contrast, in 1987 Soviet sources reported that 27.8

percent of the working population consisted of white-collar professionals, 62.7 were workers, and 9.5 percent were peasants. The

high percentage of members who were professionals when they

joined the party, together with the accelerated advancement into

white-collar positions by members who were workers or peasants,

suggested that the CPSU was not a proletarian party but rather one dominated by white-collar professionals.

Statistics on the percentage of party members with higher education replicated this pattern (see table 25, Appendix A). Between

1967 and 1987, the percentage of party members who had completed higher education almost doubled. In 1987 over 32 percent

of the party membership had received a degree from an institu- tion of higher education. By contrast, in that same year only 7.3

percent of the general population had received a similar degree.

Again, the figures indicate that the CPSU was less the party of

the working class than the party of the white-collar intelligentsia.

The ethnic composition of the party reflected further disproportions between the party and the population as a whole (see table

26, Appendix A). In 1922 the share of Russian members in the

party exceeded their proportion of the population by 19 percent.

Since that time, the gap between Russians and other nationalities

has narrowed. In 1979 Russians constituted 52 percent of the Soviet

population; however, they constituted 60 percent of the party in

1981. Moreover, the percentage of Russians in the party apparatus was probably even greater than their percentage in the party

as a whole.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, other major nationalities whose

share of party membership exceeded their proportion of the population were the Belorussians, the Georgians, and the Jews (the

323
Soviet Union: A Country Study

percentage of Jews in the party was twice their percentage in the

Soviet population as a whole). The proportion of Ukrainians and

Armenians in the party equaled their share of the Soviet population. Armenians and Jews shared certain characteristics that help

explain their relatively high proportion of party membership. Members of these nationalities tended to be more urbanized, educated,

and geographically mobile than the norm. These characteristics

correlated strongly with party membership. The Georgians, al- though not as urbanized as the Armenians or the Jews, tended to be highly educated. Other reasons explained the relatively high per- centage of party membership among the Belorussians and Ukrainians. These two East Slavic nationalities are culturally close to the

Russians. In addition, the central party apparatus has sought to demonstrate that political opportunities for Belorussians and

Ukrainians equal those for Russians.

Those major nationalities having the lowest proportion of party

members compared with their share of the population were the

Tadzhiks, Uzbeks, Kirgiz, and Turkmens of Central Asia, and

the Moldavians. The Central Asians resisted membership in an

organization they perceived to be dominated by East Slavs in general and Russians in particular. Similar considerations applied to the Moldavians, whose territory the Soviet Union seized from

Romania in World War II (see Other Major Nationalities, ch. 4).

The percentage of women in the party lagged far behind the

proportion of women in the population (see table 27, Appendix

A). In 1987 women comprised 29.3 percent of the party and 53

percent of the population. Several reasons explained women's lack

of interest in joining the party. First, party work required a substantial commitment of time from each member (see Selection

Procedures, this ch.). Approximately 80 percent of Soviet women

held jobs and, in addition, spent long hours caring for children,

shopping, and running households. Second, Muslim peoples, who

constituted a high percentage of the Soviet population, discouraged

female participation in politics. Third, Soviet women might not

enter the CPSU because they perceived that the social mores of

that organization restricted their ability to move up the hierarchy

into positions of power. The 307 members elected to the CPSU

Central Committee at the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in 1986

included only 13 women. In the 1980s, women made up only about

33 percent of PPO secretaries, 20 percent of district party organization secretaries, and 3.2 percent of obkom bureau members. No

woman has been a full member of the Politburo. Thus, the higher

the level in the party hierarchy, the lower the percentage of women.

324
The Communist Party

In his report to the CPSU Central Committee on January 27,

1987, General Secretary Gorbachev called for the promotion of more women and representatives of national minorities and ethnic groups into leading positions in the party. That policy, together

with the pursuit of other policies that encourage greater urbanization, geographic mobility, and higher education levels, may lead

to a greater proportion of women and national minorities in in- fluential party positions. If women and national minorities per- ceive the opportunity to move up the hierarchy into positions of

power, a greater number of these underrepresented groups might

be willing to join the party and thus help to balance the sexual and

ethnic composition of the CPSU with that of the population as a whole.

* * * A plethora of works has been written on all aspects of the CPSU.

The following general works on the Soviet Union contain chapters on the party: John A. Armstrong's Ideology, Politics, and Govern- ment in the Soviet Union, John N. Hazard's The Soviet System of

Government, and Frederick C. Barghoorn and Thomas F. Remington's Politics in the USSR. The best general treatment of the CPSU

is found in The Soviet Communist Party by Ronald J . Hill and Peter

Frank. A number of specialized treatments of various aspects of

the party also have been written. Alfred G. Meyer's Leninism re- mains a classic study of the thought, political program, and tactics of Lenin. Nina Tumarkin's Lenin Lives! examines the Lenin cult in the Soviet Union. George Breslauer's Khrushchev and Brezhnev

as Leaders treats attempts by Khrushchev and Brezhnev to build

authority in the political system. For thorough analyses of

intermediate-level and local-level party organizations, works byJoel

C. Moses are helpful. Scholars who have examined the nomenklatura

and patron-client relations include John P. Willerton, Jr., Bohdan

Harasymiw, and Gyulajozsza. Michael Voslensky's Nomenklatura

provides an insider's account of the ruling class. John H. Miller's

"The Communist Party" treats the social characteristics of the

CPSU's membership. (For further information and complete

citations, see Bibliography.)

325

Chapter 8. Government Structure

and Functions
Meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
THE GOVERNMENT OF the Soviet Union administered the

country's economy and society. It implemented decisions made by

the leading political institution in the country, the Communist Party

of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

In the late 1980s, the government appeared to have many characteristics in common with Western, democratic political systems.

For instance, a constitution established all organs of government

and granted to citizens a series of political and civic rights. A legislative body, the Congress of People's Deputies, and its standing

legislature, the Supreme Soviet, represented the principle of popular

sovereignty. The Supreme Soviet, which had an elected chairman

who functioned as head of state, oversaw the Council of Ministers,

which acted as the executive branch of the government. The chairman of the Council of Ministers, whose selection was approved

by the legislative branch, functioned as head of government. A constitutionally based judicial branch of government included a court system, headed by the Supreme Court, that was responsible for overseeing the observance of Soviet law by government bodies. According to the Constitution of 1977, the government had a federal

structure, permitting the republics some authority over policy implementation and offering the national minorities the appearance

of participation in the management of their own affairs. In practice, however, the government differed markedly from

Western systems. In the late 1980s, the CPSU performed many

functions that governments of other countries usually perform. For

example, the party decided on the policy alternatives that the government ultimately implemented. The government merely ratified the party's decisions to lend them an aura of legitimacy. The CPSU

used a variety of mechanisms to ensure that the government adhered to its policies. The party, using its nomenklatura (see Glossary) authority, placed its loyalists in leadership positions throughout

the government, where they were subject to the norms of democratic

centralism (see Glossary). Party bodies closely monitored the ac- tions of government ministries, agencies, and legislative organs.

The content of the Soviet Constitution differed in many ways

from typical Western constitutions. It generally described existing

political relationships, as determined by the CPSU, rather than

prescribing an ideal set of political relationships. The Constitution was long and detailed, giving technical specifications for individual

329
Soviet Union: A Country Study

organs of government. The Constitution included political state- ments, such as foreign policy goals, and provided a theoretical

definition of the state within the ideological framework of MarxismLeninism (see Glossary). The CPSU could radically change the

constitution or remake it completely, as it has done several times

in the past.

The Council of Ministers acted as the executive body of the

government. Its most important duties lay in the administration

of the economy. The council was thoroughly under the control of

the CPSU, and its chairman—the prime minister—was always a member of the Politburo (see Politburo, ch. 7). The council, which

in 1989 included more than 100 members, was too large and unwieldy to act as a unified executive body. The council's Presidium, made up of the leading economic administrators and led by

the chairman, exercised dominant power within the Council of

Ministers.

According to the Constitution, as amended in 1988, the highest

legislative body in the Soviet Union was the Congress of People's

Deputies, which convened for the first time in May 1989. The main

tasks of the congress were the election of the standing legislature,

the Supreme Soviet, and the election of the chairman of the

Supreme Soviet, who acted as head of state. Theoretically, the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet wielded enor- mous legislative power. In practice, however, the Congress of

People's Deputies met only a few days in 1989 to approve decisions made by the party, the Council of Ministers, and its own

Supreme Soviet. The Supreme Soviet, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, and the Council

of Ministers had substantial authority to enact laws, decrees, resolutions, and orders binding on the population. The Congress of

People's Deputies had the authority to ratify these decisions.

The government lacked an independent judiciary. The Supreme

Court supervised the lower courts and applied the law, as established by the Constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet.

The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. The Soviet Union lacked an adversary

court procedure. Under Soviet law, which derived from Roman

law, a procurator (see Glossary) worked together with a judge and

a defense attorney to ensure that civil and criminal trials uncovered

the truth of the case, rather than protecting individual rights.

The Soviet Union was a federal state made up of fifteen republics joined together in a theoretically voluntary union. In turn, a

series of territorial units made up the republics. The republics also

330
Government Structure and Functions

contained jurisdictions intended to protect the interests of national minorities. The republics had their own constitutions, which,

along with the all-union (see Glossary) Constitution, provide the

theoretical division of power in the Soviet Union. In 1989, however,

the CPSU and the central government retained all significant

authority, setting policies that were executed by republic, provincial (oblast, krai—see Glossary, and autonomous subdivision), and

district (raion—see Glossary) governments.

Constitutional Authority of Government

The political theory underlying the Soviet Constitution differed

from the political theory underlying constitutions in the West.

Democratic constitutions are fundamentally prescriptive; they define a set of political relations to which their governments and

citizens aspire. By contrast, Soviet constitutions have purported

to describe a set of political relationships already in existence. Thus,

as changes have occurred in the socioeconomic and political sys- tems, the government has adopted new constitutions that have con- formed to the new sets of realities. The 1977 Constitution was generally descriptive; it differed from

past constitutions in containing a preamble and a section on for- eign policy that were prescriptive in tone. The Soviet Union has

had a series of four constitutions, ratified in 1918, 1924, 1936, and

1977, respectively. On the surface, the four constitutions have re- sembled many constitutions adopted in the West. The differences

between Soviet and Western constitutions, however, overshadowed

the similarities. Soviet constitutions appeared to guarantee certain

political rights, such as freedom of speech, assembly, and religious

belief. They also identified a series of economic and social rights, as well as a set of duties that obligated all citizens. Nevertheless,

Soviet constitutions did not contain provisions guaranteeing the

inalienable rights of the citizenry, and they lacked the machinery

to protect individual rights contained in many democratic constitutions. Thus, the population enjoyed political rights only to the extent that these rights conformed to the interests of building so- cialism (see Glossary). The CPSU alone reserved the authority to determine what lay in the interests of socialism. Finally, Soviet constitutions specified the form and content of regime symbols, such

as the arms, the flag, and the state anthem.

The four constitutions had provisions in common. These provisions expressed the theoretical sovereignty of the working class and the leading role of the CPSU in government and society. All

the constitutions have upheld the forms of socialist property (see

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Glossary). Each of the constitutions has called for a system of Soviets, or councils, to exercise governmental authority.

Early Soviet Constitutions

In the Civil War in France, 1848-1850, Karl Marx maintained

that constitutions ought to reflect existing class and political rela- tionships, not prescribe the nature of such relations. Vladimir I. Lenin adopted Marx's understanding of the role of constitutions

in a state. Of certain provisions in the first Soviet constitution, he

wrote that they were embodied in it "after they were already in

actual practice." Joseph V. Stalin rejected a prescriptive preamble for the 1936 constitution, stating that the constitution should

''register" the gains of socialism rather than prescribe "future

achievement." The four Soviet constitutions thus have reflected

the changes that government and society have undergone over the course of Soviet history.

The 1918 Constitution

The first constitution, which governed the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, described the regime that assumed power

in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 (see Revolutions and Civil War,

ch. 2). This constitution formally recognized the Bolshevik (see

Glossary) party organization as the ruler of Russia according to the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat (see Glossary).

The constitution also stated that under the leadership of the Bolsheviks the workers formed a political alliance with the peasants. This

constitution gave broad guarantees of equal rights to workers and

peasants. It denied, however, the right of social groups that opposed the new government or supported the White armies in the

Civil War (1918-21) to participate in elections to the Soviets or to hold political power.

Supreme power rested with the All-Russian Congress of Soviets,

made up of deputies from local Soviets across Russia. The steer- ing committee of the Congress of Soviets—known as the Central

Executive Committee—acted as the "supreme organ of power"

between sessions of the congress and as the collective presidency

of the state. The congress recognized the Council of People's Commissars

(Sovet narodnykh komissarov—Sovnarkom) as the administrative arm of the young government. (The Sovnarkom had exercised

governmental authority from November 1917 until the adoption

of the 1918 constitution.) The constitution made the Sovnarkom

responsible to the Congress of Soviets for the "general administration of the affairs of the state." The constitution enabled the

332
Government Structure and Functions

Sovnarkom to issue decrees carrying the full force of law when the

congress was not in session. The congress then routinely approved

these decrees at its next session.

The 1924 Constitution

The 1924 constitution legitimated the December 1922 union of

the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian

Republic, the Belorussian Republic, and the Transcaucasian Soviet

Federated Socialist Republic to form the Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics. This constitution also altered the structure of the central government. It eliminated the Congress of Soviets and established the Central Executive Committee as the supreme body of

state authority. In turn, the constitution divided the Central Executive Committee into the Soviet of the Union, which would

represent the constituent republics, and the Soviet of Nationalities, which would represent the interests of nationality groups. The

Presidium of the Central Executive Committee served as the col- lective presidency. Between sessions of the Central Executive Committee, the Presidium supervised the government administration.

The Central Executive Committee also elected the Sovnarkom,

which served as the executive arm of the government.

The 1936 Constitution

The 1936 constitution, adopted on December 5, 1936, and also known as the " Stalin" constitution, redesigned the government.

The constitution repealed restrictions on voting and added universal

direct suffrage and the right to work to rights guaranteed by the

previous constitution. The constitution also provided for the direct

election of all government bodies and their reorganization into a

single, uniform system.

The 1936 constitution changed the name of the Central Executive Committee to the Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Like its predecessor, the Supreme Soviet contained

two chambers: the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities. The constitution empowered the Supreme Soviet to elect commissions, which performed most of the Supreme Soviet's work. As

under the former constitution, the Presidium exercised the full powers

of the Supreme Soviet between sessions and had the right to inter- pret laws. The chairman of the Presidium became the titular head

of state. The Sovnarkom (after 1946 known as the Council of Ministers) continued to act as the executive arm of the government.

The 1977 Constitution

On October 7, 1977, the Supreme Soviet unanimously adopted

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

the fourth constitution, also known as the "Brezhnev" Constitution, named after CPSU general secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev (see

Supreme Soviet, this ch.). The preamble stated that "the aims of

the dictatorship of the proletariat having been fulfilled, the Soviet

state has become the state of the whole people." That is, according to the new Constitution, the government no longer represented the workers alone but expressed "the will and interests of the

workers, peasants, and intelligentsia, the working people of all nations-and nationalities in the country." Compared with previous

constitutions, the Brezhnev Constitution extended the bounds of

constitutional regulation of society. The first chapter defined the

leading role of the CPSU and established principles for the management of the state and the government. Later chapters established

principles for economic management and cultural relations.

The 1977 Constitution was long and detailed. It included twentyeight more articles than the 1936 constitution. The Constitution

explicitly defined the division of responsibilities between the central and republic governments. For example, the Constitution

placed the regulation of boundaries and administrative divisions

within the jurisdiction of the republics. However, provisions es- tablished the rules under which the republics could make such

changes. Thus, the Constitution concentrated on the operation of

the government system as a whole.

Amendments to the 1977 Constitution

In October 1988, draft amendments and additions to the 1977

Constitution were published in the Soviet media for public dis- cussion. Following the public review process, the Supreme Soviet

adopted the amendments and additions in December 1988. The

amendments and additions substantially and fundamentally

changed the electoral and political systems. Although Soviet

officials touted the changes as a return to "Leninist" forms and

functions, citing that the Congress of People's Deputies had

antecedents in the Congress of Soviets, they were unprecedented

in many respects (see Central Government, this ch.). The position of chairman of the Supreme Soviet was formally designated

and given specific powers, particularly leadership over the legislative agenda, the ability to issue orders (rasporiazheniia), and formal

power to conduct negotiations and sign treaties with foreign governments and international organizations. The Constitutional Oversight Committee, composed of people who were not in the Congress

of People's Deputies, was established and given formal power to review the constitutionality of laws and normative acts of the central and republic governments and to suggest their suspension and

334
Government Structure and Functions

repeal. The electoral process was constitutionally opened up to multiple candidacies, although not to multiple-party candidacies. A

legislative body—the Supreme Soviet—was to convene for regular spring and fall sessions, each lasting three to four months. Unlike the old Supreme Soviet, however, the new Supreme Soviet was

indirectly elected by the population, being elected from among the

members of the Congress of People's Deputies,

Amendment Process Adoption of the Constitution was a legislative act of the Supreme

Soviet. Amendments to the Constitution were likewise adopted by

legislative act of that body. Amendments required the approval

of a two-thirds majority of the deputies of the Congress of People's Deputies and could be initiated by the congress itself; the

Supreme Soviet, acting through its commissions and committees;

the Presidium or chairman of the Supreme Soviet; the Constitutional Oversight Committee; the Council of Ministers; republic

Soviets; the Committee of People's Control; the Supreme Court;

the Procuracy; and the chief state arbiter. In addition, the leading

boards of official organizations and even the Academy of Sciences

(see Glossary) could initiate amendments and other legislation.

Soviet constitutions have been frequendy amended and have been

changed more often than in the West. Nevertheless, the 1977 Constitution attempted to avoid frequent amendment by establishing

regulations for government bodies in separate, but equally authoritative, enabling legislation, such as the Law on the Council of

Ministers ofJuly 5, 1978. Other enabling legislation has included

a law on citizenship, a law on elections to the Supreme Soviet, a law on the status of Supreme Soviet deputies, regulations for the

Supreme Soviet, a resolution on commissions, regulations on local government, and laws on the Supreme Court and the Procuracy.

The enabling legislation provided the specific and changing operating rules for these government bodies.

Constitutional Rights

Like democratic constitutions, the Soviet Constitution included

a series of civic and political rights. Among these were the rights

to freedom of speech, press, and assembly and the right to reli- gious belief and worship. In addition, the Constitution provided

for freedom of artistic work, protection of the family, inviolability

of the person and home, and the right to privacy. In line with the

Marxist-Leninist ideology of the regime, the Constitution also granted certain social and economic rights. Among these were the rights

335
336
Panoramic view of Moscow, photographed from Moscow University

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

to work, rest and leisure, health protection, care in old age and

sickness, housing, education, and cultural benefits.

Unlike democratic constitutions, however, the Soviet Constitution placed limitations on political rights. Article 6 effectively eliminated organized opposition to the regime by granting to the CPSU

the power to lead and guide society. Article 39 enabled the government to prohibit any activities it considered detrimental by stat- ing that "Enjoyment of the rights and freedoms of citizens must

not be to the detriment of the interests of society or the state.'

Article 59 obliged citizens to obey the laws and comply with the

standards of socialist society as determined by the party. The re- gime did not treat as inalienable those political and socioeconomic

rights the Constitution granted to the people.

Citizens enjoyed rights only when the exercise of those rights

did not interfere with the interests of socialism, and the CPSU alone

had the power and authority to determine policies for the government and society (see Lenin's Conception of the Party, ch. 7). For

example, the right to freedom of expression contained in Article

52 could be suspended if the exercise of that freedom failed to be

in accord with party policies. Until the era of glasnost' (see Glossary), freedom of expression did not entail the right to criticize the

regime. The government had the power to ban meetings by unsanctioned religious groups, and violations of the laws that allowed

limited religious expression were severely punished under the republics' criminal codes.

The Constitution also failed to provide political and judicial

mechanisms for the protection of rights. Thus, the Constitution

lacked explicit guarantees protecting the rights of the people, contained in the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. In fact, the Supreme Soviet has never introduced amendments

specifically designed to protect individual rights. Neither did the

people have a higher authority within the government to which

to appeal when they believed their rights had been violated. The

Supreme Court had no power to ensure that constitutional rights were observed by legislation or were respected by the rest of the

government. Although the Soviet Union signed the Final Act of

the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki

Accords—see Glossary), which mandated that internationally recog- nized human rights be respected in the signatory countries, no

authority outside the Soviet Union could ensure citizen rights and

freedoms. The government generally has failed to observe the provisions of this act. In the late 1980s, however, realigning constitutional and domestic law with international commitments on human

rights was publicly debated.

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Government Structure and Functions

Role of the Citizen

Article 59 of the Constitution stated that citizens' exercise of their

rights was inseparable from performance of their duties. Articles

60 through 69 defined these duties. Citizens were obliged to work

and to observe labor discipline. The legal code labeled evasion of

work as "parasitism" and provided severe punishment for this crime. The Constitution also obligated citizens to protect socialist property and oppose corruption. All citizens performed military

service as a duty to safeguard and "enhance the power and prestige of the Soviet state." Violation of this duty was a betrayal of

the motherland and the gravest of crimes. Finally, the Constitution obligated parents to train their children for socially useful work

and to raise them as worthy members of socialist society.

The Constitution and other legislation protected and enforced

Soviet citizenship. Legislation on citizenship granted equal rights

of citizenship to naturalized citizens as well as to the native born.

Laws also specified that citizens could not freely renounce their

citizenship. Citizens were required to apply for permission to do

so from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, which could reject

the application if the applicant had not completed military service,

had judicial duties, or was responsible for family dependents. In

addition, the Presidium could refuse the application to protect national security. However, the Presidium could revoke citizenship

for defamation of the Soviet Union or for acts damaging to national prestige or security. State Symbols

The Constitution specified the state flag and the arms of the Soviet

Union. The flag had a red field, the traditional color of proletari- an revolution. On the flag was a gold hammer and sickle, which

represented the workers and the peasants, respectively, and the red

star, which symbolized Soviet power, bordered in gold to contrast with the red field. The arms had a hammer and a sickle superimposed on a globe, with rays of the sun radiating from below, sur- rounded by sheaves of wheat. The rays of the sun represented the

dawn of a new world, and the sheaves of wheat symbolized the

economic plenty that was to be created in Soviet society. The in- scription "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" —from Karl Marx

and Friedrich Engels's The Communist Manifesto—was written on

a red banner wound around the sheaves of wheat. The arms and

flags of the republics carried the same visual themes, underscoring the unity of all the republics in the federation.

The Constitution specified that the state anthem be selected and

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

confirmed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. In 1989 the

anthem was the Anthem of the Soviet Union, which had been composed under Stalin and contained fulsome praise of the dictator.

After Stalin's death, the Presidium removed the offensive lyrics.

Central Government

Soviet political and legal theorists defined their government as a parliamentary system because in principle all power in the government emanated from the Congress of People's Deputies. In addition, according to the Constitution the Supreme Soviet elected both

its own leadership and that of the all-union administrative and judicial agencies, which were responsible to it. In fact, the congress was too large to effectively exercise power, and it met only for short

periods every year. When in session, the congress ratified legislation already promulgated by the Council of Ministers, the ministries, and the Supreme Soviet or its Presidium, and it discussed

domestic and foreign policy. It also set the agenda for activities of the Supreme Soviet.

The lines separating legislative from executive functions were

rather blurred. Thus, in addition to administering the government

and the economy, the Council of Ministers could promulgate both

resolutions that had the force of law and binding administrative

orders. (The Supreme Soviet, however, had the ability to repeal

such resolutions and orders.) Individual ministries—the chief administrative organs of the government—had the power to make

laws in their respective fields. Thus, the legislative authority in this system was highly dispersed. In the late 1980s, some officials criti- cized law jnaking by organs other than the Supreme Soviet and

called for further amendments to the Constitution to give the

Supreme Soviet greater authority over law making.

The CPSU effectively exercised control over the government.

Leaders of the government were always party members and served on such party bodies as the Politburo and the Central Committee

(see Central Party Institutions, ch. 7). In their role as party leaders, government officials participated in the formation of political,

social, and economic policies. In addition, these officials were subject

to the norms of democratic centralism, which required that they

carry out the orders of the CPSU or face party discipline (see

Democratic Centralism, ch. 7). Equally important, as part of its nomenklatura authority, the party had appointment power for all important positions in the government hierarchy (see Nomenklatura, ch. 7). The party also exercised control through the commissions and committees of the Supreme Soviet, which were

supervised by Central Committee departments and commissions

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Government Structure and Functions

in their respective fields (see Secretariat, ch. 7). Each ministry con- tained its own primary party organization (PPO), which ensured

that the staff of the ministry daily adhered to party policies (see

Primary Party Organization, ch. 7). In fact, the party, not the

ministerial and legislative system, was the leading political insti- tution in the Soviet Union (see table 28, Appendix A).

Administrative Organs

Article 128 of the Constitution named the Council of Ministers

as the ' 'highest executive and administrative body of state authority" in the Soviet Union. Although the members of the council were

subject to ratification and change by the Supreme Soviet and the

Congress of People's Deputies, in 1989 they were actually appointed

by the party. However, the council was too large to act as an ef- fective decision-making body. The Council of Ministers Presidium, made up of the most influential economic administrators in

the government, had the power to act in the name of the full council when it was not in session. The chairman of the full Council

of Ministers, the equivalent of a prime minister, acted as head of

government and chief economic administrator. In 1989 the chairman of the Council of Ministers, Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, sat on the

Politburo.

Below the central institutions stood the ministries, state committees, and other governmental organs, which carried out regime

policies in their respective fields subject to strict party control. The

ministries managed the economic, social, and political systems.

Council of Ministers

The Council of Ministers and its agencies carried out the fol- lowing tasks of government: internal and external security of the

state; economic development, management, and administration;

and ideological instruction and education. The council enacted the

decisions of the party and therefore administered, through its bureaucratic regulatory and management arms, every aspect of

Soviet life. As its primary task, however, the council managed the

economy.

The Supreme Soviet ratified council membership as submitted

by the chairman of the Council of Ministers. However, the actual

selection of council ministers was made by the party leadership as part of its nomenklatura authority and was only later confirmed by

a vote of the Supreme Soviet. Until recently, the Supreme Soviet

endorsed such decisions unanimously and without debate. In

mid- 1989, however, Ryzhkov was forced to withdraw some candidates for ministerial posts because some of the committees of the

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Supreme Soviet objected that the candidates were unqualified, thus

forcing him to submit alternative candidates.

The Council of Ministers had the power to issue decrees, which

carried the same force of law as legislative acts of the Supreme

Soviet. The Supreme Soviet or, indirectly, the Congress of People's Deputies, could annul a decree if it found the decree to be

in violation of the Constitution or an existing statute (perhaps upon

the recommendation of the Constitutional Oversight Committee).

Orders of the Council of Ministers on administrative matters technically did not carry the force of law, but they were binding on

the ministerial apparatus. Although some decrees were published,

most remained secret. In 1989 the Council of Ministers had more than 100 members,

including the ministers, the heads of government bureaus and state committees, and the chairmen of the councils of ministers of the

fifteen constituent republics. Soviet scholars maintained that the

Council of Ministers met ' 'regularly," but reports in the press in- dicated that full meetings occurred only quarterly to hear and ratify a plan or a report from the chairman. In reality, the Council of

Ministers delegated most of its functions to its Presidium or to the

individual ministries.

Chairman of the Council of Ministers

The Constitution placed the chairman of the Council of Ministers

at the head of government. As such, the chairman acted as the prime

minister and therefore was responsible for enacting party decisions

and ensuring that their implementation conformed to the intentions of the party leadership. Three party leaders have served con- currendy as the chairman of the Council of Ministers. Lenin chaired

the Sovnarkom when he was the de facto head of the party. Stalin,

who was the party's first general secretary, became chairman during World War II and remained in that position until his death

in 1953. In March 1958, Nikita S. Khrushchev, who had been first secretary since 1953 (the title changed to first secretary after Stalin's death and reverted to general secretary in 1966), took over

the position of chairman of the Council of Ministers also. After

Khrushchev's ouster in 1964, in order to avoid too much concentration of power, the party established a policy that the positions

of chairman of the Council of Ministers and first (general) secre- tary of the party had to be filled by two different persons.

Because of the heavy involvement of the government in economic

administration, chairmen of the Council of Ministers since Khrushchev have been experienced industrial administrators rather than

political decision makers. Although the chairman occupied a seat

342
Officials leave the Kremlin after a CPSU Central Committee plenum in September 1988. The Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet buildings are in the background.

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

on the Politburo and thus had a voice in decision making at the

highest level, this official was obliged to defer to other leaders in

matters not pertaining to the economy. Thus, the chairman of the

Council of Ministers had less power than the general secretary and

perhaps less power than party secretaries who were members of

the Politburo (see Secretariat, ch. 7). Council of Ministers Presidium

The Constitution stipulated that the Council of Ministers form

a Presidium as the "standing body of the Council of Ministers"

to coordinate its work. The Presidium had the power to act on questions and speak for the government when the council was not in

session. Apart from a few references in the Soviet literature indicating that the Presidium provided top-level guidance and coordination for the economy, little was known about the Presidium. In

the words of American Sovietologist Jerry F. Hough, it was "a

most shadowy institution."

Members of the council's Presidium represented the government's major planning and production organizations. Although

Soviet sources had differing opinions on its membership, they al- ways pointed to the council's chairman, first deputy chairmen, and

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

deputy chairmen as members. Deputy chairmen and first deputy

chairmen usually served as the head of the State Planning Committee (Gosudarstvennyi planovyi komitet—Gosplan); the chairmen

of the state committees for science and technology, construction,

and material and technical supply; and the permanent representative to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon

see Appendix B). Deputy chairmen could also act as high-level plan- ners in the major sectors of the economy, known as industrial complexes (see The Complexes and the Ministries, ch. 12). These

planners served as chairmen of the Council of Ministers' bureaus

and commissions for foreign economic relations, the defense in- dustry, machine building, energy, and social development. Some

Soviet sources included the minister of finance, the chairman of

the Committee of People's Control, and the CPSU general secre- tary as members of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers. Thus,

the membership of the Presidium indicated that it functioned as the "economic bureau" of the full Council of Ministers.

Ministerial System

Ministers were the chief administrative officials of the government. While most ministers managed branches of the economy,

others managed affairs of state, such as foreign policy, defense,

justice, and finance. Unlike parliamentary systems in which

ministers are members of the parliament, Soviet ministers were

not necessarily members of the Supreme Soviet and did not have

to be elected. Soviet ministers usually rose within a ministry; having begun work in one ministry, they could, however, be appointed to a similar position in another. Thus, by the time the party

appointed an official to a ministerial position, that person was ful- ly acquainted with the affairs of the ministry and was well trained

in avoiding conflict with the party. Until the late 1980s, ministers

enjoyed long tenures, commonly serving for decades and often dying

in office. Two types of ministries made up the ministerial system: all-union

and union-republic. All-union ministries oversaw a particular activity for the entire country and were controlled by the all-union

party apparatus and the government in Moscow. Republic governments had no corresponding ministry, although all-union ministries had branch offices in the republics. Union-republic ministries

had a central ministry in Moscow, which coordinated the work of

counterpart ministries in the republic governments. Republic party

organizations also oversaw the work of the union-republic ministries in their domain.

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Government Structure and Functions

The Constitution determined into which category certain ministries fell. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was a union-republic

ministry, reflecting the republics' constitutional right to foreign

representation. Although the republics had foreign ministries, the

central Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow in fact conducted

all diplomacy for the Soviet Union (see The Ministry of Foreign

Affairs, ch. 10).

All-union ministries were more centralized, thus permitting great- er control over vital functions. Union-republic ministries appeared

to exercise limited autonomy in nonvital areas. In practice, the central government dominated the union-republic ministries, although

in theory each level of government possessed equal authority over

its affairs. Union-republic ministries offered some practical economic advantages. Republic representatives in the union-republic ministries

attempted to ensure that the interests of the republics were taken

into account in policy formation. In addition, the arrangement per- mitted the central ministry to set guidelines that the republics could

then adapt to their local conditions. The central ministry in Moscow

also could delegate some responsibilities to the republic level. The internal structures of both all-union and union-republic

ministries were highly centralized. A central ministry had large functional departments and specialized directorates. Chief directorates

carried out the most important specialized functions in larger ministries. Specialized functions included foreign contracts, planning,

finance, construction, personnel, and staff services. The first department of any ministry, staffed by personnel from the Committee

for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—KGB),

controlled security. State committees and government agencies similarly were cate- gorized as all-union and union-republic organizations. State committees oversaw technical matters that involved many aspects of

government, such as standards, inventions and discoveries, labor

and social issues, sports, prices, and statistics. Other agencies, such

as the news agency TASS (see Glossary) and the Academy of

Sciences, oversaw affairs under their purview.

Ministries and state committees not only managed the econo- my, government, and society but also could make laws. Most ministries and state committees issued orders and instructions that were

binding only on their organizations. Some ministries, however,

could issue orders within a legally specified area of responsibility

that were binding on society as a whole. These orders carried the same force of law as acts of the Supreme Soviet. For example, the

Ministry of Finance set the rules for any form of foreign exchange.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Party Control of the Ministerial Apparatus

The ministries and state committees operated without the ap- pearance of party control. Nevertheless, the party ensured its authority over the government through several mechanisms designed to preserve its leading role in society.

Considerable overlap between the memberships of the Council

of Ministers and leading party bodies facilitated both policy coor- dination between the two organizations and party control. The

chairman of the Council of Ministers normally occupied a seat on

the Politburo, which gave him additional authority to ensure the

implementation of his decisions. In 1989 the first deputy chairman

of the Council of Ministers, Iurii D. Masliukov, was promoted to full-member status on the Central Committee, and both he and

deputy chairman Aleksandra P. Biriukova were candidate members of the Politburo. In early 1989, Viktor M. Chebrikov, the

head of the KGB, and Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the minister of

foreign affairs, were also Politburo members. In addition, most

ministers and chairmen of state committees were either full or candidate members of the Central Committee (see Central Committee, ch. 7). Thus, the norms of democratic centralism obliged

council members to adhere to party policies.

Within the Council of Ministers and the ministries, the party

used its nomenklatura authority to place its people in influential positions. Nomenklatura refers both to the positions that the Central

Committee apparatus of the party has the power to fill and to a

list of people qualified to fill them. Approximately one-third of the

administrative positions in the council bureaucracy, including the

most important ones, were on the nomenklatura list. Occupants of

these positions well understood that the party could remove them

if they failed to adhere to its policies.

Finally, in what is known as dual subordination, the staff of each

ministry was required to respond to orders and directions from its primary party organization (PPO), as well as to the ministries' hi- erarchy. Party members on the staff of the ministry were bound

by the norms of democratic centralism to obey the orders of the

secretary of the PPO, who represented the CPSU hierarchy in the

ministry. The secretary of the PPO ensured that CPSU policies were carried out in the day-to-day activities of the ministries.

Congress of People's Deputies

In 1989 the Congress of People's Deputies stood at the apex of

the system of Soviets and was the highest legislative organ in the

country. Created by amendment to the Constitution in December

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Government Structure and Functions

1988, the Congress of People's Deputies theoretically represented

the united authority of the congresses and Soviets in the republics.

In addition to its broad duties, it created and monitored all other

government bodies having the authority to issue decrees. In 1989

the Congress of People's Deputies, however, was largely a ceremonial

forum meeting only a few days a year to ratify and debate party

and government decisions and to elect from its own membership

the Supreme Soviet to carry out legislative functions between sit- tings of the congress. Other responsibilities of the Congress of People's Deputies included changing the Constitution, adopting decisions

concerning state borders and the federal structure, ratifying government plans, electing the chairman and first deputy chairman of the

Supreme Soviet, and electing members of the Constitutional Oversight Committee.

In the elections that took place under the 1988 law on electing

deputies to the Congress of People's Deputies, several candidates were allowed to run for the same office for the first time since 1917.

Nevertheless, no party except the CPSU was allowed to field candidates, and a large bloc of seats was reserved for CPSU members

and members of other officially sanctioned organizations. In the

Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian republics and to a far lesser degree in the Belorussian Republic, however, popular fronts, which were tantamount to political parties, fielded their own candidates.

The regime maintained that these elections demonstrated that the

Soviet people could freely choose their own government.

The Congress of People's Deputies that was elected in March

through May 1989 consisted of 2,250 deputies— 1,500 from the

electoral districts and national-territorial electoral districts and 750

from officially sanctioned organizations, including the CPSU. In

all, 5,074 individuals were registered as candidates. A main elec- tion was held in which 89.8 percent of the eligible voters, or 172.8

million people, participated. Following the main election, runoff

elections were held in districts in which a candidate failed to obtain a majority of the votes cast in the main election. Runoff elec- tions took place in 76 out of 1 ,500 electoral districts. Repeat elections were also held in 198 electoral districts where less than one-half

of the eligible voters in the district voted. Official organizations

also held elections in which 84.2 percent of the eligible voters, or 162 million people, participated. Five repeat elections were for or- ganizations. Of the 2,250 deputies elected, 8.1 percent were newly elected to the legislature.

The CPSU has used several means to exercise control over the

activities of the legislative system. Since 1964 the chairman of the

Supreme Soviet's Presidium has been a member of the Politburo,

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

and other members of the Presidium have sat on the party's Central Committee. In addition, since 1977 CPSU general secretaries

have usually held the post of chairman of the Presidium of the

Supreme Soviet, although Mikhail S. Gorbachev, at first, did not

hold this post. Also, the party has had a large role in determining

which of the elected deputies would serve as deputies in the Supreme

Soviet. As part of their own nomenklatura authority, local party or- ganizations have selected candidates to run in the elections. The

commissions and committees, which had some power to oversee government policy, have accepted direction from the CPSU's Central Committee departments and their chairmen, and a large

proportion of their memberships has consisted of CPSU members.

In the Congress of People's Deputies elected in 1989, about 87 percent, or 1,957 deputies, were members or candidate members of

the CPSU.

Elections to the Congress of People's Deputies

In 1989 three categories of deputies were selected to the Congress of People's Deputies: those representing the CPSU and offi- cially recognized organizations; those representing the population

as divided into residential electoral districts; and those representing the population as divided into national territories. In 1989 onethird (750) of the deputies were elected in each category. Quotas

for deputies were assigned to the various official organizations, elec- toral districts, and national-territorial electoral districts. The largest organizational quotas were reserved for the CPSU, trade unions,

collective farms (see Glossary), Komsomol (see Glossary), veterans,

retired workers, and the Committee of Soviet Women. Minor but

officially sanctioned groups such as stamp collectors, cinema fans,

book lovers, and musicians were also represented. Because individual voters belonged to several different constituencies, they could

vote in elections for several deputies. In principle, voters in nationwide elections had the freedom to vote for the party-endorsed candidate or for other candidates on

the ballot (if any), to write in the name of another candidate, or

to refrain from voting. In the early 1989 elections, some of the candidates officially endorsed by the CPSU were rejected by the voters,

including high-level party officials, such as Iurii Solov'ev, the party

secretary of Leningrad.

The regime considered voting a duty rather than a right. Citizens

age eighteen and older voted in soviet elections, and those age twenty- one and older were eligible to be elected to the Congress of People's Deputies. Persons holding governmental posts, however, could

not be elected deputy to the soviet that appointed them. Citizens

348
Building housing the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers

of the Tadzhik Republic in Dushanbe

Building housing the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Kirgiz Republic in Frunze

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

349
Soviet Union: A Country Study

had the right to participate in election campaigns and the right to campaign for any candidate.

Deputies and Citizen Involvement

Deputies to the Congress of People's Deputies represented a cross

section of the various economic and professional groups in the population. According to the official Credentials Commission report,

in terms of occupation 24.8 percent of the deputies to the congress were "workers in industry, construction, transport, or communications," 18.9 percent were in agriculture, and of both these groups

23.7 percent were ordinary workers and peasants. Managers in

industry and agriculture made up 6.8 percent and 8.5 percent of

the deputies, respectively. Party secretaries at various levels made

up 10.5 percent of the deputies. Military officers made up 3.6 per- cent of the deputies. In terms of age, 88.6 percent were under age

sixty, while 8.3 percent were under age thirty. Regarding level of

education, 75.7 percent possessed complete or incomplete higher

education, and 6.2 percent were full or corresponding members

of the central or republic academies of sciences. Nevertheless, selec- tion procedures underrepresented some segments of society. Only

15.6 percent of the delegates were women, and just seven of the

deputies (0.3 percent) were religious leaders.

Supreme Soviet

The Supreme Soviet served as the highest organ of state power

between sittings of the Congress of People's Deputies. The Supreme

Soviet formally appointed the chairman of the Council of Ministers,

ratified or rejected his candidates for ministerial posts and supervised their work, and adopted economic plans and budgets and

reported on their implementation. Through its chairman, the Supreme Soviet represented the country in formal diplomacy. It also had the authority to appoint the Defense Council, confer military

and diplomatic ranks, declare war, ratify treaties, and repeal acts of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the chairman of the

Supreme Soviet, and the Council of Ministers.

The Supreme Soviet has traditionally delegated its powers to the

government bodies it has elected and nominally supervised. The

Supreme Soviet reserved the right to review and formally approve

their actions, and in the past it always gave this approval. Actions

of other government bodies elected by the Supreme Soviet became

law with force equal to the Supreme Soviet's own decisions (see

Administrative Organs, this ch.). The commissions and committees have played a minor role in ensuring that the language of legislation was uniform. In 1989 they took an active role in judging

350
Government Structure and Functions

the qualifications of candidates for ministerial bodies and in questioning governmental operations.

Organs of the Supreme Soviet

The Supreme Soviet has functioned with the help of several

secondary organs. The Presidium has acted as the steering committee of the Supreme Soviet while it was in session. In 1989 both

chambers of the Supreme Soviet—the Soviet of the Union and the

Soviet of Nationalities—met either individually or jointly in ses- sions planned to last six to eight months. Each chamber had commissions and committees that prepared legislation for passage, oversaw its implementation, and monitored the activities of other

governmental bodies. In 1989 the Supreme Soviet also had four- teen joint committees, and each chamber had four commissions.

Presidium

In 1989 the Presidium, as designated by the Constitution, had

forty-two members. The Presidium was made up of a chairman,

a first vice chairman, fifteen vice chairmen (who represented the

supreme Soviets of the fifteen republics), the chairmen of the Soviet

of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities, the chairman of the

Committee of People's Control, and the twenty-two chairmen of

the commissions and committees of the Supreme Soviet. Only a few members regularly resided in Moscow, where the Presidium

has always met. Before 1989 the Presidium membership served

a symbolic function through the inclusion of twenty-one at-large

members, made up of factory workers, peasants, scientists, professionals, and leaders of professional organizations. Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, was the most prominent of these

at-large members. The purpose of this broadened membership was

to show that all strata of society participated in the state's leading

organ. In addition, some high-level party figures who were not

members of the government sat on the Presidium as a symbol of

CPSU authority in the legislature. For instance, General Secretary Gorbachev sat on the Presidium as an at-large member from

1985 to 1988.

Prior to 1989, the Presidium was the leading legislative organ

between sessions of the Supreme Soviet, which met only a few days

a year and held formal sessions only once every two months. Announcements of Presidium decrees, however, appeared in the press nearly every day, which indicated that the Presidium's staff worked

full time. Presidium decrees, issued over the signatures of the chairman and the secretary, merely certified and legitimated decisions

made by the CPSU. Nevertheless, decrees issued in the Presidium's

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

name demonstrated wide-ranging powers to supervise the government bureaucracy.

The 1988 amendments and additions to the Constitution reduced

the powers of the Presidium by making it more of an agenda-setting

and administrative body (see The 1977 Constitution, this ch.). According to Article 1 19 of the Constitution, the Presidium was authorized to convene sessions of the Supreme Soviet and organize their

preparation, coordinate the activities of the commissions and committees of the Supreme Soviet, oversee conformity of all-union and

republic laws with the Constitution, confer military and diplomatic

ranks, appoint and recall diplomats, issue decrees and adopt resolutions, and declare war or mobilize troops in between sessions of

the Supreme Soviet, among other duties.

Chairman

The office of chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet

before 1 989 was little more than a ceremonial and diplomatic con- venience. The chairman had the formal authority to sign treaties

and to receive the credentials of diplomatic representatives. The

power of the person occupying the office stemmed from other positions that person may have held. In the past, CPSU general secre- taries who also served as chairmen of the Presidium have given

priority to their party duties rather than to the ceremonial duties

of the chairmanship. Taking this consideration into account, the

1977 Constitution provided for the office of first deputy chairman

to relieve the chairman of most ceremonial duties. When the chairmanship has been vacant, the first deputy chairman has acted in

his place, as Vasilii Kuznetsov did after Brezhnev's death and before Iurii V. Andropov assumed the chairmanship. Gorbachev

assumed the office of chairman in October 1988. The 1988 amendments and additions to the Constitution retained the post of first deputy chairman in recognition of its usefulness in relieving the

legislative burden on the person occupying the positions of general secretary of the party and chairman of the Supreme Soviet.

The 1988 amendments and additions to the Constitution substantially altered the status of the chairman of the Presidium of

the Supreme Soviet by making him also chairman of the Supreme

Soviet and having him elected by the Congress of People's Deputies.

By designating a formal chairman of the Supreme Soviet, the Constitution changed the status of the head of state from a collective

Presidium to a single chairman. Also, the Constitution for the first time listed responsibilities of the chairman of the Supreme Soviet.

These responsibilities included the exercise of leadership over the

352
Government Structure and Functions

preparation of agendas of the Congress of People's Deputies and

the Supreme Soviet, the signing of laws and treaties, the negotiation of treaties, the submission of reports on domestic and foreign

policy, and the submission of candidates for first deputy chairman

of the Supreme Soviet, members of the Constitutional Oversight

Committee, chairman of the Council of Ministers, and other candidates for leading government posts. The Constitution also stipulated that the chairman of the Supreme Soviet head the Defense

Council, a body that determined broad military policy and funding.

Soviet of the Union and Soviet of Nationalities

The two chambers that made up the Supreme Soviet—the Soviet

of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities—were selected from

among the membership of the Congress of People's Deputies at the beginning of a convocation by a general vote of the deputies.

The members of the Soviet of Nationalities were selected by each

republic's delegation to the congress (in actuality by the republic's party officials) on the basis of eleven deputies from each union

republic, four deputies from each autonomous republic (see Glossary), two deputies from each autonomous oblast (see Glossary),

and one deputy from each autonomous okrug (see Glossary). The

members of the Soviet of the Union were selected on the basis of

the population of the union republics and regions. One-fifth of the

membership of each chamber was changed each year from the pool

of congress deputies.

The two-chamber system has attempted to balance the interests

of the country as a whole with those of its constituent nationalities. The Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities could

meet either separately or jointiy. Officials elected from each chamber

could preside over the sessions. Either chamber could propose legislation. Legislation passed by majorities in each chamber did not

need to be referred to joint session. If the two chambers met in

joint session, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet presided. If the

chairman was absent, the first deputy chairman presided. Disagreements between the two chambers, if they occurred, could be referred

to a conciliation commission, then back to the chambers sitting in

joint session. If still unresolved, the question would be decided by

the Congress of People's Deputies.

The two chambers of the Supreme Soviet have exercised equal powers and have shared equal status, although they theoretically served

different purposes. The Soviet of the Union, established in 1924, grew

out of the system of workers' councils at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution (see Revolutions and Civil War, ch. 2). It has

been the primary venue for discussion of issues on socioeconomic

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

development of the country as a whole, the rights and duties of

citizens, foreign policy, defense, and state security. The Soviet of

Nationalities, also established in 1924, ostensibly represented the

interests of the national minorities in the central government. Because of its limited power, however, its significance remained more

symbolic than real. Its sphere of authority included only issues of

national and ethnic rights and interethnic relations. Nevertheless,

the regime has traditionally pointed to the existence of this body

as proof that the country's nationalities had an equal voice in decision making and policy formation.

Sessions of the Supreme Soviet

Until 1989 the Supreme Soviet was convoked for five-year terms

but met in session only for a few days twice a year. Thus, each

five-year convocation had ten or more sessions. The Supreme Soviet

elected to a five-year term in early 1989 was the twelfth convocation. According to the 1988 amendments and additions to the Constitution, the Supreme Soviet was slated to meet daily, holding two

sessions a year, with each lasting three to four months.

Councils of elder members, meeting briefly before sessions, have

traditionally helped organize the meetings of both chambers. The

staff of the Presidium has assisted in the preparatory paperwork.

At the twelfth convocation in 1989, the two councils of elders met

in a joint session chaired by Gorbachev to discuss procedures for opening the session, the leadership of the chambers, the agendas,

and the composition and functions of commissions and committees. The councils have scheduled meetings of the two chambers

in separate session—one after the other—in the same semicircular

amphitheater of the Presidium building in the Kremlin, although

joint sessions of both chambers have taken place in the Great Hall

of the Palace of Soviets. The oldest deputy has opened the sessions.

The two chambers then have elected chairmen and two vice chairmen on the recommendations of the councils of elders. The chairmen have set speaker lists and ensured the observance of the

established schedule. Until the next session, when they faced another

election, the chairmen of the two chambers worked with the Presidium and the chairman of the Supreme Soviet.

The sessions have followed a standard sequence of events. The

Supreme Soviet first approved changes in the Council of Ministers

and changes in its own membership. It then heard regular reports on the actions taken by the Council of Ministers and by its own

Presidium since the last session. Debate and approval of these

actions followed. The two regular sessions of the Supreme Soviet

in the spring and fall have served different purposes. The spring

354
Government Structure and Functions

session traditionally has heard reports from government bodies and

its own commissions. It then has passed legislation based on these

reports. The second session has approved the budget for the fol- lowing year. The fall sessions have also ratified the annual and five- year economic plans of the government.

Commissions and Committees

Commissions and committees, each made up of some thirty to

fifty members, have been important because they have prepared

and proposed legislation for formal approval by the Supreme Soviet

and monitored activities of ministries and other government bodies. Each chamber of the Supreme Soviet had fourteen committees, which had joindy shared functions, and four commissions,

which had unique functions. In 1989 the commissions and committees were tasked by the Congress of People's Deputies and the

Supreme Soviet with examining myriad issues, among them ethnic strife, economic autonomy for the republics, the draft economic

plan and budget, efficiency in agriculture, social policy, legal re- form, and the conformity of various laws to the Constitution. The

commissions and committees also evaluated decrees issued by the

Presidium of the Supreme Soviet that had been rejected by the

Supreme Soviet and sent to the commissions and committees for reworking.

In the 1984-89 convocation of the Supreme Soviet, 1 ,200 deputies

served on the commissions (as the committees were called at that

time), and 800 worked on the draft economic plan and the draft

budget for the following year. In the 1989-94 convocation, 320

deputies served on the commissions and 616 served on the committees. About one-half of the deputies serving on the commissions

and committees of the Supreme Soviet were deputies to the Congress of People's Deputies but were not members of the Supreme

Soviet. One-fifth of their membership has usually been replaced

each year by other deputies of the Supreme Soviet or the Congress

of People's Deputies.

In making assignments to commissions and committees, the

preferences and expertise of the deputies were taken into account;

deputies have included party leaders, scientists, educators, agricul- tural specialists, and foreign policy experts. This variegated membership not only has obtained contributions of experts on legislation

but also has permitted the party to communicate its policies to important segments of society. In 1989 the four commissions in each

chamber that had functions unique to the chamber included, among

others, planning, budgeting, and finance; labor, prices, and social policy; transportation, communications, and information sciences;

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

and nationalities policy and interethnic relations. The fourteen committees in each chamber that had jointly shared functions covered

such areas as foreign affairs, ecology, women and family, veterans and invalids, youth, glasnost', economic reform, agronomy, and

construction, among others. In addition to drafting legislation, the

commissions and committees monitored the activities of the ministries and other government bodies. Their oversight of the government included evaluating candidates for ministerial posts and

questioning ministerial personnel while preparing legislation. In

1989 the committees of the Supreme Soviet rejected several candidates nominated by the chairman of the Council of Ministers, Ryzhkov, forcing him to submit other, more qualified candidates for the posts. Candidates approved by the committees were subject

to questioning by deputies on the floor of the Supreme Soviet. To

monitor compliance with existing law, the commissions and committees heard ministerial reports and requested materials and documents from the ministries and other government bodies.

Government bodies were required to consider the recommendations on government operations of the commissions or committees

and to report implementation measures to them.

Prior to 1989, the commissions of the Supreme Soviet had been

instruments by which the CPSU controlled legislation and supervised the Supreme Soviet and the ministries. In 1989 the CPSU

remained an important influence over the work of the commissions

and committees because the vast majority of members were party

members, and influential party leaders either chaired the commissions and committees or served as members. The departments of

the party's Secretariat watched over commissions and committees

that monitored work under their purview (see Secretariat, ch. 7). Although by law government officials were not permitted to serve on the commissions and committees, this ban did not apply to party

officials, so that the membership on the commissions and committees was able to overlap with that of the party's departments.

Through this overlap, party officials were thus able to ensure that

the Supreme Soviet adhered to party decisions. For example, prior

to 1989 the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Commission (present-day Foreign Affairs Committee) of the Soviet of the Union was

usually the second-ranking member of the Politburo. The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Soviet of Nationalities was normally the head of the CPSU International Department.

The deputy chairmen and secretaries of the two commissions were also deputy heads of the party's International Department or the Liaison with Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries Department. Party leaders used these roles to

356
Government House, Lenin Square, Baku, Azerbaydzhan Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

conduct diplomacy on behalf of the Soviet Union. Thus, during his 1984 visit to Britain, Gorbachev acted in his capacity as chairman

of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Soviet of the Union. As

of 1989, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee (formerly

the Foreign Affairs Commission) of the Soviet of the Union was

no longer a major party figure but was still a party official. Legislative Process The legislative process has worked in a very formalized manner. For example, the Ministry of Finance, Gosplan, and other

institutions submitted economic planning documents to the Soviet

of the Union's Planning, Budgeting, and Finance Commission and

to other Supreme Soviet commissions and committees and to republic representatives. Deputies of the various commissions and committees of both chambers and other individuals met to review the

documents, hear expert testimony, make amendments, and submit the economic plan to the Supreme Soviet. The minister of

finance and the chairman of the Council of Ministers submitted

their own reports as well. The Supreme Soviet, after debate, traditionally disposed of the

plan with a resolution and a law. The resolution noted reports on

the plan delivered by the chairman of Gosplan and the minister

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

of finance. It evaluated the work of the Council of Ministers in

fulfilling the previous year's plan and instructed the Council of

Ministers to examine proposals prepared by the commissions and

committees and those comments made by deputies in the debate

and then to take appropriate action. The Law of the Plan formally

ratified the plan, taking into account the work of the commissions

and committees and setting out in detail budget and plan targets

for the following year. Party Controls

The CPSU has exercised control over the activities of the

Supreme Soviet in a variety of ways. Most important has been the extent of party membership among the delegates. In the first eleven

convocations of the Supreme Soviet, party membership averaged

about 75 percent. Another 15 percent of the delegates were members of the Komsomol. At the twelfth convocation beginning in

1989, party membership in the Congress of People's Deputies

amounted to 87 percent, and Komsomol membership amounted

to 5.9 percent. The party caucus, which received its instructions

direcdy from the CPSU's central apparatus, was led by party members and controlled legislative procedures.

Leadership positions in the Supreme Soviet were under the

nomenklatura of the Politburo. Thus, members of the Presidium,

all but one of whom were usually party members, abided by the

decisions of the party leadership or risked losing their positions.

Members of the Presidium, as well as rank-and-file party members who were elected delegates, were subject to the norms of

democratic centralism.

The party controlled the selection process for ordinary deputies

as well. Local party organs supervised nominations and elections.

Party officials carefully selected delegates either to ensure the selec- tion of party leaders and party stalwarts in the arts, literature, the

military, and the scientific and scholarly communities, or to re- ward rank-and-file members for long years of service to the party

and government. In the event that delegates proved uncompliant,

the Constitution granted the party the power to initiate a recall election. Recalls have been rare, however. Out of 7,500 deputies

elected between 1960 and 1985, only 12 have been recalled, mainly for serious personal failings.

Control Organs

The term control {kontroV) referred to a system of government and

public monitoring of every sphere of production, trade, and administration. Through the government's control organs, the party

358
Government Structure and Functions

ensured that the government and society functioned in compliance

with the interests of socialism. The Supreme Soviet nominally

formed and directed the three kinds of control organs: the court system, the Procuracy, and the Committee of People's Control.

These control organs administered a system of law that derived

from the Russian Empire, whose system of law was in turn based on Roman law.

Court System

Article 151 of the Constitution and the Law on the Supreme

Court specified the composition of the Supreme Court but assigned

it few duties and little power. The Supreme Court lacked the

authority to determine the constitutionality of legislation, to strike down laws, or to interpret the law. Unlike the United States Supreme Court, the Soviet court did not have the power to establish norms of law. The Supreme Court and the lower courts only

applied legal principles established by the Constitution or interpreted by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

The Supreme Court was at the apex of a pyramid of lower courts. Cases came to the Supreme Court on appeal from these lower

courts. The lowest-level court, called the people's court (see Glossary), was presided over by a professional, elected judge and two

people's assessors (lay judges) who were also elected. Provincial

Soviets and republic supreme Soviets elected judges between the

district level and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court also has

created a separate series of military tribunals. The Supreme Soviet

supervised the application of the law in all these courts to ensure uniform standards.

Procuracy

The Procuracy (Prokuratura) functioned like a cross between

a police investigative bureau and a public prosecutor's office. It investigated crimes, brought criminals to trial, and prosecuted them.

The Procuracy also supervised courts and penal facilities within

its jurisdiction (see The Procuracy, ch. 19).

The Supreme Soviet appointed the procurator general of the

Soviet Union for a five-year term. Like other leading positions in

the Soviet government, the position of the procurator general was

on the nomenklatura of the central party apparatus. In turn, the procurator general appointed each officer of the Procuracy, known as a procurator (see Glossary), who served at the republic, provincial, district, or city level. Procurators at all levels theoretically an- swered to the Supreme Soviet for their actions. Moreover, they

derived authority from the procurator general and thus exercised

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

their authority independent of any regional or local government

body.

The Procuracy, as well as the Supreme Court, ensured the strict and uniform observance of law by all government bodies, enterprises (see Glossary), and public institutions. The Procuracy also reviewed all court decisions in both civil and criminal cases. A

procurator could appeal decisions considered flawed to higher

courts. The Procuracy was therefore responsible for ensuring the

uniform application of law in the courts. The Procuracy supervised investigations conducted by other

government agencies. A procurator could file protests in the court system when evidence indicated an agency acted illegally. In the- ory, these rights of supervision extended to the KGB and other

security agencies. In practice, however, the KGB often operated

outside the law.

Committees of People's Control

The 1979 Law on People's Control established the committees

of people's control in each republic under the supervision of the

central Committee of People's Control. These committees had the

authority to audit government and economic administration

records. Officials found guilty of illegalities could be publicly rep- rimanded, fined for damages, or referred to the procurator for prose- cution. In the late 1980s, the committees of people's control had

been an invaluable instrument in Gorbachev's efforts at reform

and restructuring.

The committees of people's control extended throughout the

Soviet Union. In 1989, of the more than 10 million citizens who

served on these organs, 95 percent were volunteers. General meetings of work collectives at every enterprise and office elected the

committees for tenures of two and one-half years. The chairman

of the Committee of People's Control and a professional staff served

for five years. The chairman sat on the Council of Ministers (see

Administrative Organs, this ch.).

Law

Lacking a common-law tradition, Soviet law did not provide for an adversary system in which the plaintiff and the defendant ar- gued before a neutral judge. Court proceedings included a judge,

two people's assessors, a procurator, and a defense attorney and

provided for free participation by the judge in the trial. The same

courts heard both civil and criminal cases. Although most cases were open to the public, closed hearings were legal if the government deemed it necessary. Judges kept legal technicalities to a

360
Government Structure and Functions

minimum because the court's stated purpose was to find the truth

of a case rather than to protect legal rights.

Other aspects of Soviet law more closely resembled the AngloSaxon system. In theory, all citizens were equal before the law.

Defendants could appeal convictions to higher courts if they believed the sentence was too harsh. Yet, the procurator could also

appeal if the sentence was considered too lenient. The law also

guaranteed defendants legal representation and the right to trial in their native language or to the use of an interpreter.

Territorial Administration

The central government in Moscow and the governments of the

fifteen republics—consisting of fourteen soviet socialist republics

(SSR—see Glossary) and the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist

Republic—were joined in a theoretically voluntary union. The

republic constitutions and the Soviet Constitution established the

rules of the federal system.

The Constitution specified the relationship of the central government to the republics. Article 73 of the Constitution limited the

central government to the administration of matters requiring central leadership of the country as a whole: national and internal security and the economy. In entering the union, the republics ceded

these responsibilities to the central government bodies.

The governmental system below the central level appeared complicated because it was organized according to the two often

contradictory principles of geography and nationality. The administrative subdivisions of a republic, oblast (roughly equivalent to a

province), and raion (district) were based primarily on geography.

The larger republics, such as the Russian and Ukrainian republics, were divided into oblasts. But smaller republics (the Latvian,

Lithuanian, Estonian, Armenian, and Moldavian republics) did

not have an oblast administration between the republic and the

district levels. In addition, six large, thinly populated regions in

the Russian Republic have been designated by the term krai. A

krai could contain an autonomous oblast or an autonomous okrug

inhabited by a national minority. About 300 large cities and approximately 3,000 rural and urban districts {raiony) made up the

next lowest government level. In turn, the large cities were divided into urban districts, or gorodskie raiony. Approximately 40,000

village centers made up the rural districts. The Russian Republic and some of the other republics also contained administrative subdivisions with boundaries drawn according

to nationality or language. The three kinds of such subdivisions

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

included twenty autonomous republics, eight autonomous oblasts,

and ten autonomous okruga.

Republic Level

In theory, the fifteen republics entered into a free and voluntary union of sovereign states when they joined the Soviet Union.

The Constitution granted the republics the right to secede; nonetheless, as of 1988 the republics had exercised very little sovereignty. In 1989, however, the Lithuanian, Estonian, Moldavian, and several other republics sought greater national autonomy (see Manifestations of National Assertiveness, ch. 4).

Legal Status

Long-standing practice has established three nonconstitutional

requirements for republic status. First, as stated by Stalin in su- pervising the writing of the 1936 constitution, the republics had

to border on territory outside the Soviet Union, enabling them to exercise their theoretical right to secede. All republics met this re- quirement. Second, the national minority that gave its name to the republic was supposed to make up a majority of its population

and to number more than 1 million people. In 1989 the Kazakhs,

however, did not constitute a majority of the Kazakh Republic's

population, constituting about 40 percent of the republic's population of 16.5 million people. Third, republics were supposed to have the potential to be economically viable states, should they se- cede from the union.

Over the course of Soviet history, the Supreme Soviet has created

new union republics within the territory of the Soviet Union. In

1922 the Soviet Union comprised four republics: the Russian Soviet

Federated Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian Republic, the Belorussian Republic, and the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist

Republic. The Soviet government elevated Turkmenia (also known

as Turkmenistan) and Uzbekistan to republic status in 1924, and

Tadzhikistan split from the Uzbek Republic in 1929 to form a

separate republic. Kazakhstan and Kirgizia became republics in

1936. (Turkmenia, Uzbekistan, Kirgizia, and Kazakhstan had been

part of the Russian Republic.) In 1936 the Transcaucasian Soviet

Federated Socialist Republic split into the Armenian, Azerbaydzhan, and Georgian republics.

As the Soviet Union gained territory, the Supreme Soviet created

new republics. Territory taken from Finland was joined in March

1940 with the Karelian Autonomous Republic to form the KareloFinnish Republic. (In 1956 this republic, which had never had a majority of the nationality whose name it bore, was demoted to

362
Building housing the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian Republic, Tallin. The flag on the adjacent tower is the national

flag of Estonia.

Courtesy Jonathan Tetzlajf

the status of an autonomous republic and was renamed the Karelian

Autonomous Republic.) Moreover, in 1940 Lithuania, Latvia, and

Estonia were incorporated into the Soviet Union as republics. Fi- nally, in 1940 Bessarabia, taken from Romania, was joined with

the Romanian-speaking portion of the Moldavian Autonomous

Republic in the Ukrainian Republic to form the Moldavian Soviet

Socialist Republic.

Government

The union republics and the autonomous republics shared the same basic principles of government. As in the central government,

in theory the republic congresses of people's deputies exercised

authority. In practice, the congresses delegated their power to the

presidiums of their supreme Soviets and to the republic councils

of ministers, and the first secretary of the republic party organization set policy for the republic as a whole (see Republic Party Organization, ch. 7). Between supreme soviet sessions, the presidium

and its chairman exercised the legislative powers of the republic.

By custom, the chairman was a member of the republic's dominant

nationality, a practice that highlighted the theoretical sovereignty

of the republics and the influence of their dominant nationality on

policy making.

The council of ministers administered the government of the

republic. The chairman of the council headed the republic but

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

deferred in all matters to the first secretary of the republic's party

organization. The council of ministers included union-republic

ministries and republic ministries (see Administrative Organs, this ch.). The latter, which had no counterpart in the central government, administered local public services and light industry. Both

kinds of ministries functioned under dual subordination: they were

responsible to the central party organization and government and

to the republic's party organization and government.

Provincial and District Levels

Below the union-republic level of territorial administration, subdivisions were complex, varied with each republic, and included

the following categories: autonomous oblast, autonomous okrug,

autonomous republic, hrai, oblast, and raion. Only the Russian

Republic had all categories of subdivision. Western specialists often

termed the administrations of the autonomous subdivisions, hraia,

and oblasts generically as provincial and that of the raion as district. Provincial and district governments shared the same structure. For example, oblast and district Soviets—single chambers

elected for two and one-half years—exercised all legislative authority. These Soviets met up to four times a year for one-day sessions.

Between sessions, each soviet delegated its authority to an executive committee (ispolniteVnyi homitet—ispolkom), which combined the

functions of a council of ministers and a presidium. Ispolkom chairmen were the chief executives in the oblast and in the district. These

officials normally sat on the party bureaus at these respective hierarchical levels (see Oblast-Level Organization; District- and CityLevel Organization, ch. 7). The ispolkom lacked decision-making authority. Although members of the ispolkom headed departments that managed oblast and

district services such as education, health, and culture, the central

government controlled the more important tasks of the administration of justice, the budget, and economic planning and heavy

industry. In addition, a substantial number of other social services were controlled by industrial enterprises and were thus beyond the

control of local governments. Finally, the party first secretaries ex- ercised power at both the oblast and the district levels. These offi- cials, not the ispolkom chairmen, were obliged to answer to the party

for the economic performance of their domain of authority.

The approximately 52,500 Soviets at the provincial and urban

and rural district levels had little power. These Soviets, however, were important as vehicles for large-scale citizen participation in

the government. The size of these Soviets ranged from 200 deputies

in rural areas to more than 1,000 in large cities. Thus, more than

364
Government Structure and Functions

2.3 million people served on local Soviets at any one time, and,

given the high turnover rate, more than 5 million citizens served on the local Soviets each decade.

Although sessions of the full Soviets at the provincial and district levels were strictly ceremonial, their commissions had some

influence. The constituencies of these commissions were small,

enabling them to respond to the needs of the people. Practical expertise often determined assignment to these commissions. For ex- ample, a teacher could serve on an education commission. Deputies

served as channels for criticism and suggestions from constituents,

and the deputies' expertise could qualify them as problem solvers on issues that confronted the commission.

Elections

In theory, citizens selected the candidates for election to local

Soviets. In practice, at least before the June 1987 elections, these

candidates had been selected by local CPSU, Komsomol, and trade

union officials under the guidance of the district (raiori) party or- ganization. Elections took place after six weeks of campaigning,

and the candidates, always unopposed until 1987, had usually

received more than 99 percent of the vote. Despite the party's historic control over local elections—from

the nomination of candidates to their unopposed elections—the

citizens used the elections to make public their concerns. They sometimes used the furnished paper ballots to write requests for particular public services. For example, the 1985 elections to an Omsk

soviet included instructions to move the airfield farther from the

city center, construct a new music center, and build parking facilities for invalids. Subsequently, the Omsk soviet took steps to provide these services, all of which had the approval of the relevant

party authorities. Thus, citizen demands that coincided with the

interests of the party apparatus have been met through election

mandates.

In June 1987, under Moscow's guidance, multicandidate local elections took place experimentally in less than 5 percent of the

districts. Presented with a paper ballot listing more candidates than

positions, voters indicated their choices by crossing off enough names so that the number of candidates matched the number of

positions. Although generally opposed by local administrators, who

could no longer assume automatic election, this reform found strong

support among the general public. In early 1989, steps to limit the

power of official organizations over the nominating process also came under discussion.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Nevertheless, the outcome of efforts to democratize the local elec- tion process remained far from certain in 1989. On the one hand,

public anger over the autocratic and sometimes arbitrary styles of

local leaders, their perceived incompetence, and their inability to provide needed goods and services forced some reforms. On the

other hand, opposition by government and party bureaucrats, combined with the lack of a political culture—that is, experience in

self-government—obstructed and diluted reforms of the government's structure and functions, as advocated by Gorbachev in the

late 1980s.

* * *

Several general works on Soviet politics contain much useful in- formation on the government. Among these works are Darrell P. Hammer's The USSR: The Politics of Oligarchy and Jerry F. Hough

and Merle Fainsod's How the Soviet Union Is Governed. Hough and

Fainsod devote special attention to the relationship between the

party and the government. Vadim Medish's The Soviet Union is a good reference work on the terminology of government. Other

works contain more specialized information. Julian Towster's Political Power in the USSR provides material on the first three Soviet

constitutions. Boris Toporin's The New Constitution of the USSR is widely viewed as one of the best English-language books available on the 1977 Constitution. Lev Tolkunov's How the Supreme Soviet Functions covers the legislature, as well as other organs of the central government, from a Soviet perspective. Everett M. Jacobs 's Soviet Local Government and Politics is an invaluable source for this

little- studied aspect of Soviet government. (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

366
Chapter 9. Mass Media and the Arts
Images from the media and the arts: ballet, television broadcasting, and the press
SINCE THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION of 1917, the leadership of the Soviet Union has used the mass media and the arts to

assist in its efforts at changing and regulating society. To propagate

values encouraging the construction and stabilization of the new

regime, Vladimir I. Lenin, the Bolshevik (see Glossary) leader,

centralized political control over the mass media and the primary

forms of artistic expression. He drew upon nineteenth-century Russian radical views that advocated politicizing literature and challenging tsarist government policy through artistic protest. Lenin's

successors manipulated the mass media and the arts in ways that

preserved and strengthened the regime and the party's supremacy.

Leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)

believed that strict control over mass media and the arts was essential for governing the country. ''Socialist realism" —an aesthetic

formula calling for the portrayal of Soviet society in a positive light to inspire its constant improvement along the lines of MarxistLeninist ideology—was implemented underJoseph V. Stalin. The

regime required the media, literature, and the arts to adhere to

this formula. A vast bureaucracy, which included party and government censorship organs and official political, military, economic,

and social unions and associations, together with self-censorship

by writers and artists, ensured a thorough and systematic review

of all information reaching the public. Under the leadership of

general secretary of the CPSU Mikhail S. Gorbachev, however,

Soviet mass media and the arts in the late 1980s were experiencing a loosening of the controls governing the dissemination of in- formation. Nevertheless, the principle of party and government

control over newspapers, journals, radio, television, and literature,

which helped to ensure the regime's stability, remained firmly

intact. The technological revolution in the 1970s and 1980s, however,

hindered rather than helped the regime's control of mass media and

the arts. New technology disrupted party and government domination of mass media and the arts and enabled the population to gain

greater access to unsanctioned, globally available information. But

the regime needed to employ the same technological advances to maintain its influence and power. The mass media linked the leader- ship to the population, and the socialist (see Glossary) system re- quired politicized media to endure. The regime's attempt to use this new technology while regulating the global flow of information

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

to Soviet citizens presented one of the most difficult challenges to the leadership, particularly in light of Gorbachev's campaigns for public discussion, democratization, and societal restructuring.

In the late 1980s, newspapers, journals, magazines, radio, tele- vision, films, literature, and music espoused poignant, sensitive,

and often painful themes that had previously been taboo. The party

deemed greater tolerance for criticism of the regime essential in

order to placate the intelligentsia and encourage it to support ef- forts for change. Indeed, the censors eased their restrictions to the

point where, in the late 1980s, penetrating historical analyses crit- ical of previous Soviet leaders (including Lenin) and stories about

the rehabilitation (see Glossary) of banned writers and artists filled the pages of newspapers, magazines, and journals. Previously

proscribed information also appeared in television and radio broadcasts and in film and stage performances. Relaxation of restric- tions was also apparent in classical music, jazz, rock and roll, and

the plastic arts. Politicization of the Mass Media and the Arts

The CPSU used the mass media and the arts to enhance its control over society. The justification for such controls was developed

by nineteenth-century Russian revolutionary writers who sought

to transform Russia through the politicization of literature. Liter- ature and literary criticism were to provide means to challenge tsarist authority and awaken the political consciousness of the population.

Specifically, radical writers and artists used "critical realism" (the

critical assessment of society) in literature, theater, music, and other

forms of creative expression to denounce the authoritarian system.

Later, the early Soviet government integrated "critical realism"

into its policies to serve as a foundation for the politicization of

the media and literary worlds in the early Soviet government.

When Lenin and the other Bolshevik leaders governed the country, however, they employed the concept of critical realism to exercise political control over culture rather than to inspire writers

and artists to question Bolshevik rule. In its early years, the government established political guidelines for media and the arts. In the

late 1920s, the regime determined that its enforcement of strin- gent publication criteria would be executed by an organization

formed by the government. The regime chose to use literature as

its model for politicization of the media and the arts and in 1932

formed the Union of Writers to enforce the doctrine of socialist realism over all writing. All modes of creative thought and artistic expression required approval by the regime's authoritative bodies, rigidly structured after the Union of Writers, for every kind of

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Mass Media and the Arts

mass media and form of art. Under Stalin's leadership, socialist realism dictated the content and form to which writers and artists had to adhere. Since Stalin's death in 1953, successive regimes had

relaxed the restrictions of socialist realism. In the period after Leonid

I. Brezhnev, hitherto prohibited articles and literary works passed

CPSU regulations. In the late 1980s, socialist realism was more

liberally interpreted; it still, however, retained the basic tenets in- stituted by the Bolshevik leadership.

Leninist Principles

Calls for the politicization of literature and art appeared in the

works of several radical nineteenth-century Russian thinkers. The

literary critic Vissarion Belinskii (1811-48) called upon literary

figures to channel their creative energies toward changing the so- ciopolitical environment. He believed that writers could influence

the masses by challenging the status quo through their works. Eventually, his philosophy of criticism galvanized other writers and other

artists. Several of his disciples continued to advocate Belinskii'

s

message after he died. Like Belinskii, both the journalist and author

Nikolai Chernyshevskii (1828-89) and one of his followers, Nikolai

Dobroliubov (1836-61), a literary critic, argued that progress could

be achieved only if the individual human being were liberated and

could espouse his or her own beliefs without feudal oppression. Both

Chernyshevskii and Dobroliubov motivated writers and artists to contribute to this progress by criticizing society and presenting ex- amples of human liberation in their works.

Following these radical ideas, the Bolsheviks, too, rejected the

notion of art for art's sake. Like the nineteenth-century radical theorists, the Bolsheviks held that media and the arts were to serve

political objectives. Unlike the critical realists, however, who called for protests against social injustice, the Bolsheviks used media and

the arts to mobilize the population in support of the new sociopolitical system.

One of the initial means for controlling the population through

the politicization of the media entailed closing newspapers deemed

anti-Bolshevik. On November 9, 1917, the new Bolshevik regime

declared in the Decree of the Press that all nonsocialist newspapers

would be closed because they endangered the newly formed government. In the November 10, 1917, issue of Pravda—the newspaper

of the Bolshevik Central Committee and the main voice of the new

regime—the Bolshevik leadership stated that "the press is one of

the strongest weapons in the hands of the bourgeoisie" and added

that, given its capacity to incite rebellion among workers and peasants by distorting reality, the press ought to be strictly controlled.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

On January 28, 1918, the Bolshevik leadership decreed that

"revolutionary tribunals" would be used to prevent the bourgeois

press from spreading "crimes and misdemeanors against the people." On April 5, 1918, Bolshevik censors instituted further controls by mandating that "decrees and ordinances of the organs of

the Soviet power" had to be included in all newspapers. By the

early 1920s, all non-Bolshevik newspapers had been outlawed, thus

giving full control to the regime. Such controls continued in the

late 1980s.

Socialist Realism

Similar principles of party control applied to the arts. During

the early years of Bolshevik rule, the party leadership sought to enforce strict guidelines to ensure that literature conformed to Bolshevik policies and that dissent was stifled. With the implementation of the First Five-Year Plan in 1928, political controls over

cultural activity increased. By 1932 the party and the government

had decreed that all writing groups and associations were under

the control of the Union of Writers. In the early 1930s, socialist realism became the official aesthetic doctrine prescribed for artists (see Mobilization of Society, ch. 2). According to this formula, artists, composers, architects, and sculptors had to define history in a realistic and truthful light based on its revolutionary evolution.

Socialist realism demanded portrayal of society as if it had already

been perfected according to Marxist-Leninist ideology. Under Stalin's leadership, writers served as the "engineers of human souls"

and produced novels, short stories, articles, editorials, critiques,

and satires within a restrictive framework in which they strove to glorify Soviet society and socialism.

Throughout Stalin's rule, socialist realism confined the arts to ex- pressing a narrowly controlled party line, but when Nikita S. Khrushchev came to power in 1955, some guidelines were loosened. The

short literary "thaw" in the late 1950s allowed artists more free- dom and creativity. This literary thaw lasted only a few years, and

with Khrushchev's ouster in 1964, artistic freedom suffered setbacks. Further controls prevented artists from expressing themselves outside the boundaries of socialist realism. Artists were imprisoned if they protested the party line. Brezhnev's death in November 1982, however, initiated a very

slow but gradual change in the Soviet mass media and the arts. Under the successive leadership of Iurii V. Andropov and Konstantin U. Chernenko, society experienced further loosening of

party strictures on the media and the arts, albeit mostly during

Andropov's rule. After Gorbachev assumed power in 1985, the

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Mass Media and the Arts

system witnessed significant liberalization. Topics previously

proscribed were discussed and analyzed by all the mass media, and

the government allowed publication of previously banned materials. The regime, however, still maintained ultimate control over

the ways of evaluating the state, criticizing the past, and transforming the system. Mass media and cultural events enhanced the image of a "new face" and "new tliinking'' in society. The persistence

of an elaborate administrative censorship system, however, demonstrated that the leadership continued to hold sway over the information revealed publicly.

Administration of the Mass Media and the Arts

As of 1987, several party and government organizations exert- ed control over the media and the arts. Censorship extended from

the central party departments and government ministries to their

republic and regional counterparts. The CPSU Central Committee Secretariat contained various departments and committees that

supervised distinct sectors in the media and the arts (see Secretariat, ch. 7). A government organization, the Main Administration

for Safeguarding State Secrets in the Press (Glavnoe upravlenie

po okhrane gosudarstvennykh tain v pechati—Glavlit; see Glossary), had to sanction any work published in more than nine

copies. Government ministries responsible for large cultural insti- tutions as well as state committees also concerned themselves with

the regulation of state information (see Administrative Organs,

ch. 8). The government news organs—the Telegraph Agency of

the Soviet Union (Telegrafnoe agentstvo Sovetskogo Soiuza

TASS) and the News Press Agency (Agentstvo pechati novosti

Novosti)—limited information disseminated to domestic and foreign

newspaper wire services. Ultimately, government institutions in- volved in censorship responded to CPSU directives. The party

ensured that only approved information appeared publicly. Underground materials existed, but the Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—KGB) and the Ministry

of Internal Affairs actively opposed the dissemination of any unsanctioned material. The party, government organizations, and

security organs combined with the other official censorship controls to guarantee party domination over the mass media and the

arts. The Party Role

In the late 1980s, the secretary for ideology and the Central Committee's Ideological Department functioned mainly to mold popular

opinion. The former not only regulated the media but also issued

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

directives to republic and provincial (oblast, kraia—see Glossary,

and autonomous division) leaders to administer the mass media

and the arts through the various "letters" departments (the media control organs that oversee "letters to the editor" offices), the

International Information Department (foreign affairs information

overseer), and the Culture Department. Parallel departments dealing with ideology and propaganda operated at lower party levels throughout the country to centralize control over local publications

(see Intermediate-Level Party Organizations, ch. 7). Both the central and the local ideology and propaganda departments supervised

culture, education, and science. In addition, as part of the party's

nomenklatura (see Glossary) authority, party leaders at all levels select- ed editors of newspapers, magazines, and journals within their domains (see Nomenklatura, ch. 7). According to Soviet emigres

surveyed in a 1982 Rand study, "The Media and Intra-Elite Communication in the USSR," the Propaganda Department (which was absorbed by the Ideological Department in 1988) wielded great

power in selections of editors for the central press organs and publishing houses. In many instances, these high positions were filled by party members who had previously worked in some section of a propaganda department, whether at the all-union (see Glossary) or at the local level. The Government Role

In the late 1980s, censorship authority was exercised by Glavlit, which employed some 70,000 censors to review information before it was disseminated by publishing houses, editorial offices, and

broadcasting studios. Government censorship organs attended to

all levels, in the forms of territorial, provincial, municipal, and district organs. No mass medium escaped Glavlit's control. All press agencies and radio and television stations had a Glavlit representative on their editorial staffs. Although Glavlit was attached to the

Council of Ministers, many emigres asserted that Glavlit answered

not only to the Propaganda Department but also to the KGB.

Although the Ideological Department regulated ideological and

political censorship, the KGB handled classified information and,

by extension, controlled Glavlit's "administrative and staffing"

responsibilities. Many Glavlit censors were former KGB members.

The KGB and Glavlit worked together to implement a compendium of regulations contained in the Censor's Index, which contained

classified information on "state secrets" that could not be revealed

in the media. Apparently, the index contained between 300 and

1,000 pages, with periodically updated lists of military, technical,

economic, statistical, and other data on various people and issues

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Mass Media and the Arts

forbidden for dissemination. As a result, editors and writers rarely touched on proscribed material. If they published any unsanctioned information, the censors either instituted harsher publication

restrictions or fired those who broke the rules. The government also regulated information through the central

and republic ministries of culture and similar all-union state committees and specialized state censors. The ministries of culture

helped coordinate centralized censorship for Glavlit as well as exe- cute other literary controls. Three distinct state committees implemented censorship policies throughout the country: the State Committee for Publishing Houses, Printing Plants, and the Book

Trade (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po delam izdatel'stv, poligrafii,

i knizhnoi torgovli—Goskomizdat); the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po

televideniyu i radioveshchaniyu—Gostelradio); and the State Committee for Cinematography (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po kinematografii—Goskino). Furthermore, the dissemination of books on cultural, political, military, scientific, technical, economic, and

social issues fell under the purview of separate government printing houses. These individual printing houses oversaw the numerical distributions of all titles, and they limited access to certain books

deemed to be related to state security, even if the information was

unclassified. The publishing houses also regulated the number of

copies of foreign titles published internally and Soviet titles published for distribution abroad.

The government censorship hierarchy not only maintained

comprehensive controls over information distributed by the news

services worldwide but the official news organs—TASS and

Novosti—regulated all news wire service information to ensure government control of information disseminated to the public. In

1988 TASS employed about 65,000 professional correspondents

and journalists. Because TASS operated an extensive number of news agencies around the world, in the late 1980s its 2.5 million

lines reached more than 20,000 subscribers daily. From 20 to 25

percent of its subscribers were media organizations that depended

almost entirely on TASS for foreign and domestic reporting. Consequently, TASS officials, who were located in every republic's capital and in nearly all provincial cities, serviced many newspapers, some of which allotted nearly 50 percent of their news space to TASS-relayed information.

Created in 1961, Novosti supplemented TASS. Serving as the

conduit for information that TASS could not accommodate, Novosti

focused mainly on foreign reporting. By assuming responsibilities

for feature stories, commentary, interviews, and other articles

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

featuring the best side of Soviet society, Novosti attempted to provide its domestic and foreign readership with human interest sto- ries in ways TASS could not. Novosti' s correspondents annually

transmitted almost 50,000 articles. Together, TASS and Novosti

served as the primary means for distributing Soviet viewpoints

around the world.

Procedures for censorship of military and scientific information

differed from those followed for other kinds of information. Before information relating to any aspect of the Soviet military was

disseminated through the media, the material first had to have been

approved by the military censor and then by Glavlit. This complex censorship process began with the first-level editor in Moscow,

who censored the article and sent a letter detailing the author's background and sources used to a military censor. Once it reached the

military censorship authorities of the General Staff, the material

had to be sanctioned again before it reached the penultimate

stage—review by the political-military and KGB editors. Whether

the information was regional or all-union in scope, the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy and the military

directorate of the KGB reportedly advised, if not instructed, the

military censors, despite the military censors' official obligations

to the General Staff. Once these military officers had read and approved the article, it went to the Glavlit censors for publication.

If the military officers had any hesitation about a piece, they had

the authority to request that the editor discuss with them any aspect

of the article under question. Soviet sources also have revealed that once the Glavlit censors received the edited piece from the military officers, they never questioned the revisions and routinely dis- tributed the article to the appropriate media.

Similar procedures applied to science censors within the Academy of Sciences (see Glossary), who targeted material related to ' 'na- tional defense" in the areas of science and technology. Censors

specializing in various scientific disciplines concentrated on stripping any material that could be construed to reveal the regime's

national security policies. For example, publications and broadcasts related to outer space events were examined by the Commission on Research and Exploitation of Cosmic Space, associated with

the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences.

Other censors concentrated on such topics as radio electronics,

chemistry, geology, and computer science. The atomic energy censors, located at the State Committee for the Utilization of Atomic

Energy, oversaw materials concentrating on nuclear energy, even

those that focused on science fiction. After approval by the specialized censors, the works were referred to Glavlit.

376
Man posting a copy of

Pravda, the CPSU newspaper,

at a sidewalk display in Odessa, Ukrainian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

The Mass Media

The mass media acted as an instrument of the CPSU, not only

to control society but also to mobilize it. Lenin and the Bolshevik

leadership depended on the media to win support for the new re- gime. Indeed, without important communications links from the

party to the people, the Bolsheviks' message would never have been

broadly disseminated. During the early years, the leadership sought

to galvanize the population by spreading the party line and encour- aging the population to build a strong communist society, exhorting it through editorials, commentaries, and tributes in newspapers,

journals, and radio. Over time, television, films, and computers be- came essential components of the CPSU's agitprop (see Glossary)

efforts, as well as of its campaigns to spread Marxist-Leninist values

among the people. The technological information revolution forced

the party to reevaluate its efforts to control the masses because

advances in technology also created the potential for communications links outside regime control. For example, with the spread of

video cassette recorders (VCRs) in the late 1980s, the party leadership faced the problems created by the underground circulation of

video tapes, in addition to the circulation of illegal periodicals.

Newspapers

In 1988 the regime published more than 8,000 daily newspapers

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

in approximately sixty languages, with a combined circulation of

about 170 million. Every all-union newspaper was circulated in

its Russian-language version. Nearly 3,000 newspapers, however,

reached the population in non-Russian languages. Minoritylanguage newspapers constituted roughly 25 percent of the total circulation, although non-Russians made up almost 50 percent of

the population (see Nationalities of the Soviet Union, ch. 4).

All newspaper reporters and editors belonged to the partycontrolled Union ofJournalists, composed of nearly 74,000 members. In 1988 some 80 percent of the union's reporters and editors were party members. Inevitably, assignments of editors had to be

approved by the party. In the late 1980s, all the central editors in

chief of major all-union newspapers belonged to the CPSU Central Committee. The party also sought to control journalists by combining higher education and higher party schools with schools of

journalism (see Training, ch. 7). Reporters and editors thus were

trained under the aegis of the professional party elite. For newspaper

journalists and television and radio reporters, newspaper photographers, and literary editors, Moscow University's School of

Journalism provided a main conduit to party positions concerned

with the media. In the 1980s, some 2,500 graduate, undergraduate, evening school, and correspondence students annually graduated from the School of Journalism. Students were taught party

strictures within the following eight departments: theory and practice of the party-Soviet press, history of the party-Soviet press, television and radio broadcasting, movie-making and editorialpublishing work, foreign press and literature, Russian journalism

and literature, stylistics of the Russian language, and techniques

of newspaper work and information media. By the late 1980s,

Moscow University's School ofJournalism had graduated approximately 100,000 journalists.

Party members supposedly read the all-union newspapers differ- ently from their nonparty counterparts. Trained to scan certain

sections of the paper, party members read with an eye toward in- struction and guidance. In contrast to nonparty members, the loyal

party elite apparently first read any article or editorial related to ideology, the Party Rules (see Glossary), or instructions. By contrast, most nonparty members reportedly read the international news first, followed by sports, science and culture, and economic

events before they turned to political or ideological articles, if they

read articles on these subjects at all. In the late 1980s, newspapers gradually developed new formats

and new issues. Under Andropov, Pravda began to print short

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Mass Media and the Arts

reports of weekly Politburo meetings. Eventually, other major

newspapers published accounts of these meetings as well. Under Gorbachev, Politburo reports expanded to provide more

details on the leadership's thinking about domestic and foreign affairs. Before Gorbachev's assumption of power, Western sources had identified a partial list of proscribed topics, which included

crime, drugs, accidents, natural disasters, occupational injuries,

official organs of censorship, security, intelligence, schedules of travel for the political leadership, arms sales abroad, crime or morale

problems in the armed forces, hostile actions against Soviet citizens

abroad, and special payments and education for athletes. After 1985

Gorbachev's policy of glasnost' (see Glossary) gave editors a freer

hand to publish information on many of these subjects.

In the 1980s, regional newspapers differed in several ways from

all-union newspapers. The distribution of regional newspapers

varied from circulation at the republic level to circulation in a province, city, or district. The party allowed many regional

newspapers to print most of their issues in the region's native language, which reflected the Stalinist policy of "national in form,

socialist in content." Local newspaper circulation remained res- tricted to a region. These publications often focused on such is- sues as local heroes who contributed to the good of the community

or significant problems (as expressed in letters to the editor) relat- ing to crime or natural disasters. By contrast, after Gorbachev came

to power, most all-union newspapers began to report on societal

shortcomings. However, in the late 1980s regional papers continued

to contain more personal advertisements and local merchant notices than the all-union newspapers, if the latter carried any at all. Originally, Lenin argued that v criticism should be channeled

through letters to the editor and would assist in cleansing society

of its problems. He believed that public discussion would facilitate the elimination of shortcomings and that open expression of

problems would create a significant feedback mechanism for the

leadership and for the country as a whole. Lenin's ideas in this regard were not carried out by Stalin and Khrushchev, who apparently believed the party needed no assistance from the people

in identifying problems. But in 1981, Brezhnev created the Central Committee Letters Department, and later Andropov called for more letters to editors to expose corruption and mismanagement.

Chernenko advocated that greater "media efficacy" be instituted so that newspapers, for example, would carry more in-depth and

current analyses on pressing issues. Gorbachev expanded the flexibility allowed by giving newspapers leeway in publishing letters

critical of society and even critical of the government.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Newspaper letters departments usually employed large staffs and

handled extremely high volumes of letters daily. Not all letters were

published because they often dealt with censored subjects or their

numbers simply posed too great a burden for any one newspaper

to handle. The letters departments, however, reportedly took their

work very seriously and in the late 1980s were used by the press

to encourage the population to improve society. Letters to editors on a great number of previously forbidden topics

also elicited responses from the population that could be manipulated by the Soviet newspapers to influence public opinion in the

desired direction. Because party members made up the majority

of active newspaper readers, according to polls conducted in the

Soviet Union, they wrote most of the letters to the editor. Thus,

their perspectives probably colored the newspapers' letters sections. Of all the newspapers, Pravda (Truth), an organ of the CPSU

Central Committee, was the most authoritative and, therefore, the

most important. Frequently, it was the bellwether for important

events, and readers often followed its news leads to detect changes

in policies. With about 12 million copies circulated every day to over 20 million citizens, Pravda focused on party events and domestic

and foreign news. Other newspapers, however, also commanded wide circulation.

Izvestiia (News), the second most authoritative paper, emanated

from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and in the late 1980s

circulated to between 8 and 10 million people daily. Izvestiia also contained official government information and general news and

an expanded Sunday section composed of news analysis, feature

stories, poetry, and cartoons. Trud (Labor), issued by the Soviet

labor unions, circulated six days a week, reaching 8 to 9 million

people. It emphasized labor and economic analyses and included

other official decrees. Komsomol 'skaia pravda (Komsomol Truth),

published by the Komsomol (see Glossary), was distributed to between 9 and 10 million people. Krasnaia zvezda (Red Star), published by the Ministry of Defense, covered most daily military news and events and published military human interest stories and exposes. The literary bimonthly Literaturnaia gazeta (Literary Gazette)

disseminated the views of the Union of Writers and contained

authoritative statements and perspectives concerning literature,

plays, cinema, and literary issues of popular interest. A publication of the Central Committee, Sovetskaia Rossiia (Soviet Russia), was the Russian Republic's most widely distributed newspaper,

with a circulation of nearly 12 million. A weekly regional newspaper,

Moskovskie novosti (Moscow News), appeared in both Russian and

English editions and reported on domestic and international events.

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Mass Media and the Arts

It became very popular during the late 1980s, both in the Soviet

Union and abroad. The weekly newspaper Za rubezhom (Abroad)

devoted its pages exclusively to international affairs and foreign

events. Finally, Sotsialisticheskaia industriia (Socialist Industry), a daily

newspaper, concentrated on industrial and economic events, statistics, and human interest stories. Magazines and Journals

In the late 1980s, weekly, monthly, and quarterly magazines and

journals numbered almost 5,500 and had a circulation nearly equal

to that of the daily newspapers. The same CPSU regulations and

guidelines that applied to newspapers extended to magazines and

journals. In the mid-1980s, under the regime's less-restrictive censorship policy, both magazines and journals published articles and

stories to fill in historical "blank spots." These articles included

works of past and contemporary authors once banned and new

works that challenged the limits imposed on literary society by previ- ous leaders. Assessments and criticisms of past leaderships exposed

many historical atrocities, particularly those committed under

Stalin. As a result, in the late 1980s the number of subscribers to periodicals climbed considerably, and magazines and journals fre- quently sold out at kiosks within minutes.

In the late 1980s, these magazines and journals created rever- berations throughout society with their publication of controversial articles. Krokodil (Crocodile), one of the most popular magazines

with a circulation of approximately 6 million, contained humor and

satire and featured excellent artistic political cartoons and ideological

messages. In 1987 Krokodil published a short excerpt from In Search ofMelancholy Baby by Vasilii Aksionov, an emigre writer and poet

living in the United States. The piece portrayed Moscow intellectuals' fascination with American fads during the 1950s and prompted many letters to the editor that both praised and criticized the

excerpt. Nedelia (Week), another magazine, supplemented Izvestiia and appeared every Sunday, having a circulation of some 9

to 10 million.

Such journals as Ogonek (Little Fire), a weekly that became more

popular in the late 1980s because of its insightful political exposes,

human interest stories, serialized features, and pictorial sections,

had an audience of over 2 million people. In 1986 it published ex- cerpted works by the previously banned writer Nikolai S. Gumilev,

who was shot in 1921 after being accused of writing a counterrevolutionary proclamation. In 1988 it also published excerpts of poetry

from Iulii Daniel, imprisoned after a famous 1966 trial for publication of his work abroad. Novyi mir (New World), one of the most

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

controversial and often original literary reviews, attracted

widespread readership among the intelligentsia. The monthly publication reached nearly 2 million readers and concentrated on new

prose, poetry, criticism, and commentary. Many previously banned

works were published in its pages, most notably Doctor Zhivago by

Boris Pasternak. (The publication of Doctor Zhivago in the West not

only resulted in Pasternak's expulsion from the Union of Writers

in 1956 but won him the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature.) Oktiabr'

(October), a journal resembling Novyi mir in content, circulation,

and appeal, espoused more conservative viewpoints. Nevertheless,

Anna Akhmatova's ' 'Requiem," a poetic tribute to those who

perished during Stalin's purges, appeared in its November 1987

issue. Finally, Sovetskaia kuVtura (Soviet Culture), a journal with

broad appeal, published particularly biting indictments of collec- tivization, industrialization, and the purges of the 1930s. In 1988

the journal published articles indirectly criticizing Lenin for sanc- tioning the establishment of the system of forced labor and concentration camps.

Radio

Like other party-controlled media in the late 1980s, radio broadcasts attempted to instill in the population a sense of duty and loyalty

to the party and state. Every day the government broadcast an es- timated 1 ,400 hours of radio programming to all parts of the country, often in as many as 70 languages. The main programming

emanated from Moscow, where eight radio channels broadcast 180

hours daily to audiences throughout the country. Government

domination of radio broadcasts was, however, not complete. Since

the onset of the post-World War II Cold War, government programs have competed with broadcasts originating in the West,

which have been aimed across the country's borders with the in- tention of providing independent information to the population,

particularly on topics that censors desperately tried to ban. The

government, until 1988, routinely jammed radio broadcasts by

American-sponsored Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Voice

of America, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and Deutsche

Welle, the broadcast of the Federal Republic of Germany (West

Germany) Ministry of the Interior. An estimated 2 to 3 million

citizens regularly listened to these foreign broadcasts when the

authorities were not jamming them.

Television and Video Cassette Recorders

In the 1970s and 1980s, television became the preeminent mass medium. In 1988 approximately 75 million households owned

382
Television equipment vehicle in Riga, Latvian Republic

Courtesy Jonathan Tetzlaff

television sets, and an estimated 93 percent of the population

watched television. Moscow, the base from which most of the tele- vision stations broadcast, transmitted some 90 percent of the country's programs, with the help of more than 350 stations and nearly

1,400 relay facilities. Moscow projected some fifty hours of news,

commentaries, education, and entertainment every day from its four channels. About 20 percent of this programming consisted of

news, the main program being "Vremia" (Time), a thirty-five- to forty-five-minute news program beginning at 9:00 P. M Moscow

time. Between 80 and 90 percent of all families who owned televi- sions followed "Vremia" broadcasts. Normally, about two-thirds

of reporting on each telecast consisted of domestic affairs, usually

stories concentrating on the government, the economy, and important regional events. International news filled just under onethird of the format; three to four minutes were devoted to sports

and two minutes to weather. Another news program, "Segodnia

v mire" (Today in the World), which featured foreign affairs reports

and short but in-depth news analyses, attracted from 60 to 90 million viewers every evening, particularly because it was broadcast

both in the early evening and in the late evening.

Countless "firsts" were achieved on Soviet television, beginning under Andropov and continuing with Gorbachev. During

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Andropov's rule, coverage was given to the downing of the South

Korean airliner that strayed over Soviet territory in 1983, including a live broadcast featuring several high-level political and military leaders who answered questions from reporters without prior

submission. With Gorbachev's accession, many live programs were

broadcast via satellite television bridges (satellite electronic links)

between the Soviet Union and the United States; footage and com- mentary were shown on the war in Afghanistan; the Chernobyl'

nuclear reactor accident was explored in-depth; the Armenian earth- quake was covered; and live interviews, speeches, and debates in- volving Gorbachev and other Politburo members were broadcast.

Almost every television program tried to include an ideological

theme. Televised propaganda bombarded viewers in many forms;

themes on the benefits of the economy were especially prevalent.

Economic series, such as "Construction Sites of the Twelfth FiveYear Plan," "Winner in Socialist Emulation," and "How to Put

Your Heart into Your Work," exhorted viewers to help to improve

the economy. Patriotic films portrayed Soviet victories during World

War II, and spy movies depicted the efforts of the country's se- curity services to protect it from the "imperialist threat." Other

programs featured lectures ranging from secondary school class instruction to party virtues, nonviolent cartoons for children, some game shows highlighting proper social values, and sports competitions. In an effort to create a larger viewer constituency, Gorbachev took advantage of television's popular appeal by being the

first leader to use it to reach the population with his speeches and

public relations campaigns.

With television, in contrast to radio, where the authorities had

a difficult time controlling foreign broadcasts, censors could exercise greater control. Yet, with the dramatic increase in VCRs, unauthorized tapes circulated around the major ports and cities. This

circulation complicated the regime's attempts to control the information revolution. In fact, Western specialists estimated that Soviet

households contained approximately 300,000 VCRs. The problem

of control became more acute in the mid-1980s as the policy ofglasnosV led the younger generation to yearn for more information.

Computers

After Gorbachev's accession to power, the leadership promulgated a new series of telecommunications and computerization

goals. Some of those efforts had already been incorporated into the

Twelfth Five-Year Plan (1986-90). They included a universal implementation of computers and data bases throughout the economy

and an all-union computer modernization and training program

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Mass Media and the Arts

aimed at the younger generation. In 1988 Western estimates put

the number of computers at 30,000 mainframes and 70,000 smaller

computers. In 1985 a law requiring ninth and tenth graders to learn

computer fundamentals was introduced. In the Twelfth Five-Year

Plan, the leadership declared its goal to furnish high schools with

at least 500,000 computers by 1990, representing 45 percent of

national computer production. By the year 2000, the leadership

projected that 5 million computers would be distributed throughout the schools. The Soviet Union developed a copy of the Apple

II computer (called the Agat) and International Business Machines

personal computer clones. In addition, the Soviet Union developed

the Janus with Hungary and the MMS-16 with the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). All of these computer models,

however, encountered production problems.

Achievements in computer technology may have benefited the

national economy, especially industry and the military, but they

also may have imperiled the leadership's ability to control access

to information. The leadership's control of information was likely to be further reduced by a continuing rise in the number of VCRs,

access to direct-broadcast satellite transmissions, and access to Western data networks that managers and scientists desired. Despite measures to suppress the dissemination of mass information, the

regime faced a dilemma. It could not expect to compete with the

West unless it modernized its technology and improved its computer facilities, yet it wanted to maintain strict controls over data

networks and personal computer use. The Arts

Throughout Soviet history, the arts have played an integral role in influencing the population. In particular, literature has served

as the main political instrument through which the leadership has

regulated cultural currents. As, by Stalin's definition, the "engineers of human souls," writers were required to bolster policies

sanctioned by the leadership. All writers, whether or not members

of the party-controlled Union of Writers, submitted their works

for party approval. After Stalin's death, writers experienced a brief

literary thaw when some party constraints lessened. Not until the

late 1980s, however, did the regime loosen its previously confining strictures on literary form and content. The regime exercised strict controls over other forms of art as

well. The leadership's political line dictated the content and form

of cinema, theater, music, the plastic arts such as painting and sculpture, and the graphic arts. The party used the cinema screen to portray its societal ideals. Directors had to produce films praising

385
386
Theater of Drama and Comedy, Leningrad

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

the regime and exhorting moral conduct. On the stage, playwrights

and actors operated within the party's controlled framework under

which themes had to be approved in advance of a performance.

Musicians wrote and played only music sanctioned by the regime

for public performances. Art galleries displayed works approved

by party officials. In the 1980s, however, artists began to express

harsh and painful themes in their works, sometimes cutting a fine

line between permitted and forbidden subjects. In the post-Brezhnev

period, the government vacillated between imposing more restric- tive artistic controls and allowing greater freedom of expression.

After 1985 the Soviet artistic world experienced a number of contentious debates about the liberties allowed to artists. Literature

Since the 1930s, the regime has regulated literary expression

through socialist realism. In spite of the brief literary thaw during

the late 1950s, throughout the Brezhnev period writers endured

a reemphasis of Stalinist constraints over their works. Traditional

ways of thinking and of viewing history no longer applied to many

parts of literature, however, once Gorbachev assumed power.

The ferment inspired a creativity not witnessed since Khrushchev's literary thaw. Books began to treat conflicts faced by real human beings and to portray critical and poignant topics theretofore banned. Poets such as Evgenii Evtushenko and Andrei Voznesenskii, who had receded into the background from the mid-1960s

to the mid-1980s, were again able to express their desire for a more humane society, uncovering the truth about the past and seeking

greater freedom for the arts. Previously banned themes began to appear for the first time since the 1920s. Conservative elements

persisted in some literary circles, however, and in the late 1980s some bans on literary themes remained in effect. A limited degree of freer expression on topics dealing with societal changes was permitted between Brezhnev's death and Gorbachev's rise to power. For example, in 1983 Andropov allowed

the publication in book form of Chingiz Aitmatov's, The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years. In this novel, Aitmatov, a native of the

Kirgiz Republic, confronts such historical themes as the brutal

Stalinist period, social and moral turpitude, and nationality ten- sions in the Soviet Union. In the novel, he treats tensions between

Russians and non-Russians from a Central Asian perspective. This

book, however, stands alone.

Chernenko reintroduced strict bans on critical and innovative

works. One example concerns Sergei Zalygin's (editor in chief

of Novyi mir) novel After the Storm, which appeared shortly after

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Mass Media and the Arts

Chernenko's death. During Chernenko's rule, the second half of

the novel had been withheld from publication without explanation.

Under Gorbachev, literary treatment of such topics as alcohol

and drug addiction, juvenile delinquency, religious subjects (including references to God), historical reassessments of previous leaders, and even harsh criticisms of past leaders have been approved,

provided they contained the prescribed amount of support for the

regime. Yet in the late 1980s, editors continued to uphold the party

creed to prevent works containing unsanctioned views from reaching

the public. In 1988 books almost never contained material on or made reference to "anti-Soviet emigres" or defectors, anticommunist foreign literature, pornographic topics, or "underground"

works—referred to as samizdat (see Glossary) if self-published in

the country or tamizdat if published abroad.

Gorbachev's policy of openness also contributed to more lively

discussions among members of the Union of Writers. Controversy

erupted at the Eighth Congress of the Union of Writers during the

summer of 1986, where the majority of speeches centered on hotly

disputed topics. Speeches by Voznesenskii and Evtushenko criti- cized the neglect shown by the regime toward some of the Soviet

Union's most talented writers, and they advocated support for publication of their works. Thus, by 1988 the journal Novyi mir had

published Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago in four installments. In

addition, at Voznesenskii's behest, the Union of Writers approved

the selection of such nondelegates as the famous poet Bella Akhmadulina, the writer and balladeer Bulat Okudzhava, and the fire- brand writer Iurii Chernichenko to membership on the union's

administrative board. Finally, the writers' congress witnessed the

changing of the guard as Vladimir Karpov, a survivor of Stalinist

labor camps, replaced the conservative Georgii Markov as first secretary of the Union of Writers.

At the congress, ethnic confrontations also arose between Russian and non-Russian authors; opposition was voiced against bureaucratic publishing roadblocks; and vehement demands were made favoring a reevaluation of Soviet history. Conservative views,

however, also appeared. Sergei Mikhalkov, the first secretary of

the Russian Republic's writers' union and a declared opponent

of Gorbachev's openness policy, cautioned against "parasites" who

lack a direct relation to literature and others who espouse overly

liberal views. In addition, Nikolai Gribachev, a conservative writer,

advocated a return to "classic Soviet writers," especially Maksim

Gor'kiy, associated with "proletarian populism," and Aleksei N.

Tolstoi, a supporter of "Russian nationalism." The conservatives

highlighted the importance of nationalism and the legacy of socialist

389
Soviet Union: A Country Study

realism's emphasis on the " positive hero." Nationalistic defenses

prompted another conservative writer, Aleksandr Prokhanov, to

criticize the emergence of the "new social type" of individual in

literature, an ideologically apathetic citizen overly sympathetic to the West.

Nevertheless, at the Eighth Congress of the Union of Writers,

the liberals gained ground and secured a number of dramatic

changes. After much lobbying by prominent writers and poets, in- cluding Evtushenko and Voznesenskii, the liberal and conservative elements of the writers' union reached agreement in mid- 1988

to turn Peredelkino, Pasternak's former home, into an official museum. The Eighth Congress also served as a harbinger for loosening the censorship restrictions on the publication of several politically charged novels. Among these works were Anatolii Rybakov's

penetrating Children of the Arbat, which offered insights into the ori- gins of Stalinism, and Vasilii Grossman's Life and Fate, which drew

historical comparison between Stalinism and Nazism. The late 1980s

ushered in the way for poet Tat'iana Tolstaia, the granddaughter

of the Soviet writer Aleksei Tolstoi (1882-1945), to publish. Known

for her dramatic realism about death in ordinary people's lives, Tolstaia saw her publications appear in Oktiabr' and Novyi mir and won

great acclaim, even though the Union of Writers continued to ex- clude her.

Cinema

A long tradition of classic and monumental films created by film

makers such as Sergei Eisenstein served the regime's intent of portraying a strong socialist society (see Society and Culture in the

1920s, ch. 2). The party dictated the themes and issues that Soviet

film makers would depict.

In the late 1980s, the film industry underwent dramatic changes

as the CPSU allowed film makers to analyze social dilemmas and

propose remedies. From 1986 to 1988, three important developments occurred within the film-making leadership. First, film makers banded together to remove conservative bureaucrats from the

Union of Cinematographers and to replace them with younger,

bolder, and more innovative directors. Second, these changes led

to the formation of the Disputes Committee within the union headed

by an important, more open-minded Pravda critic in order to examine approximately sixty films that had been "withheld"

without any proper justification. Among these prohibited films were

three directed by the new head of the Union of Cinematographers,

Elem Klimov. Third, the official state organ controlling cinema,

Goskino, was forced to yield to an ever-increasing number of union

390
Home of poet and

novelist Boris Pasternak,

southwest of

Moscow in the writers' colony at Peredelhino Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

demands for greater cinematic freedom. Previously, film makers

who wanted to produce films were required to please Goskino and

the censors. Box office success was unimportant. In the late 1980s,

film makers won the right to have their films judged on their merits.

As a result, success for film makers meant producing money-making

ventures. They no longer required the full professional and financial support of Goskino.

The CPSU Central Committee also reduced the power and

influence of the Ministry of Culture's Glavrepertkom (see Glossary), the official film-release control apparatus. By the end of 1986,

many previously banned or withheld films were showing in movie

theaters. Yet as of 1988, Glavrepertkom continued to wield substantial censorship influence, with its reach extending to theaters,

circuses, concerts, phonograph records, and general musical productions. One of the most adventuresome film makers was a seasoned film

professional, Iulii Raizman. Born in 1903, Raizman survived many

tribulations during the oppressive eras of Soviet film making. He

poignantly explored such themes as family trauma, societal immorality, materialism and corruption, and economic deprivation.

His Private Life (1982) explores the ordeals of a factory manager

who, when forced into retirement, realizes that he has sacrificed

time with his family. A Time of Wishes (1984) examines how women

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

endure their inferior lot in society. Raizman has gained such re- nown, particularly as head of Mosfilm studios in Moscow, that he

has been able to initiate the production of progressive films and

has supported efforts of younger, aspiring, and creative film makers to voice their concerns through their works.

The relaxation of controls over film making has also permitted

the release of numerous films that had been restricted for many

years. Four such prominent films released were Klimov's Agoniia

and Come and See, Aleksei German's My Friend Ivan Lapshin, and

Tengiz Abuladze's Repentance. Known in the West as Rasputin,

Klimov's Agoniia presents a more balanced view of Tsar Nicholas

II than that historically taught in the school systems, and it also contains religious overtones. The film maintains an unusual silence

regarding the Bolshevik Revolution. Klimov completed Agoniia in

1975, but it was not released until 1985. In Come and See, Klimov

captures the horrors of war from a typical Soviet perspective, that

of destruction symbolized not only by the Nazi genocide but also by the premonition of nuclear holocaust.

The other two films deal with some of the horrors of the Stalin

period. German's My Friend Ivan Lapshin, which required three years

for approval after it had been completed, contains an investigation said to depict innocent people being persecuted during Stalin's reign of terror. Abuladze's Repentance created a stir throughout

the Soviet Union as well as the outside world. Written in 1982,

produced in 1984, and approved for public viewing in 1987, Repentance concentrates on the crimes of the Stalin era and the evil in- volved in the arrests of innocent people, some of whom were later executed. The dictator portrayed supposedly is based on a number of evil men in recent history, the most important of whom are

Stalin and his secret police chief, Lavrenty Beria. Echoes of Adolf

Hitler and Benito Mussolini are also evident in the dictator's appearance. Not only was the film viewed as an overt attack on

Stalinism but it also was intended to shock Soviet citizens and raise

their political consciousness to prevent a recurrence of these horrors. Evtushenko has likened the film to "the cultural event of Gorbachev's cultural thaw, just as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day

in the Life of Ivan Denisovich represented the spiritual acme of the

Khrushchev era." As Gorbachev stressed in a speech on the seventieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in a 1987 Central

Committee plenum, such films are more openly watched in a so- ciety encouraged to reassess itself and ensure that "no forgotten names and no blank pages ... of the years of industrialization and

collectivization" be left untouched.

392
n

Taganka Theater, Moscow. The Taganka was founded in 1964 by the director Iurii Liubimov; Vladimir Vysotskii performed here

until his death in 1980.

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

Theater

Soviet citizens have a rich cultural heritage in theater. Two of

the most internationally famous theaters, Moscow's Bolshoi Theater

and Leningrad's Kirov Theater, attracted both domestic and for- eign audiences with striking performances in huge, ornate, and

festive halls. The performers who played to sold-out performances

in these theaters and who adhered to the regime's acting and direct- ing guidelines received speciarbenefits such as worldwide travel,

luxurious apartments, and the highest state honors for their artistic contributions. Those artists, however, who chose to portray views

opposed to the regime's artistic standards experienced shame and

denunciation, even though audiences often admired them.

Such an artist was Vladimir Vysotskii. In his short lifetime,

Vysotskii attracted widespread popularity but railed against a sys- tem he opposed. Although he died in 1980 of a heart attack, apparently the result of alcoholism, Vysotskii' s mass appeal became

in many ways more pervasive after his death. His memory evolved

into a veritable cult, with thousands of people mourning the anniversaries of his death by filing past his burial place. This balladeer

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

and actor, who for years played such famous roles as Hamlet under the tutelage of Taganka Theater director Iurii Liubimov, raised

the avant-garde theater to a cultural pinnacle in Moscow by at- tracting thousands of followers, even for unannounced or unpublicized programs that featured his protests, often against the

leadership's failings. His poetry and music, once banned in the

Soviet Union, have been disseminated throughout the country and

depict bureaucratic corruption, elitism, poverty, war, and prison

camp horror. In the late 1980s, Vysotskii's mentor, Liubimov, con- tinued to leave an indelible mark on the theater, even after his forced

exile by the authorities and the bans on his productions. He lived

abroad and continued to produce masterpieces adapted from Gor'-

kiy's novel Mother, Bertold Brecht's play The Good Woman qfSzechuan,

Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, and Fedor

Dostoevskii's novel Crime and Punishment, making him the greatest

Soviet theatrical director. The Taganka Theater performed without

him, but the stage did not retain the same popularity. Under Gorbachev, Liubimov was allowed back to his homeland to direct his

version of the opera Boris Godunov, banned in 1983 when he was

forced to leave the Soviet Union. However, Liubimov remained

only long enough to oversee the project's completion and left of

his own accord, preferring to live abroad.

After 1985 a degree of liberalization similar to that permitted

for literature and cinema prevailed for the stage. In 1985 and 1986,

approximately 10 percent of the directors were replaced in favor

of younger and more innovative directors, who, in turn, opened

the door to more creative playwrights. In addition, theater groups

(collectives) gained "full independence in the selection of plays,"

releasing them in some measure from the onus of the regime's

authoritarian and arbitrary decisions. As a result of these changes,

playwrights such as Mikhail Shatrov blossomed within the freer theater environment. In 1986 his "neo-Leninist" work Dictator- ship of Conscience, which portrayed Stalin and Brezhnev as shady

and sometimes unfaithful communists, played to receptive audiences.

Shatrov' s other prominent play from the 1987-88 period, . . . Further . . . Further, and Further/, offered a scathing indictment of the

Stalin period, this time concentrating on Lenin's legacy and the way

Stalin manipulated the other Bolshevik leaders during the 1920s in

his successful effort to defeat them. Shatrov captured the characters

of many early revolutionary leaders, using strong dialogue to depict

vivid conflicts. Music

The Soviet Union has produced some of the world's foremost

394
composers and musicians. The authorities, however, have sought

to control their music as well as their performances. As a result,

composers struggled to produce their works under strict limitations.

Some artists emigrated, but their works endured and continued

to attract large audiences when performed.

Restrictions on what musicians played and where they performed

often caused artists to leave the country either of their own accord

or through forced exile. Great composers and musicians such as Dmitrii Shostakovich, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Vladimir Fel'ts- man were persecuted, and some ultimately emigrated. In 1986,

however, Moscow and Leningrad audiences were privileged to hear

several memorable performances by the brilliant pianist Vladimir

Horowitz, who left the Soviet Union in 1925 and who previously

had not been allowed to reenter the country. A composer who decided to remain in the Soviet Union was Alfred Schnittke, acclaimed

as the best Soviet composer since Shostakovich and a formidable

technician of surrealist expression. Although at times he was re- stricted by the authorities to -presenting unoriginal and party-line

works, Schnittke attracted both avant-garde and mainstream au- diences because of his original, deeply spiritual, and often mystical compositions. When not confined by the regime to recording

certain compositions, Schnittke created such masterpieces as (K)ein

Sommernachtstraum, Concerto No. 4 for Violin and Orchestra,

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Concerto Grosso No. 1, and Concerto Grosso No. 2, which ap- pealed to audiences around the world.

In addition to classical music, jazz endured and survived the offi- cial denunciations the government had cast upon it over the years. The regime distrusted this form of music because it had originated in the United States and because its essence was improvisation.

As a symbol of artistic freedom and individual expression, jazz was

difficult to control. In the late 1960s and 1970s, jazz was one of

the most popular forms of music in the Soviet Union. Such famous

jazz artists as Vadim Mustafa-Zadek and Aleksei Kozlov became

music idols to a generation ofjazz lovers. In the late 1980s, however,

the popularity of jazz declined because of the emergence of rock

and roll. The rhythms and sounds of rock and roll appealed mainly to the young. In the 1980s, the popularity of the once leading rock

bands Winds of Change and The Time Machine faded in favor

of younger groups. Leningrad rock groups such as Boris Grebenshchikov's band Aquarium and the group Avia, which incorporated slogans, speeches, loud sounds, unorthodox mixtures of

instruments, and screams, provided an important outlet for youth.

Some of their music supported themes along the lines of Gorbachev's policies, expressing a desire for change in society. Rockand-roll lyrics sometimes exceeded the boundaries of the politically

permissible. Yet, the leadership realized that this music could not

be eliminated or even censored for long because it not only appealed to many citizens but also could help disseminate the leadership's policies.

For many youth, rock and roll served as a means to live out

dreams and desires that might not be possible in daily life. Aspiring rock or popular musicians expressed themselves publicly in the more open political environment during the late 1980s. In that period, Moscow and Leningrad permitted performances of music by

punki (punk fans) and metallisti (heavy metal fans), whose loud, rau- cous music appealed to alienated and rebellious youth. Most rock

music, however, portrayed the artist as explorer and expressed the

desire for new styles and forms.

Painting, Sculpture, and the Graphic Arts

Moscow and Leningrad housed the two most popular art muse- ums in the Soviet Union, the Tret'iakov Gallery and the Hermitage

Museum, respectively. The Tret'iakov contained medieval and

modern Russian masterpieces; the Hermitage's collection of Impressionist painters was one of the best in the world.

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Mass Media and the Arts

Until the mid-1980s, avant-garde expression appeared not in state museums but within the confines of the basement galleries on Moscow's Malaia Gruzinskaia street. Displays of overtly religious,

surrealist, or semiabstract works began in 1978. The artists who

created such works became an integral part of the cultural life of

Moscow, as their art directly contrasted with socialist realism. These

"survivalists" withstood pressure from the official unions and

prospered through domestic and foreign patronage from established

cultural figures, influential higher officials, scientists, and diplomats.

Nonconformist artists created attention both at home and abroad

in the late 1980s. Former underground artists, such as Il'ia Kabakov

and Vladimir Iankilevskii, were permitted to display their works

in the late 1980s, and they captured viewers' imagination with harsh

criticism of the Soviet system. Paintings by such artists as Vadim

Sacharov and Nikolai Belianiv, linoleum graphic works by Dshamil

Mufid-Zade and Maya Tabaka, wood engravings by Dmitrii Bisti,

and sculpture by Dmitrii Shilinski depicted society as gray, drab,

harsh, and colorless. Their works indicted industrialization, the

Great Terror (see Glossary), the annexation of Estonia, Latvia,

and Lithuania, and the polluted environment.

Gorbachev based much of his policies' success on the new content of artistic expression appearing throughout the Soviet Union.

By opening up cultural life and enabling mass media representatives and artists to speak more honestly, the leadership attempted

to win the support of the intelligentsia for its policies. In the late 1980s, the leadership loosened the strictures of socialist realism to enrich the cultural vitality of society, although censorship laws still prevented much information from reaching the public. Although

strictures were relaxed, the principle of party control remained in

force.

* * * Many works offer insights into Soviet mass media and culture.

For a good overview of the mass media and descriptions of the cen- sorship institutions, the following sources are particularly helpful:

Frederick C. Barghoorn and Thomas F. Remington's Politics in

the USSR; Jane Leftwich Curry and Joan R. Dassin's Press Control Around the World; Vadim Medish's The Soviet Union; Lilita Dzirkals, Thane Gustafson, and A. Ross Johnson's "The Media and

Intra-Elite Communication in the USSR"; and Ellen Mickiewicz's

Media and the Russian Public. More specialized works concentrating on media and culture include Maurice Friedberg's Russian Culture

in the 1980s; Martin Ebon's The Soviet Propaganda Machine; Ellen

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Mickiewicz's ''Political Communication and the Soviet Media

System"; Wilson P. Dizard and Blake S. Swensrud's Gorbachev's

Information Revolution; Valery S. Golovskoy and John Rimberg's

Behind the Soviet Screen; and S. Frederick Starr's Red and Hot. (For

further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

398
Chapter 10. Foreign Policy
Ronald W. Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev
Once a pariah denied diplomatic recognition

by most countries, the Soviet Union had official relations with the

majority of the nations of the world by the late 1980s. The Soviet

Union also had progressed from being an outsider in international organizations and negotiations to being one of the arbiters of

Europe's fate after World War II. In the 1970s, after the Soviet

Union achieved rough nuclear parity with the United States, it per- ceived its own involvement as essential to the solution of any major

international problem. The Soviet Union's effort to extend its in- fluence or control over many states and peoples has resulted in the

formation of a world socialist system (see Glossary) of states whose

citizens included some one-fourth of humanity. In addition, since

the early 1970s the Soviet Union has concluded friendship and

cooperation treaties with a number of Third World states. For all these reasons, Soviet foreign policy is of major importance to the

noncommunist world and helps determine the tenor of international

relations.

Although myriad bureaucracies have been involved in the for- mation and execution of Soviet foreign policy, the major policy

guidelines have been determined by the Politburo of the Communist

Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The foremost objectives of

Soviet foreign policy have been the maintenance and enhancement

of national security and the maintenance of hegemony over Eastern

Europe. Relations with the United States and Western Europe have

also been of major concern to Soviet foreign policy makers, and

relations with individual Third World states have been at least partly

determined by the proximity of each state to the Soviet border and

to Soviet estimates of its strategic significance. Despite domestic

economic problems, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who became general

secretary in 1985, has emphasized increased Soviet participation

in international organizations and negotiations, the pursuit of arms

control and other international agreements, and the reinvigoration of diplomatic, political, cultural, and scientific initiatives in

virtually every region of the world.

Ideology and Objectives

According to Soviet theorists, the basic character of Soviet for- eign policy was set forth in Vladimir I. Lenin's Decree on Peace,

adopted by the Second Congress of Soviets in November 1917. It set forth the dual nature of Soviet foreign policy, which encompasses

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

both proletarian internationalism and peaceful coexistence. On the one hand, proletarian internationalism refers to the common cause

of the working classes of all countries in struggling to overthrow

the bourgeoisie and to establish communist regimes. Peaceful coexistence, on the other hand, refers to measures to ensure relatively

peaceful government-to-government relations with capitalist states. Both policies can be pursued simultaneously: "Peaceful coexistence

does not rule out but presupposes determined opposition to imperialist aggression and support for peoples defending their revolutionary gains or fighting foreign oppression."

The Soviet commitment in practice to proletarian internationalism has declined since the founding of the Soviet state, although

this component of ideology still has some effect on current formulation and execution of Soviet foreign policy. Although pragmatic

raisons d'etat undoubtedly accounted for much of contemporary

Soviet foreign policy, the ideology of class struggle (see Glossary)

still played a role in providing a worldview and certain loose guidelines for action in the 1980s. Marxist-Leninist (see Glossary) ideology reinforces other characteristics of political culture that create an attitude of competition and conflict with other states. The general foreign policy goals of the Soviet Union were for- malized in a party program (see Glossary) ratified by delegates to the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in February-March 1986.

According to the program, "the main goals and guidelines of the

CPSU's international policy" included ensuring favorable external conditions conducive to building communism in the Soviet

Union; eliminating the threat of world war; disarmament; strengthening the "world socialist system"; developing "equal and friendly"

relations with "liberated" [Third World] countries; peaceful co- existence with the capitalist countries; and solidarity with communist

and revolutionary-democratic parties, the international workers'

movement, and national liberation struggles.

Although these general foreign policy goals were apparently con- ceived in terms of priorities, the emphasis and ranking of the priorities have changed over time in response to domestic and

international stimuli. After Gorbachev assumed power in 1985,

for instance, some Western analysts discerned in the ranking of

priorities a possible de-emphasis of Soviet support for national liber- ation movements. Although the emphasis and ranking of priorities were subject to change, two basic goals of Soviet foreign policy

remained constant: national security (safeguarding CPSU rule

through internal control and the maintenance of adequate military forces) and, since the late 1940s, influence over Eastern Europe.

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Foreign Policy

Many Western analysts have examined the way Soviet behavior

in various regions and countries supports the general goals of Soviet

foreign policy. These analysts have assessed Soviet behavior in the

1970s and 1980s as placing primary emphasis on relations with the

United States, which is considered the foremost threat to the national security of the Soviet Union. Second priority was given to relations with Eastern Europe (the European members of the Warsaw Pact—see Appendix B) and Western Europe (the European

members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—NATO).

Third priority was given to the littoral or propinquitous states along

the southern border of the Soviet Union: Turkey (a NATO member), Iran, Afghanistan, China, Mongolia, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), and Japan. Regions near

to, but not bordering, the Soviet Union were assigned fourth priority. These included the Middle East and North Africa, South

Asia, and Southeast Asia. Last priority was given to sub-Saharan

Africa, the islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans, and Latin

America, except insofar as these regions either provided opportunities for strategic basing or bordered on strategic naval straits or

sea lanes. In general, Soviet foreign policy was most concerned

with superpower relations (and, more broadly, relations between

the members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact), but during the 1980s

Soviet leaders pursued improved relations with all regions of the

world as part of its foreign policy objectives (see fig. 14).

Foreign Policy Making and Execution

The Foreign Policy Makers

The predominant Soviet foreign policy actor has been the general

secretary of the CPSU. The dominant decision-making body has

been the Politburo (see Politburo; Secretariat, ch. 7). Although the

general secretary is only one of several members of the Politburo,

his positions as head of the Secretariat and the Defense Council

(see Glossary) gave him preeminence in the Politburo.

Other members of the Politburo also have had major foreign

policy-making responsibilities, most notably the ministers of for- eign affairs and defense, the chairman of the Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—KGB), and the

chief of the CPSU's International Department. The minister of

defense and the minister of foreign affairs had been full or candidate members of the Politburo intermittently since 1917. The chairman of the KGB became a candidate member of the Politburo in

1967 and has generally been a full member since then. The chief

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

of the International Department became a candidate member of

the Politburo in 1972 but from 1986 to 1988 held only Secretariat

membership. Since late 1988, he has been a candidate, then full member of the Central Committee. Even when foreign policy or- ganizations were not directly represented on the Politburo, they were nonetheless supervised by Politburo members.

It is incorrect to say that there are no policy differences within

the Politburo or no policy inputs or alterations of policy by other

foreign policy actors. One Western theory holds that foreign policy innovation occurs when a new general secretary consolidates

his power and is able to implement his policy agenda. It is also apparent that the foreign and domestic environments affect the for- mulation and execution of Soviet foreign policy. According to some

Western theorists, for instance, Soviet opportunism in the Third

World in the 1970s owed something to American preoccupation

with domestic concerns following the end of the war in Vietnam

and the Watergate scandal. Similarly, the "Reagan Doctrine" of

assisting anticommunist insurgencies has been suggested by some

Western analysts as contributing to Soviet reassessment of the longterm viability of some Third World revolutionary democratic

regimes. The extent to which human, economic, and military re- sources are available for diplomatic, foreign aid, and military activities also affects Soviet foreign policy. It is nevertheless true that

the centralization of foreign policy decision making in the Polit- buro and the longevity of its members (a major factor in the Polit- buro's lengthy institutional memory) both have contributed to the

Soviet Union's ability to plan foreign policy and guide its longterm implementation with a relative singleness of purpose lacking

in pluralistic political systems.

Departments of the Central Committee

Several departments of the Central Committee had some responsibility for foreign policy in the 1980s, including the International

Department and the Propaganda Department, which was absorbed

by the Ideological Department in 1988. Until late 1988, when the

departments were reorganized, the Liaison with Communist and

Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries Department and the Cadres

Abroad Department also had foreign policy responsibilities. These

two departments, originally part of the International Department, were apparently reincorporated into the revamped International

Department. From 1978 to 1986, there existed another department

involved in foreign policy execution, the International Information Department.

404

Source: Based on information from United States, Department of Defense, Soviet Military Power, Washir Figure 14. Soviet Foreign Relations Worldwide, 1988
Foreign Policy

The International Department, created in 1943 essentially to carry out functions previously performed by the Third Communist

International (Comintern—see Glossary), was responsible for CPSU relations with nonruling communist parties in other states. Under Boris Ponomarev, chief of the International Department

from 1955 to 1986, the International Department focused mainly on CPSU relations with Third World communist and radical parties, but under Anatolii Dobrynin, appointed chief in 1986, the

focus included overall party and state relations with developed Western states. In late 1988, Valentin A. Falin, an expert on Western

Europe and a professional propagandist, was appointed chief. The International Department, in focusing on party-to-party re- lations, had traditionally been involved in supplying various

resources to the nonruling parties. These included funds, propaganda, and training. The International Department also had received

international delegations from communist and leftist groups while

the Soviet government was maintaining correct relations with the

home government in power. Finally, the International Department

acquired international support for Soviet foreign policy through

extensive use of international front groups, such as the World Peace

Council and the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization, which were funded and controlled through Soviet parent organizations.

In late 1988, two other departments dealing with foreign policy were reincorporated into the International Department. The Liaison

Department, created in 1957 as a spin-off from the International

Department, had responsibility for CPSU relations with ruling communist parties in Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary,

Romania, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia. The Cadres Abroad Department, created in 1950, approved foreign travel of virtually all Soviet

citizens, except for tourists visiting the Warsaw Pact states and mili- tary personnel.

The International Information Department, disestablished in

1980, had been created by Leonid I. Brezhnev to consolidate and

improve upon propaganda efforts undertaken by the International Department, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Propaganda

Department. It regularly held press briefings for foreign media per- sonnel in Moscow. Its functions were reabsorbed by the International Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Propaganda

Department; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reassumed responsibility for press briefings on major policy issues. Higher State and Government Organizations

In accordance with the 1977 Constitution and the amendments

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

and additions promulgated in December 1988, several organizations were involved in the formation of foreign policy, including

the Congress of People's Deputies, the Supreme Soviet, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, and the Council of Ministers. This in- fluence was primarily a result of the membership of high-ranking

CPSU officials in these bodies, which had a limited ability to select and interpret information passed on to the party leadership.

The Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet

The changes to the Constitution adopted in December 1988 al- tered the character of the Soviet legislative system (see Supreme

Soviet, ch. 8). The changes invested the Congress of People's

Deputies with "defining the basic guidelines" of foreign policy and

expressly assigned foreign policy duties to the newly created position of chairman of the Supreme Soviet. The role of the Supreme

Soviet in formulating and overseeing the execution of foreign policy was theoretically strengthened by providing for lengthy (six- to eightmonth) yearly sittings of the Supreme Soviet. The duties assigned

to the Supreme Soviet included forming the Defense Council, appointing the senior commanders of the armed forces, ratifying

international treaties, proclaiming a state of war, and making decisions on the use of troops abroad. This latter provision was

added to the list of duties of the Supreme Soviet, as explained by

Gorbachev and other leaders, because of the closed nature of the

decision process that led to committing troops to the invasion of

Afghanistan. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was assigned

responsibility for minor diplomatic functions and declaring war in

periods when the Supreme Soviet was not in session. The chairman of the Supreme Soviet was to represent the Soviet Union in

foreign relations with other states. He was also to submit reports on foreign policy to the Congress of People's Deputies and the

Supreme Soviet, head the Defense Council, and negotiate and sign

international treaties. A Foreign Affairs Committee was also set up and its members empowered to formulate and oversee foreign

policy execution. The new legislative structures apparently provided

for greater legislative oversight of foreign policy execution and even

for some input into the foreign policy formulation process, with

the chairman and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet playing

a guiding role in foreign policy activities. The Council of Ministers and Its Presidium

The Presidium of the Council of Ministers also had foreign policy

duties in its role as head of the executive branch of the government. The 1977 Constitution specified that the Council of Ministers

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Foreign Policy

be elected at a joint session of the Supreme Soviet and be constitutionally accountable to the Supreme Soviet (see Administrative Organs, ch. 8). The foreign policy duties of the Council of Ministers were not specified in the 1977 Constitution, beyond a general state- ment that the council was to "provide general direction in regard

to relations with other states, foreign trade, and economic, scientific, technical, and cultural cooperation of the Soviet Union with

other countries; take measures to ensure fulfillment of the Soviet

Union's international treaties; and ratify and repudiate international agreements." These duties were carried out by the various

ministries and state committees involved in the execution of for- eign policy. The chairman of the Presidium of the Council of

Ministers, as head of government, met with foreign delegations

and signed international trade and economic agreements.

In 1989 three ministries and a committee had foreign policy

responsibilities: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (diplomatic relations), the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations (trade and arms

transfers), the Ministry of Defense (military advisory assistance, use and display of military power abroad, and covert activities through the Main Intelligence Directorate—see Glossary), and the

KGB (covert activities through the First Chief Directorate). Many

other ministries and state committees and government agencies also had a role in foreign policy execution. These ranged from the Soviet

Copyright Agency, which approved foreign requests for reproduction and translation of Soviet media materials, to the State Committee for Foreign Tourism, of which Inturist was a part.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had responsibility for administering the diplomatic relations of the Soviet Union. Once the Council of Ministers had approved diplomatic recognition of a state, the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs would establish embassies and consulates, provide the core staffs serving abroad, and serve as a conduit for formal communications between the Soviet political

leadership and the host state. A Soviet ambassador serving abroad

would be regarded under international law as the personal representative of the chairman of the Supreme Soviet to the head of government of the host state. In practice, the Soviet diplomatic service

carried out CPSU policy as set forth by the general secretary and

the Politburo.

The Bolshevik Revolution (see Glossary) of 1917 resulted in a

virtually complete break in diplomatic staffing from the tsarist period

because the majority of tsarist diplomatic personnel refused to work

for the Bolsheviks. Another discontinuity in staffing occurred in

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

the late 1930s, when the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs

(known after 1946 as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) was purged

and the resulting vacancies filled by young, professionally trained

and politically reliable personnel such as Andrei Gromyko. The

ministry experienced continuity in personnel and structure throughout Gromyko's tenure as minister (1957-85). Eduard Shevardnadze,

who succeeded Gromyko as foreign minister in 1985, reorganized

the ministry and made major personnel changes among the Collegium members and ambassadors.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was organized into geographical and functional departments and administrations reflecting Soviet

ideological and pragmatic concerns with various geographical

regions or world problems. Departments and administrations of

the ministry included geographical ones, dealing with the regions

of Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa, and functional ones, dealing with such concerns as international organizations and

cultural affairs. Shevardnadze restructured some of the geographical and functional departments, mainly by grouping countries

into categories reflecting modern world realities. For example, he

grouped communist countries into Asian and European departments, put the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian

Nations into a single department, and created another African office consisting almost entirely of the "frondine states" proximal to South

Africa.

Instruments of Influence

The Soviet Union interacted with other countries in a variety

of ways, including diplomacy, arms transfers, state and government visits, use of communist parties abroad, front organizations,

trade and aid, and educational exchanges. To achieve its general

and regional foreign policy objectives, the Soviet Union made great

efforts to sustain and increase relations over time. The Soviet physical and material presence in a state (which could be quantified

by numbers of military and economic advisers and the amount of

economic and military assistance) had traditionally been one indi- cator that, along with information about internal decision making, allowed Western analysts to theorize about the degree of Soviet

influence on a particular state's foreign policy.

Diplomatic Relations

The Soviet Union perceived two basic forms of diplomacy:

"bourgeois diplomacy" as developed by the European states, with

its emphasis on state-to-state relations; and communist diplomacy

of a ' 'new type" among the ruling communist and socialist-oriented

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

regimes. Communist diplomacy emphasizes "equal, non-exploitative" party and state relations among the regime and "peaceful

coexistence" between these regimes and the capitalist and capitalistoriented states. Soviet diplomacy hence was multifaceted, embracing

state-to- state relations with Western and Western-oriented Third

World states; party-to-party ties with ruling and nonruling communist and leftist parties and national liberation groups; state representation in myriad international organizations and at international forums; and political alliances with "fraternal socialist"

states and states of socialist orientation through the vehicle of treaties of friendship and cooperation (see Ideology and Objectives, this ch.).

As the prospects for world revolution faded in the first years af- ter the establishment of Bolshevik rule in Russia, the Russian

Republic began assiduously to pursue diplomatic recognition as a means of achieving legitimacy. At first, the Russian Republic

had resident embassies in only a few countries. After the Soviet

Union was established in December 1922—joining the Russian,

Belorussian, Ukrainian, and Transcaucasian soviet socialist republics—the new state continued the policy of pursuing diplomatic recognition. The Soviet Union was particularly interested

in establishing diplomatic relations with Britain and the United

States. In 1924 the newly elected Labour Party government in Brit- ain recognized the Soviet Union (in 1927 the succeeding Conservative Party government broke off relations, but they were

permanentiy restored in 1929), and in 1933 the United States es- tablished diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. During World

War II, many Allied states recognized the Soviet Union. During

the "Cold War" of the late 1940s and 1950s, many states were wary of establishing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union,

and a few states, mostly in Central America and South America,

recalled their accredited representatives. Since the general improvement in East-West relations in the 1960s, however, states in all regions of the world have moved to establish diplomatic relations

with the Soviet Union.

Since the 1960s, the Soviet Union has achieved diplomatic rela- tions with states in several regions where such relations were previously unknown or uncommon—South America, Central America,

islands in the Pacific, and states in the Persian Gulf region. The

range and scope of the Soviet diplomatic presence has been roughly

matched only by that of the United States. In the late 1980s, the

Soviet Union had resident ambassadors in almost 120 states and

consulates and trade offices in scores of states. The Soviet Union

also tried to maintain or reestablish relations, or exchange ambassadors, with states that had exhibited hostility toward the Soviet

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Union, such as China, Egypt, and Somalia. As of 1988, the Soviet

Union had refused to establish relations, or had broken off rela- tions, with only a few states, most notably Chile, Paraguay, the

Republic of Korea (South Korea), Taiwan, and Israel. Soviet diplomatic recognition of the governments of the latter three states had

been opposed by other regional powers with which the Soviet Union

has wished to maintain or foster close relations (North Korea with

respect to South Korea, China with respect to Taiwan, and the

Middle Eastern Arab states with respect to Israel).

Party and State Visits Abroad

An important component of Soviet foreign relations was Soviet

state and party delegation visits to states with which the Soviet

Union enjoyed diplomatic relations. These visits served to improve

relations with Western states by influencing elite and popular atti- tudes. The visits also helped cement and sustain close ties with communist states, states with a socialist orientation, and nonaligned

nations. Common actions were often discussed with such states, for example, coordinated voting on United Nations (UN) resolutions.

Economic, scientific, cultural, and other cooperation agreements were

also signed during these visits, although such agreements were more commonly signed during visits by Third World delegations to Moscow. These visits usually concluded with the publication ofjoint

communiques that might reveal details of the nature of the visit and

also list points of agreement on issues such as the prevention of

nuclear war, nuclear-free zones, peaceful coexistence, and anti- imperialism.

Friendship and Cooperation Treaties

In the early 1970s, the Soviet Union began to formalize rela- tions with several Third World states through the signing of friendship and cooperation treaties (see table 29, Appendix A). These

treaties were aimed at regularizing economic, political, and military contacts between the Soviet Union and Third World states over extended periods (usually twenty years). Third World regimes

signed these treaties to obtain help in the consolidation of their rule or to secure advantage over or protection from regional opponents.

All the treaties contained military cooperation provisions or provisions calling for "mutual consultations" in case of security threats

to either party. The Soviet Union proffered these treaties in order

to consolidate and build on existing relations in the context of an

overarching agreement. The Soviet goal has been to encourage

close, long-term relations with the Soviet Union. These relations

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

have included military cooperation and the establishment of Soviet

military facilities in some Third World states. Communist Parties Abroad

By 1984 the Soviet Union had recognized communist and workers' parties in ninety-five countries. Fifteen of these were ruling

communist parties. The Soviet Union considered these most ideologically mature parties as part of the world socialist system. The

select group included the ruling parties of Albania, Bulgaria, China,

Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Laos, Mongolia, North Korea, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, Vietnam,

and Yugoslavia. Besides these ruling parties, the Soviet Union per- ceived other less ideologically mature ruling parties as "MarxistLeninist vanguard parties," a label that distinguished them from

"true" communist parties. These vanguard parties existed in several Third World "revolutionary democracies," which have in- cluded Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and

the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen). Nonruling communist parties (of greater or lesser ideological maturity) that existed in developed capitalist and in Third World states "on the capitalist path of development" made up another category

of parties.

Lenin founded the Comintern in 1919 to guide the activities of

communist parties and communist front organizations abroad. The

Comintern's first act was a manifesto urging workers abroad to support the Bolshevik regime in Russia. Later, the Comintern be- came a tool the Soviet Union used to direct foreign communist parties to execute policies of benefit to the security of the Soviet Union.

The Comintern was formally dissolved by Stalin in 1943 as a gesture

of cooperation with the wartime allies, but the International Department was created to carry out its responsibilities. Another organization—the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform)—was

created in 1947 to carry out liaison and propaganda duties, and

it included as members the communist parties of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, Romania, the Soviet

Union, and Yugoslavia. The Cominform expelled Yugoslavia as a member in June 1948 for ideological deviation. With the thaw

in relations between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in 1955 and

1956, the Soviet Union formally dissolved the then-moribund

Cominform as a gesture to the Yugoslavs.

The Cominform conflict with Yugoslavia in 1948 signaled the

breakup of what in the West was perceived as "monolithic com- munism" and the emergence of "polycentrism. " Polycentrism

(literally, many centers), a Western term, describes the relative

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independence from Soviet control of some nonruling and ruling

communist parties. Polycentrism was further in evidence following the Sino-Soviet split that became evident in the late 1950s and

early 1960s. More recently, some foreign communist parties have

successfully resisted Soviet efforts to convene a conference of world

communist and workers parties, the last of which occurred in 1969.

The emergence in the early to mid-1970s of a broad and somewhat

disparate set of ideological beliefs, termed "Eurocommunism,"

was further evidence of polycentric tendencies. Eurocommunist

beliefs were espoused by nonruling communist parties in France,

Italy, Spain, and elsewhere in the West that criticized Soviet at- tempts to assert ideological control over foreign communist parties and even denounced Soviet foreign and domestic policies.

Despite polycentric tendencies in the world communist movement, the Soviet Union was able to influence many parties through

financial and propaganda support. This influence varied over time

and according to the issue involved. The influence that the Soviet

Union was able to exercise through the local nonruling communist

parties was seldom significant enough to affect the policies of for- eign governments directly. Local communist parties have reported on the local political situation to Moscow, have engaged in

subversive activities of benefit to the Soviet Union, have served

as conduits for Soviet propaganda, and have attempted to rally local populations and elites to support Soviet policies. During the

late 1980s, the united front (see Glossary) strategy of alliances between nonruling communist parties and other leftist, "progressive,"

and even "petit bourgeois" parties received new emphasis. The

goal was for communists to exercise influence through participation in electoral politics and through holding posts in legislatures

and executive bodies. The global trend toward democratization was

assessed by the Soviet Union as providing opportunities for the

united front strategy. As was noted in Pravda in 1987, "The struggle for democracy is an important way of weakening monopolistic

state capitalism, and the results of this struggle can be a starting

point for the preparation of socialist transformation."

Soviet-United States Relations

A central concern of Soviet foreign and military policy since

World War II, relations with the United States have gone through

cycles of "cold" and "warm" periods. A crucial factor in SovietAmerican relations has been the mutual nuclear threat (see The

Soviet Union and Nuclear Arms Control, this ch.). A high point

in Soviet-American relations occurred when the Strategic Arms

Limitation Talks (SALT—see Glossary) resulted in the May 1972

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. This event was an early achievement of Soviet-American detente.

The Soviet Union and the United States differed over the meaning of the detente relationship. In the West, detente has usually

been considered to mean a nonhostile, even harmonious, relationship. The Soviet Union, however, has preferred the terms mirnoe

sosushchestvovanie (peaceful coexistence) or razriadka napriazhennosti

(a discharging or easing of tensions) instead of the term detente.

Brezhnev explained the Soviet perception of the detente relationship at the 1976 and 1981 CPSU party congresses, asserting that

detente did not mean that the Soviet Union would cease to support Third World national liberation movements or the world class struggle. In the Soviet view, detente with the West was compatible with sponsoring Cuban intervention in the Third World.

However, Soviet-sponsored intervention in the Third World met

with growing protest from the United States. The detente relationship conclusively ended with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

in December 1979.

Following the Soviet invasion, the United States instigated a number of trade sanctions against the Soviet Union, including an embargo on grain shipments to the Soviet Union, the cancellation of

American participation in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow,

and the shelving of efforts to win ratification in the United States Senate of the second SALT agreement. In April 1981, under the

new administration of President Ronald Reagan, the United States announced the lifting of the grain embargo but also moved to tighten

procedures concerning the export of strategically sensitive technology to the Soviet Union. As part of this effort to limit such exports, the Reagan administration in 1982 unsuccessfully attempted

to convince West European governments to block the sale of

American-developed technology for the construction of Soviet natural gas pipelines. A freeze on cultural exchanges that had developed

after the invasion of Afghanistan continued during Reagan's first term in office. The Soviet Union began deploying SS-20 intermediate-range

ballistic missiles equipped with nuclear warheads along its western

and southeastern borders in 1977. The United States and its NATO

allies regarded this deployment as destabilizing to the nuclear

balance in Europe, and in December 1979 NATO decided to counter with the deployment of Pershing II intermediate-range ballistic missiles and ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs), both

equipped with nuclear warheads. In November 1981, Reagan pro- posed the "zero option" as the solution to the nuclear imbalance

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Embassy of

the Soviet Union,

Washington

Courtesy

Raymond E. Zickel

in Western Europe. Basically, the zero option included the elimination of SS-20s and other missiles targeted against Western Europe and the nondeployment of countervailing NATO weapons.

The Soviet Union refused to accept the zero option and insisted

that French and British nuclear forces be included in the reckoning of the balance of nuclear forces in Europe and in any agreement on reductions of nuclear forces. Feeling forced to match the

Soviet nuclear threat, NATO began countervailing deployments

in late 1983. As the deployment date neared, the Soviet Union

threatened to deploy additional nuclear weapons targeted on Western Europe and weapons that would place the territory of the United

States under threat. Also, Soviet negotiators walked out of talks on the reduction of intermediate-range nuclear forces (the INF talks)

and strategic forces (the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks, or START). The refusal to come back to the negotiating table continued after General Secretary Iurii V. Andropov's death and Konstantin V. Chernenko's selection as general secretary in early 1984.

The Soviet Union finally agreed to resume the INF and START

talks around the time of Chernenko's death and Gorbachev's selec- tion as general secretary in March 1985. Progress was then made

on the revamped INF talks. In 1987 the Soviet Union acceded to the zero option, which involved the elimination of NATO Pershing

lis and GLCMs targeted against the Soviet Union and Eastern

Europe and Soviet missiles targeted against Western Europe and

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Asia. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) was finally signed in Washington on December 8, 1987, during

a summit meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev.

Between November 1982 and March 1985, the Soviet Union had

four general secretaries (Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and

Gorbachev) while the United States had a single chief executive.

The changes of leadership in the Soviet Union had a noticeable

effect on Soviet-American relations. Until Gorbachev assumed power and partially consolidated his rule by 1986, the frequent changes

in Soviet leadership resulted in the continuation of policies formulated during the late Brezhnev period. Soviet foreign policy toward

the United States during this period increasingly took the form of

vituperative propaganda attacks on Reagan, who, it was alleged, was personally responsible for derailing Soviet-American detente

and increasing the danger of nuclear war. The low point in SovietAmerican relations occurred in March 1983, when Reagan

described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire . . . the focus of

evil in the modern world," and Soviet spokesmen responded by

attacking Reagan's "bellicose, lunatic anticommunism." The

Soviet shoot-down of a civilian South Korean airliner in September 1983 near the Soviet island of Sakhalin shocked world public

opinion and militated against any improvement in Soviet-American

relations at that time. In 1983 the United States was increasingly

concerned about Soviet activities in Grenada, finally directing the

military operation in October 1983 that was denounced by the

Soviet Union. In November 1983, the Soviet negotiators walked

out of the arms control talks. In August 1985, Gorbachev declared a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. The United States, in the midst of a nuclear

warhead modernization program, refused to go along with the

moratorium. Some Western analysts viewed Gorbachev's unilateral

moratorium as a Soviet attempt to delay weapons modernization

in the United States and, in the event that the United States re- fused to abide by the moratorium even unofficially, an attempt to depict the United States and the Reagan administration as militaristic. The Soviet Union ended the moratorium with an underground

nuclear test in February 1987.

A general improvement in Soviet-American relations began soon

after Gorbachev was selected general secretary in March 1985. Annual summit meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev were held

at Geneva (November 1985); Reykjavik (October 1986); Washington (December 1987); and Moscow (May 1988). At the Geneva

Summit between Reagan and Gorbachev in November 1985, a new

general cultural agreement was signed that involved exchanges of

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performing arts groups and fine arts and educational exhibits. At

the Reykjavik Summit, some progress was made in strategic arms

reductions negotiations, although no agreements were reached. At

the Washington Summit, the INF Treaty was signed. At the

Moscow Summit, an agreement increasing the level and type of

educational exchanges was signed. Although no major arms control agreements were signed during the Moscow summit, the summit was significant because it demonstrated a commitment by both

sides to a renewed detente.

During the mid- to late 1980s, the Soviet Union also stepped

up media contacts. Soviet spokesmen appeared regularly on United States television, United States journalists were allowed unprecedented access to report on everyday life in the Soviet Union,

and video conferences (termed "tele-bridges") were held between

various United States groups and selected Soviet citizens. Soviet-West European Relations

Soviet relations with Western Europe since World War II have

been heavily colored by Soviet relations with Eastern Europe and

by the presence of Warsaw Pact forces arrayed against NATO

forces. The Soviet influence over Eastern Europe, reinforced in

West European eyes by Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and

Czechoslovakia in 1968 and by the buildup of Soviet conventional

and nuclear forces, fostered efforts in the 1980s among the West

European states of NATO to bolster their defenses and discouraged

closer relations between West European countries and the Soviet

Union.

Since the end of World War II and the establishment of Soviet

hegemony over Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union has had five goals

in regard to Western Europe: preventing the rearming and nuclearization of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany);

preventing the political, economic, and military integration of

Western Europe; obtaining West European endorsement of the ter- ritorial status quo in Europe; encouraging anti-Americanism and

troubled relations with the United States; and fostering neutralism, nuclear disarmament, and the creation of nuclear weaponsfree zones through the encouragement of peace groups and leftist movements. The Soviet Union has succeeded in achieving some

of these goals but has been unsuccessful in achieving others.

In general, Soviet leaders have stated that the proper relationship between Western Europe and the Soviet Union should be similar to the relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union. As

stated by then-Politburo member Andropov in 1978, "SovietFinnish relations today constitute a sound and stable system of

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

enjoyment of equal rights of cooperation in the diverse areas of

political, economic, and political life. This constitutes detente, as embodied in daily contacts, detente which makes peace stronger

and the life of people better and calmer." More broadly, neutralism is extolled by the Soviet Union as a transitional historical model

for Western and Third World states to follow in their relations with

the Soviet Union, typified by nonparticipation in Western military alliances and economic organizations and by political support

for anti-imperialism, capitalist disarmament, national liberation,

and other foreign policies favored by the Soviet Union.

During the early to mid-1980s, Soviet leaders attempted to foster a "European detente" separate from detente with the United States. This attempt failed, however, because of the determination of West

European governments to modernize NATO and deploy countervailing nuclear systems and the failure of Soviet-cultivated peace

and other groups to influence West European policy.

France

Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Soviet Union cultivated a "privileged" relationship with France. The high point of SovietFrench relations occurred during the administration of President

Charles de Gaulle (1959-69). Following the Soviet invasion of

Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Soviet-French relations cooled,

although state visits continued. During the leadership of President

Francois Mitterrand, first elected as part of a coalition government

in May 1981, France pursued several policies objectionable to the

Soviet Union, such as selling arms to China, militarily opposing

Libya's invasion of Chad, working with West Germany to strength- en West European defense, and expelling a large number of Soviet

diplomats and other personnel involved in technology theft and

other forms of espionage. Gorbachev's first state visit as general

secretary was to France in October 1985. The visit provided a public

display of the Soviet Union's interest in maintaining a special rela- tionship with France and also served as an attempt to exacerbate

intra-European rivalries. Nevertheless, the general trend of French

foreign policy in the late 1980s toward greater cooperation with

NATO frustrated Soviet efforts to maintain a privileged relationship. France's refusal in 1986 and 1987 to discuss a freeze or a reduction of the French nuclear forces {force defrappe, orforce de dis- suasion) further strained Soviet-French relations.

West Germany

A recurrent theme in Soviet propaganda concerning West

Germany has been the supposed resurgence of revanchism and

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militarism, indicating to some degree real Soviet fears of a rearmed

and nuclearized West Germany. The Soviet Union strongly opposed the creation of multilateral nuclear forces in Europe in the

1960s and demanded that West Germany sign the Treaty on the

Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which the Soviet Union had

signed in July 1968. After Willy Brandt of the Social Democratic

Party was elected chancellor in October 1969, he implemented a

detente, termed Ostpolitik (literally, Eastern policy), with the Soviet

Union. West Germany signed the nonproliferation treaty in

November 1969. In August 1970, the Soviet Union and West Germany signed a treaty calling for the peaceful settiement of disputes,

with West Germany agreeing to respect the territorial integrity of

the states of Europe and the validity of the Oder-Neisse line dividing East Germany from Poland. The provisions of this bilateral

treaty became multilateral with the signing of the Final Act of the

Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Accords) in 1975, in which the Western signatories, including the United States, recognized the de facto hegemony of the Soviet Union

over Eastern Europe and the existing territorial boundaries of the

European states. The Helsinki Accords also bound the signatories

to respect basic principles of human rights. In the early 1980s, the

Soviet Union began a harsh propaganda campaign accusing West

Germany of revanchism and militarism because of West German

initiation and support of NATO efforts to counter the Soviet deployment of SS-20s targeted on Western Europe. Gorbachev remained

cool toward West Germany because of its role in fostering a NATO

response to SS-20 deployments and delayed scheduling his first visit until June 1989. This visit was very successful in emphasizing

Gorbachev's message of the "common European home" and the

peaceful intentions of the Soviet Union regarding Western Europe.

Britain

In the years immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution,

the Soviet leadership assiduously pursued diplomatic relations with

Britain, the archetypical "imperialist" power, as part of its efforts to win recognition as a legitimate regime. After World War II, the Soviet Union perceived Britain as an "imperialist power in

decline," especially after Britain relinquished most of its colonies.

Nevertheless, Britain remained an important power in Soviet eyes

because of its nuclear forces, influential role as head of the British

Commonwealth, and close ties with the United States. In general, Soviet relations with Britain have never been as important a component of Soviet foreign policy toward Western

Europe as have been relations with France (especially during the

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

de Gaulle period) or with West Germany (especially during the

Brandt period). Several reasons for Britain's lesser importance existed. Unlike West Germany, Britain is not subject to Soviet political pressures exerted through the instrument of a divided people.

Much smaller than its French counterpart, the British Communist

Party exerted less influence in electoral politics. The British econ- omy has also been less dependent than that of other West Europe- an states on Soviet and East European trade and energy resources. In December 1984, shortly before Gorbachev became general

secretary, he made his first visit to London. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared that he was a leader she could "do busi- ness with," an assessment that boosted Gorbachev's stature in the

Soviet Union and abroad. This assessment was repeated upon

Thatcher's visit to the Soviet Union in April 1987. Under Gorbachev's leadership, the Soviet Union renewed its attempts to persuade Britain and France to enter into strategic nuclear disarmament negotiations, which as of 1989 they had resisted.

Spain and Portugal

Soviet contacts with Spain and Portugal were almost nonexistent in the post-World War II period until the 1970s, when changes

in leadership of both countries paved the way for the establishment

of diplomatic relations. Portugal established diplomatic relations

with the Soviet Union in June 1974, and Spain reestablished diplomatic ties in February 1977, broken in 1939 after the Nationalists

defeated the Soviet-backed Republicans in the Spanish Civil War.

Both countries have relatively large, long-established pro-Soviet

communist parties, with the Portuguese Communist Party during

the 1980s enjoying more electoral support and seats in the legisla- ture. In March 1982, Spain joined NATO (Portugal was a founding member), a move opposed by the Soviet Union and the

Communist Party of Spain. Soviet relations with Spain during the

1980s were businesslike, with King Juan Carlos visiting Moscow

in May 1 984 and Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez visiting in May

1986. Relations with Portugal in the early 1980s were relatively poor, with Portugal criticizing the invasion of Afghanistan and other

Soviet policies. Relations improved during the late 1980s, when

President Mario Soares visited Moscow in November 1987 and

signed trade and other cooperation agreements; Shevardnadze paid a return visit to Lisbon in March 1988.

Scandinavia

The central factor in Scandinavian relations with the Soviet

Union is the proximity of Norway, Sweden, and Finland to major

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Foreign Policy

Soviet bases on the Kola Peninsula (see fig. 6). Besides Turkey,

Norway is the only NATO country bordering the Soviet Union.

The interrelated Soviet objectives in Scandinavia have been to maintain freedom of navigation through the Baltic Sea into the

North Sea, sustain the neutrality of Finland and Sweden, and en- courage Norway, Denmark, and Iceland to withdraw from NATO.

The Scandinavian states act to minimize the Soviet security threat

through a mix of military preparedness and nonprovocative, ac- commodationist policies. Norway, Denmark, and Sweden do not

allow the stationing of foreign troops, the establishment of foreign

military bases, or the installation of nuclear weapons on their ter- ritory. Sweden's neutrality has been based on the concept of total national defense, which stresses involvement of the civilian population, as well as military forces, in defending territorial integrity.

Since the 1970s, Sweden has been concerned about repeated Soviet

submarine incursions into its territorial waters. Finland's *

' positive neutrality" is based on a special relationship with the Soviet

Union codified in their 1948 Treaty of Mutual Assistance and

Cooperation.

Soviet-East European Relations

Continued Soviet influence over the East European countries belonging to the Warsaw Pact and Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon)—Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany,

Hungary, Poland, and Romania—remained a fundamental regional

priority of Soviet foreign policy in mid- 1989 (see Appendix B; Appendix C). The CPSU party program ratified at the Twenty-Seventh

Party Congress in 1986 designated these East European states as members of the "socialist commonwealth" (along with Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam) and depicted the establishment of socialism in Eastern Europe as a validation of "the general laws of socialism [communism] . " By staking the validity of Marxist-Leninist ideology on

the continuation of communism in Eastern Europe, the Soviet leader- ship in effect perceived attempts to repudiate communism as threats

to the ideological validity of the Soviet system itself. The Soviet

leadership expressed this sentiment in terms of the "irreversibility

of the gains for socialism" in Eastern Europe. In the late 1980s,

however, liberalization occurred, and the situation was tolerated by

the Soviet leadership.

After the August 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia,

which ended a process of liberalization begun by the Communist

Party of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union made clear the irreversibility of communism in Eastern Europe through statements that

have come to be known in the West as the "Brezhnev Doctrine"

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

and are termed by the Soviet Union as "socialist internationalism." In a speech delivered in Poland in November 1968, Brezh- nev stated, "When external and internal forces hostile to socialism

try to turn the development of a given socialist country in the direction of the restoration of the capitalist system . . . this is no longer

merely a problem for that country's people, but a common problem,

the concern of all socialist countries. " The Brezhnev Doctrine was

repeated in the 1986 party program's call for "mutual assistance

in resolving the tasks of the building and defense of the new society," indicating no real change in this doctrine during the mid- to

late 1980s. During his visit to Yugoslavia in March 1988, Gorbachev made statements that some Western observers termed the

"repudiation of the Brezhnev Doctrine," signaling Soviet willing- ness to tolerate some political liberalization in Eastern Europe.

Soviet influence over Eastern Europe began with the Soviet oc- cupation of territories during World War II. By 1948 communist

regimes had come to power in all the East European states. In Yugoslavia, however, Josip Broz Tito, a nationalist communist who

had played a major role in the resistance to the occupying German forces, opposed Joseph V. Stalin's attempts to assert control over Yugoslav domestic politics. Tito's actions resulted in Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Cominform in 1948 and the declaration of a trade embargo. In 1954, after Stalin's death, the Cominform ended its embargo. In May 1955, Nikita S. Khrushchev visited Belgrade and proclaimed the doctrine of "many roads to social- ism," acknowledging Yugoslavia's right to a relatively independent domestic and foreign policy.

Leadership changes in the Soviet Union have often been followed

by upheaval in Eastern Europe. Stalin's death created popular ex- pectations of a relative relaxation of coercive controls. The slow

pace of change contributed to domestic violence in three East European states—East Germany, Hungary, and Poland—within four

years of Stalin's death in March 1953. In June 1953, the Soviet

army peremptorily suppressed a wave of strikes and riots in East

Germany over increased production quotas and police repression.

In June 1956, four months after the Twentieth Party Congress at which Khrushchev delivered his "secret speech" denouncing Stalinist terror, anti- Soviet riots broke out in Poznari, Poland. In Hungary, anti-Soviet riots broke out in October 1956 and escalated

immediately to full-scale revolt, with the Hungarians calling for

full independence, the disbanding of the communist party, and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet Union invaded Hungary on November 4, 1956, and Hungarian prime minister Imre

Nagy was arrested and later executed. The events of the 1950s

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Foreign Policy

taught the Soviet Union at least three lessons: that the policy of

teaching the younger generation in Eastern Europe to support

Soviet-imposed communism had failed; that Soviet military power

and occupation forces were the main guarantees of the continued

existence of East European communism; and that some limited local control over domestic political and economic policy had to be

granted, including some freedom in the selection of leading party

officials. Czechoslovakia's 1968 liberalization, or

4 'Prague Spring" (which

occurred during a period of collective leadership in the Soviet Union

while Brezhnev was still consolidating power), led to a Warsaw Pact

invasion in August 1968, illustrating that even gradual reforms were

intolerable at that time to the Soviet Union. This lesson was illus- trated again, but in a different form, during the events in Poland

of 1980-81. The reforms sought by Polish workers—independent

trade unions with the right to strike—were unacceptable to the

Soviet Union, but for a variety of reasons the Soviet Union en- couraged an "internal invasion" (use of Polish police and armed

forces to quell disturbances) rather than occupation of the country

by Soviet military forces. The new Polish prime minister and first secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party, Army General

Wojciech Jaruzelski, declared martial law on December 13, 1981,

and banned the independent trade union movement Solidarity.

Gorbachev's political report to the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in February-March 1986 emphasized the "many roads to so- cialism" in Eastern Europe and called for cooperation, rather than

uniformity, in Soviet-East European relations. The new party pro- gram ratified at the congress, however, reemphasized the need for

tight Soviet control over Eastern Europe. Additionally, the five- year plan ratified at the congress called for integrated perestroika

(see Glossary) among the Comecon countries, with each East European country specializing in the development and production of

various high-technology goods under arrangements largely controlled by the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev's emphasis on perestroika and glasnost' (see Glossary)

domestically and within Eastern Europe was supported to varying

degrees by the East European leaders in the mid- to late 1980s.

The leaders of Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria apparently supported Gorbachev's reforms, while the leaders of East Germany,

Czechoslovakia, and Romania resisted far-reaching reforms.

Although there were varying degrees of compliance in Eastern Europe with Gorbachev's reform agenda, in the mid- to late 1980s

the basic Soviet policy of maintaining a high level of influence in

Eastern Europe had not been altered, although the nature of Soviet

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

influence apparently had shifted away from coercion toward political and economic instruments of influence.

Si no-Soviet Relations

Soviet relations with China have, on the whole, been cool since

the 1950s. In 1959 and 1960, the Soviet withdrawal of all economic advisers, Khrushchev's renunciation of the agreement to provide a sample nuclear weapon to China, and increasing mutual

accusations of ideological deviation were all evidence of the politi- cal rift between the two countries. After Khrushchev's ouster in

1964, Brezhnev attempted to establish better relations with China, but his efforts foundered in the late 1960s. Riots by Chinese

Red Guards in January-February 1967 led to the evacuation of

nonessential Soviet diplomatic personnel from Beijing. In 1968 and

1969, serious Sino-Soviet border clashes occurred along the Amur

and Ussuri rivers. Beginning in the late 1960s, Brezhnev proposed an "Asian collective security system," which he envisioned as a means of containing China. This proposal, repeated by successive

Soviet leaders, has been rejected by most Asian countries.

During the 1970s, China began its policy of improving relations

with the West to counter Soviet political and military pressure in

Asia. After Mao Zedong's death in September 1976, the Soviet

Union sought to improve relations with China, but by early 1977

the polemics had renewed, and by mid- 1978 increasing military

tensions between Cambodia (China's ally) and Vietnam (the Soviet

Union's ally) contributed to a return to poor relations. At the

Eleventh National Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party

(CCP), held in August 1977, CCP chairman Hua Guofeng declared

that the Soviet Union represented a greater threat than the United States to world peace and Chinese national security. In keeping with this assessment, the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Peace and

Friendship, signed in August 1978, contained an "anti-hegemony

clause" in which the signatories renounced the pursuit of hegemony and opposed the efforts of other states—implying the Soviet

Union—to gain hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region. The SinoAmerican joint communique of December 1978 contained an analogous clause.

In February 1979, China launched a limited military incursion

into Vietnam in retaliation for the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, a Chinese ally. The Soviet Union harshly condemned this Chinese incursion and stepped up arms shipments to Vietnam.

In April 1979, China declared that it would not renew the 1950

Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance, but it offered to begin negotiations with the Soviet Union

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Foreign Policy

to improve relations. These negotiations began in late September

1979 (separate border negotiations had been ongoing since 1969),

with China demanding a cutback in Soviet troop strength along

the border, withdrawal of Soviet troops from Mongolia, an end

to Soviet aid to Vietnam, and a Vietnamese military withdrawal

from Cambodia. These negotiations were cut off by the Chinese

in January 1980 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the previ- ous month. The Chinese thereafter added the demand that an improvement in Sino-Soviet relations required Soviet withdrawal of

troops from Afghanistan.

At the Twenty-Sixth Party Congress in February 1981, Brezh- nev reported that * 'unfortunately, there are no grounds yet to speak

of any changes for the better in Beijing's foreign policy." Relations began to improve, however, after Brezhnev delivered a conciliatory speech at Tashkent in March 1982, and in October the

Sino-Soviet border "consultations" —broken off after the invasion

of Afghanistan—were reopened.

After Gorbachev became general secretary in March 1985, re- lations with China did not improve markedly at first. Nevertheless, high-level visits and discussions were encouraging enough that

Gorbachev, at the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in FebruaryMarch 1986, was able to "speak with satisfaction about a certain

amount of improvement" in relations with China. In his Vladivostok speech in July 1986, Gorbachev promised to remove some

of the obstacles to better Sino-Soviet relations, announcing that

six Soviet regiments would be withdrawn from Afghanistan, that some troops would be withdrawn from Mongolia, that Soviet negoti- ators would discuss a reduction in Soviet forces along the SinoSoviet border, and that the Soviet Union would commit itself to certain methodologies in delineating the Sino-Soviet borders.

Another Soviet gesture was the removal of SS-20 missiles from the

border with China as a result of the Soviet-American INF Treaty

of December 1987. In April 1988, the Soviet Union signed accords

calling for the total withdrawal of Soviet military forces from Afghanistan, which were a serious obstacle to better Sino-Soviet re- lations. During 1988 Vietnam committed itself to removing troops

from Cambodia, overcoming another obstacle to improved rela- tions and a summit. In 1987 and repeatedly in 1988, Gorbachev

proposed a Sino-Soviet summit meeting, which was finally scheduled for June 1989. It was the first since the Khrushchev period.

Soviet-Japanese Relations

The poor relations between the Soviet Union and Japan can probably be said to have originated in Japan's victory over imperial

427
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. During the Russian Civil War (1918-21), Japan (as a member of the Allied interventionist forces) occupied Vladivostok and did not leave until 1922.

In the waning days of World War II, Stalin abrogated the 1941

neutrality pact between Japan and the Soviet Union, declaring war

on Japan days before Japan surrendered in August 1945 in order

to occupy vast areas of East Asia formerly held by the Japanese.

Fifty-six islands of the Kuril chain, as well as the southern half of

Sakhalin, were subsequently incorporated into the Soviet Union.

The extreme southernmost islands of the Kuril chain constitute what

the Japanese still term the Northern Territories—the small islands

of Shikotan-to, Kunashir, and Etorofu and the Habomai Islands.

Stalin's absorption of the Northern Territories prevented the conclusion of a Soviet-Japanese World War II peace treaty and the

establishment of closer relations between the two states. The Soviet

Union continued to refuse to return the Northern Territories be- cause such a return would encourage the Chinese to push their own

territorial claims. Also, the Soviet Union has used the islands as part of an antisubmarine warfare network guarding the mouth of

the Sea of Okhotsk.

Under Gorbachev, Soviet-Japanese relations thawed somewhat.

Foreign Minister Shevardnadze visited Tokyo in January 1986 and

December 1988, and a new Soviet ambassador, fluent in Japanese, was posted to Tokyo in mid- 1986. As of 1989, however, political

and economic relations had not shown signs of great improvement.

Soviet trade with Japan remained far below its potential, given the

Japanese need for energy and raw materials available from the

Soviet Union and Gorbachev's desires to import technology to modernize the Soviet economy.

The Soviet Union and the Third World

Until Stalin's death in 1953, Soviet activity in the Third World

was limited. Khrushchev recognized that the number of independent Third World states was increasing because of post-World War

II decolonialization, and he pictured these states as moving onto

the noncapitalist path of development and progressing quickly

toward the achievement of Soviet-style socialism. Khrushchev divided the Third World states into three categories. The first category,

capitalist-oriented states, mainly consisted of newly independent

states that had not yet chosen the noncapitalist path. In the second

category were the so-called national democracies, anti-Western states that were implementing some economic centralization and nationalization programs and hence had embarked on the path of noncapitalist development. In the third category were "revolutionary

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Foreign Policy

democracies, '' which professed Marxism-Leninism as their ideology

and had set up ruling communist-style parties (termed "MarxistLeninist vanguard parties" by the Soviet Union). Since the late 1960s, the term "socialist orientation" has been increasingly used

in the Soviet Union to describe Third World states on the noncapitalist path of development, although the states with ruling van- guard parties still have been termed revolutionary democracies.

Since the late 1970s, Soviet analysts have tended to regard the

nature and future of the Third World either conservatively or pragmatically. On the one hand, conservative Soviet analysts have seen

the Third World as making a choice between two paths—capitalism

and socialism—and have maintained that only the latter path leads

to political, social, and economic development. Pragmatic analysts, on the other hand, have seen the maintenance of some elements

of capitalism as essential for the economic and political development of Third World countries. Among the pragmatic analysts,

though, there have been different views about the pace of the transition to socialism in the Third World, with the more pessimistic

theorists even suggesting the indefinite existence of mixed econo- mies in Third World states. The conservative theorists have tended to advocate the establishment of Marxist-Leninist vanguard parties in Third World

states, whereas the pragmatists have advocated a united front stra- egy in which the local communist and leftist parties ally with other

"progressive" parties and groups and work to achieve change

peacefully through elections and propaganda. Internal Soviet debates aside, the Soviet Union began to favor a dual policy toward

the Third World in the 1970s, stressing the establishment of van- guard parties in some states and the united front policy in others.

Rhetorically, and to some degree in action, though, Soviet leaders have placed greater emphasis on the united front policy in the

late 1980s.

In the CPSU party program and in the political report delivered

by Gorbachev in February 1986, there was a discernible de-emphasis on Soviet concern with socialist-oriented Third World states. The party program emphasized that "the practice of the Soviet

Union's relations with the liberated countries has shown that there are also real grounds for cooperation with the young states that are traveling the capitalist road." According to some Western

analysts, Gorbachev indicated the nature of this reorientation during

his visit to India in November 1986. At that time, Gorbachev referred

to Soviet relations with India as the model of the "new thinking"

toward Third World states having a "capitalist orientation."

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Reasons for this possible Soviet reorientation may have included desires to use technologies available in some of the "newly in- dustrialized countries" for Soviet economic development, desires

to foster positive trade flows and earn hard currency or access to desirable commodities, and attempts to encourage anti-Western

foreign policies and closer alignment with the Soviet Union. As

of the late 1980s, this possible reorientation did not include politicalmilitary abandonment of Asian communist states (Laos and Vietnam) or of "revolutionary democratic" or "progressive" regimes

(such as Angola, Libya, Mozambique, or Nicaragua). The reorientation, rather, may have represented an attempt to widen the scope

of Soviet interests in the Third World. As of 1989, the only case of possible Soviet "abandonment" of a so-called revolutionary

democracy would be the withdrawal of military forces from Afghanistan, although the Soviet leaders hoped that they would be

able to maintain some presence and influence in Kabul and in areas bordering the Soviet Union and in other enclaves.

Middle East and North Africa

Among the Third World regions, the Middle East was a central concern of Soviet foreign policy. The region borders the Soviet

Union and therefore has a direct impact on national security. Also,

various ethnic, religious, and language groups existing in the region

are found also in Soviet border areas and thus constitute a possible threat to Soviet control. The Middle East is also of strategic concern because the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf serve

as waterways joining together Europe, Asia, and North Africa, and

the region contains oil resources vital to Western industrial production.

In the post-World War II period, the main Soviet goal in the

region has been to reduce British and, more recently, United States influence. Termination of the British colonial and protective role

in the Middle East by the early 1970s created a military power vacu- um in the region, which Iran sought unsuccessfully to fill with United States backing. In the late 1980s, however, the growing Soviet

military presence in the region was underscored by the belated United States commitment to protect shipping in the Persian Gulf from

Iranian attack, after the Soviet Union had already begun its own

efforts to protect such shipping at the behest of the Kuwaitis.

Turkey

Soviet relations with Turkey were poor during the Stalin period

because of Soviet territorial claims against Turkey. These claims

helped induce Turkey to join NATO in 1952. Relations improved

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Foreign Policy

during the 1950s and 1960s to the point where Khrushchev began

giving economic assistance to Turkey in the early 1960s. During

the 1980s, this economic assistance represented the largest program

of Soviet aid to any noncommunist Third World state. Turkish

relations with the Soviet Union further improved after the United

States imposed an arms embargo on Turkey to protest the 1974

invasion and occupation of northern Cyprus. During the 1980s,

Turkey continued a delicate balancing act between security cooperation within NATO and good relations with the Soviet Union.

Iran and Iraq

During the 1970s, the Soviet Union attempted to consolidate a

closer relationship with Iraq while also maintaining normal rela- tions with Iran. Soviet arms transfers to Iraq started in 1959 when,

after Colonel Abd al Karim Qasim overthrew the pro-Western

monarchy, Iraq withdrew from the Baghdad Pact. These arms

transfers continued during the 1960s and increased after the signing of the Soviet-Iraqi Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in

1972. The Soviet Union increased arms shipments to support Iraq's

counterinsurgency efforts against the Kurds (whom the Soviet

Union had earlier supported). Iraqi relations with the Soviet Union

became strained in the late 1970s after discovery of an Iraqi communist party plot to overthrow the leadership and because the Soviet

Union was backing Ethiopian attempts to suppress the Iraqisupported Eritrean insurgency. Nevertheless, the Iraqi policy of

acquiring Soviet arms and military equipment in exchange for oil was continued by Saddam Husayn, who succeeded to the presidency

of Iraq in 1979. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in

December 1979, however, Saddam's government condemned the

invasion, and Iraqi-Soviet relations deteriorated further. When Iraq

invaded Iran in September 1980, the Soviet Union halted arms

shipments to Iraq, which drove Iraq to make desperate purchases

in the private arms market. Relations thus became particularly

strained between the Soviet Union and Iraq. Although normal re- lations between the two countries were resumed after 1982 when

the arms shipments were renewed, Soviet efforts to draw Iraq into

its political sphere of influence were not successful during the 1980s,

and Iraq remained nonaligned.

The shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, responding to Iraq's

military buildup and the irredentist ambitions of Iraq against

Kuwait and Iran, himself concluded arms agreements with the

Soviet Union in the mid- to late 1960s, while maintaining Iran's membership in the Western-oriented Central Treaty Organization

(CENTO), which was formerly known as the Baghdad Pact. The

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Soviet Union maintained cordial relations with the shah until the

end of 1978, when the deteriorating security situation in Iran signaled the imminent collapse of the dynasty. The Soviet Union initially supported Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini after his return to Iran in February 1979 (he had been exiled in 1963).

During the initial phases of the Iran-Iraq War, the Soviet Union

made overtures to Iran, but efforts to improve relations with Khomeini failed. The hope of the Soviet Union had been to act as the broker of

the Iran-Iraq conflict, much as it acted in the 1965 Indian-Pakistani

conflict and as it attempted to do during the Somali-Ethiopian conflict of 1977-78. Although the cease-fire agreed to between the two

belligerents in 1988 owed little to Soviet offices, the related Soviet

goal of achieving close relations with both Iran and Iraq remained

a component of Soviet foreign policy. The cease-fire benefited the

Soviet Union in that it relieved the Soviet Union from protecting

Iraq from military defeat, a defeat that would have demonstrated

to the Arab world and to the Third World generally that Soviet

leaders were insufficiently committed to states that had signed

treaties of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union.

Other Middle Eastern States Soviet relations with several Arab states improved during the

mid- to late 1980s. In late 1985, Oman and the United Arab

Emirates established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

Relations also improved with Bahrain, Kuwait, the Yemen Arab

Republic (North Yemen), Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. This

Soviet policy of improving ties with Western-oriented Arab states, as well as with the radical regimes of Syria and South Yemen, in- dicated a shift in Soviet policy away from the forging of a radical

bloc of states toward a more flexible diplomatic approach to Middle Eastern problems. A major objective of this more flexible Soviet

policy was to achieve the convening of an Arab-Israeli conference

in which the Soviet Union would act as the primary peace broker.

The Soviet Union began pursuing this objective in the 1970s as part

of its general effort to erode United States influence in the region.

Gorbachev pursued closer ties with several moderate Middle

Eastern states—Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, and Israel—while maintaining ties with radical regimes such as those in Syria, Libya, and

South Yemen. In May 1987, Kuwait sought Soviet protection of

its shipping in the Persian Gulf, and the Soviet Union agreed to

let Kuwait charter Soviet-flagged tankers to transport oil. The Soviet

Union also increased the size of its naval task force in the Persian

Gulf. For the first time since the expulsion of Soviet military

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advisers in 1972 and the abrogation of the 1971 Soviet-Egyptian

Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in 1976, a Soviet ambassador was posted to Cairo in 1985. Also, the Soviet Union agreed

to reschedule Egypt's military debts on favorable terms. The Soviet

Union agreed to provide Jordan with new weaponry, and Jordan's

King Hussein announced his support for the convening of an in- ternational conference on the Middle East in which the Soviet Union

would participate. This improvement in relations occurred despite

Jordan's arrest of local communist party leaders in the spring of

1986. Lastiy, the Soviet Union made several overtures to Israel in 1985-89 regarding reestablishment of diplomatic relations

severed in June 1967 as a result of the June 1967 War—in an at- tempt to gain Israeli support for an international conference on

the Middle East. The Soviet Union had de-emphasized its previ- ous condition that Israel withdraw from territories occupied during the Arab-Israeli June 1967 War before the reestablishment of

relations, but the Israelis insisted on restoration of relations before the convening of the international conference. In 1987-88 the

Soviet Union and Israel exchanged consular missions, but as of

1989 full diplomatic relations had not been restored.

Asia

The Soviet Union had at least four regional objectives in Asia:

defense of the Soviet Union's eastern borders, including border

areas claimed by Japan, China, and Mongolia; maintenance of

Soviet alliances, as embodied in treaties of friendship and cooperation with India, Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan; establishment of better relations with the Western-oriented, more economically advanced states in order to obtain technology

and assistance in the economic development of Siberia; and, related

to the other objectives, establishment of a pro- Soviet orientation

among the states of the region that would have the effect of isolat- ing China, South Korea, and the United States. The main instrument used in pursuit of these objectives has been the large Soviet

military presence in Asia. Stressing that the Soviet Union is an

Asian power, Gorbachev has attempted to establish or consolidate

better relations with several states in the region, mainly China,

Japan, and India. In 1988 Gorbachev had also attempted to re- move Afghanistan as an issue blocking the establishment or consolidation of better relations with Asian states by negotiating a timetable for the withdrawal of Soviet combat forces. Afghanistan

Soviet involvement with Afghanistan goes back to the 1920s. In

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

1921, as a means to reduce British influence in the region and to get arms, Afghanistan signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet

Union. The treaty also called for Amanullah, the Afghan amir (ruler), to close his northern border. The border had been serving as a refuge for the Basmachi, Muslim insurgents opposed to the imposition of Soviet power in the khanate of Bukhara (now part of

the Tadzhik, Uzbek, and Turkmen republics). In 1921 and 1931,

the Soviet Union and Afghanistan signed treaties on neutrality and

mutual nonaggression. Afghanistan, however, generally adhered

in foreign policy to the principle of bi-tarafi, or a balanced rela- tionship with great powers. In 1955 Prime Minister Mohammad

Daoud Khan abandoned this policy when he signed a military agree- ment with Czechoslovakia. In December of that year, during a visit to Afghanistan, Khrushchev signed an economic agreement and

reaffirmed the 1931 Afghan-Soviet neutrality treaty. A major rea- son for the shift in Afghan policy was Daoud' s interest in gaining

support for his goal of absorbing Pakistan's North-West Frontier

Province into Afghanistan.

In April 1978, Daoud was overthrown and executed by the radical People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), led by

Hafizullah Amin and Nur Muhammad Taraki. Later that year

Taraki, then president, went to Moscow and signed a twenty-year

treaty of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union that

encompassed and revamped commitments contained in the 1921,

1926 (a trade agreement), and 1931 Soviet-Afghan treaties. In September 1979, Taraki was ousted by Amin, following an apparent

attempt by Taraki himself to remove Amin. The Afghan populace

became increasingly opposed to Amin's radical policies, and the

security of the regime became endangered. Finding their position

in Afghanistan imperiled, the Soviet leadership decided to invade

the country in December 1979. Soviet troops or guards allegedly

killed Amin and brought in Babrak Karmal (who had earlier fled to the Soviet Union during factional struggle within the PDPA)

as the new secretary general of the PDPA. The invasion resulted

in worldwide condemnation of the Soviet Union. The UN General Assembly, the Nonaligned Movement, the Organization of the

Islamic Conference, NATO, and the Association of Southeast Asian

Nations (ASEAN) all called for the withdrawal of ''foreign" troops

from Afghanistan. In June 1982, indirect talks began under UN

auspices between the Afghan and Pakistani governments concerning

resolution of the conflict. In May 1986, in an attempt to win Afghan support for the Soviet-installed regime, Karmal was replaced

by Sayid Mohammad Najibullah as secretary general of the PDPA,

and a campaign was intensified calling for "national reconciliation"

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Foreign Policy

between the Soviet- supported regime and the Islamic resistance,

the mujahidin (literally, holy warriors) and their supporters.

Gorbachev repeatedly termed Afghanistan a "bleeding wound,"

although he did not admit that the Soviet occupation and the Sovietsupported regime were opposed by the vast majority of Afghans.

According to a United States Department of State estimate made

in 1987, almost 1 million Afghans had been killed and more than

5 million had fled the country since the 1979 Soviet invasion. Partly

in support of the "national reconciliation" process, Gorbachev in

his Vladivostok speech ofJuly 1986 announced the withdrawal of a token number of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. Despite talk of reconciliation, a major, but eventually unsuccessful, SovietAfghan army offensive against the mujahidin was launched in Paktia Province in mid- 198 7. At the December 1987 Soviet-United

States summit meeting in Washington, Gorbachev proposed that

the Soviet Union remove the 1 15,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan on the condition that the United States first cease aid to the mujahidin, a proposal in accord with the Soviet contention that "imperialist" interference was the main reason for the initiation and

continuation of the Soviet occupation. In April 1988, Afghanistan

and Pakistan signed accords, with the United States and the Soviet

Union acting as "guarantors," calling for the withdrawal of Soviet

military forces from Afghanistan over a nine-month period beginning on May 15, 1988. The withdrawal was completed in early

1989.

India

A cordial relationship with India that began in the 1950s

represented the most successful of the Soviet attempts to foster closer relations with Third World countries. The relationship began with

a visit by Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to the Soviet

Union in June 1955 and Khrushchev's return trip to India in the

fall of 1955. While in India, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet

Union supported Indian sovereignty over the Kashmir region and

over Portuguese coastal enclaves.

The Soviet relationship with India rankled the Chinese and contributed to Sino-Soviet enmity during the Khrushchev period. The

Soviet Union declared its neutrality during the 1959 border dis- pute and the 1962 Sino-Indian war, although the Chinese strongly objected. The Soviet Union gave India substantial economic and

military assistance during the Khrushchev period, and by 1960

India had received more Soviet assistance than China had. This

disparity became another point of contention in Sino-Soviet rela- tions. In 1962 the Soviet Union agreed to transfer technology to

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

coproduce the MiG-21 jet fighter in India, which the Soviet Union

had earlier denied to China.

In 1965 the Soviet Union served successfully as peace broker

between India and Pakistan after an Indian-Pakistani border war. The Soviet chairman of the Council of Ministers, Aleksei N. Kosygin, met with representatives of India and Pakistan and helped them

negotiate an end to the military conflict over Kashmir.

In 1971 East Pakistan initiated an effort to secede from its union

with West Pakistan. India supported the secession and, as a guarantee against possible Chinese entrance into the conflict on the side

of West Pakistan, signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation with

the Soviet Union in August 1971 . In December, India entered the

conflict and ensured the victory of the secessionists and the establishment of the new state of Bangladesh.

Relations between the Soviet Union and India did not suffer much during the rightist Janata Party's coalition government in

the late 1970s, although India did move to establish better economic

and military relations with Western countries. To counter these

efforts by India to diversify its relations, the Soviet Union proffered

additional weaponry and economic assistance. During the 1980s,

despite the 1984 assassination by Sikh extremists of Prime Minister

Indira Gandhi, the mainstay of cordial Indian-Soviet relations, In- dia maintained a close relationship with the Soviet Union. Indicating the high priority of relations with the Soviet Union in Indian

foreign policy, the new Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, visited the Soviet Union on his first state visit abroad in May 1985 and

signed two long-term economic agreements with the Soviet Union.

In turn, Gorbachev's first visit to a Third World state was his meeting with Gandhi in New Delhi in late 1986. Gorbachev unsuccessfully urged Gandhi to help the Soviet Union set up an Asian

collective security system. Gorbachev's advocacy of this proposal,

which had also been made by Brezhnev, was an indication of continuing Soviet interest in using close relations with India as a means of containing China. With the improvement of Sino-Soviet

relations in the late 1980s, containing China had less of a priority,

but close relations with India remained important as an example

of Gorbachev's new Third World policy.

Southeast Asia

Soviet goals in Southeast Asia included the containment of China,

the introduction and maintenance of Soviet influence, and the

reduction of United States influence in the region. As of 1989, the

Soviet leaders had been only partially successful in attaining these

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Foreign Policy

somewhat contradictory goals and policies. The Soviet acquiescence,

if not support, for the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia in December 1978 resulted in the elimination of the pro-Chinese leadership of Cambodia. However, the Soviet posture regarding the

occupation, along with the growing Soviet military presence in Vietnam, alarmed several ASEAN states and led to closer intra-ASEAN

political, and even military, cooperation and to expanded ASEAN

contacts with the United States and other Western countries. The

Soviet Union also unsuccessfully urged the elimination of United

States bases in the Philippines. However, the Soviet policy of improving ties with the Ferdinand Marcos regime in 1 986 backfired

when Marcos was forced from power.

A Soviet policy of stressing bilateral ties with individual ASEAN

states, rather than multilateral relations, which would strengthen

ASEAN as an organization, began to have some success in the late 1980s. After Gorbachev came to power, bilateral contacts with the

ASEAN states increased as part of the Soviet leader's revised Third

World policy, which emphasized relations with the newly industrialized countries, nonaligned states, and other capitalist-oriented states and improved contacts with Asian countries in general. In March

1987, Foreign Minister Shevardnadze visited Australia and Indonesia

as part of this reorientation, and in late 1988 he visited the Philippines. In July 1987, Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad of

Malaysia visited Moscow, and in May 1988 Prime Minister Prem

Tinsulanonda of Thailand also visited. The major Soviet success in Southeast Asia was the close political, economic, and military ties it established with Vietnam, which

became a full member of Comecon in 1978. Although economic

assistance to Vietnam was a heavy drain on the Soviet economy,

Vietnam provided raw materials and thousands of laborers for work

on Siberian development projects. Militarily, Cam Ranh Bay was

the largest Soviet naval base outside the Soviet Union, allowing the

Soviet Union to project increased power in the South China Sea.

Politically, Vietnam aligned its foreign policy with that of the Soviet

Union, and Vietnam was considered by the Soviet Union as a

"fraternal party state" and as part of the "commonwealth of socialist states." In mid- 1988 Vietnam announced the withdrawal by the end of

1988 of 50,000 of the 100,000 Vietnamese troops occupying Cambodia, with all troops to be withdrawn by 1990. This withdrawal,

publicly endorsed if not implemented at the urging of the Soviet

Union, allowed the Soviet Union to attempt to improve relations

with the ASEAN states and China.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Sub-Saharan Africa

Although the Comintern previously had made low-level contacts with local communist parties, sub-Saharan Africa was an area of

limited concern to the Soviet Union until Khrushchev's reassess- ment of the Third World in the mid-1950s. Although Khrushchev

initiated economic "show projects" in several African countries,

Soviet efforts to foster socialism in Africa foundered in the Congo

in the early 1960s, in Guinea in 1961, and in Kenya in 1965 partly because the Soviet Union was unable to project military power

effectively into Africa.

During the first few years of the Brezhnev period, the amount

of economic assistance to Africa declined from the levels of the

Khrushchev period, although it increased greatiy in the mid-1970s.

During the Brezhnev period, the Soviet ability to project power

grew, enabling it to take advantage of several opportunities in Africa

during the 1970s.

Because of the deteriorating economic situation in the Soviet Union

in the 1980s, economic assistance to Africa declined. Military as- sistance was maintained or increased in some instances in the face

of insurgencies against so-called revolutionary democracies. Angola,

Ethiopia, and Mozambique, all of which were fighting insurgencies, were major recipients of arms throughout the 1980s.

At the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress, Gorbachev called for a reorientation of relations with the Third World. He stressed the

need to improve relations with the more developed, Westernoriented, Third World states while maintaining existing relations

with other African states. In Africa the Soviet Union pursued closer relations with relatively more developed African states such as Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Gorbachev also reiterated Soviet support

for the overthrow of the government of South Africa and support

for the "frontline" states (states near or bordering South Africa)

opposing South Africa: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique,

Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. As part of a Soviet attempt

to coordinate Soviet policy toward southern Africa, a new office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was created to deal with the frontline states. In 1988-89 Soviet hostility toward the South African

regime softened, and the two countries worked together diplomatically in resolving regional conflicts and issues such as negotiations over the independence of Namibia.

Angola

The Soviet Union engaged in a massive airlift of Cuban forces

into Angola in 1975 to help the Popular Movement for the Liberation

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Foreign Policy

of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola—MPLA)

defeat rival groups attempting to achieve power after the Portuguese

colonial administration ended. The rival group, the National Union

for the Total Independence of Angola (Uniao Nacional para a In- dependencia Total de Angola—UNITA), continued to oppose the

MPLA and by the early 1980s controlled almost one-half of Angola's territory and increasingly threatened the central government.

In both 1985 and 1987, massive Soviet-directed and Cuban-assisted

MPLA offensives were launched against UNITA in attempts to achieve a military solution to the insurgency. Both these offensives

failed. In December 1988, regional accords were signed setting a

timetable for Namibian independence and the withdrawal of Cuban

troops from Angola. The signatories were South Africa, Angola,

and Cuba, with the United States acting as mediator and the Soviet

Union as observer of the accords.

Ethiopia

In 1977 and 1978, the Soviet Union airlifted large numbers of

Cuban troops into Ethiopia to help defeat an incursion by Somalia into the disputed Ogaden region. Somalia had signed a treaty

of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union in 1974 and

had received large amounts of Soviet arms. The Soviet leadership,

however, ended this relationship in 1977 and switched support to Ethiopia because of Ethiopia's much greater population and eco- nomic resources and because of its location on the strait of Bab

al Mandab, which links the Horn of Africa to inland Africa and

the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. During the 1980s, the Soviet

Union moved toward normalizing relations with Somalia but appeared to be waiting for a change in regime before attempting to greatly improve contacts. Mozambique

In Mozambique the Soviet Union supplied arms to the Front

for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frente da Libertacao de

Mozambique—Frelimo) during its 1975 effort to win power, and

in 1977 the Soviet Union and Mozambique signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation. In 1977 a disaffected wing of Frelimo and

other Mozambicans formed the Mozambique National Resistance

Movement (Movimento Nacional da Resistencia de Mocambique

Renamo), which began increasingly successful military operations

against the Frelimo government. In the late 1980s, the Soviet

Union stepped up military assistance to the Frelimo government

in the face of the eroding security situation. The Frelimo government, because of inadequate Soviet military assistance, acted to

439
Soviet Union: A Country Study

diversify suppliers by obtaining weaponry and military advisory

assistance from Britain and Portugal, among others.

Central America and South America

Latin America, like sub-Saharan Africa, had been a relatively

low priority in Soviet foreign policy, although in absolute terms

interactions between the Soviet Union and Latin America had in- creased tremendously since the early 1960s. Until the Khrushchev

period, Latin America was generally regarded as in the United

States sphere of influence. The Soviet Union had little interest in

importing Latin American raw materials or commodities, and most

Latin American governments, traditionally anticommunist, had

long resisted the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet

Union.

A transformation of the Soviet attitude toward Latin America

began in 1959 when Fidel Castro overthrew Cuba's long-time dic- tator, Fulgencio Batista. Castro gradually turned the island into a communist state and developed such close ties with the Soviet

Union that Cuba was, by 1961, considered by the Soviet Union

as its first "fraternal party state" in the Western Hemisphere.

Castro initially advocated armed revolutionary struggle in Latin

America. However, after armed struggle failed to topple the government of Venezuela in 1965, the Soviet leadership stressed the

"peaceful road to socialism." This path involved cooperation between communist and leftist movements in working for peaceful

change and electoral victories. The "peaceful road" apparently

bore fruit in 1970 with the election of Salvador Allende Gossens,

the candidate of the leftist Popular Unity coalition, as president

of Chile. Despite Allende 's advocacy of close ties with the Soviet

Union, the Soviet Union was slow in providing economic assistance

essential to the survival of the regime, and in the midst of economic

collapse Allende died in a bloody coup in 1973. His ouster resulted

in a partial renewal of Soviet support for Castro's position that

armed force is necessary for the transition to communism. Brezh- nev himself conceded at the 1976 Twenty-Fifth Party Congress that a "revolution must know how to defend itself." The Soviet Union

funneled weaponry and economic assistance through Cuba to vari- ous insurgent groups and leftist governments in Latin America.

The Soviet Union used Cuba as a conduit for military, economic,

and technical assistance to Grenada from 1979 to 1983. The United

States government claimed that guerrillas operating in El Salvador

received extensive assistance from Nicaragua, Cuba, Vietnam, and

Libya and that Nicaragua and Cuba funneled Soviet and East European materiel to the Salvadoran guerrillas.

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Foreign Policy

Direct Soviet activities in South America have mostly involved

diplomacy, trade, culture, and propaganda activities. Peru was the

only South American state to purchase sizable quantities of mili- tary weaponry from the Soviet Union, and for many years about

125 Soviet military advisers were stationed there. Peru's military

relationship with the Soviet Union began in 1968, when General

Juan Velasco Alvarado seized power. In February 1969, Peru es- tablished diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, and one month

after Allende's ouster in Chile in September 1973, the first Soviet

weapons arrived in Peru. Major transfers occurred after 1976, when

Peru received fighter-bombers, helicopters, jet fighters, surfaceto-air missiles, and other relatively sophisticated weaponry. The

Soviet Union had also been one of Peru's major trade partners,

with some Peruvian exports being used to pay off Peruvian debt

to the Soviet Union. Argentina in the 1980s was the Soviet Union's

second largest trading partner among the noncommunist developing

countries (India was the largest). In turn, the Soviet Union was

a major importer of Argentine grain, meat, and wool.

Some Western analysts have posited a differentiated Soviet policy

toward Latin America, which stresses military and subversive activities in Central America and diplomatic and economic (stateto- state) relations in South America. The range of instruments of

influence used in Central America and South America, while varying in their mix over time, nevertheless indicated that all instruments, including support for subversive groups and arms shipments

to amenable governments, had been used in Central America and

South America in response to available opportunities, indicating

shifting emphases but a basically undifferentiated policy toward

Latin America. The main policy goal in Soviet relations with Latin America was to decrease United States influence in the region

by encouraging the countries of the region either to develop close

ties to the Soviet Union or to adopt a nonaligned, "anti-imperialist"

foreign policy. The Soviet Union was cautious in pursuing this goal,

seeking to maintain a low public profile in its relations, and was

hesitant to devote major economic or military resources to countries in the region, with the exception of Cuba. As part of the

reorientation of Soviet Third World policy toward better relations

with Western-oriented Third World states, Gorbachev emphasized

the establishment of better trade and political relations with several

Latin American states. Evidence of this new emphasis was Gorbachev's visit to Cuba in April 1989 and Foreign Minister Shevardnadze's visits to Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay in 1986-

87. While in Cuba, Gorbachev and Castro signed a friendship and

cooperation treaty, indicating continued Soviet support to Cuba.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

The Soviet Union and Nuclear Arms Control

The Soviet Union has championed arms control, in the guise

of its extreme variant—universal and complete disarmament

since the founding of the Soviet state. Lenin stated that worldwide

disarmament could occur after the victory of socialism but that before that time it would be a tactical device to foster pacifism in the

capitalist world.

The Soviet Union has proposed various nuclear disarmament plans

since the development of nuclear weapons during World War II. In 1946 the Soviet Union rejected the Acheson-Lilienthal-Baruch

Plan proposed by the United States (calling for international control of nuclear weapons) and counterproposed that all nuclear

weapons be destroyed. The United States rejected this proposal

because of lack of adequate verification provisions. The Soviet

Union continued to push for total nuclear disarmament, launching the worldwide " Stockholm Appeal" propaganda campaign in

1950.

The Soviet Union did not seriously contemplate nuclear disarmament or arms reductions while it was in the process of developing and deploying nuclear weapons in the 1940s, 1950s, and most

of the 1960s. During the early to mid-1960s, however, the United

States and the Soviet Union agreed to ban nuclear and other

weapons from Antarctica and nuclear weapons tests in the at- mosphere, outer space, and under water (see Objectives in Space,

ch. 17). Except for these tentative measures, during the 1960s the

Soviet Union built up its strategic nuclear armaments. By the late 1960s, the Soviet Union had reached a rough parity with the United

States in some categories of strategic weaponry and at that time

offered to negotiate limits on strategic nuclear weapons deployments. Also, the Soviet Union wished to constrain American deployment of an antiballistic missile (ABM) system and retain the

ability to place multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles

(MIRVs) on missiles (see Arms Control and Military Objectives,

ch. 17).

The Soviet-American Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT),

initially delayed by the United States in protest of the August 1968

Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, began in November 1969

in Helsinki. The Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, signed in Moscow in May 1972, froze existing levels of deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles

(ICBMs) and regulated the growth of submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). As part of the SALT process, the Anti-Ballistic

442
[I President Ronald W. Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev

signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

in Washington, December 1987

Courtesy Bill Fitz-Patrick

Missile Treaty was also signed, allowing two ABM deployment

areas in each country (a protocol to the treaty later reduced the

number of deployment areas to one).

The SALT agreements were generally considered in the West

as having codified the concept of mutual assured destruction, or

deterrence. Both the United States and the Soviet Union recognized their mutual vulnerability to massive destruction, no matter

which state launched nuclear weapons first. A second SALT agree- ment was signed in June 1979 in Vienna. Among other provisions,

it placed an aggregate ceiling on ICBM and SLBM launchers. The

second SALT agreement was never ratified by the United States Senate, however, in large part because of the Soviet invasion of

Afghanistan in December 1979. Both the Soviet Union and the

United States nonetheless pledged to abide by the provisions of the

agreement. Follow-on talks, termed the Strategic Arms Reduction

Talks (START), began in June 1982 but as of 1989 had not resulted

in agreement.

In January 1986, Gorbachev announced a three-stage proposal

for nuclear disarmament. His plan called for initial strategic nuclear

weapons cuts of 50 percent and the banning of space-based defenses, followed by second- and third-stage cuts that would include

443
Soviet Union: A Country Study

elimination of British and French nuclear arsenals. He also agreed

to the United States position on the total elimination of intermediaterange nuclear forces (INF) in Europe and indicated a new openness to consideration of wide-ranging verification procedures. Parts of the proposal were subsequendy mentioned in Gorbachev's political report to the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in February

1986. Although the proposal as a whole was rejected by the Western

nuclear powers, elements of the proposal were included in the

START negotiations and in the final round of the INF negotiations, which had begun in 1981.

In November 1981, the Reagan administration proposed the

elimination of intermediate (1 ,000 to 5,500 kilometers) and short- er range (500 to 1 ,000 kilometers) ballistic and cruise missiles from

Europe and Asia. The Soviet Union rejected this proposal and at- tempted to influence public opinion in Western Europe to prevent

the NATO deployment of missiles that would counter the Soviet

SS-4s, SS-5s, and SS-20s targeted on Western Europe. According to some Western analysts, the Soviet Union hoped that through

manipulation of European and American public opinion Western

governments would be forced to cancel the deployments, a policy

that the Soviet Union had successfully used in the late 1970s to force cancellation of NATO plans to deploy enhanced radiation

warheads (neutron bombs). The Soviet Union walked out of the

INF and other arms control negotiations in November 1983 as a

result of the NATO deployment of countervailing intermediaterange nuclear forces. The Soviet Union returned to the INF negotiations around the time that Gorbachev became general secretary.

Negotiations proceeded relatively quickly and resulted in the conclusion of the INF Treaty signed in Washington in December 1987.

The INF Treaty called for the elimination of all American and

Soviet INF and shorter-range nuclear forces from Europe and Asia

within three years (see Soviet-United States Relations, this ch.).

The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate and the Supreme

Soviet in May 1988.

On December 7, 1988, Gorbachev made a major foreign policy

speech to the UN General Assembly, announcing arms reductions

that, if fully implemented, would reduce military tensions between

the Soviet Union and the United States and between the Warsaw

Pact and NATO. He pledged that the Soviet Union would unilaterally cut its armed forces by 500,000 troops over a two-year period

and would significantiy cut its deployments of conventional arms,

including over 10,000 tanks. He also announced the withdrawal

of six tank divisions from East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary by 1991. In early 1989, Gorbachev also announced cuts in

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Foreign Policy

the military budget, and several Warsaw Pact states also announced

reductions in their armed forces and military budgets.

The Soviet Union and the United Nations

The Soviet Union has taken an active role in the UN and other

major international and regional organizations. At the behest of

the United States, the Soviet Union took a role in the establishment of the UN in 1945. The Soviet Union insisted that there be

veto rights in the Security Council and that alterations in the Charter of the UN be unanimously approved by the five permanent

members (Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United

States). A major watershed in Soviet UN policy occurred in January 1950, when Soviet representatives boycotted UN functions in

support of the seating of China as a permanent member of the Security Council. In the absence of the Soviet representatives, the UN

Security Council was able to vote for the intervention of UN military forces in what would become the Korean War. The Soviet

Union subsequendy returned to various UN bodies in August 1950.

This return marked the beginning of a new policy of active participation in international and regional organizations.

For many years, the Western powers played a guiding role in

UN deliberations, but by the 1960s many former colonies had been

granted independence and had joined the UN. These states, which

became the majority in the General Assembly and other bodies, were increasingly receptive to Soviet "anti-imperialist" appeals.

By the 1970s, the UN deliberations had generally become increasingly hostile toward the West and toward the United States in particular, as evidenced by pro-Soviet and anti-United States voting

trends in the General Assembly. Although the Soviet Union benefited from and encouraged these trends, it was not mainly responsible for them. Rather, the trends were largely a result of the growing

debate over the redistribution of the world's wealth between the

"have" and "have-not" states. In general, the Soviet Union used the UN as a propaganda fo- rum and encouraged pro-Soviet positions among the nonaligned

countries. The Soviet Union did not, however, achieve total support in the UN for its foreign policy positions. The Soviet Union

and Third World states often agreed that "imperialism" caused

and continued to maintain the disparities in the world distribution of wealth. They disagreed, however, on the proper level of

Soviet aid to the Third World, with the Soviet Union refusing to grant sizable aid for development. Also, the Soviet Union encountered opposition to its occupation of Afghanistan and the Viet- namese occupation of Cambodia and got little support (as evidenced

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

by Third World abstentions) for its 1987 proposal on the creation

of a "Comprehensive System of International Peace and Security."

The Soviet Union in the late 1980s belonged to most of the

specialized agencies of the UN. It resisted joining various agricultural, food, and humanitarian organizations of the UN because

it eschewed multilateral food and humanitarian relief efforts. During

1986 Western media reported that East European and Asian communist countries allied with the Soviet Union received more development assistance from the UN than they and the Soviet Union

contributed. This revelation belied communist states' rhetorical sup- port in the UN for the establishment of a New International Economic Order for the transfer of wealth from the rich Northern

Hemisphere to the poor Southern Hemisphere nations. Partly be- cause of ongoing Third World criticism of the Soviet record of

meager economic assistance to the Third World and of Soviet contributions to UN agencies, in September 1987 the Soviet Union

announced that it would pay some portion of its arrears to the UN.

This policy change also came at a time of financial hardship in the

UN caused partly by the decision of the United States to withhold

contributions pending cost-cutting efforts in the UN.

During the Gorbachev period, the Soviet Union made several

suggestions for increasing UN involvement in the settlement of su- perpower and regional problems and conflicts. Although as of 1989

these suggestions had not been implemented, they constituted new

initiatives in Soviet foreign policy and represented a break with

the stolid, uncooperative nature of past Soviet foreign policy. While

the basic character of Soviet foreign policy had not yet changed,

the new flexibility in solving regional problems in Afghanistan, Angola, and Cambodia, as well as problems in the superpower rela- tionship, indicated a pragmatic commitment to the lessening of

world tensions.

* * *

Information on Soviet ideology and general foreign policy orientations can be found in Erik P. Hoffmann and Frederic J. Fleron's

The Conduct of Soviet Foreign Policy; William Welch's American Images of Soviet Foreign Policy; and William A. Gamson and Andre

Modigliani's Untangling the Cold War. Institutions and personnel

involved in the formation and execution of Soviet foreign policy are discussed in Robbin F. Laird and Erik P. Hoffmann's Soviet Foreign Policy in a Changing World; Seweryn Bialer's The Domestic Context ofSoviet Foreign Policy; Vernon S. Aspaturian's Process and Power

in Soviet Foreign Policy; and Jan F. Triska and David D. Finley's

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Foreign Policy

Soviet Foreign Policy. Soviet foreign policy toward various regions

of the world is treated in Robbin F. Laird's Soviet Foreign Policy;

Richard F. Staar's USSR Foreign Policies after Detente; Seweryn Bialer's The Soviet Paradox; Adam B. Ulam's Expansion and Coexistence,

The Rivals, and Dangerous Relations; and Alvin Z. Rubinstein's Soviet Foreign Policy since World War II. Regional focuses on the Third

World include Jerry F. Hough's The Struggle for the Third World;

Andrzej Korbonski and Francis Fukuyama's The Soviet Union and

the Third World; and Carol R. Saivetz and Sylvia Woodby's Soviet- Third World Relations. Soviet foreign policy focusing on specific

regions is analyzed in Christopher D. Jones's Soviet Influence in Eastern Europe; Herbert J. Ellison's Soviet Policy Toward Western Europe;

Donald S. Zagoria's Soviet Policy in East Asia; Ray S. Cline, James

Arnold Miller, and Roger E. Kanet's Asia in Soviet Global Strategy;

Ramesh Thakur and Carlyle A. Thayer's The Soviet Union as an

Asian Pacific Power; Cole Blasier's The Giant's Rival; Alvin Z. Rubinstein's Soviet Policy Toward Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan; and Robert

O. Freedman's Soviet Policy Toward the Middle East since 1970. (For

further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

447
i
Chapter 11. Economic Structure and Policy
Economists discussing economic plans
THE SOVIET UNION OF THE 1980s had the largest centrally

directed economy in the world. The regime established its economic

priorities through central planning, a system under which administrative decisions rather than the market determined resource allo- cation and prices.

Since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1 9 1 7 , the country has grown

from a largely underdeveloped peasant society with minimal in- dustry to become the second largest industrial power in the world.

According to Soviet statistics, the country's share in world industrial production grew from 4 percent to 20 percent between 1913

and 1980. Although many Western analysts considered these claims

to be inflated, the Soviet achievement remained remarkable. Recovering from the calamitous events of World War II , the country 's economy had maintained a continuous though uneven rate of growth. Living standards, although still modest for most inhabitants by Western standards, had improved, and Soviet citizens of

the late 1980s had a measure of economic security.

Although these past achievements were impressive, in the mid1980s Soviet leaders faced many problems. Since the 1970s, the

growth rate had slowed substantially. Extensive economic development (see Glossary), based on vast inputs of materials and labor, was no longer possible; yet the productivity of Soviet assets remained

low compared with other major industrialized countries. Product

quality needed improvement. Soviet leaders faced a fundamental

dilemma: the strong central controls that had traditionally guided

economic development had failed to promote the creativity and

productivity urgently needed in a highly developed, modern econ- omy.

Conceding the weaknesses of their past approaches in solving

new problems, the leaders of the late 1980s were seeking to mold

a program of economic reform to galvanize the economy. The Basic

Directions for the Economic and Social Development of the USSR for

1986-1990 andfor the Period to the Year 2000, a report to the TwentySeventh Party Congress in March 1986, spoke of a "burden of

the shortcomings that had been piling up over a long period, '

' which

required "radical changes, a profound restructuring." The leadership, headed by General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev, was ex- perimenting with solutions to economic problems with an openness

(glasnost—see Glossary) never before seen in the history of the econ- omy. One method for improving productivity appeared to be a

451
Soviet Union: A Country Study

strengthening of the role of market forces. Yet reforms in which

market forces assumed a greater role would signify a lessening of

authority and control by the planning hierarchy.

Assessing developments in the economy, both past and present,

remains difficult for Western observers. The country contains enor- mous economic and regional disparities. Yet analyzing statistical data broken down by region is a cumbersome process. Furthermore, Soviet statistics themselves may be of limited use to Western

analysts because they are not directly comparable with those used

in Western countries. The differing statistical concepts, valuations,

and procedures used by communist and noncommunist economists

make even the most basic data, such as the relative productivity

of various sectors, difficult to assess. Most Western analysts, and some Soviet economists, doubt the accuracy of the published statistics, recognizing that the industrial growth figures tend to be inflated. Economic Structure

The economy of the Soviet Union differs significantly from market economies; the country's massive and diverse economic

resources are largely state owned. The central government controls directly or indirectly many aspects of the labor force, the retail and wholesale distribution system, and the financial system.

Nature of the National Economy

The Constitution of 1977 declares that the foundation of the econ- omy is " socialist ownership of the means of production" (see The

1977 Constitution, ch. 8). The Constitution recognizes two forms

of socialist ownership: state ownership, in which all members of

society are said to participate, and various types of collective or cooperative ownership. According to Marxist-Leninist (see Glossary) theory, the former is more advanced, and the Constitution

calls for its expansion. It is the most extensive form of ownership

in the economy, incorporating all major industrial entities: the banking, transportation, and communication systems; a majority of trade

and public services; and much of the agricultural sector. In the

late 1980s, collective ownership was found primarily in agriculture, the small workshops of craftspeople, and some retail trade

and services. In 1989 a law was passed allowing an increase in the

number and kinds of cooperatives.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and, as an

adjunct of it, the government set goals and chose priorities for the economy. Traditionally, the government has determined eco- nomic policy in considerable detail through its planning agencies

452
Economic Structure and Policy

at various levels and has issued specific instructions to individual

economic units concerning quantity and type of production expected

of them, wage levels and incentive funds permitted, and, to a large

extent, investment policies. Control of the economy has been ex- erted through a hierarchy of planning agencies that interact with

appropriate government and party organs to devise and implement

policy to achieve these goals. Various past reform efforts have al- tered the specific functions and assignments of the components of

the economy, but the basic hierarchical structure has remained in- tact since its inception during the 1920s (see Planning Process, this ch.).

All-union (see Glossary) planning and control for each major

sector of the economy is handled by relevant branch ministries,

subordinate to the Council of Ministers and aided by a variety of

planning agencies (see Administrative Organs, ch. 8). Between the

ministries and the functioning enterprises (see Glossary), a variety of bodies, such as combines (see Glossary), trusts (see Glossary), and production associations (groups of formerly separate

enterprises) join together entities representing aspects of production in a given area of the economy. On this level, periodic restruc- turings have been attempted to achieve greater efficiency (see

Reforming the Planning System, this ch.).

In 1985 industry, composed of about 45,000 enterprises and

production associations, accounted for 45.6 percent of net material product (see Glossary), according to official statistics. The

agricultural sector, organized into collective farms (see Glossary)

and state farms (see Glossary), produced 19.4 percent of net material

product. Transportation and communications accounted for 10.7

percent, and the distribution system accounted for 18.2 percent

(see Retail and Wholesale Distribution System, this ch.).

The 1977 Constitution permits individuals to be self-employed,

with certain restrictions. Until the late 1980s, however, the authorities strongly discouraged the practice. Citizens may own personal

property, such as a dwelling or an automobile, and may sell this property as "used" merchandise or bequeath it as they choose.

They may also sell products they have themselves made. Traditionally, they have not been permitted to act as middlemen for profit or to hire the labor of other citizens for personal gain, i.e., to en- gage in private enterprise as it is understood in the West. Nevertheless, alongside the official economy a "second economy" has long

flourished, made up of private individuals offering goods and ser- vices to consumers, who have traditionally been inadequately served

by the state services sector. Such activities have included those that were simply private, illegal, or of questionable legality.

453
Soviet Union: A Country Study

The existence of many illicit business activities, operating outside state controls, was freely admitted and deplored by authorities and the official press of the 1980s. Upon assuming power in

March 1985, Gorbachev adopted a new approach to the problem.

In a major departure from past policies, on May 1, 1987, it be- came legal for individuals to go into a variety of business activities on their own or in cooperation with others (see The Twelfth FiveYear Plan, 1986-90, this ch.).

Labor

In 1985 the Soviet work force totaled about 130.3 million persons. According to official statistics, almost 20 percent of these employees worked in agriculture and forestry, while slightly more than

38 percent worked in industry and construction. Just under 10 per- cent were employed in transportation and communications. As in

other industrialized countries, the percentage of the total work force

employed in distribution and other services had increased. The shift had been more gradual than in Western countries, however. In

1985 just under 32 percent of the work force was employed in dis- tribution and other service jobs. Officially, the government did not

acknowledge the existence of unemployment. However, Western

analysts estimated that about 2 percent of the labor force might

be unemployed at a given time, most of this being short-term un- employment.

The working-age population was officially defined as males from

sixteen to fifty-nine years old and females from sixteen to fifty-four

years old. As in other industrialized countries, the work force was

gradually aging. Precise information concerning the number of

pension-age workers employed either full time or part time was

not available. However, Western analysts expected such workers

to account for fully 12 percent of the labor force by the year 2000.

A striking feature of the work force was the prominent role played

by women, who accounted for some 49 percent of the work force

in the mid-1980s.

The growth rate of the labor force had declined during plan periods in the 1970s and 1980s, and this situation was expected to improve only slightly during the 1990s (see Age and Sex Structure,

ch. 3). Western analysts predicted that the work force would number

just over 171 million persons by the year 2000. Population growth

in general had slowed markedly in the European part of the country but remained high in the more rural Central Asian areas. This

fact was a source of concern to economic planners because job skills were less plentiful in the non-European areas of the country. In

view of the lower birth rates of recent decades and the aging of

454
People lining up for scarce consumer goods in a typical Soviet scene Courtesy Jonathan Tetzlaff

the work force, leaders called for improvements in labor productivity through automation and mechanization of work processes

and through elimination of surplus workers in enterprises. Leaders also expressed concern about the deficient education and training

of many in the work force. Although the education system stressed

vocational and technical training, and many industrial enterprises

offered additional specialized training for workers after they joined

the labor force, the economy suffered from a labor shortage, particularly for skilled personnel (see Pedagogy and Planning, ch. 6).

Labor was not directly allocated. Although compulsory labor,

involving the transfer of entire groups of workers, had been a significant tool of industrial development during the dictatorship of

Joseph V. Stalin (the precise extent of the practice has not been

determined with certainty), its use had greatly diminished in subsequent years and by the 1970s was no longer a major factor in

economic activity. The inhospitable terrain and remote location

of many parts of the Soviet Union impeded the flow of skilled la- bor to areas targeted for development outside the western and

southeastern areas of the country. Wage differentials, varying ac- cording to region, industry, and occupation, were used to attract employees to the tasks and locations for which there was a labor

need. In large cities, where the presence of amenities and a variety

455
Soviet Union: A Country Study

of economic activities attracted workers in excess of actual employment opportunities, residence permits were used to limit the in- flux of additional population.

Within the labor force as a whole, trade union membership was

above 90 percent nationwide in the 1980s. Labor unions had a variety of functions: administering state social funds for the sick, dis- abled, and elderly and for day care; sponsoring vocational training

and other educational services, such as libraries and clubs; and participating in aspects of enterprise management. Unions also acted

as interpreters of party policy for the workers. Union leaders were

expected to work to improve discipline and morale, educate the

work force, and help to raise productivity. They did not bargain

with management over wages or working conditions.

Retail and Wholesale Distribution System

In the mid-1980s, about 8 percent of the labor force worked in

the distribution system. For the most part, internal trade took place

in state retail outlets in urban areas and in cooperatives in rural

areas. Prices in state and cooperative outlets were set by the State Committee on Prices and were determined by many considerations

other than supply and demand. Both rural and urban inhabitants

could also use "collective farm markets," where peasants, acting

both individually and in groups representing collective farms, sold

their produce direcdy to consumers. Here prices fluctuated according to supply and demand. Similar arrangements existed for nonedible products, although in a less developed form, as could be seen

in a variety of secondhand stores and flea markets. Although such

enterprises specialized in used items, they also sold new products,

again on a supply-and-demand basis.

With regard to many types of consumer goods, the country's

economy was "taut," that is, enterprises carried low inventories

and reserves. Demand for good-quality items frequently exceeded

supply. In effect, some goods and services, such as housing, were

rationed as a result of their scarcity. In addition, a system of special stores existed for use by privileged individuals and foreigners.

These stores could be found in major population centers but were

not highly publicized. They contained good-quality items, both food

and nonedible goods, in scarce supply. Moreover, a second econ- omy had long flourished to supply consumer goods and services,

such as repair work and health care, for which the official retail distribution system could not meet consumer demand. Observers

expected that as a result of the reforms of the 1980s, a growing

variety of goods and services would be distributed through the

456
Economic Structure and Policy

expanding private sector of the economy (see The Twelfth FiveYear Plan, 1986-90, this ch.).

Distribution on the wholesale level took place largely through

state-directed allocation, in conjunction with the planning process. Heavy industry, particularly producer goods, and the defense in- dustry received highest priority. Reforms of the mid-1980s promised

to decentralize this system somewhat, with users of materials free in many cases to make purchasing contracts with the suppliers of

their choice. Western observers were uncertain as to the impact

such an alteration would have on the supply system as a whole.

In 1984 per capita consumption was about one-third that of the

United States. It was about half that of France and the Federal

Republic of Germany (West Germany) and roughly two-thirds that

ofJapan. Soviet levels of consumption were below those of some

of the country's allies in Eastern Europe as well. Financial System

The ruble, consisting of 100 kopeks, is the unit of currency. In

the mid-1980s, the ruble (for value of the ruble—see Glossary) was

a purely internal currency unit, and the government fixed its rate of exchange with foreign currencies somewhat arbitrarily. The State Bank (Gosudarstvennyi bank—Gosbank) issued currency and es- tablished its official gold content and thus its exchange rate with

foreign currencies. The real value of the ruble for purchase of

domestic consumer goods in comparison with the United States

dollar was very difficult to determine because the Soviet price struc- ture, traditionally established by the State Committee on Prices,

differed from that of a market economy.

The banking system was owned and managed by the government. Gosbank was the central bank of the country and also its only commercial bank. It handled all significant banking transactions, including the issuing and control of currency and credit,

management of the gold reserve, and oversight of all transactions

among economic enterprises. Because it held enterprise accounts,

the bank could monitor their financial performance. It had main

offices in each union republic (see Glossary) and many smaller

branches and savings banks throughout the country. The banking

system also included the Foreign Economic Activity Bank and the

All-Union Capital Investment Bank. The latter bank provided capital investment funds for all branches of the economy except agriculture, which was handled by Gosbank.

Because the banking system was highly centralized, it formed

an integral part of the management of the economy. The Ministry of Finance had an important role to play in the economic system,

457
Soviet Union: A Country Study

for it established financial plans to control the procurement and

use of the country's financial resources. It managed the budget in

accordance with the wishes of central planners. The budget had

traditionally allocated most of the country's investment resources

(see Tools of Control, this ch.). The reforms of the mid-1980s,

however, required enterprises to rely to a greater extent on their

own financial resources rather than on the central budget. These

reforms also called for the creation of several new banks to finance

industrial undertakings, ending the monopoly of Gosbank. Enterprises would seek and receive credit from a variety of banks.

Citizens could maintain personal savings accounts and, beginning in 1987, checking accounts. These accounts, initially limited

to the Russian Republic, were offered by the newly formed Labor

Savings and Consumer Credit Bank. Over the years, personal sav- ings accounts had accumulated massive amounts of money, growing from 1.9 billion rubles in 1950 to 156.5 billion rubles in 1980.

The savings represented excess purchasing power, probably the

result of repressed inflation and shortages of quality consumer

goods.

Economic Planning and Control

In the Soviet Union of the 1980s, the basic economic task of allo- cating scarce resources to competing objectives was accomplished

primarily through a centrally directed planning apparatus rather

than through the interplay of market forces. During the decades

following the Bolshevik Revolution and especially under Stalin, a complex system of planning and control had developed, in which

the state managed virtually all production activity. In the mid- and

late 1980s, however, economic reforms sponsored by Gorbachev

were introducing significant changes in the traditional system.

Planning Process

Economic planning, according to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, was

a form of economic management by the state, indispensable both

during the transition from capitalism to socialism (see Glossary)

and in a socialist society. Soviet economic theorists maintained that

planning was based on a profound knowledge and application of

objective socialist economic laws and that it was independent of

the personal will and desires of individuals. The most general of

these laws, commonly referred to as the basic law of socialism, defined the aim of economic production as the fullest satisfaction of

the constandy rising material and cultural requirements of the population, using advanced technology to achieve continued growth and

improvement of production. Centralized planning was presented

458
* serves as many as 350, 000 customers each day.

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

459
Soviet Union: A Country Study

by its proponents as the conscious application of economic laws

to benefit the people through effective use of all natural resources and productive forces. The regime established production targets and prices and allo- cated resources, codifying these decisions in a comprehensive plan

or set of plans. Using CPSU directives concerning major economic

goals, planning authorities formulated short-term and long-term

plans for meeting specific targets in virtually all spheres of economic

activity. These production plans were supplemented by comprehensive plans for the supply of materials, equipment, labor, and

finances to the producing sector; for the procurement of agricultural products by the government; and for the distribution of food

and manufactured products to the population. Economic plans had

the force of law. Traditionally, they had been worked out down

to the level of the individual economic enterprise, where they were

reflected in a set of output goals and performance indicators that

management was expected to maintain.

Operationally, short-range planning was the most important

aspect of the planning process for production and resource allocation. Annual plans underlay the basic operation of the system. They

covered one calendar year and encompassed the entire economy.

Targets were set at the central level for the overall rate of growth

of the economy, the volume and structure of the domestic product,

the use of raw materials and labor and their distribution by sector and region, and the volume and structure of exports and imports.

Annual plans were broken down into quarterly and monthly plans,

which served as commands and blueprints for the day-to-day operation of industrial and other economic enterprises and organizations.

The five-year plan provided continuity and direction by inte- grating the yearly plans into a longer time frame. Although the

five-year plan was duly enacted into law, it contained a series of

guidelines rather than a set of direct orders. Periods covered by

the five-year plans coincided with those covered by the party congresses (see Party Congress, ch. 7; table 30, Appendix A). At each

congress, the party leadership presented the targets for the next

five-year plan. Thus each plan had the approval of the most

authoritative body of the country's leading political institution.

Long-term planning covered fifteen years or more. It delineated

principal directions of economic development and specified the way

the economy could meet the desired goals.

As in other areas of leadership, so in economic policy matters

it was the Central Committee of the CPSU and, more specifically,

its Politburo that set basic guidelines for planning (see Central Committee; Politburo, ch. 7). The planning apparatus of the government

460
Economic Structure and Policy

was headed by the Council of Ministers and, under it, the State Planning Committee (Gosudarstvennyi planovyi komitet—Gosplan). This agency, made up of a large number of councils, commissions, governmental officials, and specialists, was assisted by

the State Committee for Statistics (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po

statistike—Goskomstat). It took plans developed by the city councils, republic legislatures, and regional conferences and incorporated them into a master plan for the nation. It also supervised

the operation of all the plans. Gosplan combined the broad eco- nomic goals set forth by the Council of Ministers with data supplied by lower administrative levels regarding the current state of

the economy in order to work out, through trial and error, a set of control figures. The plan stipulated the major aspects of eco- nomic activity in each economic sector and in each republic or region of the country. Gosplan was also responsible for ensuring

a correct balance among the different branches of the economy,

speeding the growth of the national income, and raising the level of efficiency in production.

The method used by Gosplan to achieve internally consistent

plans, both in a sectoral and in a regional context, was called the

system of material balances. No clear exposition of this method

had been published. The system essentially consisted of preparing

balance sheets in which available material, labor, and financial resources were listed as assets and plan requirements as liabilities. The task of planners was to balance resources and requirements

to ensure that the necessary inputs were provided for the planned

output. To reduce this task to manageable proportions, central

authorities specified detailed output goals, investment projects, and

supply plans for only key branches of the economy. The rest of

the plan was developed only to the extent needed to ensure achievement of the main goals.

Among operational organizations participating in the planning

process, a major role belonged to the State Committee for Material and Technical Supply. This agency shared with Gosplan the

controls over the allocation of essential materials and equipment.

Other operational agencies included the State Committee for Construction, which played an important part in industrial investment

planning and housing construction; the State Committee for Labor

and Social Problems; and the State Committee for Science and

Technology, which prepared proposals for the introduction of new

technology. Finally, the Academy of Sciences (see Glossary) helped

to develop a scientific basis for optimal planning and accounting

methods.

461
Soviet Union: A Country Study

When the control figures had been established by Gosplan, eco- nomic ministries drafted plans within their jurisdictions and directed

the planning by subordinate enterprises. The control figures were

sent in disaggregated form downward through the planning hierarchy to production and industrial associations (various groupings

of related enterprises) or the territorial production complex (see

Glossary) for progressively more detailed elaboration. Individual

enterprises at the base of the planning pyramid were called upon

to develop the most detailed plans covering all aspects of their operations. In agriculture, individual collective farms and state farms

worked under the supervision of local party committees. The role of the farms in planning, however, was more circumscribed.

At this point, as the individual enterprise formulated its detailed

draft production plans, the flow of information was reversed. Rankand-file workers as well as managers could participate in the planning process on the enterprise level; according to Soviet reports,

approximately 110 million citizens took part in discussions of the

draft guidelines for the 1986-90 period and long-term planning for the 1986-2000 period. The draft plans of the enterprises were sent back up through the planning hierarchy for review, adjustment,

and integration. This process entailed intensive bargaining, with

top authorities pressing for maximum and, at times, unrealizable

targets and enterprises seeking assignments that they could reason- ably expect to fulfill or even overfulfill. Ultimate review and revi- sion of the draft plans by Gosplan and approval of a final all-union

plan by the Council of Ministers, the CPSU, and the Supreme

Soviet were followed by another downward flow of information,

this time with amended and approved plans containing specific tar- gets for each economic entity to the level of the enterprise.

A parallel system for planning existed in each union republic

and each autonomous republic (see Glossary). The state planning

committees in the union republics were subject to the jurisdiction

of both the councils of ministers in the union republics and Gosplan.

They drafted plans for all enterprises under the jurisdiction of the

union republics and recommended plans for enterprises subordinated to union-republic ministries (see Glossary) and located on

their territory. The regional system also included planning agencies created for several major economic regions, which were responsible either to Gosplan or to a state planning committee in a union

republic. Autonomous republics had planning systems similar to those of union republics.

Advocates of the centrally planned economy (CPE) argued that

it had four important advantages. First, the regime could har- ness the economy to serve its political and economic objectives.

462
Gas station between Moscow and Smolensk, Russian Republic

Courtesy Jonathan Tetzlaff

Satisfaction of consumer demand, for example, could be limited

in favor of greater investment in basic industry or channeled into

desired patterns, e.g., reliance on public transportation rather than on private automobiles. Centralized management could take into

account long-term needs for development and disregard consumer

desires for items that it considered frivolous. With a centralized

system, it was possible to implement programs for the common

good, such as pollution controls, construction of industrial infrastructure, and preservation of parkland. Second, in theory CPEs

could make continuous, optimal use of all available resources, both

human and material. Neither unemployment nor idle plant capacity

would exist beyond minimal levels, and the economy would develop in a stable manner, unimpeded by inflation or recession. In- dustry would benefit from economies of scale and avoid duplication

of capacity. Third, CPEs could serve social rather than individual

ends; under such a system, the leadership could distribute rewards,

whether wages or perquisites, according to the social value of the

service performed, not according to the vagaries of supply and

demand on an open market. Finally, proponents argued that abolition of most forms of property income, coupled with public ownership of the means of production, promoted work attitudes that

enhanced team effort and conscientious attention to tasks at

463
Soviet Union: A Country Study

hand; laborers could feel that they were working for their own

benefit and would not need strict disciplinary supervision.

Critics of CPEs identified several characteristic problems. First,

because economic processes were so complex, the plan had to be

a simplification of reality. Individuals and producing units could

be given directives or targets, but in executing the plan they might

select courses of action that conflicted with the overall interests of

society as determined by the planners. Such courses of action might

include, for example, ignoring quality standards, producing an improper product mix, or using resources wastefully.

Second, critics contended that CPEs had built-in obstacles to in- novation and efficiency in production. No appropriate mechanism existed to ensure the prompt, effective transfer of new technical

advances to actual practice in enterprises. Managers of producing

units, frequentiy having limited discretionary authority, saw as their

first priority a strict fulfillment of the plan targets rather than the

application of the insights gained through research and development or the diversification of products. Plant managers might be

reluctant to shut down their production lines for modernization

because the attendant delays could jeopardize the fulfillment of

targets.

Third, CPEs were said to lack a system of appropriate incentives to encourage higher productivity by managers and workers.

Future mandatory targets were frequently based on past perfor- mance. Planners often established targets for the next plan period

by adding a certain percentage to the achieved output while reducing authorized inputs to force greater productivity (sometimes called the "ratchet" system by Western analysts). The ratchet system

discouraged enterprises from revealing their full potential. Managers

actually might be reluctant to report exceptional levels of output.

Fourth, the system of allocating goods and services in CPEs was

inefficient. Most of the total mix of products was distributed ac- cording to the plan, with the aid of the system of material balances.

But because no one could predict perfectly the actual needs of each

production unit, some units received too many goods and others too few. The managers with surpluses, either in materials or in

human resources, were hesitant to admit they had them, for CPEs

were typically "taut." Managers preferred to hoard whatever they

had and then to make informal trades for materials they needed.

The scarcity of supplies resulting from a taut economy and the unpredictability of their availability were persistent problems for enterprises, forcing them to adopt erratic work schedules such as "storming." This was a phenomenon whereby many enterprises

fulfilled a major portion of their monthly plan through frenzied

464
Economic Structure and Policy

activity during the final third of the month, by which time they

had mustered the necessary supplies. The uncertainty of supply was also responsible for a general tendency among industrial ministries to become self-sufficient by developing their own internal supply bases and to give priority to the needs of enterprises under their

own jurisdiction over the requirements, even though more urgent,

of enterprises in other ministries (a practice sometimes referred to as "departmentalism").

Finally, detractors argued that in CPEs prices did not reflect the

value of available resources, goods, or services. In market economies, prices, which are based on cost and utility considerations,

permit the determination of value, even if imperfectly. In CPEs,

prices were determined administratively, and the criteria the government used to establish them sometimes bore little relation to costs. The influence of consumers was weak (the exception being the

Ministry of Defense, which was in a position to make explicit demands of its suppliers). Prices often varied significantly from the

actual social or economic value of the products for which they had

been set and were not a valid basis for comparing the relative value

of two or more products. The system's almost total insulation from

foreign trade competition exacerbated this problem (see Development of the State Monopoly on Foreign Trade, ch. 15).

Reforming the Planning System

Soviet economists and planners have long been aware of the al- leged strengths and weaknesses of the centralized planning system.

Numerous changes in the structure, scope of responsibilities, and

authority of the various planning and administrative organizations

have been made over the years. Nevertheless, the fundamental planning process remained virtually unchanged after the inception of

full-scale central planning in 1928 until the late 1980s, when some

radical changes were discussed. In the decades that followed its introduction, the planning process became increasingly complex and detailed. Planners specified not

only quantitative production of goods but also their cost, how they

would be distributed, and what resources in labor, materials, and

energy they would require. The complexity of the apparatus administering the plans also increased. Ministries (called people's commissariats until 1946) proliferated, reaching fifty by 1957 and

reflecting the increasing variety of industrial production. By 1982

the number of ministries, state committees, and other important

committees at the all-union level approached 100. Planning had

become immensely complex; in the 1980s planners had to contend

with more than 20 million types, varieties, and sizes of products,

465
Soviet Union: A Country Study

which were produced by 45,000 industrial, 60,000 agricultural, and

33,000 construction enterprises.

Western analysts have viewed reform attempts of Soviet leaders

prior to the late 1980s as mere tinkering. From 1957 to 1965, however, a radical change was made, when Nikita S. Khrushchev sponsored a shift from the predominantly sectoral approach to a regional

system (see The Khrushchev Era, ch. 2). The reform abolished

most industrial ministries and transferred planning and administrative authority to about 100 newly created regional economic

councils. The regime hoped to end unsatisfactory coordination

among the industrial ministries and ineffective regional planning.

Khrushchev apparently hoped to end the traditional concentration

of administrative power in Moscow, reduce departmentalism, and

make more efficient use of specific economic resources of the vari- ous regions. Other changes under Khrushchev included extension

of the usual five-year cycle to seven years, from 1959 to 1965, which was subsequently reduced to five years. When the regional system

proved to be even less effective than the organizational structure

it had replaced, and the weaknesses of the ministerial system reappeared in a regional context, Khrushchev sponsored an additional

series of minor changes. But in 1965, after Leonid I. Brezhnev and

Aleksei N. Kosygin had replaced Khrushchev as head of party and

head of government, respectively, the regime abolished the regional

economic councils and reinstituted the industrial ministerial sys- tem, although with greater participation of regional bodies in the

planning process, at least in theory.

Several reforms of the mid- and late 1960s represented efforts to decentralize decision-making processes, transferring some

authority from central planning authorities and ministries to lowerlevel entities and enterprises. A series of minor reforms in 1965

modified the incentive system by shifting emphasis from gross out- put to sales and profits, a reform associated with the name of the

eminent economist Evsei Liberman. The reforms attempted to pro- vide a more precise measure of labor and materials productivity.

They also granted enterprise managers slightly greater latitude in

making operating decisions by reducing the number of plan indi- cators assigned by higher authorities. In addition, the reforms in- troduced charges for interest and rent. Attention focused particularly on experiments with khozraschet (see Glossary), which, in the late 1980s, required enterprises to cover many expenses from their own

revenues, thereby encouraging efficient use of resources. In the

agricultural sector, state farms and collective farms received greater

latitude in organizing their work activities and in establishing subsidiary industrial enterprises such as canning and food processing,

466
Economic Structure and Policy

timber and textile production, production of building materials,

and actual construction projects.

In practice, the amount of decentralization involved in the re- forms of the mid-1960s was minimal. For a variety of reasons, in- cluding uneasiness about the unrest associated with reforms in

Czechoslovakia in 1967 and 1968, planning officials judged the re- forms to be failures. By the early 1970s, efforts at further reforms

had ceased, although the government never repealed the new regulations. As the only noteworthy, lasting change, the government

began to use measures of net output rather than gross output as a success indicator for enterprises.

During the last years of Brezhnev's rule, the leadership remained

relatively complacent about the system despite the economy's slowing growth rates. Increases in world oil and gold prices contributed to this attitude because they enhanced hard-currency (see

Glossary) purchasing power in the early 1970s and made it possible to import increasing amounts of Western technology.

In response to the stagnation of the late Brezhnev era, a new

reform attempt began under Iurii V. Andropov, who succeeded

Brezhnev as general secretary in 1982. On an experimental basis,

the government gave a number of enterprises greater flexibility in

the use of their profits either for investment purposes or for worker

incentives. The experiment was formally expanded to include all of the industrial sector on January 1, 1987, although by that time

its limited nature and modest prospects for success had been widely

recognized.

In the meantime, however, Gorbachev, a leading proponent of

both these reforms and more extensive changes, was making his

influence felt, first as adviser on economic policy under Andropov

and his successor, Konstantin U. Chernenko, and then as general

secretary beginning in 1985. Some of Gorbachev's early initiatives involved mere reorganization, similar to previous reform efforts. For example, from 1985 to 1987 seven industrial complexes—organs

that were responsible directly to the Council of Ministers and that

monitored groups of related activities—were established: agroindustrial, chemicals and timber, construction, fuel and energy,

machine building, light industry, and metallurgy (see The Complexes and the Ministries, ch. 12). The ministries remained reluc- tant to undertake more extensive reforms that would reduce their

centralized power and give greater initiative to lower-level economic

units. But the conviction was growing that the centralized planning mechanism needed major changes and that simply fine-tuning

the economy with minor reforms would not be sufficient.

467
Soviet Union: A Country Study

At Gorbachev's urging, on June 30, 1987, the Supreme Soviet

approved a set of measures contained in the Basic Provisionsfor Fundamentally Reorganizing Economic Management. The Supreme Soviet

subsequentiy adopted an additional ten decrees, as well as the Law

on State Enterprises (Associations). Taken as a whole, the actions

of the Supreme Soviet signaled a substantial change in the system

of centralized planning, with significant amounts of authority

devolving upon middle and lower levels of the administrative hierarchy. Gorbachev named the economic restructuring program

perestroika (see Glossary).

The Basic Provisions clearly stated that the economy would continue to function as '

£ a unified national economic complex, '

' carry- ing out the policies of the party. The regime obviously intended

to retain great influence in the management and development of

enterprises. The new measures also called for a redefinition and

curtailment of the role of Gosplan. Beginning in 1991, Gosplan

would no longer draw up annual plans. It would continue to develop five- and fifteen-year plans, specify state orders (involving

about 25 percent of total output), and determine material balances

for products considered to be critically important to the economy

and national defense. Gosplan' s development of "non-binding control figures" would suggest overall output, profit targets, and var- ious indicators of technical and social progress. Long-term norms

would regulate ongoing development, such as total wage payments

and payments to various state-sponsored funds, for example, bonus

funds, resources for social services, and research and development

resources. Once enterprises had filled the designated state orders,

however, they would have considerable freedom in deciding what

to produce with the remainder of their resources and how to dispose

of the products.

The new Law on State Enterprises (Associations) called for khozraschet. By the end of 1989, all enterprises in the economy were

to make the transition to self-financing {samofinansirovanie—see Glossary), taking full responsibility for the financial outcome of their

actions. The state budget would pay only for major investment

projects. A principal criterion forjudging enterprise and management performance would be the fulfillment of contracts. Enterprises

would be free to reduce the size of their work force or to dismiss

workers for poor performance. The law also provided for the

bankruptcy and dissolution of enterprises that consistentiy operated

at a loss. Their workers would receive severance pay and assistance

in job placement from the state. In addition, the law called for the

election of management personnel in enterprises, subject to approval

by the next-higher authority. Finally, the law called for the election

468
Economic Structure and Policy

of labor councils to resolve matters of pay, discipline, training, and

use of incentive funds. Only one-fourth of the membership could

represent the interests of management, and the councils' decisions

would be binding on the entire work force of the enterprise.

The reforms attempted to decentralize distribution. The law

enabled enterprises to deal with the suppliers of their choice, either

producers or wholesale outlets. Rationing would continue for only

the scarcest producer goods, less than 4 percent of total industrial

output in 1988. For the remainder, producers would be free to sell directly to users. Finally, the law permitted some enterprises to engage in foreign trade directly, on their own account, and to re- tain some of the foreign currency gains.

Tools of Control

By the 1980s, the planning system had become extremely complex. Maintaining control over plan implementation was a difficult task. The same administrative structure undertook both the planning itself and the oversight of plan fulfillment. The banking sys- tem, party units within lower-level organizations and enterprises,

and any workers willing to take responsibility for bringing to light

failings within their organizations provided assistance. Labor union

activists also helped supervise performance at the enterprise level and solicited support for plan fulfillment.

In addition to exercising this direct control, planners and policy

makers used the budget to influence the economy. The bulk of the revenues for the budget came from levies on the profits of enterprises and from an indirect tax on consumer goods. These tax levies could be readily altered to support changing plan priorities, particularly because the government produced no long-term budgets,

only yearly ones. The regime distributed budget funds according

to priorities that reflected the goals of the economic plans. Unlike

state budgets in the West, the Soviet budget had a consolidated

format for all levels of the government. Traditionally, the budget

also had included most of the investment activity carried on within

the economy. Reforms of the 1980s promised to alter the situation

somewhat, however; the Law on State Enterprises (Associations)

called upon enterprises to use their own profits as major sources of investment (see Reforming the Planning System, this ch.).

According to official Soviet sources, primary expenditures in the

1985 budget were grants for economic purposes (56 percent of the

budget); funds for social and cultural services (32.5 percent); defense

spending (4.9 percent); and administrative costs (0.8 percent). A

small surplus remained (typical of Soviet budgets, according to published data). Western analysts considered these statistics unreliable;

469
Soviet Union: A Country Study

most Western observers believed the defense budget's share was

far greater than official figures suggested. Furthermore, Soviet defi- nitions of various economic measurements differed markedly from

Western concepts (for example, the use of net material product to measure output).

The government's pricing policy acted as another control

mechanism. These prices provided a basis for calculating expenses

and receipts, making possible assessment of outputs. The regime

also used manipulation of prices to achieve certain social goals, such

as encouragement of public transportation or dissemination of cul- tural values through low-priced books, journals, and recreational

and cultural events. Over the years, this centralized system had produced prices with

little relationship either to the real costs of the products or to their

price on the world market. For several decades, the government

kept the price of basic goods, such as essential foods, housing, and

transportation, artificially low, regardless of actual production costs. As agricultural costs had increased, for example, subsidies to the

agricultural sector had grown, but retail prices remained stable. Only prices for luxury goods had risen, particularly during the price

overhauls of 1965 and 1982.

The Basic Provisions passed by the Supreme Soviet called for thorough reform of the price structure by 1990, in time for use

in the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan (1991-95). This price reform was more extensive than previous reforms, affecting both wholesale and

retail prices. In the future, central authorities would establish far fewer prices, although all prices would still be closely monitored.

Plans for reform provoked public controversy because the changes

would end subsidies for many common items, such as meat, milk,

fuel, and housing. Authorities promised a thorough public discussion of retail price changes and gave assurances that the living stan- dards of workers would not decline.

Like prices, wages were a flexible tool by means of which the

government influenced the economic scene. Until 1931 the regime

attempted to enforce an egalitarian wage structure. Policy con- cerning wage differentials had fluctuated in later years, however.

In some periods, ideology and egalitarianism were emphasized,

whereas at other times the government used rewards and incentives. Beginning in 1956, when it established a minimum wage,

the government made a concerted effort to improve the wages of

those in the lower-paid categories of work and to lessen differences

among workers. With the reforms of the 1980s, however, wage

differentials were again increasing, with high-quality technical,

executive, and professional skills being favored in the wage structure.

470
Modern apartment building, Frunze, Kirgiz Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

Precise information concerning wages, including the level of the

minimum wage, was not publicly available in the late 1980s.

Western analysts did not agree on the size of wage differentials,

although these differences were generally considered to be smaller

than was the case in the West. According to Western estimates,

however, important party and government personages received as much as five times the average salary. Outstanding scientists and

selected intellectuals also prospered.

The average worker received fringe benefits totaling about 30

percent above and beyond his or her salary. These benefits in- cluded free education and health care, paid vacations, and other

government-subsidized services. In addition to wages, the regime

used other incentives, such as cash bonuses paid to both individuals and groups of workers and "socialist competitions," to spur

the work force on to greater efforts. Economic Policy

Socialist theory provides no practical guidelines or objective cri- teria for determining priorities for the various economic sectors and

ensuring balanced growth of the entire economy. The direction

of economic development depends upon decisions made by plan- ners on the basis of their evaluation of the country's needs, taking

471
Soviet Union: A Country Study

into account political, military, and other noneconomic considerations. Past Priorities

The Bolsheviks (see Glossary), who assumed power in late 1917,

sought to mold a socialist society from the ruins of old tsarist Russia. This goal was ambitious and somewhat vague; Karl Marx and

Friedrich Engels, who developed Marxism (see Glossary), provided no blueprints for specific economic policies and targets. Chaotic

conditions produced by World War I and subsequent struggles during the Civil War (1918-21) made pursuit of coherent policies

difficult in any case. The economic policies initially adopted by

the regime were a mixture of principle and expedience.

Soon after taking power, the regime published decrees nationalizing the land, most industry (all enterprises employing more than

five workers), foreign trade, and banking. At the same time, for

tactical reasons, the government acquiesced in the peasants' sei- zure of land, but the new leaders considered the resulting fragmented parcels of privately owned land to be inefficient. Beginning in 1918, the government made vigorous but some- what haphazard efforts to shape and control the country's econ- omy under a policy of war communism (see Glossary). But in 1920,

agricultural output had attained only half its prewar level, foreign

trade had virtually ceased, and industrial production had fallen to a small fraction of its prewar quantity. Such factors as the disas- trous harvest of 1920, major military actions and expenditures by

the Red Army, and general wartime destruction and upheaval ex- acerbated the economy's problems.

In 1921 Vladimir I. Lenin called a temporary retreat from application of the ideological requirements of Marxist doctrine. His

new approach, called the New Economic Policy (NEP), permitted some private enterprise, especially in agriculture, light industry,

services, and internal trade, to restore prewar economic strength.

The nationalization of heavy industry, transportation, foreign trade,

and banking that had occurred under war communism remained

in effect. In the late 1920s, Stalin abandoned NEP in favor of centralized

planning, which was modeled on a project sponsored by Lenin in

the early 1920s that had greatly increased the generation of electricity. Stalin sought to rapidly transform the Soviet Union from

a predominandy agricultural country into a modern industrial power. He and other leaders argued that by becoming a strong centrally planned industrial power, the country could protect itself militarily from hostile outside intervention and economically from

472
Economic Structure and Policy

the booms and slumps characteristic of capitalism (see Industrialization and Collectivization, ch. 2). The First Five-Year Plan (1928-32) focused rather narrowly upon

expansion of heavy industry and collectivization of agriculture. Stalin's decision to carry out rapid industrialization made capitalintensive techniques necessary. International loans to build the econ- omy were unavailable, both because the new government had

repudiated the international debts of the tsarist regime and because

industrialized countries, the potential lenders, were themselves coping with the onset of the Great Depression in the early 1930s. Stalin chose to fund the industrialization effort through internal savings

and investment. He singled out the agricultural sector in particular as a source of capital accumulation.

The First Five-Year Plan called for collectivization of agricul- ture to ensure the adequacy and dependability of food supplies for the growing industrial sector and the efficient use of agricultural

labor to free labor power for the industrialization effort. The re- gime also expected collectivization to lead to an overall increase

in agricultural production. In fact, forced collectivization resulted

in much hardship for the rural population and lower productivity.

By 1932 about 60 percent of peasant households had joined state farms or collective farms. During the same period, however, total agricultural output declined by 23 percent, according to official

statistics. Heavy industry exceeded its targets in many areas during the plan period. But other industries, such as chemicals, textiles, and housing and consumer goods and services, performed

poorly. Consumption per person dropped, contrary to the planned

rates of consumption.

The Second Five-Year Plan (1933-37) continued the primary

emphasis on heavy industry. By the late 1930s, however, collec- tivized farms were performing somewhat better (after reaching a nadir during the period 1931-34). In 1935 a new law permitted

individual peasants to have private plots, the produce of which they

could sell on the open market. According to official statistics, during the Second Five-Year Plan gross agricultural production in- creased by just under 54 percent. In contrast, gross industrial

production more than doubled.

The Third Five-Year Plan (1938-41) projected further rapid in- dustrial growth. The government soon altered the plan, however,

in an attempt to meet the growing danger of war, devoting in- creasing amounts of resources to armaments. When the country

went to war with Finland (1939-40), serious disruptions occurred

in the Soviet transportation system. Nonetheless, during these years

the economy benefited from the absorption of Estonia, Latvia,

473
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Lithuania, Bessarabia, and the eastern part of Poland and from

the growing trade with Germany that resulted from the 1939 NaziSoviet Nonaggression Pact (see Glossary; Prelude to War, ch. 2). After the German invasion of 1941, damage to the economy in

both human and material terms was devastating. The regime vir- tually abandoned the Third Five-Year Plan as it sought to mobilize human and material resources for the war effort. During World

War II, an increasing proportion of products and materials were

allocated centrally, and Gosplan took over more of the balancing

and allocation plans. Wartime economic plans did not officially

replace the traditional planning process but were simply superimposed as needed to cover activities and goods essential to the war effort (see The Great Patriotic War, ch. 2). The Fourth Five-Year Plan began in 1945. During the early years

of the period, attention focused on repair and rebuilding, with

minimal construction of new facilities. Repair work proceeded

briskly, with spectacular results. The country received no substantial

aid for postwar reconstruction, Stalin having refused to consider

proposals for participation in the Marshall Plan (see Glossary) in

1947. Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and especially defeated Germany made reparations payments to the Soviet Union, however,

consisting in large part of equipment and industrial materials. Entire

German factories and their workers were brought to the Soviet

Union to train Soviet citizens in specialized work processes. Although the government never published definitive statistics, an

authoritative Western assessment estimated the value of reparations at an average of 5 billion rubles per year between 1945 and

1956. The exertions of the country's inhabitants, however, cou- pled with ambitious economic strategies, proved most crucial for the recovery.

During the war years, the government had transferred substantial numbers of industrial enterprises from threatened western areas

to Asian regions of the country. After the war, these facilities re- mained at their new sites as part of an effort to promote economic

development. These locations had the advantage of being near raw

materials and energy sources. The government also deemed it strategically sound to have the important installations of the country distributed among several regions.

Like earlier plans, the Fourth Five-Year Plan stressed heavy in- dustry and transportation. The economy met most of the targets

in heavy industry. The performance of agriculture again lagged

behind industry. Western observers believed that factors in agricul- ture's poor performance included a paucity of investment, enforcement of a strict quota system for delivery of agricultural products

474
Economic Structure and Policy

to the state, and tenuous linkage between wages and production,

which deprived farmers of incentives. Housing construction, community services, and other consumer items also lagged noticeably.

During the final years of the plan, Stalin launched several grandiose projects, including building canals and hydroelectric plants

and establishing tree plantations in the Armenian, Azerbaydzhan,

Georgian, and Ukrainian republics and in the Volga River area

of the Russian Republic to shield land from drying winds. Collectively, these efforts were referred to as ' 'the Stalin plan for the trans- formation of nature."

Throughout the Stalin era, the^pace of industrial growth was

forced. On those occasions when shortages developed in heavy in- dustry and endangered plan fulfillment, the government simply

shifted resources from agriculture, light industry, and other sectors. The situation of the consumer improved little during the Stalin

years as a whole. Major declines in real household consumption

occurred during the early 1930s and in the war years. Although

living standards had rebounded after reaching a low point at the

end of World War II, by 1950 real household consumption had

climbed to a level only one-tenth higher than that of 1928. Judged

by modern West European standards, the clothing, housing, social services, and diet of the people left much to be desired.

Although Stalin died in 1953, the Fifth Five-Year Plan (1951-55)

as a whole reflected his preoccupation with heavy industry and trans- portation, the more so because no single leader firmly controlled

policy after Stalin's death (see Collective Leadership and the Rise

of Khrushchev, ch. 2). In many respects, economic performance

pleased the leadership during the period. According to government

statistics (considered by Western observers to be somewhat inflated),

the economy met most growth targets, despite the allocation of

resources to rearmament during the Korean War (1950-53). National income increased 71 percent during the plan period. As in

previous plans, heavy industry received a major share of investment

funds. During the final years of the Fifth Five-Year Plan, however,

party leaders began to express concern about the dearth of consumer

goods, housing, and services, as they reassessed traditional priorities. The new prime minister, Georgii M. Malenkov, sponsored a

revision of the Fifth Five-Year Plan, reducing expenditures for heavy

industry and the military somewhat in order to satisfy consumer demand. The newly appointed first secretary (see Glossary) of the

party, Khrushchev, launched a program to bring under cultivation

extensive tracts of virgin land in southwestern Siberia and the Kazakh

Republic to bolster fodder and livestock production. Although

Malenkov lost his position as prime minister in 1955, largely as a

475
Soviet Union: A Country Study

result of opposition to his economic policies, the austere approach

of the Stalin era was never revived.

An ambitious Sixth Five-Year Plan was launched in 1956. After

initial revision, prompted at least in part by political considerations, the regime abandoned the plan in 1957 to make way for a seven-year plan (subsequently reduced to a five-year plan) that fo- cused particularly on coal and oil production and the chemical in- dustry. Khrushchev, who became principal leader after 1956, took

particular interest in these areas of production. The seven-year plan

provided substantial investment funds—over 40 percent of the

total—for the eastern areas of the country. Khrushchev also sponsored reforms to encourage production on the private plots of col- lective farmers.

During the seven-year plan, industrial progress was substantial,

and production of consumer durables also grew. The national in- come increased 58 percent, according to official statistics. Gross

industrial production rose by 84 percent, with producer goods up

96 percent and consumer goods up 60 percent. Growth rates slowed

noticeably during the final years of the plan, however. Party leaders blamed Khrushchev's bungling efforts to reform the centralized planning system and his tendency to overemphasize programs

in one economic sector (such as his favorite, the chemical industry) at the expense of other sectors (see Reforming the Planning

System, this ch.). Agriculture's performance proved disappointing in the 1960s; adverse weather in 1963 and 1965, as well as Khrushchev's interference and policy reversals, which confused and

discouraged the peasants' work on their private plots, were contributing factors. Khrushchev's economic policies were a significant, although not sole, reason for his dismissal in October 1964.

The Eighth Five-Year Plan (1966-70), under the leadership of

Khrushchev's successor as party head, Brezhnev, chalked up respec- table growth statistics: national income increased 41 percent and

industrial production 50 percent, according to government statistics. Growth in producer goods (51 percent) outpaced that in con- sumer goods (49 percent) only slighdy, reflecting planners' growing

concern about the plight of consumers. During the late 1960s,

Brezhnev raised procurement prices for agricultural products, while

holding constant retail prices for consumers. Agriculture thus be- came a net burden on the rest of the economy. Although production increased, the sector's performance remained unsatisfactory.

The country had to import increasing amounts of grain from the

West.

In the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1971-75), a slowdown in virtually

all sectors became apparent (see The Economy, ch. 2). National

476
Economic Structure and Policy

income grew only 28 percent during the period, and gross industrial production increased by 43 percent. The 37 percent growth

rate for the production of consumer goods was well below the

planned target of 45.6 percent. Problems in agriculture grew more

acute during the period. The gap between supply and demand in- creased, especially for fodder.

Results for the Tenth Five-Year Plan (1976-80) were even more

disappointing. National income increased only 20 percent and gross

industrial production only 24 percent. The production of consumer

goods grew a meager 21 percent. Western observers rated the

growth of the country's gross national product (GNP—see Glossary) at less than 2 percent in the late 1970s.

For Soviet leaders, the modest growth rates were a perplexing

problem. The ability to maintain impressive growth rates while

providing full employment and economic security for citizens and

an equitable distribution of wealth had always been one area in

which supporters of the Soviet system had argued that it was su- perior. Soviet leaders could point to many achievements; by vir- tually any standard, the gap between the Soviet economy and the

economies of other major industrialized powers had narrowed during the years of Soviet rule. Throughout the early decades of the

economy's development, plans had emphasized large, quick additions of labor, capital, and materials to achieve rapid, "extensive"

growth.

By the 1970s, however, prospects for extensive growth were limited. During the 1960s, the Soviet Union had shown the fastest growth in employment of all major industrial countries, and the

Soviet Union together with Japan had boasted the most rapid

growth of fixed capital stock. Yet Soviet growth rates in productivity of both labor and capital had been the lowest. In the 1970s,

the labor force grew more slowly. Drawing on surplus rural labor was no longer possible, and the participation of women in the work

force was already extensive. Furthermore, the natural resources required for extensive growth lay in areas increasingly difficult,

and expensive, to reach. In the less-developed eastern regions of

the country, development costs exceeded those in the European

parts by 30 percent to 100 percent. In the more developed areas

of the country, the slow rate at which fixed assets were retired was becoming a major problem; fixed assets remained in service on

average twice as long as in Western economies, reducing overall

productivity. Nevertheless, in the late 1970s some Western analysts

estimated that the Soviet Union had the world's second largest econ- omy, and its GNP continued to grow in the 1980s (see table 31,

Appendix A).

477
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Serious imbalances characterized the economy, however, and

the Soviet Union lagged behind most Western industrialized nations in the production of consumer goods and services. A stated

goal of Soviet policy had always been to raise the material living

standards of the people. Considerable progress had been made;

according to Western estimates (less flattering than Soviet), from

1950 and 1980 real per capita consumption increased 300 percent.

The country's leaders had devoted the bulk of the available resources

to heavy industry, however, particularly to * 'production of the means of production. " Levels of consumption remained below those

of major capitalist countries and most of the socialist countries of

Eastern Europe. By the late 1970s, policy makers had recognized

the need to improve productivity by emphasizing quality factors,

efficiency, and advanced technology and tapping ' 'hidden production reserves" in the economy.

Concern about productivity characterized the Eleventh Five-Year

Plan (1981-85). The targets were rather modest, and planners

reduced even those after the first year of the period. Achievements

remained below target. The plan period as a whole produced a modest growth rate of 3 to 4 percent per year, according to official

statistics. National income increased only 17 percent. Total industrial output grew by 20 percent, with the production of consumer

goods increasing at a marginally higher rate than producer goods.

Agricultural output registered a meager 11.6 percent gain.

The Twelfth Five-Year Plan, 1986-90

When Gorbachev attained power in 1985, most Western analysts were convinced that Soviet economic performance would not improve significantly during the remainder of the 1980s. "Intensification" alone seemed unlikely to yield important immediate results. Gorbachev tackled the country's economic problems energetically,

however, declaring that the economy had entered a "pre-crisis"

stage. The leadership and the press acknowledged shortcomings

in the economy with a new frankness.

Restating the aims of earlier intensification efforts, the Basic Directionsfor the Economic and Social Development of the USSRfor 1986-1990

andfor the Period to the Year 2000 declared the principal tasks of the

five-year plan period to be "to enhance the pace and efficiency of

economic development by accelerating scientific and technical

progress, retooling and adapting production, intensively using exist- ing production potential, and improving the managerial system and

accounting mechanism, and, on this basis, to further raise the stan- dard of living of the Soviet people." A major part of the planned

increase in output for the 1986-90 period was to result from the

478
Privately owned cafe, Moscow

Courtesy Irene Steckler

introduction of new machinery to replace unskilled labor. New,

advanced technologies, such as microprocessors, robots, and vari- ous computers, would automate and mechanize production. Obsolete equipment was to be retired at an accelerated rate. Industrial

operations requiring high energy inputs would be located close to energy sources, and increasing numbers of workplaces would be

in regions with the requisite manpower resources. Economic development of Siberia and the Soviet Far East would continue to receive special attention.

Gorbachev tackled the problem of laxness in the workplace and

low worker productivity (or, as he phrased it, the "human factor")

with great vigor. This attention to individual productivity and dis- cipline resulted in the demotion or dismissal of influential older

officials who had proved to be corrupt or ineffective. Gorbachev

called for improved motivation among rank-and-file workers and

launched a vigorous antialcohol campaign (also a priority under

Andropov).

At the Central Committee plenum in January 1987, Gorbachev

demanded a fundamental reassessment of the role of the government in Soviet society. His economic reform program was sweeping, encompassing an array of changes. For example, it created

a new finance system through which factories would obtain loans

479
Soviet Union: A Country Study

at interest, and it provided for the competitive election of managers

(see Reforming the Planning System, this ch.). These changes

proceeded from Gorbachev's conviction that a major weakness in

the economy was the extreme centralization of economic decision

making, inappropriate under modern conditions. According to Abel

Aganbegian, an eminent Soviet economist and the principal scholarly spokesman for many of Gorbachev's policies, the Soviet Union

was facing a critical decision: " Either we implement radical re- form in management and free driving forces, or we follow an evolutionary line of slow evolution and gradual improvement. If we follow

the second direction, . . . we will not achieve our goals." The country was entering "a truly new period of restructuring, a period of

cardinal breakthroughs," he said, at the same time stressing the

leadership's continuing commitment to socialism.

In one of his most controversial policy decisions, Gorbachev

moved to encourage private economic activities and cooperative

ventures. The action had clear limits, however. It established a progressive tax on profits, and regulations limited participation

mainly to students, retired persons, and housewives. Full-time

workers could devote only their leisure hours to private activities. Cooperatives that involved at least three people could engage in a broad range of consumer-oriented activities: using private au- tomobiles as taxis, opening private restaurants, offering private

medical care, repairing automobiles or appliances, binding books,

and tailoring. In addition, the reform encouraged state enterprises

to contract with private individuals for certain services. Other regulations gave official approval to the activities of profit-oriented contract brigades. These brigades consisted of groups of workers in an enterprise or collective farm who joined together to make an

internal contract with management for performance of specific tasks,

receiving compensation in a lump sum that the brigade itself dis- tributed as it saw fit. Additional decrees specified types of activities that remained illegal (those involving "unearned income") and

established strict penalties for violators. The new regulations le- gitimized major portions of the second economy and permitted their

expansion. No doubt authorities hoped that the consuming public

would reap immediate, tangible benefits from the changes. Authorities also expected these policies to encourage individuals who were

still operating illegally to abide by the new, more lenient regulations.

In keeping with Gorbachev's ambitious reform policies, the

specific targets of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (1986-90) were

challenging. The targets posited an average growth rate in national

income of about 4 percent yearly. To reach this goal, increases in

480
Economic Structure and Policy

labor productivity were to average 4 percent annually, a rate that

had not been sustained on a regular basis since the early 1970s.

The ratio of expenditure on material inputs and energy to national

income was to decrease by 4 to 5 percent in the plan period. Similar savings were projected for other aspects of the economy.

The plan stressed technical progress. Machine-building output was to increase by 40 to 45 percent during the five-year period.

Those sectors involved in high technology were to grow faster than

industry as a whole. The production of computers, for example, was to increase 2.4 times during the plan period. Growth in production of primary energy would accelerate during the period, aver- aging 3.6 percent per year, compared with 2.6 percent actual growth

per year for 1981-85. The plan called for major growth in nuclear

power capacity. (The Chernobyl' accident of 1986 did not alter these plans.)

Capital investment was to grow by 23.6 percent, whereas under

the Eleventh Five-Year Plan the growth rate had been only 15.4

percent. Roughly half of the funds would be used for the retooling

necessary for intensification. The previous plan had earmarked 38

percent for this purpose. Agriculture would receive large investments as well. The plan called for a relatively modest improvement in the stan- dard of living. The share of total investment in services was to rise only slightly, although the proportion of the labor force employed

in services would continue to grow.

The regime also oudined very ambitious guidelines for the fifteen- year period beginning in 1986. The guidelines called for a 5 per- cent yearly growth in national income; national income was

projected to double by the year 2000. Labor productivity would

grow by 6.5 to 7.4 percent per year during the 1990s. Projected

modernization of the workplace would release 20 million people

from unskilled work by the year 2000. Plans called for increasingly

efficient use of fuels, energy, raw materials, metal, and other materials. The guidelines singled out the provision of "practically every

Soviet family" with separate housing by the beginning of the

twenty-first century as a special, high-priority task. Results of the first year of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, 1986, were encouraging in many respects. The industrial growth rate was

below target but still respectable at just above 3 percent. Agriculture made a good showing. During 1987, however, GNP grew by

less than 1 percent, according to Western calculations, and industrial production grew a mere 1.5 percent. Some problems were

the result of harsh weather and traditional supply bottlenecks. In

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

addition, improvements in quality called for by Gorbachev proved

difficult to realize; in 1987, when the government introduced a new

inspection system for output at a number of industrial enterprises,

rejection rates were high, especially for machinery.

Many of Gorbachev's reforms that immediately affected the or- dinary working person—such as demands for harder work, more

rigid quality controls, better discipline, and restraints on traditionally high alcohol consumption—were unlikely to please the public, particularly since the rewards and payoffs of most changes were

likely to be several years away. As the Nineteenth Party Confer- ence of 1988 demonstrated, party leaders continued to debate the

pace and the degree of change. Uncertainty about the extent and

permanence of reform was bound to create some disarray within

the economy, at least for the short term. Western analysts did not

expect Gorbachev's entire program to succeed, particularly given

the lackluster performance of the economy during the second year

of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. The meager results of past reform

attempts offered few grounds for optimism. But most observers believed that at least a portion of the reforms would be effective. The

result was almost certain to benefit the economy.

* * * The economic reforms of the mid-1980s have attracted the at- tention of many Western observers. As a result, English-language

sources of information about the new measures are plentiful. An

especially useful compendium of reports about the changes is Gorbachev's Economic Plans, produced by the United States Congress.

An earlier collection of reports submitted to the United States Congress, entided The Soviet Economy in the 1980s, remains useful. Valuable analyses of the ' 'traditional," pre-reform Soviet economy, still essential for an understanding of the nature and extent of the re- forms of the mid- and late 1980s, may be found in The Soviet Economy, edited by Abram Bergson and Herbert S. Levine, and in

Modern Soviet Economic Performance by Trevor Buck and John Cole.

For ongoing observation and commentary on the changing eco- nomic scene, the interested reader may consult current issues of

the periodicals Soviet Studies and Soviet Economy as well as relevant

issues of the Joint Publications Research Service. For earlier development of the Soviet economy, standard works such as Maurice

Dobb's Soviet Economic Development since 1917 and Alec Nove's An

Economic History of the U.S.S.R. remain indispensable. (For further

information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

482
Chapter 12. Industry
Aspects of industry
SINCE THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION of 1917, industry

has been officially the most important economic activity in the Soviet

Union and a critical indicator of its standing among the nations

of the world. Compared with Western countries, a very high per- centage of the Soviet population works in the production of material

goods. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) considers constant growth in heavy industry vital for national security, and its policy has achieved several periods of spectacular

growth. However, industrial growth has been uneven, with notable failures in light and consumer industries, and impressive statis- tics have often concealed failures in individual branches. And, in

the late 1980s, reliable statistics continued to be unavailable in some

areas and unreliable in others.

The Soviet Union is blessed with more essential industrial resources than any other nation. Using the most accessible of those

materials, industries such as textiles and metallurgy have thrived

since the 1600s. Large industrial centers developed almost exclusively in the European part of the country. Examples of such centers are the Donbass (see Glossary), the Moscow industrial area, and

the Kursk and Magnitogorsk metallurgical centers, all of which

are still in full operation. But intense industrial activity eventually

exhausted the most accessible resource materials. In the late twentieth century, reserves have been tapped in the adjacent regions,

especially the oil and gas fields of western Siberia. Most of the re- maining reserves are outside the European sector of the country,

presenting planners with the formidable task of bridging thousands

of kilometers to unite raw materials, labor, energy, and centers of consumption. The urgency of industrial location decisions has

grown as production quotas have risen in every new planning

period. Moreover, the nature and location of the Soviet labor force

presents another serious problem for planners.

Joseph V. Stalin's highly centralized industrial management sys- tem survived into the late 1980s. Numerous councils, bureaus, and

committees in Moscow traditionally approved details of industrial

policies. The slow reaction time of such a system was adequate for the gradual modernization of the 1950s, but the system fell behind

the faster pace of high-technology advancement that began in the

1960s. Soviet policy has consistently called for "modernization"

of industry and use of the most advanced automated equipment

especially because of the military significance of high technology.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Although policy programs identified automation as critical to all Soviet industry, the civilian sector generally has lagged in the

modernization campaign. The priority given to the militaryindustrial sector, however, not only prevented the growth that plan- ners envisioned but also caused the serious slowdown that began

around 1970. In a massive effort to restructure the system under

perestroika (see Glossary), planners have sought ways to speed decision making to meet immediate industrial needs by finding short- cuts through the ponderous industrial bureaucracy.

Another strain on the industrial system has been the commitment to improving production of consumer goods. Nikita S. Khrushchev, first secretary (see Glossary) of the CPSU in the late 1950s and early 1960s, initially tried to temper the Stalinist priority of heavy industry. Khrushchev's idea was followed with varying degrees of enthusiasm; it became more binding as consumers

learned about Western standards of living and as officials began

stating the goal more forcefully in the 1980s.

Development of Soviet Industry

Russian industrial activity began before 1700, although it was

limited to metal-working and textile factories located on feudal

estates and required some help from English and Dutch advisers.

The largest industrial concerns of the seventeenth century were owned by the Stroganov trading family. In the first quarter of the

eighteenth century, Peter the Great applied Western technology more widely to establish larger textile, metallurgical, and naval

plants for his military ventures. This first centralized plan for Russian industrialization built some of the largest, best-equipped fac- tories of the time, using mosdy forced peasant labor. After a decline

in the middle of the eighteenth century, Russian industry received

another injection of Western ideas and centralized organization

under Catherine the Great. Under Catherine, Russia's iron in- dustry became the largest in the world.

Another major stage in Russian industry began with the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, creating what would eventually be- come a large industrial labor force. When he became tsar in 1881

,

Alexander III used this resource in a new, large-scale industrialization program aimed at finally changing Russia from a primarily

agricultural country into a modern industrial nation. Lasting until 1914, the program depended on massive assistance from western

Europe. From 1881 to 1914, the greatest expansion occurred in

textiles, coal, and metallurgy, centered in the Moscow area and

the present-day Ukrainian Republic (see fig. 1). But compared with

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Industry

the West, major industrial gaps remained throughout the prerevolutionary period.

Beginning in 1904, industry was diverted and disrupted by for- eign wars, strikes, revolutions, and civil war. After the Civil War

(1918-21), the victorious Bolsheviks (see Glossary) fully nationalized industry; at that point, industrial production was 13 percent

of the 1913 level. To restart the economy, in 1921 Vladimir I. Lenin

introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP—see Glossary), which

returned light industry to private enterprise but retained government control over heavy industry. By 1927 NEP had returned many

industries to their prewar levels. Under Stalin, the First Five-Year

Plan began in 1928. This planning system brought spectacular in- dustrial growth, especially in capital investment. More important,

it laid the foundation for centralized industrial planning, which con- tinued into the late 1980s. Heavy industry received much greater

investment than light industry throughout the Stalin period. Although occasional plans emphasized consumer goods more strongly,

considerations of national security usually militated against such

changes.

Industry was again diverted and displaced by World War II, and many enterprises moved permanently eastward, into or beyond the Ural Mountains. Postwar recovery was rapid as a result of the massive application of manpower and funds. Heavy industry again grew rapidly through the 1960s, especially in fuel and

energy branches. But this growth was followed by a prolonged slowdown beginning in the late 1960s. Successive five-year plans resulted

in no substantial improvement in the growth rate of industrial

production (see table 32, Appendix A). Policy makers began reviewing the usefulness of centralized planning in a time of advanced,

fast-moving technology. By 1986 General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev was making radical suggestions for restructuring the

industrial system.

Industrial Resources

Although plentiful raw materials and labor are available to Soviet

industrial planners, geographic factors are especially important in

determining how these resources are used. Because the main

resources are available in an uneven pattern, industrial policy has

produced uneven results. Innovative recombination of labor, fuels,

and other raw materials has had some success but has also met substantial resistance.

Raw Materials

In 1980 the Soviet Union produced about 20 percent of total world industrial output, and it led the world in producing oil, cast

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

iron, steel, coke, mineral fertilizers, locomotives, tractors, and ce- ment. This leadership was based on self-sufficiency in nearly all major industrial raw materials, including iron ore, most nonferrous

metals, solid and liquid fuels, water power, and minerals. The country has at least some reserves of every industrially valuable nonfuel mineral, although tin, tungsten, and mercury are present only

in small quantities and bauxite is imported for the aluminum in- dustry. Despite these material advantages, the country's geography hinders exploitation. Large portions of the remaining coal, oil, natural gas, metal ores, and minerals are located in inaccessible

regions with hostile climates.

Geographic Location Factors

Historically, Soviet industry has been concentrated in the European sector, where intensive development has depleted critical resources. Examples of severely reduced resources in the older in- dustrial regions are the Krivoy Rog and Magnitogorsk iron deposits

and the Donbass coal area, upon which major industrial complexes were built. Long before the German invasion of 1941, Soviet

industrial policy looked eastward into Siberia and Soviet Central

Asia to expand the country's material base. According to a 1977

Soviet study, 90 percent of remaining energy resources (fuels and

water power) are east of the Urals; however, 80 percent of industry and nearly 80 percent of all energy requirements are in the

European part of the Soviet Union. Since 1917 an official policy

goal has been to bring all Soviet regions to a similar level of eco- nomic development. Periodically, leaders have proclaimed the full achievement of this goal. But in a country of extremely diverse cli- mates, nationalities, and natural resources, such equality remains

only a theoretical concept. Industrial expansion has meant finding ways to join raw materials, power, labor, and transportation

at the same place and in suitable proportions. For example, many

eastern regions have abundant resources, but the labor supply either

is too small or is culturally disinclined to work in modern industry

(see Distribution and Density, ch. 3). The Territorial Production Complexes and Geographic Expansion

One Soviet answer to the problem of the location of industry

has been the concept of the territorial production complex, which

groups industries to efficiently share materials, energy, machinery,

and labor. Although plans call for such complexes (see Glossary)

in all parts of the Soviet Union, in the late 1980s the most fully

developed examples were chiefly to the east of the Urals or in the

Far North; many were in remote areas of Siberia or the Soviet Far

488
Park in Moscow with a permanent exhibition praising the economic achievements of the Soviet people

Courtesy Irene Steckler

East. The complexes vary in size and specialization, but most are based near cheap local fuel or a hydroelectric power source. An

example is the South Yakut complex, halfway between Lake Baykal

and the Pacific Ocean. This industrial center is based on rich

deposits of iron and coking coal, the key resources for metallurgy.

Oil and natural gas deposits exist not far to the north, and the area

is connected with the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Baikal-Amur

Main Line. An entirely new city, Neryungri, was built as an administrative center, and a number of auxiliary plants were designed

to make the complex self-sufficient and to support the iron- and

coal-mining operations. The temperature varies by 85 °C from

winter to summer, the terrain is forbidding, and working conditions are hazardous. But considering that the alternative is many

separate, isolated industrial sites with the same conditions, the territorial production complex seems a rational approach to reach the

region's resources. Integrating several industries in a single complex requires cooperation among many top-level Soviet bureaucracies, but in the early 1980s the lack of such cooperation delayed

progress at centers such as the South Yakut complex.

Starting in the 1960s, the government pursued large-scale in- centive programs to move workers into the three main Soviet

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

undeveloped regions: Siberia, Central Asia, and the Far East. Such

programs justified bonuses for workers by saving the cost of trans- porting raw materials to the European sector. At the same time, some policy makers from other parts of the country had not supported redesignation of funds from their regions to the eastern

projects. In 1986 the Siberian Development Program was launched

for coordinated, systematic development of fuel and mineral

resources through the year 2000. Despite specific plans, movement

of Soviet labor to the undeveloped regions has generally fallen short

of plans since the peak migration of World War II. Poor living

and working conditions have caused 4 'labor flight" from Siberian

construction projects. By 1988 there were strong hints that intensified development would again be emphasized in the more accessible industrial centers west of the Urals and that more selective

investment would be made in projects to the east and southeast

of that boundary.

The Labor Force and Perestroika

The nature of the work force has a direct impact on industrial

policy. In 1985 nearly 75 percent of the nonagricultural work force was making material goods, and that percentage was shrinking very

slowly as nonmanufacturing service occupations expanded. The

rate of the shift away from manufacturing actually was decreasing

during the 1980s. Meanwhile, one-third of industrial workers re- mained in low-skilled, manual jobs through the 1980s, and slow

population growth was limiting the growth of the work force. Nevertheless, significant groups of workers were better educated

and more comfortable with mechanized and automated manufacturing than the previous generation. In the late 1980s, labor shortages were expected to stimulate faster automation of some

industries. Official modernization plans called for eliminating 5 million manual jobs by the year 1990 and 20 million by the year

2000, and reductions were targeted for specific industries. Reductions in the labor force could not always be planned for areas where

available labor was decreasing naturally. This situation meant that

job elimination could bring unemployment in some places

especially since most of the jobs eliminated would be those requiring the least skill. Because unemployment theoretically cannot exist in a socialist (see Glossary) state, that prospect was a potentially

traumatic repercussion of the effort at industrial streamlining.

Poor labor ethics have traditionally undermined Soviet industrial programs. Gorbachev's perestroika made individual productivity a major target in the drive to streamline industry in the late 1980s.

But the goal met substantial resistance among ordinary workers

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Industry

because it called for pegging wages directly to productivity and

eliminating guaranteed wage levels and bonuses.

Thus, the Soviet Union possessed a vast labor base that was very uneven in quality. In economic plans for the last decade of the twentieth century, planners placed top priority on redistributing all resources—human and material—to take advantage of their

strengths. The drive for redistribution coincided with an attempt

to streamline the organization of the industrial system.

Industrial Organization

Beginning with the First Five-Year Plan (1928-32), Soviet in- dustry was directed by a complicated, centralized system that proved

increasingly inflexible as its equipment base became more sophisti- cated. Major problems arose in allocation of resources between mili- tary and civilian sectors, centralized planning of diverse industries,

and systemic changes that would make industry responsive to rapid

technological developments.

The Complexes and the Ministries

In the late 1980s, industry was officially divided into seven in- dustrial complexes, each complex (see Glossary) responsible for one

or more sectors of production. The seven complexes, which were

directly responsible to the Council of Ministers, were agroindustrial, chemicals and timber, construction, fuel and energy,

machine building, light industry, and metallurgy. The Ministry

of Light Industry was the only ministry in its complex and was

intended as the foundation for a consumer industry complex,

dubbed the ' 'social complex" by the government. The remaining

six complexes included several ministries to oversee one broad type

of industry. For example, the fuel and energy complex included

the all-union ministries of atomic power, coal, construction of

petroleum and gas enterprises, the gas industry, the petroleum in- dustry, and power and electrification. The ministry system included

three types of organization: all-union (national level only), unionrepublic (national and republic levels), and republic (to run industry

indigenous to a single republic). Ministries in the construction

materials, light industry, nonferrous metallurgy, and timber complexes were in the union-republic ministry category. But machine

building had all-union ministries because unified national policy

and standards were considered critical in that field. Ministries with

major military output fell outside this ministry structure, under

the superministerial direction of the Military Industrial Commission. That body oversaw all stages of defense industry, from research

491
Soviet Union: A Country Study

to production, plus the acquisition and application of foreign technology (see Military Industries and Production, ch. 18).

The Industrial Planning System

Industrial policy statements were issued by the CPSU at party

congresses (see Glossary). A typical statement came from the

Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in 1986: "In accelerating scientific and technical progress, a leading role is assigned to machine

building, which must be raised to the highest technical level in the

shortest possible time." In reaching such broad goals, the top planning level was the Council of Ministers, which represented the all- union ministries included in the seven industrial complexes. The

council's decisions were passed to the State Planning Committee

(Gosudarstvennyi planovyi komitet—Gosplan), which formulated

specific programs to realize broad party goals. Then programs

moved down through the bureaucracy to individual enterprises (see

Glossary), and recommendations and changes were made along

the way. The programs then reversed direction, returning to the

Council of Ministers for final approval. The final planning form was the five-year plan, a concept originated by Stalin in 1928 (see

The Twelfth Five-Year Plan, 1986-90, ch. 11; table 30, Appendix A).

After the First Five-Year Plan, planning was completely centralized in the all-union ministries. In day-to-day operations, this system consistently delayed interministry cooperation in such matters as equipment delivery and construction planning. An example was electric power plant construction. Planners relied on timely

delivery of turbines from a machine plant, whose planners in turn

relied on timely delivery of semifinished rolled and shaped metal

pieces from a metallurgical combine (see Glossary). Any change

in specifications or quantities required approval by all the ministries and intermediate planning bodies in the power, machine, and

metallurgical industries—a formidable task under the best of cir- cumstances.

Structural Reform of Industry

Perestroika called for wholesale revision of the industrial management system and decentralization of policy making in all industries. Elements of the management bureaucracy opposed such

revision because it would place direct responsibility for poor per- formance and initiative on industry officials. Initial adjustment to the program was slow and uneven; in the late 1980s, tighter quality control cut production figures by eliminating substandard items. In mid- 1988, eighteen months after perestroika had been introduced

492
Industry

in major industries, official Soviet sources admitted that much of

the program was not yet in place.

The Military-Industrial Complex

Growth in the Soviet economy slowed to 2 percent annually in

the late 1970s, and it remained at about that level during the 1980s,

after averaging 5 percent during the previous three decades. Because military supply remained the primary mission of industry,

the military was protected from the overall slowdown. Thus, in

1988 the military share of the gross national product (GNP—see Glossary) had grown to an estimated 15 to 17 percent, up from

its 12 to 14 percent share in 1970. The actual percentage of industrial resources allocated to military production has always been unclear because of Soviet secrecy about military budgets. Most military

production came under the eighteen ministries of the machinebuilding and metal-working complex (MBMW), nine of which were

primarily involved in making weapons or military materiel (see

table 33, Appendix A).

Other "military-related" ministries sent a smaller percentage

of their output to the military. Among their contributions were

trucks (from the Ministry of Automotive and Agricultural Machine

Building, under MBMW), tires and fuels (from the Ministry of

Petroleum Refining and Petrochemical Industry, outside MBMW),

and generators (from the Ministry of Power Machinery Building,

under MBMW), plus any other items requested by the military.

In overall control of this de facto structure was the Defense Council (see Glossary), which in the 1980s was chaired by the general

secretary of the CPSU. Although the Council of Ministers nominally controlled all ministries, including those serving the military,

military issues transcended that authority. In 1987 an estimated

450 research and development organizations were working exclusively on military projects. Among top-priority projects were a

multiministerial laser program, generation of radio-frequency

energy, and particle-beam research—all applicable to future battlefield weapons. In addition, about fifty major weapons design

bureaus and thousands of plants were making military items exclusively. Such plants had first priority in resource allocation to ensure that production goals were met. Most defense plants were

in the European part of the Soviet Union, were well dispersed, and

had duplicate backup plants. Some major aircraft plants were beyond the Urals, in Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Tashkent, Komsomol'skna-Amure, and Ulan-Ude.

In making military equipment, the primary goals were simplicity and reliability; parts were standardized and kept to a minimum.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

New designs used as many existing parts as possible to maximize

performance predictability. Because of these practices, the least ex- perienced Soviet troops and troops of countries to which the equipment was sold could operate it. But the practices have also caused

the Soviet military-industrial complex, despite having top priority, to suffer from outmoded capital equipment, much of which is left over from World War II. Western observers have suggested that

the dated 'keep-it-simple" philosophy has been a psychological

obstacle to introducing the sophisticated production systems needed

for high-technology military equipment.

Western experts have assumed that without substantial overall

economic expansion, this huge military-industrial complex would

remain a serious resource drain on civilian industry—although the

degree of that drain has been difficult to establish. To ameliorate

the situation, perestroika set a goal of sharply reducing the military

share of MBMW allocations (estimated at 60 percent in 1987) during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. Civilian MBMW ministries were

to receive an 80 percent investment increase by 1992. And emphasis was shifting to technology sharing by military designers with

their civilian counterparts—breaking down the isolation in which

the two sectors have traditionally worked.

Industrial Research and Design

The Soviet Union has long recognized the importance of its domestic research and development system to make its industry

competitive. Soviet research and development relies on a complex

system of institutes, design bureaus, and individual plant research

facilities to provide industry with advanced equipment and methodology (see Research, Development, and Production Organizations,

ch. 16). A result of the system's complexity has been poor coordination both among research organizations and between research

organizations and other industrial organizations. Botdenecks existed because much research was classified and because Soviet in- formation distribution systems, e.g., computers and copying

machines, lagged far behind the West.

A barrier between theoretical and applied research also hindered

the contribution of the scientific research institutes (nauchnoissledovatel 'skie instituty—Nils) to industry. Institutes under the

Academy of Sciences (see Glossary), which emphasized theoretical research, often did not contribute their findings direcdy for practical application, and an institutional distrust has existed between scientists and industrial technicians. Newer organizational

structures, such as scientific production associations (nauchnoproizvodstvennye ob"edineniia—NPOs), have combined research,

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Industry

design, and production facilities so that technical improvements

will move into the production phase faster. This goal was an important part of perestroika in the late 1980s. It was especially criti- cal in the machine-building industry, for which a central goal of

the Twelfth Five-Year Plan was to shorten installation time of new

industrial machines once they were designed.

Soviet industrial planning was aimed at being competitive with

the West in both civilian and military industry. After years of lagging growth, by the mid-1980s authorities had recognized that the

traditional Stalinist industrial system made such goals unreachable.

But improvement of that system was problematic for several rea- sons. New emphasis on the civilian sector could not be allowed to jeopardize military production; research and development was never connected efficiently with industrial operations; the huge industrial bureaucracy contained vested interests at all levels; and per- sonal responsibility and individual initiative were concepts alien

to the Soviet Marxist-Leninist system. The most optimistic Western

forecasters predicted gradual improvements in some areas, as opposed to the dramatic, irreversible changes suggested by the Soviet

industrial doctrine of the late 1980s.

Machine Building and Metal Working

As the supplier of production machinery to all other branches

of heavy industry, the machine-building and metal-working industry

has stood at the center of modernization efforts, and its support

of the military has been especially critical (see Industrial Organization, this ch.). But because of the systemic problems discussed

earlier, in the late 1980s substantial inertia remained in machine

building. Progress in one program was often negated by a bottle- neck in another, and all industry felt the impact of this uneven per- formance.

The Structure and Status of the Machine-Building and MetalWorking Complex

In 1987 the machine-building industrial complex, one of the seven

industrial complexes, included 300 branches and subbranches and

a network of 700 research and planning organizations. Officially designated the machine-building and metal-working complex

(MBMW), it was the most inclusive and varied industrial complex. Its three major types of products, were military hardware, consumer durables, and industrial machinery and equipment. In

1989 eighteen ministries were included, manufacturing a wide range

of machinery; nine of the ministries chiefly produced military

weapons or materiel. Ministries within MBMW often split the

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

jurisdiction within a particular specialization. For example, although

instrument manufacture fell mainly under MBMW's Ministry of

Instrument Making, its Ministry of the Aviation Industry and

Ministry of the Shipbuilding Industry controlled manufacture of

the instruments they used in their products. The contributions of

MBMW included machines for mining, agriculture, and road building; equipment for conventional and nuclear power plants; oil and

gas drilling and pumping equipment; and metal-working machines

for all branches, including the military. In the mid-1980s, restruc- turing in the machine industry was a central theme of perestroika

because most industries needed to update their machine stock. Western studies in the 1980s showed that 40 to 60 percent of in- dustrial production was earmarked for military uses. In the 1980s,

government policy encouraged industry to buy domestic machinery

to counter a frequent preference for more reliable foreign equipment. (A 1985 study by MBMW's Ministry of Heavy Machine

Building said that 50 percent of that ministry's basic products did

not meet operational requirements.) In the late 1970s and early

1980s, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) sent half

its machine exports to the Soviet Union. At the same time, Soviet

machine exports fell behind machine imports, after exports had

reached a peak in 1970.

The Planning and Investment Process of the Machine-Building

and Metal-Working Complex

The Twelfth Five-Year Plan (1986-90) called for drastic production increases in the sectors producing instruments, machine tools, electrical equipment, chemicals, and agricultural machines. Fundamental investment changes were expected to raise machine

production to new highs. Overall investment in the machinebuilding industry was to be 80 percent higher than in the Eleventh

Five-Year Plan (1981-85). A crucial goal was to shorten the time

between research breakthroughs and their industrial application,

which had been a chronic bottleneck in the modernization of in- dustry. Another goal of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan was to improve

the quality of individual components and spare parts because their

short service life was diverting too much metal to making replacement parts. In the mid-1980s, however, severe delivery delays con- tinued for both spare parts and new machines ordered by various

industries. Perestroika attempted to simplify the system and to fix responsibility for delays. As the largest consumer of steel in the

country, MBMW had felt the impact of severe production problems

in the metallurgy industry (see Metallurgy, this ch.). Automation was expected to add speed and precision to production lines. By

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Industry

1987 nearly half of metal-cutting machine production was done with

digital program control. New control complexes stressed microcomputers with high production capacity and low material requirements. Nevertheless, a 1987 Soviet study showed that 40 percent

of the robots in machine plants were not working at all, and a 1986

study demonstrated that only 20 percent of the robots were providing the expected production advantages. A long-term (through the

year 2000) cooperative program with the other members of the

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) was expected

to contribute new ideas for streamlining the Soviet machine-building

industry (see Appendix B).

The Location of the Machine-Building Industry

Traditionally, the Soviet machine-building industries have been

centered in the European part of the Soviet Union; large plants are located in Moscow, Leningrad, Khar'kov, Minsk, Gor'kiy,

Saratov, and in cities in the Urals. In the 1980s, the industry was

gradually adding major centers in the Kazakh Republic and other

areas in Soviet Central Asia, Siberia, and the Soviet Far East. The

instrument-building sector was more dispersed and had centers in

Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Voronezh, Orel, Ryazan', Kazan',

Gor'kiy, Riga, Minsk, Tbilisi, Chelyabinsk, Tomsk, and Frunze.

Agricultural machines were produced near major crop areas. Examples of this concentration were Khar'kov in the Ukrainian

Republic; Minsk in the Belorussian Republic; Lipetsk, Vladimir,

Volgograd, and Chelyabinsk in the western Russian Republic; the

Altai region in the eastern Russian Republic; and Pavlodar in the

Kazakh Republic. Because low crop yield has been a chronic

problem, the agricultural equipment industry has emphasized large

mechanized tractor and harvester units that can cover vast, lowyield tracts economically.

The Automotive Industry

The Soviet automotive industry has developed on a much smaller

scale than its United States counterpart. Although production grew

rapidly during the 1970s and 1980s, the industry's close connection with the military made some production data inaccessible. From

1970 to 1979, automobile production grew by nearly 1 million units

per year, and truck production grew by 250,000 per year. The

production ratio of automobiles to trucks increased in that time

from 0.7 to 1.7, indicating that more attention was being given

to the consumer market.

Automobile production was concentrated in four facilities: the Volga (in Tol'yatti), Gor'kiy, Zaporozh'ye, and Likhachev

497
Soviet Union: A Country Study

^Cherepovets

®

Moscow^

&m) ®-L/pete*

(^•Makeyevka

®.

>Tol'yatti

M) Nizhniy

•Tagil

7

TURKEY

.SYRIA

IRAQV

- International boundary

National capital Populated place Automotive center

Metallurgical center 200 400 Kilometers 200 400 Miles

Magnitogorsk , Chelyabinsk

W« Ors/c

Boundary representation

not necessarily authoritative

Figure 15. Automotive and Metallurgical Production Centers in the Western Soviet Union, 1988

(Moscow) plants (see fig. 15). The Volga plant was built in the

late 1960s especially for passenger automobiles; by 1975 it was making half the Soviet total. The Likhachev and Gor'kiy plants, both

in operation for more than fifty years, made automobiles and trucks. Truck production was less centralized, with plants in Kutaisi

(Georgian Republic), the Urals, Tiraspol' (Moldavian Republic),

Kremenchug (Ukrainian Republic), Minsk (Belorussian Republic), Mytishchi (Moscow area), and Naberezhnyye Chelny (eastern

Russian Republic), the site of the large showpiece Kama plant built

in the late 1970s. The Volga and Kama plants were located away

from the established population centers; in both cases, new towns were built for transplanted workers. Long-term truck planning

(through the year 2000) emphasized large capacity, fuel economy,

and service life; the last two qualities were deficient in earlier

models. The drive for fuel economy has encouraged the use of natural and liquefied gas. Heavy truck and trailer production was

to occupy more than 40 percent of the truck industry by 1990, doubling tractor-trailer production. Vehicle parts plants were widely

dispersed in the European sector of the country. Policy for the Soviet

automotive industry has emphasized two divergent goals: increasing the supply of private automobiles as a symbol of attention to the consumer; and supporting heavy industry with improved equipment for heavy transport and material handling.

498
Industry

The Electronics Industry

Because of the drive for automation and modernization of production processes, the electronics industry increasingly supported many

other industrial branches. Special emphasis was given to improving cooperation between electronics plants and the machine-building

and metallurgy branches—a partnership severely hindered in many

cases by the industrial bureaucracy. In official progress reports,

all industries listed process automation and robotization as stan- dards for efficiency and expansion, and conversion from manual

processes has been a prime indicator of progress in heavy industry. At the same time, government policy has relied heavily on the

electronics industry for televisions, recording equipment, and radios

for the consumer market. None of those items came close to planned

production quotas for 1987, however.

Beginning in the 1970s, the most important role of the electronics industry has been to supply lasers, optics, and computers and

to perform research and development on other advanced equipment for weapons guidance, communications, and space systems.

The importance of electronics for civilian industry has led to in- terministry research organizations that encourage the advanced

military design sector to share technology with its civilian counterpart. Such an organization was called an interbranch scientific- technical complex (mezhotraslevoi nauchno-tekhnicheskii kompleks—

MNTK). It united the research and production organizations of

several ministries and had broad coordination control over the development of new technologies. Because of the military uses of

Soviet electronics, the West has had incomplete specific data about

it. In the early 1980s, an estimated 40 percent of Soviet electronics research projects had benefited substantially from the transfer

of Western and Japanese technology. In the late 1980s, however,

Soviet electronics trailed the West and Japan in most areas of applied electronics, although circuit design and systems engineering

programs were comparable. The Soviet theoretical computer base was strong, but equipment and programming were below Western

standards. Problems have been chronic in advanced fields such as ion implantation and microelectronics testing. The branches designated by Soviet planners as most critical in the 1980s were industrial robots and manipulators, computerized control systems for industrial machines, and semiconductors for computer circuits. Metallurgy

Soviet industrial plans through the year 2000 have emphasized

greater variety and higher quality in metals production to keep

heavy industry competitive with the West. But the machinery and

499
Soviet Union: A Country Study

production systems available to Soviet metallurgists in 1989 showed no signs of improving the inconsistent record the industry had es- tablished in meeting such goals. Following the Stalinist pattern,

great success in some areas was hampered by breakdown in others. In the late 1980s, escape from this dilemma seemed no more likely

than in earlier years. Role of Metallurgy

Since the 1970s, the Soviet Union has led the world in the production of iron, steel, and rolled metals. In 1987 it produced about

162 million tons of steel, 114 million tons of rolled metal, and 20

million tons of steel pipe. Each of these figures was an increase

of more than 2.5 times over those of 1960. Metallurgy has been

the largest and fastest growing branch of Soviet industry, and metals

supply remained vital to growth in virtually all other branches of

industry. But yearly production increases were becoming more

difficult because the cost of raw materials rose consistently in the

1980s, especially for metals such as molybdenum, nickel, magnesium, and rare earth metals, which were in increasing demand

for high-quality steel alloys.

In the mid-1980s, the metallurgy industry was not meeting its goals for supplying high-quality finished metal to the manufacturing industries. Those industries were demanding higher-quality and

stronger metals for new applications, such as high-pressure pipelines for oil and gas, high-capacity dump trucks and excavators,

industrial buildings with large roof spans, corrosion-resistant pipe

for the chemical industry, coated and treated rolled metals, and

steel with high conductivity for electrical transformers. As military

equipment became more sophisticated, it too required improved

quality and performance from metal products. On the development

side, advances in light-metal alloys using aluminum, magnesium,

and titanium did provide materials for military aircraft and missiles that were among the best in the world.

Metallurgy Planning and Problems

Plans for the metallurgical industry for the 1990s stressed rebuilding older steel plants, vastly increasing the volume of continuous

steel casting, and replacing open-hearth furnaces with oxygen or

electric furnaces. In the period through the year 2000, a projected

52 percent of investment was to go for new equipment. This degree of investment would be a drastic turnaround because from

1981 to 1985 five times as much money was spent on equipment

repair as on equipment purchase. Furthermore, to make highly

pure steel, economical removal of sulfur is critical, but the scarcity

500
Industry

of low-sulfur coking coal requires new purification technology.

Although Soviet experts agreed that all these steps were necessary

to enhance the variety and purity of ferrous metallurgy products,

serious obstacles remained. Bottlenecks were chronic in overall administration, between research and production branches, and between the industry and its suppliers in the machine-building sector. Meanwhile, a shortage of hard currency (see Glossary) hindered

the purchase of sophisticated metal-processing equipment from the

West.

Bottlenecks have also affected the Donetsk metallurgical plant,

where a heralded program installed new blast furnaces in the

mid-1980s but where no auxiliary equipment arrived to run them

as designed. In many cases, industry spokesmen have blamed the

research community for neglecting practical applications in favor

of theoretical projects. Whatever the causes, large-scale improvement of Soviet metallurgical technology was spotty rather than consistent during the 1980s.

Metallurgical Combine Locations and Major Producers

As production capacity has expanded, iron and steel production

operations have consolidated in large-scale facilities, designated as combines. Among them was the Magnitogorsk metallurgical combine in the Urals, which in 1989 was the largest Soviet metallurgical combine. It produced nearly 16 million tons of metal annually.

Long-term plans targeted Magnitogorsk for complete modernization of casting operations in the 1990s. Other important metallurgical centers in the Urals were at Chelyabinsk and Nizhniy Tagil.

The Ukrainian Republic had major combines at Krivoy Rog,

Zhdanov, Zaporozh'ye, and Makeyevka. The Cherepovets combine was north of Moscow, the Lipetsk and Oskol combines were

south of Moscow, and the Orsk-Khalilovo combine was at the

southern end of the Urals. The European sector was the traditional

location of Soviet metallurgy because of available labor and materials. Newer metallurgical centers at Karaganda (in the Kazakh

Republic) and the Kuzbass (see Glossary) were in the Asian part

of the Soviet Union where coking coal was readily available.

Nevertheless, metal-consuming industries and known iron ore

reserves remained mainly west of the Urals, and major expansion

of the metallurgy industry east of the Urals was considered unlikely in the near future.

Nonferrous Metals

In addition to the ferrous metal (iron and steel) centers, nonferrous metallurgy also provided vital support for heavy industry, while

501
Soviet Union: A Country Study

undergoing technical innovation. The nonferrous branches had al- ready expanded into ore-rich regions outside traditional industrial

regions: copper metallurgy into the Kazakh Republic, the Caucasus, and Siberia; aluminum into the Kazakh Republic, south-central

Siberia, and Soviet Central Asia; and nickel into eastern Siberia,

the Urals, and the Kola Peninsula. The Soviet Union possesses

abundant supplies of nonferrous metal ores, such as titanium,

cobalt, chromium, nickel, and molybdenum, used in steel and iron

alloys. Cobalt and nickel were specially targeted for expansion in

the 1980s. Lead and zinc mining was projected to expand in the

Kazakh Republic and other areas in Soviet Central Asia, Siberia,

and the Soviet Far East. Chemicals

The chemical industry received intensive investment in the five- year plans of the 1980s. The long-term goal of the chemical in- vestment program was to increase its share of total national industrial production from the 1975 level of 6.9 percent to 8 percent by

the year 2000. As denned by Soviet planners, major divisions of

the industry were basic chemical products; fertilizers and pesticides;

chemical fibers; plastics and synthetic resins; and detergents, paints,

and synthetic rubber for making consumer products.

Plastics

A vital part of the chemical industry is polymers. The polymer

industry has been centered in regions where petrochemical raw

materials were processed: the Volga, Ural, and Central economic

regions (see fig. 16). Among their other uses, polymers are intermediate materials in making plastics that can replace metals in

machinery, construction materials, engines, and pipe. Soviet policy

recognized that wider use of plastics would mean cheaper, lighter,

and more durable products for many industries. Therefore, longterm plans called for nearly doubling the contribution of synthetic

resins and plastics to the construction industry by the year 2000.

However, the Twelfth Five-Year Plan also scheduled a 50 percent

increase in consumer goods made by the chemical industry.

Petrochemicals

Major new petrochemical plants in the 1980s were located at Omsk, Tobol'sk, Urengoy, and Surgut in the West Siberia Economic Region and Ufa and Nizhnekamsk in the Volga Economic

Region. New West Siberia plants were developed as joint ventures

with Western companies. The huge Tobol'sk plant refined fuels and made intermediate products for synthetic rubber and plastics.

502
Industry

The Tomsk complex in the West Siberia Economic Region

produced 75 percent of Soviet polypropylene. Refineries at Moscow,

Pavlodar (Kazakh Republic), Baku, and Groznyy (the last two

based on oil from the Caspian Sea) advanced their motor fuel refinement operations to enhance fuel economy (see Fuels, this ch.).

Other Branches of the Chemical Industry

Some branches of the chemical industry have been located close

to their raw materials. The chemical fertilizer industry has major

plants using apatite in the Kola Peninsula, phosphates in the

southern Kazakhstan Economic Region, and potassium salts in the

Ural, Ukraine, and Belorussia economic regions.

Synthetic rubber production increased rapidly in the 1980s,

providing tires for heavy industrial vehicles and for the increasing

number of passenger vehicles. Soviet mineral fertilizer production

led the world in the 1970s; because of agricultural failures, the chemical industry has been under great pressure to produce more pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and feed additives. Plans called for a 70 percent increase in mineral fertilizers from 1980 to 1990. In addition, chemical fibers were a growing part of the textile industry,

which was vital to expanding consumer production.

Chemical Planning Goals

Soviet industrial planners have recognized that a high-technology

chemical industry is indispensable for advancement in both heavy

and light industry. Although Soviet chemical engineering has advanced in such areas as composite materials, which are used to make

lighter airplanes, and photochemicals, major projects have depended

heavily on foreign technology.

Because of the critical role of the chemical industry in technological advancement, a major campaign in the 1980s was aimed

at improving domestic technology and reducing dependence on for- eign technology in the chemical and petrochemical industry. In 1984

thirty-two scientific research institutes were conducting major

petrochemical research under the academies of sciences. But the

technical and investment contributions of British, French, Japanese,

East German, West German, Italian, and Hungarian chemical

firms remained crucial during that time. Many divisions of Soviet

industry failed to produce as planned through the early 1980s, and

massive investment did not have the expected effect. The goal for the year 2000 remained an overall increase of 2.4 times the 1980

level and that required a doubling of investments before 1990.

503
Soviet Union: A Country Study

504
Industry

Fuels

In the 1980s, fuels presented formidable problems for Soviet planners. Although the Soviet Union possessed enormous fuel reserves,

it was difficult to balance extraction and transport costs, even as the drive continued for greater production levels. Fuel availability was a prime consideration in locating new industry. And long-term

investment planning faced choices among coal, oil, and natural gas. Choices leaned strongly in the late 1980s toward gas over oil be- cause of the greater reserves and cheaper transport of gas. Nevertheless, efforts also continued to formulate a ''coal strategy" that would

return coal to its former prominence. In 1988 about 28 percent

of total national investment went into the Soviet fuel and energy

complex, compared with nearly 12 percent in 1980.

Fuel Resource Base

The Soviet Union is self- sufficient in the three major fuels that

drive its industry: coal, natural gas, and oil. It has long been a major exporter of oil and gas to its allies and to the West, and hard

currency from those exports has financed the purchase of critical import commodities. In 1985 fuel and energy export provided 60

percent of Soviet hard-currency income. The question of which

of the three major fuels should be emphasized has been a matter

of continuous scrutiny and adjustment in government policy. The

two largest users of coal are by far the metallurgy and electric power

industries. Large amounts of oil products go for electric power,

agriculture, transportation, and export; large amounts of natural

gas go for electric power, metallurgy, the chemical industry, construction materials, and export.

Oil

After many years of occasionally spectacular growth, Soviet oil production began to level off in 1983, although the Soviet Union

remained the world's largest oil producer. Since that time, Western

experts have disagreed sharply about the amount and importance

of production changes, especially because exact Soviet fuel reserve

figures remained a state secret. It is known that at the end of the

1980s oil production did not increase significantly from year to year. The Tyumen' reserves of western Siberia were a huge discovery of the 1960s that provided the bulk of oil production increases

through the 1970s. By the end of that decade, Tyumen' had over- taken the Volga-Ural fields as the greatest Soviet oil region. The

Volga-Ural fields had provided one-half the country's oil in the

early 1970s but fell to a one-third share in 1977. By the mid-1980s,

505
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Tyumen' produced 60 percent of Soviet oil, but there was already

evidence that Tyumen' was approaching peak production.

Meanwhile, new policies in the early 1980s accelerated drilling rates throughout the country, especially in western Siberia, but

lower yields made this drilling expensive. By 1980 the older oil reserves were already being exhausted. Substantial untapped

reserves were confirmed in the Caspian, Baltic, and Black seas and

above the Arctic Circle, but all of them contained natural obstacles that made exploitation expensive. Soviet planners relied on

the discovery of a major new field comparable to those in western

Siberia. But by 1987 no major discovery had been made for twentytwo years. In the mid-1980s, Soviet oil exploration concentrated on the farther reaches of the Tyumen' and Tomsk oblasts (see Glossary), east of the established western Siberian fields. Offshore drill- ing was centered on the Caspian, Barents, and Baltic seas and the

Sea of Okhotsk. Several shipyards were building offshore drilling

platforms, the largest being the yards at Astrakhan' and Vyborg.

Foreign shipyards also provided offshore drilling equipment. In

1984 the Soviet Union had eleven semisubmersible platforms in

operation.

The Soviet oil-drilling industry has relied heavily on Western

equipment for difficult extraction conditions, which become more common as existing reserves dry up. The average service life of a Soviet-made drilling rig was ten years, compared with fifteen or twenty for comparable Western equipment. Centers of Soviet drill- ing rig production were in Volgograd, Sverdlovsk, and Verkhnyaya

Pyshma, about twenty kilometers north of Sverdlovsk.

Increased distance from well to consumer was also a major con- cern for the oil industry. Ninety percent of oil was transported by

pipeline. The Soviet oil pipeline system doubled in length between

1970 and 1983, reaching 76,200 kilometers. Before 1960 the sys- tem totaled only 15,000 kilometers of pipe (see Pipelines, ch. 14).

As oil production leveled off in the 1980s, so did pipeline construction. In 1986 the Soviet Union had 81,500 kilometers of pipeline

for crude and refined oil products (in 1989 the number of kilometers

remained the same).

The oil boom of the 1970s in western Siberia brought rapid

growth of Soviet oil-refining centers. In 1983 most of the fifty-three

refineries were west of the Urals. At least five new facilities were

built between 1970 and 1985. Soviet refining equipment fell below

Western standards for such higher- grade fuels as gasoline, so that

high-octane fuels were scarce and heavier petroleum products were

in surplus.

506
The 2,000,000th

harvester produced

in Rostov -na-Donu, Russian

Republic, where more

than 80 percent of the country

3s harvesters are made

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

Natural Gas

Natural gas replaced oil as the "growth fuel" of the Soviet Union

in the early 1980s. Gas is cheaper than oil to extract, and Soviet

gas deposits are estimated to be three times larger than oil deposits.

In 1983 an output of 536 billion cubic meters of gas put the Soviet

Union ahead of the United States in gas production for the first time. In 1987 that figure rose to 727 billion cubic meters. As with

oil, the majority of natural gas production (85 percent in 1965) came from the European sector until the 1970s. In that decade,

the Volga-Ural and Central Asian fields dominated, but by 1983

western Siberia provided nearly 50 percent of Soviet natural gas. That area's Urengoy field was the largest in the world; its reserves were estimated at 7.8 trillion cubic meters. Because of transport distance and harsh climate, fuel extraction

in western Siberia is a monumental undertaking that becomes more

formidable as the industry moves northward. Although high-power

pumping stations are necessary to move gas over long distances,

in the late 1980s the Soviet machine-building industry was not

providing adequate equipment to maintain a steady flow through some of the major lines. The chief development target after Urengoy

was the Yamburg field, directly to its north. Then, after 1990, major

work was to begin in the Yamal Peninsula, for which preparations

began in the late 1980s. But cost and environmental concerns

507
Soviet Union: A Country Study

delayed the Yamal project in 1989. Because growth targets were

based on the timely opening of large Yamal deposits, the delay was

potentially a very serious setback. The center of the older VolgaUral fields is Orenburg; other major gas fields are located in the

Uzbek, Turkmen, and Ukrainian republics.

Soviet industrial planners were replacing oil with gas widely and

successfully, and proportional investment in gas increased drastically in the late 1970s and 1980s. In 1988 the shares of oil and gas

in the fuel balance were equal (at 39 percent) for the first time.

Gas was also a vital export product. The main instrument of gas

export policy was the pipeline connecting Urengoy (and, projected

for 1990, the Yamburg field) with Western Europe. This line began

pumping gas to four West European countries (Austria, France,

Italy, and the Federal Republic of Germany [West Germany]) in

1984, despite strong opposition from the United States. Delivery was scheduled to increase to a steady rate of 57 billion cubic meters

per year by 1990. In 1988 total Soviet gas exports reached 88 bil- lion cubic meters, after adding Greece, Turkey, and Switzerland

to the customer list. Meanwhile, pipeline reliability became a serious

problem; hasty construction and poor maintenance caused many

accidents and breakdowns in the system.

Coal

For about 150 years, coal was the dominant fuel in Russian and

later in Soviet industry, and many industrial centers were located near coal deposits. In the 1960s, oil and gas replaced coal as the

dominant fuel when plentiful, accessible supplies of these fuels were

discovered. But coal remained an important energy source for much

of Soviet industry. Total coal reserves, estimated in 1983 at 6.8

trillion tons, were the largest in the world, and since 1980 expanded

coal production has been a standard goal of industrial planners.

In the mid-1980s, approximately 40 percent of coal went to powerplant boiler units (steam coal) and 20 percent to metallurgy (coking coal). The rest went for export, to other industries, and to households. Shaft mines provided 60 percent of total production, surface

mines the remainder.

Historically, the most important coal region has been the Donbass, on which the metallurgical industry was centered because of

the cheap, plentiful coking coal it offered. Other traditional cokingcoal centers were the Kuzbass in western Siberia and the Karaganda

Basin in the northern Kazakh Republic. As deeper excavation and

reclamation operations raised the cost of Donbass coal, other centers challenged its position as chief producer of coking coal. The sec- ond largest coal center in the European sector of the Soviet Union

508
Industry

was the Pechora Basin, where shaft mines were less deep and labor

productivity much higher than in the Donbass. In most of the European sector, shaft mines had to be dug deeper, seams were growing thinner, and methane concentration was higher. Despite these

conditions, in the late 1980s shaft mines were still providing 75

percent of high-quality coking coal. The highest cost factor in Soviet coal production was transportation. Even when extraction was very expensive, regions such as the Donbass and the Moscow Basin remained practical because

they were so close to the metallurgical centers they served. Conversely, Kuzbass coal extraction was cheap, but its high-quality

coking coal had to be transported long distances to industrial centers

(for example, 2,200 kilometers to the Magnitogorsk metallurgical

center). Transport distance also required that new thermoelectric

plants be located near the coal and water resources that fueled their

steam boilers. In the late 1980s, Soviet coal experts called for gradually less reliance on the Donbass and increased emphasis on the

Kuzbass. Increased investment at the Donbass had failed to maintain production levels, indicating the necessity of this step. But rail transport costs from the Kuzbass and Siberia would rise steeply

with added volume. Experimental slurry lines were opened in 1988

to provide possible alternative long-distance coal transport to the

west. Future growth in coal production must come from east of the

Urals, where an estimated 75 percent of the country's reserves lie. Most Siberian coal can be strip-mined, making production costs much lower and labor productivity much higher than shaft mining. Between 1977 and 1983, production in the Soviet Union's

European basins fell by 32 million tons annually, and by the 1970s

rail movement of coal westward across the Urals had doubled. To

minimize transportation costs, major new power stations were built in the Kansko-Achinsk and Ekibastuz coal basins, whose low-quality

brown coal, a cheap fuel, breaks down rapidly if transported over long distances. Coal from those mines required extensive process- ing before being burned in thermoelectric plants. By the year 2000,

Kansko-Achinsk may be the most productive Soviet coal basin, with

a planned yield of 400 million tons per year. The largest Soviet

strip mine, Bogatyr, is located at Ekibastuz.

In the mid-1980s, low coal quality was still a major problem be- cause efficient processing equipment was scarce. Huge reserves re- mained untapped in Siberia because of remoteness and low quality,

but in the 1980s the South Yakut Basin in eastern Siberia was being

developed with Japanese technical aid.

509
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Uranium

In 1988 little was known specifically about the Soviet uranium

industry. Nevertheless, foreign observers did know that the country possessed large, varied deposits that provided fuel for its fast- growing nuclear power program.

Power Engineering

Traditionally, generation and distribution of electrical power have

been a high priority of Soviet industrial policy. The main generators of power, in order of importance, were thermoelectric plants

burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas, and peat), nuclear power

plants, and hydroelectric stations. The power industry has been

one of the fastest growing branches of the economy; in 1985 power

production reached 58 percent that of the United States. But the

complexity and size of the country has made timely delivery of electricity a difficult problem. Huge areas of the northwestern Soviet

Union, Siberia, the Soviet Far East, and Soviet Central Asia re- mained unconnected to the country's central power grid. Because

the largest power-generating fuel reserves are located far from in- dustrial centers, geography has limited the options of Soviet policy markers. In the early 1980s, power shortages were still frequent

in the heavily industrialized European sector, where conventional

fuel reserves were being fully used. Soviet policy depended heavily on large generating plants operating more hours per day than

those in the West.

Energy Planning Goals

In 1986 the stated goals of Soviet energy policy were ambitious

ones. The share of nuclear power was to increase drastically, and

new, large-capacity nuclear plants were to be built, mainly in the

European sector. Expansion of the natural gas industry was to contribute more of that fuel to power generation. More coal was to be available to thermoelectric stations from surface mining in re- mote fuel-and-power complexes such as Kansko-Achinsk and

Ekibastuz, and larger thermoelectric stations were to be built near

coal deposits. More hydroelectric plants were planned on rivers

in Siberia, Soviet Central Asia, and the Soviet Far East. Ultrahigh-voltage, long-distance power lines (including the longest in

the world) would link thermoelectric power stations in Asia with

European and Ural industrial centers and would connect Soviet

nuclear plants with Warsaw Pact allies (see Appendix C). Better equipment was to limit power losses occurring over such lines. And

alternative, renewable power sources such as wind and solar energy

510
Industry

were to be exploited for small-scale local needs. Because nuclear

and thermal plants were expected to increase their share of power

generation, in long-term planning the industry has concentrated on making the generating units of these plants larger and more

efficient. In the European sector, a primary goal has been flexible response to high- and low-demand cycles—a feature that nuclear

plants do not provide.

The Balance among Energy Sources

The Twelfth Five-Year Plan called for a period of intense construction of thermal and nuclear plants. By 1990 nuclear capacity was to reach almost 1 .5 times its 1985 level. By the year 2000, most

large thermal stations were to be capable of burning the abundant

but low-quality coal mined east of the Urals. Berezovka, the largest Soviet thermoelectric station yet built, was scheduled to open

at the Kansko-Achinsk fuel and power complex by 1990. The Unified Electrical Power System (see Glossary), which is the centralized energy distribution grid and the showpiece of the Soviet energy

program, was to be connected with the Central Asian Power System by 1990, bringing 95 percent of the country's power production into a single distribution network.

Despite the presence of some of the world's largest hydroelectric stations, such as Krasnoyarsk, Bratsk, Ust'Tlimsk, and SayanoShushenskoye, reliance on hydroelectric power is decreasing. All

large, untapped rivers are east of the Urals—in the Kazakhstan,

East Siberia, and Far East economic regions—and few major

hydroelectric projects are planned west of the Urals. Although

hydroelectric power is renewable and flexible, water levels are subject to unpredictable climatic conditions. Plans called for ninety

new hydroelectric stations to be started between 1990 and 2000.

The Twelfth Five-Year Plan called for nuclear power to displace

hydroelectric power by 1990 as the second largest electricity source

in the Soviet Union. The planned share of nuclear power in the

national power balance for 1990 was 21 percent, while hydroelectric

power was already below 15 percent in 1985. By comparison,

nuclear generation represented a smaller percentage—15.5 per- cent—of power production in the United States in 1985. An

estimated sixteen nuclear plants (forty-five reactors total) were oper- ating in 1988.

The Soviet Union has led the world in magnetohydrodynamic

power generation. This highly efficient method direcdy converts

the energy of conventional steam expansion into power, using super- conductor magnetic fields. The first magnetohydrodynamic plant

in the world was built at Ryazan' in the mid-1980s.

511
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Obstacles to Power Supply

In the late 1980s, the Soviet power industry was far behind its planned expansion rate. Technology was not available for on-site

burning of low-quality coal, nor for transmitting the power it would

generate across the huge distances required. Moreover, the 1986

nuclear accident at Chernobyl' cast doubts on the reliability of the

nuclear reactor models chosen to supply power to industrial centers

in the European part of the Soviet Union. As in the case of fuels,

planners faced long-term, irreversible choices among power sources. Soviet nuclear and thermoelectric generation has relied heavily on unproven equipment and long-distance delivery systems, whose

failure could slow operations in major industries. For example, the

Chernobyl' incident resulted in major disruption of the industrial

power supply. Although switching techniques could sometimes

avoid long-term slowdowns, no permanent alternative power source

existed if nuclear power failed in the European part of the Soviet

Union. Meanwhile, in the late 1980s construction of new nuclear

plants fell far behind schedule, and a 30 percent shortfall was ex- pected in 1990 generation. Because hydroelectric stations fell behind in the same period, an added burden fell on thermoelectric

facilities. Environmental concerns also caused local opposition to new nuclear and hydroelectric plants during this period.

Heat and Cogeneration

Although electrical energy is vital to Soviet industry, it is only

about one-sixth the total energy generated in the country. Heat,

which is also indispensable to industry, cannot be transported over long distances. Most heat came from central heat and power sta- tions in urban and industrial centers, which burned coal, heavy

oil, or natural gas to generate heat as well as electricity. In the 1980s, a major program developed large-scale generators to produce heat

as a by-product in existing thermal and nuclear power plants. Steam

from the latter can be sent as far as forty kilometers. This process,

called cogeneration, centralizes the fragmented heat-generation sys- tem. In 1985 urban cogeneration plants provided 28 percent of total Soviet power.

The Consumer Industry

Soviet industry is usually divided into two major categories.

Group A is "heavy industry," which includes all those branches

already discussed. Group B is "consumer goods," including foods,

clothing and shoes, housing, and such heavy-industry products as appliances and fuels that are used by individual consumers. From

512
Construction in southwest Moscow, location of the city 's newest research and education institutes Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

the early days of the Stalin era, Group A received top priority in

economic planning and allocation. Only in 1987 was the foundation laid for a separate industrial complex for consumer industry,

named the "social complex." Initially, it lacked the extensive

bureaucratic structure of the other six complexes, and it contained

only the Ministry of Light Industry.

Consumer Supply in the 1980s

In 1986 shortages continued in basic consumer items, even in

major population centers. Such goods occasionally were rationed

in major cities well into the 1980s. Besides the built-in shortages

caused by planning priorities, shoddy production of consumer goods

limited actual supply. According to Soviet economists, only 10 per- cent of Soviet finished goods could compete with their Western

equivalents, and the average consumer faced long waiting periods

to buy major appliances or furniture. During the 1980s, the wide

availability of consumer electronics products in the West demonstrated a new phase of the Soviet Union's inability to compete, es- pecially because Soviet consumers were becoming more aware of

what they were missing. In the mid-1980s, up to 70 percent of the

televisions manufactured by Ekran, a major household electronics

513
Soviet Union: A Country Study

manufacturer, were rejected by quality control inspection. The tel- evision industry received special attention, and a strong drive for

quality control was a response to published figures of very high

rates of breakdown and repair. To improve the industry, a major

cooperative color television venture was planned for the Warsaw

Television Plant in 1989.

The Logic and Goals of Consumer Production

Increased availability of consumer goods was an important part

of perestroika. A premise of that program was that workers would

raise their productivity in response to incentive wages only if their

money could buy a greater variety of consumer products. This idea arose when the early use of incentive wages did not have the antici- pated effect on labor productivity because purchasing power had

not improved. According to the theory, all Soviet industry would

benefit from diversification from Group A into Group B because

incentives would have real meaning. Therefore, the Twelfth FiveYear Plan called for a 5.4 percent rise in nonfood consumer goods

and a 5.4 to 7 percent rise in consumer services. Both figures were

well above rates in the overall economic plan.

Consumer goods targeted included radios, televisions, sewing

machines, washing machines, refrigerators, printed matter, and

knitwear. The highest quotas were set for the first three categories.

Although in 1987 refrigerators, washing machines, televisions, tape

recorders, and furniture were the consumer categories making the

greatest production gains compared with the previous year, only

furniture met its yearly quota. Furthermore, industrial planners

have tried to use light industries to raise the industrial contributions of such economic regions as the Transcaucasus and Central

Asia, which have large populations but lack the raw materials for heavy manufacturing.

Textiles and Wood Pulp

The textile and wood pulp industries are traditional branches

of light industry that remain essential to the Soviet economy. The

major textile center is northeast of Moscow. Because the industry

receives most of its raw material from the cotton fields of the Transcaucasus and Central Asia economic regions, transport is expensive. Although large-scale cotton cultivation began in the Soviet

Union only in the early 1900s, textile plant locations were established in the nineteenth century, when the country still imported

most of its raw cotton. Soviet planners have tried to shift the textile industry into the Transcaucasus and Central Asia economic

regions, nearer the domestic cotton fields. But textiles have been

514
Industry

a well-established economic base for the Moscow area, and in the

1980s the bulk of the industry remained there. The Soviet wood

pulp and paper industry is based on a vast supply of softwood trees. This industry is less centralized and closer to its raw material base

than Soviet textiles; plants tend to be along the southern edge of

forested regions, as close as possible to markets to the south and

west (see Forestry, ch. 13).

After the industrial stagnation in the 1970s and early 1980s, plan- ners expected that consumer industries would assume a more prominent role in Soviet production beginning with the Twelfth Five-Year

Plan. But despite a greater emphasis on light industry and efforts to restructure the entire planning and production systems, very

little upturn was visible in any sector of industry in 1989. High

production quotas, particularly for some heavy industries, appeared

increasingly unrealistic by the end of that plan. Although most

Soviet officials agreed that perestroika was necessary and overdue,

reforming the intricate industrial system had proved difficult.

* * * The USSR Energy Atlas, prepared by the United States Central

Intelligence Agency, is a detailed picture of Soviet fuels and power

generation in the mid-1980s, with forecasts of future developments.

It includes extensive maps, tables, and a gazetteer. Konstantin Spidchenko's USSR: Geography of the Eleventh Five- Year Plan Period provides an overview in English (from a Soviet perspective, which must

be taken into consideration but does not mitigate its value) of the

geographical distribution of industry and the rationale of expansion and location. It also describes major industrial areas and their resource bases. Gorbachev's Challenge by Marshall I. Goldman provides a general background for the restructuring goals of Soviet

industry in the late 1980s, with emphasis on technology transfer

and the domestic research and development area. William F. Scott's

article, "Moscow's Military-Industrial Complex," is a comprehensive look at the system of military planning and its relation to the overall industrial system. Siberia and the Soviet Far East, edited

by Rodger Swearingen, is a collection of articles describing in detail the economic and political factors in planning development of

fuel and energy east of the Urals, with emphasis on oil and natural

gas. J. P. Cole's Geography of the Soviet Union contains two chapters

describing the geographical influence on Soviet industrial policy,

including all major branches. Vadim Medish's The Soviet Union

offers chapters on the scientific research establishment and economic

planning, valuable background information in understanding Soviet

515
Soviet Union: A Country Study

industrial policy. Also, the collection of study papers for the Joint

Economic Committee of the United States Congress, entitled

Gorbachev 's Economic Plans, covers Soviet economic planning and

performance, industrial modernization, the role of the defense in- dustry in the economy, and Soviet energy supply, with short arti- cles on specific subtopics. (For further information and complete

citations, see Bibliography.)

516

Images of agriculture
Agriculture continued to frustrate the leaders of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Despite immense land

resources, extensive machinery and chemical support industries, a large rural work force, and two decades of massive investment

in the agricultural sector, the Soviet Union continued to rely on

large-scale grain and meat imports to feed its population. Persis- tent shortages of staples, the general unavailability of fresh meats,

fruits, and vegetables in state stores, and a bland, carbohydraterich diet remained a fact of life for Soviet citizens and a perennial

embarrassment to their government.

Although in terms of total value of output the Soviet Union was

the world's second leading agricultural power and ranked first in

the production of numerous commodities, agriculture was a net drain on the economy. The financial resources directed to this sector soared throughout the 1970s and by the mid-1980s accounted for nearly one-third of total investment. The ideologically motivated

policy of maintaining low prices for staples created an enormous

disparity between production costs and retail food prices. By 1983

the per capita food subsidy amounted to nearly 200 rubles, which

the consumer had to pay in higher prices for nonfood products.

Although gross agricultural production rose by more than 50 per- cent between the 1950s and 1980s, outstripping population growth

by 25 percent, the consumer did not see a proportionate improvement in the availability of foodstuffs (see table 34, Appendix A).

This paradox indicated that the Soviet Union's inability to meet

demand for agricultural commodities was only partly the result of

production shortfalls and that much of the blame was attributable

to other factors. Chief among these were the processing, transportation, storage, and marketing elements of the food economy, the

neglect of which over the years resulted in an average wastage of

about one-fourth of agricultural output. Soviet experts estimated

that if waste in storage and processing were eliminated, up to 25

percent more grain, 40 percent more fruits and vegetables, and

15 percent more meat and dairy products could be brought to market.

The heavily centralized and bureaucratized system of administration, which has characterized Soviet agriculture ever since

Joseph V. Stalin's campaign of forced collectivization (see Glossary), was the dominant cause of the sector's overall poor perfor- mance. Inflexible production directives from central planning

519
Soviet Union: A Country Study

organs that failed to take local growing conditions into account and

bureaucratic interference in the day-to-day management of in- dividual farms fostered resentment and undermined morale in the

countryside. The result was low labor productivity, the system's

most intractable problem. Despite its systemic flaws, however,

Soviet agriculture enjoyed certain successes. The standard of liv- ing of farm workers improved, illiteracy was reduced, incomes grew,

better housing and health care were provided, and electricity was

brought to virtually all villages. Farming practices were modernized, and agriculture received more machinery and became less labor intensive (see table 35, Appendix A). Ambitious irrigation

and drainage projects brought millions of additional hectares under

cultivation. Large livestock inventories were built up, particularly

during the 1970s and 1980s. And the increased prominence accorded

agriculture, coupled with wiser policies exploiting the profit motive,

appeared to be paying dividends, as bumper grain harvests were

reported in Mikhail S. Gorbachev's first two years in power.

Policy and Administration

Stalin's Legacy

In the 1980s, the basic structure and operation of Soviet agricul- ture retained many of the features of the system that became en- trenched during Stalin's regime. Under Stalin agriculture was

socialized, and a massive bureaucracy was created to administer

policy. This bureaucracy was highly resistant to subsequent reform

efforts. Stalin's campaign of forced collectivization, begun in the autumn

of 1929, confiscated the land, machinery, livestock, and grain stores of the peasantry. By 1937 approximately 99 percent of the countryside had been collectivized. Precise figures are lacking, but probably 1 million kulak (see Glossary) households with nearly 5 million

members were deported and were never heard from again. About

7 million starved to death as the government confiscated grain

stores. In defiance, peasants slaughtered their livestock rather than

surrender it to the collectives. As a result, within five years the number of horses, cattle, and hogs in the country was halved, and the

number of sheep and goats was reduced by two-thirds.

Aside from the immediate devastation wrought by forced col- lectivization, the experience left an enduring legacy of mutual dis- trust and hostility between the rural population and the Soviet

authorities. The bureaucracy that evolved to administer agricul- ture was motivated more by political than by economic considerations. Its objectives were to industrialize agriculture, create a rural

520
Agriculture

proletariat, and destroy peasant resistance to communist rule. Once

entrenched, the bureaucracy relished its power, dictating policy

from the top down with little regard for the opinions of individual

farmers and even farm managers, who better understood local conditions. Such policies resulted in abysmally low labor productivity

and massive waste of resources. This situation persisted into the

1980s, when the Soviet farmer was on average about one-tenth as productive as his American counterpart.

During Stalin's regime, virtually all farmland was assigned to the two basic agricultural production entities that still predominated

in the 1980s—state farms and collective farms. The state farm (sovet- skoe khoziaistvo—sovkhoz) was conceived in 1918 as the ideal model

for socialist agriculture. It was to be a large, modern enterprise,

directed and financed by the government, with a work force receiving wages and social benefits comparable to those enjoyed by

industrial workers. By contrast, the collective farm {kollektivnoe khoziaistvo—kolkhoz) was a self- financed producer cooperative,

which farmed land granted to it rent free by the state and which

paid its members according to their contribution of work. Although

in theory the kolkhoz was self-directed, electing its own managing

committee and chairman, in reality it remained under the firm control of state planning and procurement agencies. Chairmen who

did not meet ideological purity requirements were removed. Sovkhozy operated much like any other production enterprise (see Glossary) in the Soviet command economy, with production targets and

operating budgets determined by distant planning organs. The entire output of sovkhozy was delivered to state procurement agencies. Kolkhozy also received procurement quotas, but they were

free to sell excess production in collective farm markets, where prices were determined by supply and demand. Because kolkhozy were

self-financed, they received somewhat higher prices for their

products. Nevertheless, the income of the kolkhoz resident was

usually lower than that of the sovkhoz resident. In general, labor

productivity on the sovkhoz was higher, probably because of its access to better machinery, chemicals, and seed and because it could

specialize in the crops best suited to its region. The kolkhoz was

constrained to produce a variety of crops and livestock, which

decreased efficiency.

Several watershed decisions by Stalin's successors reduced the

differences between the two types of farms. Among these decisions were the 1958 elimination of state-operated machine tractor sta- tions, which had given the party leverage over the kolkhoz by controlling its access to heavy farm machinery; the establishment in

1965 of a minimum wage, pension, and other benefits for kolkhoz

521
Soviet Union: A Country Study

workers; and the 1967 decision to make the sovkhoz a self-financed

entity, which in theory the kolkhoz had been from the start. Not

only was there a trend toward convergence of the features of the

two types of farms, but there was also a pattern of official conversion of smaller, less solvent kolkhozy to sovkhozy. As a result, in

1973 the total sown area of sovkhozy surpassed that of kolkhozy

for the first time. The total number of kolkhozy decreased from

235,500 in 1940 to 26,300 in 1986. But after the March 1989

Agricultural Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist

Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), it appeared likely that the

proliferation of sovkhozy would cease. Even one of the most conservative Politburo members, Egor K. Ligachev, who was named

chairman of the party's Agrarian Policy Commission in September 1988, recommended gradually converting sovkhozy into cooperatives and leasing collectives. A third production entity that survived from Stalin's era was

the private plot, known in Soviet jargon as the "personal auxiliary

holding." These plots were ideologically unpalatable to the

bureaucrats, but they were tolerated as a means for farmers to produce their own food and supplement their incomes. The plots were small (roughly half a hectare) and were assigned one to a

household. Peasants were allowed to consume whatever was grown

on the plot and sell any surplus—either at the collective farm markets or to state or cooperative marketing agencies. The contribution of private plots to the nation's food supply far exceeded their

size. With only 3 percent of total sown area in the 1980s, they

produced over a quarter of gross agricultural output, including

about 30 percent of meat and milk, 66 percent of potatoes, and

40 percent of fruits, vegetables, and eggs. Evolution of an Integrated Food Policy

After the death of Stalin, an integrated food policy gradually

evolved. Nikita S. Khrushchev was the first Soviet leader to demonstrate serious concern for the diet of the citizenry. In fact, it was

his obsession with increasing the consumption of meat and dairy

products that drove Khrushchev's controversial agricultural program. He switched the country's prime wheat-growing lands to the production of corn, which was supposed to feed an ever- increasing number of livestock. Khrushchev believed that the lost wheat production could be offset by extensive farming in the semiarid virgin land of the Kazakh Republic and southwestern Siberia.

However, his program, underfinanced from the start, did not

produce the desired results, a major factor in his fall from power

in 1964.

522
Agricultural tractor on road between Tallin, Estonian

Republic, and the Latvian border Courtesy Jonathan Tetzlajf

Cornfield on a state farm south of Moscow

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

523
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Like his predecessor, Leonid I. Brezhnev considered agriculture a top priority. Unlike Khrushchev, however, he backed his program with massive investments. During his tenure, the supply of

livestock housing increased 300 percent, and similar increases in

the delivery of chemical fertilizers and tractors were recorded.

Brezhnev's Food Program, announced in 1982, was intended to guide agriculture throughout the 1980s. It provided for even larg- er investment in the agro-industrial complex (agro-promyshlennyi

kompleks—APK), particularly in its infrastructure (see The Complexes and the Ministries, ch. 12). The program also set up regional

agro-industrial associations (regional*nye agro-promyshlennye ob"edineniia—RAPOs) to administer all elements of the food industry on

the raion (see Glossary), oblast (see Glossary), krai (see Glossary),

and autonomous republic (see Glossary) levels. The program's over- riding objective was improving the availability of food for the con- sumer. Production goals now referred to per capita consumption

of meat, fruit, vegetables, and other basic foods. Unlike previous

campaigns, the Food Program gave the same prominence to reducing waste as to increasing output.

In 1988 Gorbachev, who had been the Central Committee secre- tary for agriculture when the Food Program was announced, appeared to be pursuing a two-pronged approach to agricultural

administration. On the one hand, he attempted to improve the

APK's efficiency through further centralization, having merged

five ministries and a state committee in late 1985 into the State Agro-Industrial Committee (Gosudarstvennyi agro-promyshlennyi

komitet—Gosagroprom). Eliminated were the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of the Fruit and Vegetable Industry, the Ministry of the Meat and Dairy Industry, the Ministry of the Food

Industry, the Ministry of Agricultural Construction, and the State Committee for the Supply of Production Equipment for Agriculture. But, on the other hand, he called for delegation of greater

decision-making authority to the farms and farmers themselves.

Gosagroprom proved to be a major disappointment to Gorbachev, and at the March 1989 Agricultural Plenum of the Central

Committee, the superministerial body was eliminated. Moreover,

Gorbachev complained that the RAPOs meddled excessively in the

operations of individual farms, and he urged abolishing them as

well. The general thrust of the reforms proposed at the plenum

was to dismantle the rigid central bureaucracy, transfer authority

to local governing councils, and increase the participation of farmers

in decision making. Gorbachev also elected to give the individual

republics greater freedom in setting food production goals that were

consistent with the needs of their people.

524
Agriculture

A key objective of Gorbachev's perestroika (see Glossary) was to increase labor productivity by means of the proliferation of contract brigades throughout the economy. Agricultural contract brigades consisted of ten to thirty farm workers who managed a

piece of land leased by the kolkhoz or sovkhoz under the terms of a contract making the brigades responsible for the entire production cycle. Because brigade members received a predetermined price

for the contracted amount of output plus generous bonuses for any

excess production, their income was tied to the result of their labors. After 1987 family contract brigades also became legal, and longterm leasing (up to fifteen years) was enacted—two reforms that

in the opinion of some Western analysts pointed toward an eventual sanctioning of the family farm. Because contract brigades en- joyed relative autonomy, much of the administrative bureaucracy

resisted them. Nevertheless, in 1984 an estimated 296,100 farm

workers had already banded together in contract brigades, and the

document Basic Directions for the Economic and Social Development of

the USSR for 1986-1990 andfor the Period to the Year 2000 (a report

presented to and subsequently adopted by the Twenty-Seventh

Party Congress) called for their wider use (see Reforming the Planning System, ch. 11). The March 1989 Agricultural Plenum en- dorsed contract brigades and agricultural leasing, a major victory

for Gorbachev's reform effort. Soon after assuming power in 1985, Gorbachev demonstrated

his intention of reforming another enduring feature of Soviet food

policy—the maintenance of artificially low retail prices for staples

in the state stores. In 1986 he raised prices for certain categories

of bread, the first such increase in over thirty years. But much re- mained to be done in this critical area. For example, milk and meat

prices had not been adjusted since 1962. The bill for food subsidies in 1985 came to nearly 55 billion rubles (for value of the

ruble—see Glossary); of this, 35 billion rubles was for meat and

milk products alone. By June 1986, the absurdity of the food subsidy policy had become a matter of open discussion in upper echelons of the party, and higher prices were expected to take effect by the end of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (1986-90).

Land Use

Although the Soviet Union has the world's largest soil resources,

climatic and hydrological conditions make farming a high-risk venture, even within the most favorable zone, the so-called fertile tri- angle. This tract has the general shape of an isosceles triangle, the

base of which is a line between the Baltic and Black seas and the

apex of which is some 5,000 kilometers to the east near Krasnoyarsk.

525
Soviet Union: A Country Study

To the north of this triangle, the climate is generally too cold, and

to the south it is too dry for farming. Because of the Soviet Union's

northern latitude (most of the country lies north of 50° north lati- tude; all of the United States except Alaska lies south of this lati- tude) and the limited moderating influence of adjacent bodies of

water on the climate of much of the country, growing conditions can dramatically vary from year to year. As a consequence, crop

yields fluctuate greatiy. Only about 27 percent of the Soviet Union

is considered agricultural land, of which roughly 10 percent is arable

(see fig. 17). About 15 percent of Soviet territory is too arid, 20

percent too cold, 30 percent too rugged, and 8.5 percent too marshy

to permit farming. And in areas where the growing season is long

enough, rainfall is frequently inadequate; only 1.1 percent of the

arable land receives the optimal precipitation of at least 700 millimeters per year (compared with 60 percent of arable land in the

United States and 80 percent in Canada).

North of the fertile triangle lie the treeless Arctic tundra, cover- ing 9.3 percent of the country's territory, and an immense conifer- ous forest, the taiga, which occupies 31 percent of the territory.

The tundra is an inhospitable region of permafrost and swampy

terrain, agriculturally suitable only for reindeer herding. In the

taiga zone, the climate becomes increasingly continental from the

northwestern reaches of the country eastward into Siberia. East

of the Yenisey River, permafrost is pervasive, and throughout the

taiga vast swampy tracts and infertile podzol preclude all agricultural activity except for reindeer herding and limited cultivation

of hay, rye, oats, barley, flax, potatoes, and livestock along the

southern frontier of the zone. Of far greater economic importance

are the forestry and fur industries of the taiga.

Along its southwestern periphery, the taiga merges with a mixed

hardwood and conifer forest, which accounts for another 8.2 per- cent of the country's total area. This zone is shaped like a triangle

with its base in the west formed by the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Belorussian, and northwestern Ukrainian republics and its apex in the east at a point beyond the Kama River. With heavy

application of fertilizers, the gray-brown soils of the region can be

relatively productive. Much of the land is highly marshy and re- quires costly drainage measures. The mixed-forest zone supports

meat and milk production and the widespread cultivation of hay,

oats, rye, buckwheat, sugar beets, potatoes, and flax. Wheat is also grown in the area, but with only limited success because of the short- ness of the season. A transitional forest-steppe zone stretches in a belt 250 to 500

kilometers wide from the western Ukrainian Republic to the Urals,

526
Agriculture

occupying approximately 7.7 percent of Soviet territory. This area has the best agricultural land in the Soviet Union because of the

richness of its chernozem (see Glossary) soil, the abundance of

precipitation, and the temperateness of the climate. A wide variety of grains, sugar beets, and livestock are raised here. The most

serious problem confronting agriculture in the zone is severe water

and wind erosion, which has resulted from the removal of much

of the forest cover. Farther south are the vast open steppes, which extend from the

Moldavian Republic in a northeasterly direction across the north- ern part of the Kazakh Republic as far as Krasnoyarsk, covering

roughly 15 percent of the Soviet Union. It is a region of relatively

low precipitation, where periodic droughts have calamitous effects on agriculture. Because the lighter soils of this region are nearly

as fertile as the chernozem of the forest-steppe and because the growing season is longer, when moisture is adequate, crop yields can

be large. Irrigation is widely practiced throughout the steppe, particularly in the middle and lower Volga River Valley and in the

southern Ukrainian and Kazakh republics. The primary crop of

the region is wheat, although barley is also widely sown. Corn is an important crop in the Donets-Dnepr region, and millet is sown

along the Volga and on the Ural steppes. Sugar beets, sunflowers,

fruits, and vegetables are also cultivated on a large scale. Immediately south of the steppes is a zone of semidesert and

desert that includes the northeastern edge of the Caucasus region,

the Caspian Lowland and lower Volga River Valley, the central

and southern Kazakh Republic, and all of Soviet Central Asia. Irri- gation projects of epic proportions make agriculture in this arid

region possible. Among the most noteworthy of these projects in

the 1980s were the Karakum Canal (see Glossary), over 1,100

kilometers of which had been completed by 1988, designed to provide irrigation water for 1.5 million hectares in the Turkmen

Republic; the Fergana Valley in the Uzbek Republic, with over

1 million hectares under irrigation; the Golodnaya Steppe, west

of the Fergana Valley, where over 500,000 hectares were irrigated;

and numerous other projects exploiting the limited water resources of the Vakhsh, Amu Darya, Chu, Syr Darya, Zeravshan, Kashka

Darya, and other Central Asian rivers. The region specialized in

such crops as cotton, alfalfa, and fruits and vegetables; the raising

of sheep, goats, and cattle was widespread.

In the Caucasus region, two small subtropical areas along the

Black and Caspian seas specialize in exotic crops such as citrus fruit, tea, and tobacco, as well as grapes, other fruits, early vegetables,

and cotton. The mountains provide pasturage for sheep and goats.

527
Soviet Union: A Country Study

528
Agriculture

Agriculture is a productive enterprise on the southern rim of

eastern Siberia and the Soviet Far East, primarily in the Amur,

Bureya, and Zeya river valleys; Olekminskly Raion in the central

Yakut Autonomous Republic; and Primorskiy Krai on the Sea of

Japan. The area is well suited for livestock, especially beef and dairy

cattle, wheat, rice, sugar beets, and other crops. Throughout the Soviet era, massive projects have been undertaken to expand the area of arable land. Drainage efforts have been

concentrated in the northwest, i.e., the Belorussian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and northwestern Russian republics. The great

expense of drainage is justified by the proximity of these areas to major urban centers, where demand for farm products is highest.

Between 1956 and 1986, the area of the nation's drained farmland more than doubled from 8.4 million to 19.5 million hectares. The

area under irrigation increased from 10.1 million hectares in 1950

to 20.4 million hectares in 1986. Of this total, Soviet Central Asia

accounted for 8.5 million, the Russian Republic for 6.1 million,

and the Ukrainian Republic for 2.4 million hectares. In 1984

Gorbachev claimed that irrigated land yielded all the country's cot- ton and rice, three-quarters of its vegetables, half of its fruit and

wine grapes, and a quarter of its feed crops. In 1986 drained or

irrigated farmland accounted for almost a third of total national

crop production. Irrigation has had a decidedly mixed record. On

the one hand, it has transformed semiarid and arid regions into

farmland, making the Soviet Union one of the world's chief producers of cotton, for example. On the other hand, excessive water

withdrawal from the rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya has practically destroyed one of the world's largest lakes, the Aral Sea, by

depriving it of its major sources of water (see Environmental Concerns, ch. 3; Satellite imagery of the Aral Sea in 1987, p. 117).

Production

Agricultural self-sufficiency has been the goal of Soviet leadership since the Bolshevik Revolution (see Glossary), but it was not

until the late 1940s that food supplies were adequate to prevent

widespread hunger. Farm output had suffered greatiy as a result of Stalin's policies of forced collectivization, low procurement prices,

and underinvestment in agriculture; at the time of his death in 1953,

both the quality and the quantity of the food supply were inferior

to that of the precollectivization period.

Under Khrushchev and Brezhnev, improved agricultural per- formance became a top priority, and sown area for major crops

increased (see table 36, Appendix A). By 1983 the APK accounted

for more than 40 percent of the total value of the country's fixed

529
Soviet Union: A Country Study

capital assets, created 42 percent of total national income, and

provided 75 percent of total retail turnover in state and cooperative trade. In spite of the massive investments of the 1970s and

1980s, however, the sector generally did not perform well. Whereas

the annual growth rate of agricultural output averaged 3.9 per- cent between 1950 and 1970, it actually declined to 1.2 percent

in the decade of the 1970s. And between 1981 and 1985, grain out- put averaged only 180.3 million tons, substantially below the

1976-80 average of 205 million tons and not even matching the

1971-75 average of 181.6 million tons. In 1986 this downward trend was reversed, as the fourth best

grain harvest in Soviet history was recorded—210.1 million tons. In spite of severe winter weather and a late spring, the 1987 harvest was even larger, 211.3 million tons, marking the first time

in Soviet history that output exceeded 200 million tons for two consecutive years. Gorbachev's policies of increased reliance on

contract-brigade farming and delegation of broader decision-making

authority to local managers were given partial credit for this improvement in agricultural performance.

Another important contributing factor to the improved agricultural performance of 1986 and 1987, according to Western analysts, was the cumulative effect of nearly two decades of heavy investment in the agricultural infrastructure. Notable progress had been

made in livestock housing, machinery manufacturing, and fertilizer production. Nevertheless, much remained to be done. As many

as 40 percent of the nation's farms still lacked storage facilities,

and the average farm was hundreds of kilometers from the nearest grain elevator or meat-packing plant. Much of the rural road net- work was not hard surfaced and during the rainy seasons became

impassable. Although the Soviet Union had become the world's

largest tractor manufacturer, surpassing the United States by 4.5

times in the 1980s, the quality of this machinery was low and spare

parts were virtually nonexistent. Enormous progress had been made

in the development of the agricultural chemical industry, and deliv- eries increased substantially (see table 37, Appendix A). The ex- pansion of transportation, storage, and packaging capacity did not

keep pace with it. Over 10 percent of the chemical fertilizer produced never reached the farms.

Grain

Grain crops have long been the foundation of agriculture in the

Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. In 1986 grain was grown

on 55.3 percent of the total sown area of 210.3 million hectares.

The most widely cultivated grain crops continued to be wheat (48.7

530
Bessarabian Market, Kiev, Ukrainian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

million hectares, or 23.2 percent of the total sown area), followed

in order by barley (30.0 million hectares), oats (13.2 million hectares), rye (8.7 million hectares), pulses (6.7 million hectares), corn

for grain (4.2 million hectares), millet (2.5 million hectares), buckwheat (1.6 million hectares), and rice (600,000 hectares). The area sown with wheat declined steadily throughout the 1970s and 1980s,

reaching a thirty-year low in 1987. And the total area occupied

by grain fell during each year from 1981 through 1986, as more

land was laid fallow or planted in fodder crops. Although the total area allotted to grain in 1986 (116.5 million

hectares) was only slightly greater than that allotted in 1960 (115.8

million hectares), total output throughout the period steadily rose, thanks to the use of more productive farming methods, improved

seed, and heavier application of fertilizers. For example, average

wheat yields rose from 1.34 tons per hectare between 1966 and 1970

to 1.6 tons per hectare between 1976 and 1980 (a figure slightly

skewed by the record harvest of 1978), 1 .45 tons per hectare from

1981 to 1985, and 1 .89 tons per hectare in 1986. At the same time,

rye, barley, oats, and corn yields were also gradually rising.

The Soviet Union has never had an oversupply of feed grains,

and before Brezhnev's era it was customary to conduct wholesale

slaughter of livestock during bad harvest years to conserve grain

531
Soviet Union: A Country Study

for human consumption. Beginning in the early 1970s, however,

the standard policy was to import the grain needed to sustain large

livestock inventories. Thereafter, the Soviet Union appeared destined to be a permanent net importer of grains. During the Eleventh

Five-Year Plan (1981-85), the country imported some 42 million tons of grain annually, almost twice as much as during the Tenth

Five-Year Plan (1976-80) and three times as much as during the

Ninth Five-Year Plan (1971-75). The bulk of this grain was provided by the West; in 1985, for example, 94 percent of Soviet grain

imports were from the noncommunist world, with the United States supplying 14.1 million tons. Technical Crops

So-called technical crops are widely and successfully cultivated

in the Soviet Union. Among such crops are cotton, sugar beets,

sunflowers and other crops producing oilseeds, flax, and hemp.

In 1986 these crops were grown on 13.7 million hectares, about

6.5 percent of the total sown area. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union

assumed the position of the world's largest producer of cotton, aver- aging more than 8 million tons of raw cotton per year. Virtually

all of the country's cotton was grown on irrigated lands in Central

Asia and the Azerbaydzhan Republic; the Uzbek Republic alone

accounted for 62 percent of total output between 1981 and 1985.

The Soviet Union has been very successful at cultivating sunflowers, accounting for over half of world output. The crop flour- ishes in the low-precipitation southern zones, especially in the

Donets-Dnepr and northern Caucasus regions. The area allotted

to sunflower cultivation steadily decreased from a peak level of 4.8

million hectares in 1970 to 3.9 million hectares in 1987. Total output

also dropped, but thanks to improved seed stock and more effec- tive use of intensive technology, the decrease in production was

not proportionate to the reduced area for cultivation. The average

annual harvest between 1971 and 1975 was slightly below 6 million tons, and in 1987 it amounted to 6.1 million tons. Since the early 1970s, sugar beets have occupied roughly the same amount of farmland as the other major technical crops—cotton and

sunflowers—averaging some 3.5 million hectares. Sugar beet

production, concentrated in the central and western Ukrainian

Republic, the northwestern Caucasus, and the eastern areas of the

Kazakh Republic and other Soviet Central Asian republics aver- aged 88.7 million tons per year between 1976 and 1980, well above

the previous high of an average of 81.1 million tons per year in

the 1966-70 period. Between 1981 and 1985, output fell to 76.3

million tons annually but rose thereafter, reaching 90 million tons

532
Agriculture

in 1987. Although in the 1980s sugar beets continued to provide

over 60 percent of the country's sugar production, the Soviet Union

was becoming increasingly dependent on raw sugar imported

primarily from Cuba, e.g. , from 2.1 million tons per year between

1966 and 1970 to 4.9 million tons per year between 1981 and 1985.

Grown for fiber and as a source of linseed oil, flax has been particularly successful in the mixed-forest zone northwest of Moscow

and in the Belorussian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and northwest Ukrainian republics. Although the area sown to flax steadily

decreased from 2.1 million hectares in 1940 to only 980,000 hect- ares in 1986, production actually rose from 349,000 tons of fiber

in 1940 to a peak of 480,000 tons in 1965 and to 366,000 tons in

1986.

Hemp, the other significant fiber crop, has been grown since

the eighteenth century, although its area of cultivation has steadily decreased from about 600,000 hectares in 1940 to fewer than

100,000 hectares in 1986. Used in making rope, string, and rough

cloth, hemp is grown primarily in the central chernozem area south

of Tula and in the northern Caucasus.

Forage Crops

Since Khrushchev's campaign to raise the consumption of meat

products, the Soviet Union has been expanding the cultivation of

forage crops to feed a larger number of livestock. This trend was

reinforced under Brezhnev's tenure, particularly after the announce- ment of the Food Program in 1982. Thus the area occupied by

forage crops grew dramatically from 18.1 million hectares in 1940

to 63.1 million hectares in 1960; it remained virtually unchanged

throughout the 1960s and then steadily rose to reach a high of 71 .4 million hectares in 1986, when it accounted for approximately onethird of the total sown area. The area occupied by perennial hay

crops (alfalfa and clover) nearly doubled between 1960 and 1986,

while annual grasses and corn for silage were cultivated on a gradually diminishing scale. Total nongrain feed production, including corn for silage, feed roots, and hay and green fodder, increased

steadily from 427.4 million tons in 1960 to 554.6 million tons in

1986.

Potatoes and Vegetables

A staple of the Russian diet for centuries and an important animal

feed source, potatoes are grown on private plots throughout the

country. They are cultivated on a large scale in the Ukrainian,

Belorussian, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian republics and

in the central European part of the Russian Republic. The area

533
Soviet Union: A Country Study

devoted to growing potatoes decreased steadily between 1960 (7.7

million hectares) and 1986 (6.4 millon hectares), although potatoes still accounted for nearly three-quarters of the total area devoted

to vegetable crops. Potato harvests also declined substantially

from an average of 94.8 million tons annually between 1966 and

1970 to fewer than 78.4 million tons per year in the 1980-85 period.

Traditionally, the most widely grown vegetables in addition to potatoes have included beets, carrots, cabbages, cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions. These crops have been grown on an ever larger

scale since the 1960s, and in 1986 they occupied nearly 1.7 million hectares. Yields increased proportionately, reaching a record

29.7 million tons in 1986. Thanks to the proliferation of large

clusters of hothouses, it was possible to supply fresh cucumbers and

tomatoes, among other produce, to the residents of major urban

centers throughout the year. With private plots yielding roughly

40 percent of the vegetable harvest, much of the population, particularly the kolkhoz residents, grew a portion of their own produce.

Other Crops

Fruit cultivation in the Soviet Union is most successful in the

southern, more temperate zones. The tiny Moldavian Republic,

with its fertile soil and ample sunshine, produces more fruit and

berries than all but the Ukrainian and Russian republics. In 1986

it harvested 1.2 million tons, as compared with 3.3 million tons

in the Ukrainian Republic (which has 18 times more land area)

and 2.9 million tons in the entire Russian Republic (which is 506

times the size of the Moldavian Republic). Orchards and vineyards

occupied their largest area between 1971 and 1975, with a yearly

average of 4.9 million hectares. However, the area allotted to noncitrus fruits decreased steadily from 3.8 million hectares in 1970

to 3.0 million hectares in 1986. Significant crops were table and

wine grapes, which were widely grown in the warmer southern

regions. The Azerbaydzhan and Moldavian republics accounted

for over 40 percent of the total grape harvest, but the Ukrainian,

Georgian, and Uzbek republics and the southern Russian Republic were also major producers. Citrus fruit growing was limited to the Black Sea coast of the Georgian Republic and a small area of

the southeastern Azerbaydzhan Republic. In 1986 the Georgian

Republic produced 97 percent of the total national harvest of

322,000 tons of citrus fruit. Tea, a traditional beverage of Russians and the peoples of the

Caucasus and Central Asia, is another specialty crop of the Georgian Republic, which accounted for 93.4 percent of national production in 1986. Other important centers of tea growing are the

534
535
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Azerbaydzhan Republic and Krasnodarskiy Krai in the Russian

Republic. The area reserved for tea cultivation grew significantly

between 1940 and 1986, going from 55,300 to 81,400 hectares.

Production rose steadily during the 1950s and thereafter, reaching a peak of 620,800 tons in 1985. Despite increased yields,

however, larger tea imports were necessary to meet consumer demand and reached 108,000 tons (equal to 17.4 percent of domestic production) in 1985.

Tobacco, like tea, is a fixture of Soviet life. The crop flourishes

in the warmer southern regions, particularly in the Moldavian

Republic, which produced about a third of the 1984 harvest. Other

centers of tobacco cultivation are Central Asia and the Caucasus,

which accounted for roughly 30 percent and 25 percent of the 1984

harvest, respectively. In 1940 only 72,800 tons were grown, but

by 1984 tobacco output had more than quadrupled, reaching

375,700 tons. Production, however, did not keep pace with demand,

and in 1984 about 103,000 tons (equal to more than 27 percent

of domestic output) had to be imported.

Animal Husbandry

Because it is less restricted by climatic conditions, livestock raising

is more widely distributed across the Soviet Union than is the cul- tivation of crops. For example, in the cooler, wetter northern regions

of the European part of the country, where few cash crops can be

grown, dairy farming is profitable because of the proximity to urban

markets and the ready availability of fodder. In the 90 percent of

the country considered nonarable, various forms of animal husbandry are practiced, such as reindeer herding in the Arctic and

sheep, goat, and cattle grazing on the grasslands of Central Asia

and Siberia. Nevertheless, it is the fertile triangle that has always

accounted for the bulk of the nation's animal products.

Animal husbandry has received special attention since the late 1950s, and a primary goal of Soviet agriculture has been to increase

the production and consumption of meat, milk, and eggs (see table

38, Appendix A). This effort has resulted in significantly larger

numbers of livestock. For example, the number of cattie more than

doubled between 1955 and 1987, rising from 56.7 million to 121.9

million head. During the same period, the number of hogs rose even more dramatically (from 3.9 million to 80 million head), and

the number of sheep grew by half to reach 141.5 million head. The

number of goats and horses in 1987 stood at 6.5 and 5.8 million

head, slightly higher than in 1980 but well below the 1955 figures

of 14.0 and 14.2 million head, respectively. Indeed, throughout

536
Herder with cows on a road south of Moscow

Shepherd with his sheep, Azerbaydzhan Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

537
Soviet Union: A Country Study

the Soviet period, the number of horses steadily declined as agricul- ture became more mechanized.

Larger numbers of animals notwithstanding, food output per

animal continued to lag far behind Western standards. For example, milk production per cow averaged roughly half that reported

in Finland, where the climate is certainly no more favorable. And

even though the Soviet Union had achieved a ratio of cattle-to- human population comparable to that of the United States, beef

production per head in 1986 was 35 percent lower. Similarly, pork

output per head fell some 30 percent below the figure for the United

States. According to Western analysts, this low livestock productivity resulted from inadequate feed supplies in general and a defi- ciency of protein in feed rations in particular. Domestic producers

of protein supplement from cotton and sunflower seeds and pulses were unable to meet demand, which the government did not sat- isfy through imports. This decision took a heavy toll on livestock

productivity.

To streamline livestock raising, a new type of production entity

emerged in the 1960s and became increasingly prominent

industrialized livestock enterprises outside the traditional kolkhoz

and sovkhoz system. These specialized factory-like operations purchased their feed and other inputs from outside sources, to which

they enjoyed priority access. In 1986 they accounted for about 20

percent of pork, 5 percent of beef and milk, and over 60 percent

of poultry and egg production.

In the thirty-five years between 1950 and 1985, per capita meat

and fat consumption increased some 135 percent, reaching sixty- one kilograms per year. During the same period, consumption of

milk and dairy products climbed by nearly 88 percent, and egg

consumption rose by an impressive 334 percent. Still, demand for these products far exceeded supply, and in the late 1980s their avail- ability in state stores remained very limited.

Forestry

With a third of the world's forested area, the Soviet Union has

long led all countries in the production of logs and sawn timber.

Although Siberia and the Soviet Far East hold 75 percent of the

country's total reserves, they accounted for only about 35 percent

of timber output in the mid-1980s. The forests of the northern

European part of the Russian Republic have supplied timber

products to the major population centers for centuries, and the timber industry of the region is better organized and more efficient than that east of the Urals. In addition, the European pine and

fir forests grow in denser stands and yield a generally superior

538
Agriculture

product than the vast forests of the east, where the less desirable

larch predominates. With the construction of some of the world's

largest wood-processing centers in eastern Siberia and the Soviet

Far East, and with the opening of the Baykal-Amur Main Line

in 1989, the timber industry of the eastern regions was greatly advanced (see The Baykal-Amur Main Line, ch. 14).

The Soviet timber industry, which in 1986 employed roughly

454,000 workers, has had a long history of low productivity and

excessive waste. Because of inadequate processing capacity, out- put of wood pulp, newsprint, paper, cardboard, plywood, and other

wood products was scandalously low, considering the size of the

Soviet Union's timber resources and its perennial position as the

world leader in roundwood and sawed timber production. By the

mid-1980s, the country appeared to have made substantial progress

in achieving greater balance in its wood products mix. In 1986,

for example, the production of pulp (9 million tons) was nearly

four times the 1960 output (2.3 million tons), paper production

(6.2 million tons) was almost three times higher, and cardboard

output (4.6 million tons) was roughly five times the 1960 level. Nevertheless, in 1986 the Soviet Union ranked only fourth in world

paper and cardboard production, with only one-sixth the output

of either the United States or Japan. A high percentage of the roundwood harvest was used in the form of unprocessed logs and fire- wood, which remained an important fuel in the countryside. In addition to their wood products, the north European, Siberian,

and Far Eastern forests are important for their animal resources. Fur exports have long been an important source of hard currency

(see Glossary). Although trapping continued to be widely practiced

in the 1980s, fur farming, set up soon after the Bolshevik Revolution, accounted for most of the country's production of mink, sable,

fox, and other fine furs. One of the significant accomplishments of Soviet forestry has been

the successful effort to restore and maintain production through

reforestation of areas where overfelling had occurred. In 1986 alone,

restoration work on 2.2 million hectares was completed, which in- cluded planting trees on 986,000 hectares. In the same year, nearly

1.7 million hectares of trees that had been planted as seedlings

reached commercial maturity. In addition, some 109,000 hectares

of shelterbelts were planted along gullies, ravines, sand dunes, and

pastureland. This policy of conservation, in place for several decades, helped fight wind erosion and preserved soil moisture.

Fishing

Fish has always been a prominent part of the Soviet diet. Until

the mid-1950s, the bulk of the Soviet catch came from inland lakes,

539
Soviet Union: A Country Study

rivers, and coastal waters. Thereafter, the Soviet Union launched an ambitious program to develop the world's largest oceangoing

fishing fleet, which consisted of 4,222 ships in 1986. The Soviet

Union became the world's second leading fish producer, trailing

Japan by a small margin throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1986

Soviet production amounted to 11.4 million tons, most of which was caught in marine fisheries. The Atlantic Ocean supplied 49.2 percent of the total catch in

1980, while the Pacific Ocean yielded 41.3 percent. The Caspian,

Black, Azov, and Aral seas, suffering from lowered water levels,

increased salinity, and pollution, became relatively less important

fisheries in the 1970s and 1980s. Whereas Murmansk had been

the one large fishing port before the expansion of the oceangoing

fleet, by 1980 there were twenty-three such ports, the largest of

which were Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Kaliningrad, Archangel,

Klaipeda, Riga, Tallin, Sevastopol', and Kerch'. In 1982 more

than 96 percent of the frozen fish, 45 percent of the canned fish,

60 percent of the fish preserve, and 94 percent of the fish meal deliv- ered to market was processed at sea by large, modern factory ships.

Because of the worldwide trend of claiming 200-mile territorial waters, total fish production fell after 1977. The open Pacific was

viewed as a promising fishery to offset reduced production in coastal waters, which had been yielding up to 60 percent of the Soviet catch. Inland fisheries also began to receive more attention, and fish farming was promoted as ponds were established close to urban centers. Between 1961 and 1980, the production of fresh fish by such enterprises increased by over 8.8 times, reaching 158,300 tons. The

Eleventh Five-Year Plan called for pond fish production to be

tripled.

The Twelfth Five-Year Plan, 1986-90

Following the disappointing performance of Soviet agriculture

during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, the Twelfth Five-Year Plan

got off to a promising start, with larger than expected grain harvests and improved labor productivity. Nevertheless, Western

analysts viewed as unrealistic most of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan

production targets—both those set forth in the Food Program of

1982 and those subsequently revised downward.

According to the document Basic Directions for the Economic and

Social Development of the USSR for 1986-1990 andfor the Period to the Year 2000, the Soviet Union would significantly increase production of all agricultural commodities. The ambitious 1990 production target ranges laid out in this document called for increases over

the average annual output of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan. The

540
Fishing boats in the port of Listvyanka, Lake Baykal, Russian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

target ranges for agricultural commodities were as follows: grain

from 38.7 to 41.4 percent; sugar beets from 20.6 to 24.5 percent;

sunflower seeds from 48.9 to 50.9 percent; potatoes from 14.9 to 17.4 percent; vegetables from 36.9 to 43.7 percent; fruits, berries,

and grapes from 40.4 to 51 .6 percent; raw cotton from 9.5 to 13.

1

percent; meat from 10.7 to 29.4 percent; milk from 12.1 to 16.3

percent; and eggs from 7.5 to 10.2 percent. The 1990 goals for the fishing industry ranged from 4.4 to 4.6 million tons of fish food

products and about 3 billion cans of fish preserve. The forestry

industry was tasked with increasing the production of pulp by 1

5

to 18 percent, of paper by 11 to 15 percent, and of fiberboard by

17 to 20 percent. As in all sectors of the economy, conservation

of raw materials and reduction of waste in transportation and

storage of commodities were to be emphasized more than in any

previous period.

Although grain harvests were excellent in 1986 and 1987, out- put fell to only 195 million tons in 1988, forcing the Soviet Union

to import more than 36 million tons that year. The 1988 harvest

of potatoes, other vegetables, and fruits also declined as compared

with the previous two years. As a result, the availability of food

products throughout the country worsened, and in mid- 1989 many

Western observers believed a severe shortage and possibly famine

541
Soviet Union: A Country Study

were impending. Clearly the Twelfth Five-Year Plan's goals for agriculture would not be attained, a severe setback for Gorbachev's

perestroika efforts.

* * * An invaluable source of statistical data on the agro-industrial

complex is the 1987 publication Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, compiled by the Soviet Union's Gosudarstvennyi komitet po

statistike. USSR Situation and Outlook Report, published annually by

the United States Department of Agriculture's Economic Research

Service, presents a concise overview of recent Soviet agricultural

performance. D. Gale Johnson and Karen McConnell Brooks's

Prospects for Soviet Agriculture in the 1980s examines Soviet agricultural efficiency in light of policy and natural and climatic factors. The Soviet Rural Economy, edited by Robert C. Stuart, presents several highly pertinent essays on Soviet agriculture, including Michael L. Wyzan's "The Kolkhoz and the Sovkhoz," Valentin Litvin's

"Agro-Industrial Complexes," and Everett M. Jacobs' s "Soviet

Agricultural Management and Planning and the 1982 Administrative Reforms." Two other important anthologies are Agricultural Policies in the USSR and Eastern Europe, edited by Ronald A.

Francisco, Betty A. Laird, and Roy D. Laird, and Soviet Agricultural and Peasant Affairs, edited by Roy D. Laird. Paul E. Lydolph's

classic Geography of the USSR provides a comprehensive description

of Soviet agricultural resources, including forestry and fishing. The

evolution of current policy is traced by Karl-Eugen Waedekin in numerous Radio Liberty Research Bulletin reports, including "The

Private Agricultural Sector in the 1980s," " 'Contract' and 'Normless' Labor on Soviet Farms," and "What Is New about Brigades

in Soviet Agriculture?" Zhores A. Medvedev's Soviet Agriculture and

Valentin Litvin's The Soviet Agro-Industrial Complex provide highly

detailed descriptions of the organization and functioning of Soviet

agriculture. (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

542

Elements of the Soviet Union 's transportation

communications networks
THE TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATIONS sys- tems of the Soviet Union were owned and operated by the government primarily to serve the economic needs of the country as determined by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

In addition to being influenced by the policies of the regime, the

development of transportation and communications also has been

greatly influenced by the country's vast size, geography, climate,

population distribution, and location of industries and natural

resources. Although the population and industrial centers were con- centrated in the European part of the country, which has a more

moderate climate, many of the mineral and energy resources were

in sparsely inhabited, climatically inhospitable expanses of Siberia

and other remote areas. Hence, the transportation and communications networks were much denser in the European part than in

the Asian part of the country.

In 1989, and historically, railroads were the premier mode of

transportation in the Soviet Union. Railroads played significant

roles in times of war, and they accelerated industrial development.

They also facilitated the normal flow of raw materials, manufactured goods, and passengers. Government policies provided for ex- tensive trackage and large numbers of locomotives, rolling stock,

and support facilities. Although railroads carried more freight and

passengers over long distances, trucks and buses carried more cargo

and people on short hauls. Because automotive transport was not

generally used for long hauls, many roads outside of urban areas had gravel or dirt surfaces. The lack of paved roads in rural areas

seriously hampered the movement of agricultural products and supplies. Privately owned automobiles, on a per capita basis, were few

in number compared with those in the West and therefore were

of limited importance in transportation.

Inland waterways, comprising navigable rivers, lakes, and canals,

enabled a wide variety of ships, barges, and other craft to trans- port passengers and freight to their destinations inexpensively. Commuters in urban areas often used hydrofoils on rivers for rapid

transport, while freight moved on the waterways more slowly over much greater distances. Waterways were subject to freezing in

winter, although a fleet of ice breakers extended the navigable sea- son. Most rivers in the Asian part of the country flow northward

into the Arctic Ocean and thus were of little help in moving raw

materials to the European part of the country. At some river ports

545
Soviet Union: A Country Study

in Siberia, raw materials were loaded onto ships for delivery to domestic and foreign ports via the Arctic to the Pacific or the

Atlantic oceans. A large, modern, and well-diversified fleet of merchant and pas- senger vessels conveyed not only freight and passengers to the

world's maritime nations but also Soviet political influence. Many

cargo vessels, often highly specialized, were designed to off-load

freight and vehicles in foreign countries not having modern port

facilities. Although the world's largest fleet of passenger liners belonged to the Soviet Union, the voyagers were mainly Western

tourists. Extensive fishing and scientific research fleets, together

with several international ferry systems, added to the already substantial worldwide maritime presence of the Soviet Union.

The civilian air fleet was primarily a fast transporter of people

but was often the only mode of transport available to some areas

in the Far North, Siberia, and the Soviet Far East. Using the inter- national airports of Moscow and other major cities, Soviet airplanes

flew to almost every country of the world. The air fleet also had

many specialized aircraft performing various missions not associated

with airlines in the West, such as agricultural spraying, medical

evacuations, and energy exploration.

As a means of efficiently conveying oil, natural gas, and some

other materials, pipelines played a significant part in the transportation system. Major pipelines stretched from northern and Siberian

oil and gas fields to refineries and industrial users in the European

part of the country. Pipelines supplied energy to Eastern Europe,

which was heavily dependent on Soviet gas and oil, and to Western

Europe, which exchanged hard currency (see Glossary) for Soviet

natural gas. Using a communications system that incorporated advanced

satellite technologies, the government transmitted its radio and tele- vision programming throughout most of the Soviet Union. Telephones were mainly used by government or party officials or others

having official responsibilities in the economy.

Railroads

Railroads were the most important component of the Soviet trans- portation system. They carried freight over great distances, and

historically they have contributed to the economic development of

the Soviet Union as efficient carriers of materials between producers

and users, both domestic and foreign.

Historical Background, 1913-39

On the eve of World War I, imperial Russia had a rail network

extending 58,500 kilometers. In 1913 it carried 132.4 million tons

546
Transportation and Communications

of freight over an average distance of 496 kilometers, and 184.8

million passengers boarded its trains. In 1918, following the Bolshevik Revolution (see Glossary), the new regime nationalized the

railroads. During the Civil War (1918-21), the railroads played

a strategic role in the Bolshevik government's struggle against both

White forces and invading foreign armies but suffered serious losses and damage in tracks, locomotives, rolling stock, yards, and sta- tions. In 1920 Vladimir I. Lenin directed the first plan for nationwide development of the economy, which created the State Commission on the Electrification of Russia (Gosudarstvennaia

komissiia po elektrifikatsii Rossii—Goelro). It called for the elec- trification of the country over a ten- to fifteen-year period, the development of eight economic areas, and the reconstruction of the

transportation network. Railroads were assigned the task of link- ing the economic areas and of transporting raw materials to in- dustrial producers and finished goods to users. To that end, the

regime provided for the electrification of the most important main

lines and the construction of new lines. During the 1920s and 1930s, transportation, and in particular

the railroads, played a leading economic role and experienced rapid

development. Feliks E. Dzerzhinskii, the chairman of the dreaded

Vecheka (see Glossary) and the commissar of internal affairs, was

also named the commissar of railways. Because of his first two positions, Dzerzhinskii ensured a rapid development of the railroads.

New rail lines were built between the eastern regions and the in- dustrial areas in the west. By 1925 some 4,000 kilometers of new

lines had been laid in both the European and the Asian portions

of the Soviet Union, including the first electrified line, an industrial spur from Baku to Surakhany completed in 1926.

During the First Five-Year Plan (1928-32), the railroad network was repaired, improved, and expanded. The plan recognized that

industrial complexes (see Glossary), such as the Ural-Kuznetsk coal

and iron complex, needed transportation links. Plans called for con- necting the Siberian and Central Asian areas, rich in natural or

agricultural resources—ores, timber, coal, cotton, and wheat—to manufacturers and consumers in the western portions of the country. Thus the Turkestan-Siberian Railway, 1,450 kilometers long, was built, along with the Central Kazakhstan and the Caucasus

railroads, among other lines. The European portion of the country also saw new lines laid, connecting industrial areas with their sources of raw materials.

In the 1930s, the railroads introduced new rolling stock and

locomotives that contributed to better performance. In the mid19308, diesel-electric locomotives began to be used. Although

547
Soviet Union: A Country Study more costly to produce and to maintain than the electric locomotives and also less powerful and slower, diesel-electric locomotives

had several advantages over the steam locomotives in use, particularly under existing operating conditions. Fuel-efficient, dieselelectric locomotives covered long distances between refuelings, re- quired minimal maintenance between runs, sustained good speeds,

damaged tracks less, used standardized spare parts, and offered

operating flexibility. In contrast to the United States and Canada,

two countries also employing railroads to cover vast expanses, the

change from steam to diesel-electric traction in the Soviet Union

was initially very slow, in large measure because of a scarcity of

trained manpower, maintenance facilities, and spare parts.

During the Second Five-Year Plan (1933-37), new rolling stock,

including freight cars of new design, was also produced. Although

most freight cars were still of the two-axle type with a payload varying between twenty and sixty tons, specialized four-axle cars, such

as hoppers and tippers of up to seventy tons, began to enter ser- vice. The new rolling stock was equipped with safety and labor

saving devices, such as automatic braking and automatic couplings,

which increased safety and allowed more efficient train handling

at classification yards. The higher speeds and heavier train weights

made possible by more modern traction and rolling stock in turn

required heavier rails, improved cross ties, and ballast. The auto- matic block signal system and centralized traffic control increased

the operating efficiency of trains. Despite the modernization program, Soviet railroads lagged behind the performance levels set by the plans. Ineffective management, labor problems, such as poor work attitudes, and a high

accident rate contributed to the failures. On the average, railcars

and locomotives were idle about 71 percent and 53 percent of their

operational time, respectively. Yet industrialization efforts placed

increasing demands on the railroads. The military authorities were

also concerned about the poor performance of the railroads, fear- ing their inability to support national defense requirements.

From 1928 to 1940, the length of operating lines grew from

76,900 kilometers to 106,100 kilometers and included 1,900 kilo- meters of electrified lines. Freight traffic more than quadrupled

from 93.4 billion ton-kilometers to 420.7 billion ton-kilometers.

Passenger traffic also increased in the same period, from 24.5 bil- lion passenger-kilometers to 100.4 billion passenger-kilometers. This

growth in freight and passenger traffic was made possible by track

improvements, new rolling stock, locomotives, signaling and control equipment and procedures, and new and more efficient clas- sification yards.

548
Passengers buying food at a stop on the Trans-Siberian Railway

Women painting a center line on the main highway

between Kharkov and Kiev, Ukrainian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

549
Soviet Union: A Country Study

World War II After the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939, the Soviet

Union occupied Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, eastern Poland, and

portions of Finland and Romania (see Prelude to War, ch. 2). Consequently, before Germany's 1941 attack on the Soviet Union, the

size of the Soviet rail network increased by the assets located in

these areas and countries. During the Soviet-Finnish War (November 1939 to March 1940), Soviet railroads supported military operations. Over 20 percent of the rolling stock was used to supply the

operations against the Finnish forces. Although military cargo shipments originated in many parts of the country, they all fed into

the October and Murmansk railroads in areas where few highways were able to handle motor transport. This fact and the distance

that freight had to travel to the front combined to cause unloading

bottienecks at final destination stations and yards. Although delays were substantial, civilian and military railroad authorities learned

important lessons from the Finnish campaign.

During World War II, railroads were of major importance in

supporting military operations as well as in providing for the in- creased needs of the wartime economy. Because of their importance and vulnerability, trains, tracks, yards, and other facilities became the prime targets of the German air force and, in areas

close to the front, of German artillery.

Railroad operations during the war corresponded to the main

phases of military operations. The first phase extended from the

German offensive on June 22, 1941, to the Red Army's counteroffensive, which culminated in a Soviet victory at Stalingrad in

February 1943. During this phase, the railroads evacuated people, industrial plants, and their own rolling stock to the eastern

areas of the country. From July to November 1941, some 1.5 million carloads of freight were moved eastward. The railroads also carried troops and military materiel from rear areas to the front. All of the operations were accomplished under threatened or actual

enemy fire. The second phase extended throughout most of 1943, when the

Red Army slowly advanced against strong German resistance. The

railroads coped with increasing demands for transportation services

as industrial plants increased production. In addition, the Red Army

relied heavily on the railroads to move personnel and supplies for major operations. Thus, during the first three months of the Kursk

campaign (March to July 1943), three major rail lines averaged

about 2,800 cars with military cargo per day, reaching a daily peak

of 3,249 in May. Moreover, as the Soviet forces regained territories,

550
Metro station interior, Moscow

Passengers on the Moscow metro

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

551
Soviet Union: A Country Study

military and civilian railroad construction teams restored and rebuilt

trackage destroyed by the retreating enemy.

In the third phase, from early 1944 to the end of the war in May

1945, the Red Army rapidly extended the front westward, caus- ing the distances between production facilities (in the Ural Mountains and Siberia) and military consumers to grow accordingly,

thereby further straining railroad resources. The Red Army's

Belorussian offensive, which was launched on June 23, 1944, re- quired, during its buildup phase, 440,000 freight cars, or 65 per- cent of Soviet rolling stock. In early 1945, the Red Army pursued

German forces into neighboring countries, requiring the rail- roads to cope with different track widths, which went from 1 ,520-

millimeter-gauge track to 1 ,435-millimeter-gauge track in Romania,

Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and eventually in Germany itself. Despite the effort made to haul men and materiel to the front

and to provide at least some service to the civilian sector, as well

as to restore operations in war-damaged areas, the Soviet Union

managed to build 6,700 kilometers of new lines during the war

years. The new lines tapped areas rich in the mineral resources

that were required for the war effort or shortened the distances between important economic regions. Of the 52,400 kilometers of

Soviet main track roadway damaged during the war, 48,800 kilo- meters were restored by May 1945. About 166,000 freight cars were

destroyed, and the number of locomotives decreased by about 1,000,

although almost 2,000 were furnished by the United States as part

of an agreement authorized by its Lend-Lease Law (see Glossary).

The Postwar Period, 1946-60

During the postwar recovery period, the railroads played a key

role in rebuilding the national economy, in both the industrial and

the agricultural sectors. To enable the railroads to carry out as- signments, improvements had to be made in traction equipment,

rolling stock, roadbeds, stations, yards, and traffic control equipment. New diesel-electric and electric locomotives were produced,

and heavier rails allowed increased axle loads and train speeds.

Automatic block signaling systems also contributed to higher speeds

and better traffic control. Electrified lines were slowly extended.

Although the Fourth Five-Year Plan (1945-50) provided for the

restoration of damaged rolling stock and rail facilities, the Fifth

Five-Year Plan (1951-55) emphasized new construction. The plan's

goals were severely underfulfilled, mainly in production of freight

cars, trackage, and other equipment, but freight turnover was 57

percent above plan. This achievement was made possible by in- creased train loads, higher operating speeds, more efficient loading

552
Transportation and Communications

and off-loading procedures, and higher labor productivity. The

higher speeds and higher number of average daily runs of locomotives hauling freight were made possible by growing numbers of

diesel-electric and electric locomotives coming into service.

At the urging of CPSU first secretary Nikita S. Khrushchev,

in the late 1950s electrification proceeded on some high-density pas- senger and freight lines. Khrushchev gave priority* to railroads in

the Ural Mountains area and to those connecting the Urals with

southeastern and central European areas and with Siberia and other eastern regions. By the end of 1960, the railroads had a network

of 125,800 kilometers of lines, some 13,800 kilometers of which

were electrified. Beginning in the early 1960s, the railroads experienced a period of prosperity. Freight traffic grew rapidly, by 59 percent between 1961 and 1970, while passenger traffic increased by 50

percent. New equipment improved labor productivity. More electric and diesel-electric locomotives entering service, combined with improved tracks and roadbeds, increased net train weights and speeds.

In the late 1960s, as the growth of net train weights and speeds

leveled off, train density—the number of trains moving on a given

track—increased, thus allowing further increases in freight carried.

Nevertheless, in the early 1970s train productivity continued to grow, but at declining rates. By 1975 the railroads reached their

limits in terms of traffic density and train speeds and weights. Subsequently, the railroads strained to satisfy the demands of the national economy. Between 1977 and 1982, the total tonnage of

shipments stagnated, increasing only from 3.723 billion tons originated (see Glossary) to 3.725 billion tons originated. Other indi- cators dropped—such as the average daily distance traveled by

locomotives and cars, and speeds—the result of ever increasing track

congestion. Additional factors contributing to poor railroad per- formance in the late 1970s and early 1980s were a deteriorating

labor discipline and a decline in the quality of repairs and maintenance. In 1983 recovery from the slump started when managers reduced

traffic congestion and made train and other operations more effi- cient. Use of electrically synchronized double and triple engines

made running heavier trains possible and reduced traffic congestion.

In the late 1980s, railroads carried a larger share of freight and

passengers longer distances than any other transportation system

in the Soviet Union. In 1986 railroads transported 3.8 trillion ton- kilometers of freight, or a 47 percent share of all freight carried

by all systems (see table 39, Appendix A). At the end of 1986, the

553
Soviet Union: A Country Study

railroads reached a length of 145,600 kilometers, of which 50,600

kilometers, or almost 35 percent, were electrified. Organization and Equipment of the Railroads

The Soviet Railroads (Sovetskie zheleznye dorogi—SZD) were managed and operated by the all-union (see Glossary) Ministry

of Railways. The ministry was divided into twenty-three main administrations, each responsible for an overall segment of the rail- roads' operating or administrative management. Directly under

the ministry were the thirty-two regional railroads, which in fact constituted the SZD. The railroads were named after republics,

major cities, river basins, or larger geographic areas. The October

Railroad, headquartered in Leningrad, was of course named in

honor of the October (Bolshevik) Revolution. Each regional rail- road, except the Moldavian, was subdivided into divisions. The

divisions were generally named after their headquartered stations

(see table 40, Appendix A).

In 1 989 the most important lines carried heavy freight and pas- senger traffic and were electrified. Among them were lines linking

industrial areas, maritime ports, and foreign countries. Also, major

population centers were interconnected and linked to vacation areas. Lines with steep grades, as in mountainous regions, were often elec- trified (see table 41, Appendix A).

The railroads had about 7,000 marshaling yards, of which 100 were of major importance. Computer technology has gradually in- creased the efficiency and quality of train handling at the yards,

many of which had centralized hump release controls and auto- matic rolling speed devices. Such automated procedures as checking a train's weight and composition, as well as modernized

communications facilities, have sped train formation and dispatch

and provided yard management with advance information on the

composition of arriving trains. Nevertheless, in the mid-1980s clas- sification yards were unable to process efficiendy the required number of trains. Automated signaling equipment and devices helped improve

traffic control and train safety, although the latter remained a problem in 1989. Some 20 percent of track lines were under centralized train control. This enabled the railroads to increase track

capacity substantially, particularly over long distances. In 1989 more

than 60 percent of the network was equipped with the automatic

block system, which regulated distances between trains, as well as with automatic cab signaling.

Electric and diesel-electric locomotives were the basic categories

of traction. Within these categories were about twenty versions of

554
Streetcar taking on passengers in Leningrad, Russian Republic

Courtesy Jonathan Tetzlaff Kirov Factory metro station, Leningrad, Russian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

555
Soviet Union: A Country Study

electric locomotives and about twenty-five versions of diesel-electric locomotives. In 1981 some 1,377 electric locomotives and 6,870

diesel-electric locomotives were in mainline freight service. The

self-propelled ER 200 train set operated on limited- schedule ser- vice on the Moscow-Leningrad line in the mid-1980s. Composed

of traction units at each end and between three and six married

sets of powered cars, the ER 200 had a maximum speed of 200

kilometers per hour and was the Soviet counterpart to French,

Japanese, and American high-speed trains. In 1982 the railroads had an estimated 1,856,000 freight cars. The fleet consisted for the most part of four-axle (two bogies) cars of sixty-two- to sixty-five-ton capacity. Nevertheless, six-axle (three

bogies) and eight-axle (four bogies) cars of 120- to 125-ton capacity were increasing in numbers. These high-tonnage cars raised train

weights without extending train lengths. Maximum axle-loads

ranged from twenty-three to twenty-five tons. In 1989 all cars were equipped with automatic couplers and brakes, and over half had

roller bearings. New freight cars were designed for maximum speeds

of 120 kilometers per hour, but normal operating speeds were limited to 90 kilometers per hour at full load and 100 kilometers per

hour when empty.

In addition to the basic types of freight cars—boxcars, hoppers,

gondolas, and flatcars—the inventory included specialized types

for transporting specific cargos, such as automobiles, dry and li- quid bulk materials, grain, perishables, and materials under pressure. Several types of cars transported passengers. Depending on

train sets, their passenger capacity ranged from 384 to 1,484. Longdistance and international trains were composed of compartmented

cars, sleepers, and dining cars. New cars were designed for maximum speeds of 200 kilometers per hour. Most of the passenger

rolling stock was of foreign manufacture, primarily from the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

Passenger Operations

Since 1975 passenger transportation by train has been second

to bus in terms of total fares boarded. Nevertheless, in 1986 trains

carried more than 4.3 billion passengers, of which more than 3.9

billion were on suburban lines (see table 42, Appendix A). Suburban and short-haul passenger volume represented about 90 per- cent of the passengers carried by train. In 1985 the railroads ran

nearly 10,000 passenger train pairs, about 500 of which were long

distance, another 500 were local (trains not crossing the boundaries of a given line), and nearly 9,000 were suburban or other

types. During the peak summer season, daily passenger train traffic

556
Transportation and Communications

increased dramatically, to approximately 19,000 long-distance and

17,000 local trains. To resolve, or at least alleviate, congestion in

the summer, train lengths were increased. Thus, eighteen-car trains were extended to twenty-four cars on heavily used lines from

Moscow, while in 1986 test trains of thirty-two cars were run out

of Moscow and Leningrad to Simferopol' in Crimea.

The most important passenger railroads in the mid-1980s were

the Moscow, October, Gor'kiy, Southern, Donetsk, Dnepr, Sverdlovsk, and Northern Caucasus. These served the Soviet Union's

most densely populated areas. The two most heavily traveled axes were the Leningrad-Moscow-Donetsk to Crimea or the Caucasus

area and the Moscow to Khabarovsk (8,540 kilometers) and

Vladivostok (9,300 kilometers) areas. On the latter axis, most pas- sengers traveled distances of only 500 to 700 kilometers, rather than

the full length. The seven major passenger rail centers in the European part of the Soviet Union were in Moscow, Leningrad, Tbilisi,

Khar'kov, Kiev, Simferopol', and Adler; the major center in the

Asian part of the country was at Novosibirsk (see fig. 18).

The Baykal-Amur Main Line

The vast Siberian region between Lake Baykal and the lower

Amur River, called the Transbaykal (or Zabaykaliye), is rich in

natural and mineral resources. Yet until recently, it lacked adequate transportation to the rest of the country. Its main communication artery was the overburdened Trans-Siberian Railway (see

Glossary), running well south of it. Although providing the Transbaykal region with a railroad was considered in the nineteenth century, work on the Baykal-Amur Main Line (Baykalo-Amurskaya

Magistral' —BAM; see Glossary) did not begin until 1974. The

BAM was finally opened in 1989.

Survey and construction crews overcame formidable geological,

climatic, topographic, and engineering challenges, including rivers,

ground ice, unstable soil, seismic areas, mountains, and extremes

of cold and heat. About two-thirds of the BAM trackage crossed

areas of ground ice that caused frost heave and other unstable soil conditions. In the summer, permafrost created large bogs that hampered roadbed construction, and embankments sank into the marshy terrain during the summer thaw. To prevent such problems,

engineers insulated the strip of marsh along the tracks to keep it in a continuously frozen state. Seismic activity along some 1,000

kilometers of the line also caused problems, triggering avalanches

and landslides. Topographic obstacles were formidable as well. To cross the mountains, crews had to pierce over thirty kilometers

of tunnels. The BAM also crossed more than 3,000 streams, and

557
Soviet Union: A Country Study

because of the permafrost new bridge construction techniques had

to be devised. On average, the roadbed for the BAM required moving 100,000 cubic meters of earth—either cutting or filling—for each kilometer of track. The mean annual temperature along the BAM ranges from

- 10°C to - 4°C, with extremes of - 58°C in the winter to 36°C

in the summer. To operate their trains under these severe climatic

conditions, the railroads used special equipment, locomotives, roll- ing stock, and fixed installations. Snow plows, snow-melting

machines, switch heaters, and other specialized equipment were

indispensable in the winter. Rails made of special steel that does

not become brittle at the very low temperatures of the Siberian

winters were also used.

From its western terminus at Ust'-Kut to its eastern end at Komsomol' sk-na-Amure, the BAM stretched for 3,145 kilometers,

between 180 and 300 kilometers north of the Trans-Siberian Railway. It had a total of 5,000 kilometers of main line and yard track. In addition to the east-west main line, a 402-kilometer perpendicular line, the "Little BAM," ran from Bamovskaya on the TransSiberian Railway north to Tynda on the BAM and thence to Berkakit to serve the important mining and industrial area of Neryungri. In the late 1980s, an extension to the Yakutiya region, rich

in timber and minerals, was under way.

The BAM and its feeder routes, both rail and highway, served an area of approximately 1.2 million square kilometers. Although

track laying was completed in 1986, it was not yet in full operation in 1989. The projected freight traffic on the BAM was planned

at 35 million tons per year, with trains of up to 9,000 tons. Moreover, the government planned for the BAM to become an

important part of the Siberian land bridge from Japan, via the port

of Sovetskaya Gavan', to West European destinations, saving 20

percent in time over the maritime route. Other New Construction

Important new railroad construction was under way in the Arctic regions, Siberia, the Far East, and the Caucasus. Thus, the

Urengoy-Yamburg rail line was being built to serve the Yamburg

natural gas deposits north of Urengoy. In the Pechora River area, a line from the town of Synia, on the Moscow-Vorkuta road, was

being extended about 120 kilometers to the Usinsk oil fields. Plans were made for a 540-kilometer spur from Labytnangi, southeast

of Vorkuta, to the gas fields at Bolvanskiy Nos on the Yamal Peninsula. The project has been hampered by summer thaws. Engineers

laying the rail line resolved the problem by insulating the strips

558

560
Transportation and Communications

of marsh along the track, thus keeping them in a continuous state of permafrost. In the Caucasus area, a new electrified line, almost

200 kilometers long, was planned from Tbilisi through the Caucasus Mountains to Ordzhonikidze. Plans called for the Caucasus

Mountain Pass Railroad to shorten by 960 kilometers the distance

for trains from Tbilisi to Ordzhonikidze via Armavir. Several tunnels, totaling forty-two kilometers, and numerous bridges have been

planned. Originally scheduled for completion by the year 2000,

the project was being stalled in 1989 by environmental groups.

A 450-kilometer rail line from Makat, in the Kazakh Republic,

to Aleksandrov Gay, in Saratovskaya Oblast in the Russian Republic, was started in 1984 and was nearing completion in 1989. It was projected to cut over 1 ,000 kilometers from the route between

Central Asia and Moscow.

Metropolitan Railways

The Ministry of Railways also operated metropolitan railway

systems, or metros, in major cities. In 1987 eleven cities had one

or more metro lines in operation, and ten others were either building

or planning to build lines (see table 43, Appendix A). In late 1986,

the length of all lines on the metro systems was 457 kilometers,

and over 4.6 billion passengers rode on the combined metro sys- tems in that year. The eleven cities' operating systems had a fleet of about 5,950 passenger railcars in 1986.

Automotive Transport

Trucks, buses, and passenger automobiles were important

primarily to local transportation systems. Trucks carried freight on short hauls except in areas not served by railroads or inland

waterways. Almost all freight started or finished its journey on trucks

but was carried greater distances by rail, ship, airplane, or pipeline. Buses carried substantial numbers of passengers, for the most

part on urban or short runs. Transportation by privately owned

passenger automobiles, which were relatively few on a per capita

basis, was not significant compared with public means. Development of Automotive Transport

In 1910 a railroad car factory in Riga began producing the first passenger automobiles and trucks in imperial Russia. Under the

Soviet regime, automotive transportation developed more slowly

than in western Europe and the United States. As early as the 1930s,

problems of poor road infrastructure, shortage of spare parts, and

insufficient fueling, repair, and maintenance facilities plagued

561
560

Soviet Union: A Country Study

automotive transportation. Some manufacturing plants were set up with Western help.

During World War II, automotive production concentrated

almost exclusively on trucks and light, jeep-like vehicles. Their chassis were also adapted for armored cars and amphibious and other

types of military vehicles. During major battles and operations,

automotive transportation carried needed troops and materiel to the front. While Leningrad lay besieged (1941-44), trucks, driving over the frozen surface of Lake Ladoga, brought in about

600,000 tons of supplies and brought out over 700,000 persons.

During the entire war, Soviet automotive transport carried over

101 million tons of freight in support of military operations. A siz- able portion of the Soviet vehicle fleet was provided by the United

States as part of the lend-lease agreement.

Since 1945 Soviet authorities have continued highway construction, so that by 1987 the public road networks, which excluded

roads of industrial and agricultural enterprises, amounted to 1,609,900 kilometers, of which 1,196,000 kilometers were in the

hard-surfaced category—concrete, asphalt, or gravel. Nevertheless, about 40 percent of this category of roads were gravel. In addition, there were 413,900 kilometers of unsurfaced roads.

The road network varied in density according to the geographic

area and the industrial concentration. Thus, the Estonian Republic had the highest road density while the Russian and Kazakh

republics had the lowest. The latter republics, however, contained

vast, economically underdeveloped and sparsely populated areas. Overall, the European portion, excluding the extreme northern and

Arctic areas, had the densest road network, particularly in areas having concentrations of industries and population (see fig. 19).

In 1 989 many roads were not all-weather roads but rather were unimproved and unstable in bad weather, especially during thaws

and rains. Except for 25,000 kilometers of all-weather surfaces, all rural roads in the European and Central Asian parts of the country, as well as all roads in Siberia and the Far East, were little better than dirt tracks. Trucks, carrying light loads (fewer than four

tons) and traveling at low speeds, broke down frequently. These

roads caused delays in shipments, high fuel consumption, and in- creased tire wear. In marshy and permafrost areas, unsurfaced roads were usable only when the ground and rivers were frozen, from

about November to May. Russians have coined a word, rasputitsa, to describe the time of year when roads are impassable. Repair

and refueling facilities along rural roads were rare or nonexistent.

Nevertheless, in rural areas, roads were the prime arteries for shipping farm products and bringing in the required equipment and

562

Figure 19. Major Roads, 1981
Transportation and Communications

supplies. Poor road conditions were a major factor in the Soviet

Union's serious agricultural problems, particularly the one of perishables spoiling before they reached the market. Rural populations

relied on bus transportation over poor roads for essential access

to urban areas. Freight Transportation by Trucks

Without a developed network of highways and service facilities,

Soviet authorities have essentially relegated trucking to local and

short hauls, except in remote areas not having rail or ship transport. In 1986, in terms of freight turnover, trucks ranked fourth

among all transportation systems, with a 6 percent share. Nevertheless, trucking had 81 percent of the tons originated by all freight

transportation systems combined (see table 44, Appendix A). This

anomaly indicated that trucks were primarily used on short hauls,

averaging about eighteen kilometers. Long-distance or intercity

hauling was mainly by railroads and inland waterways. The agricultural sector accounted for about 80 percent of freight originated on trucks. In 1986 freight transported by trucks amounted to almost

27 billion tons originated and 488.5 billion ton-kilometers (see Glossary). Common carrier trucks accounted for 6.7 billion tons originated and 141 billion ton-kilometers. Trucking's most important

customers were agriculture, industry, construction, and commerce. Trucking enterprises were not able to meet the strong demand

for their services. Among the contributing factors to the industry's

failure were inadequate roads, inefficient traffic organization

some 45 percent of vehicles traveled empty—and prolonged periods of unserviceability resulting from shortages of spare parts,

drivers, tires, and fuel. Even in the largest metropolitan areas, re- fueling and repair facilities were scarce by Western standards. In

rural areas, particularly in Siberia and the Far North, such facili- ties were often nonexistent. Repair and maintenance of vehicles

belonging to transportation enterprises (see Glossary) and collective farms (see Glossary) were performed at central facilities, which

sometimes belonged to manufacturing plants. Repair was hampered

by a chronic shortage of spare parts. Given the extent of poor roads, even the absence of roads, many cargo vehicles were of the rugged,

cross-country type, with all-wheel traction similar to those used by

the armed forces as tactical vehicles. Many vehicles were specially

designed for cold weather operations.

Passenger Transportation

In the mid-1980s, buses were the primary means of passenger

transportation, accounting for almost 44 percent of traffic on all

565
564

Soviet Union: A Country Study

transportation systems in 1986 (see table 45, Appendix A). Indeed,

in 1986 public transportation buses carried the most passengers—48.8 billion passengers boarded—of all means of transportation. Most passengers traveled short distances on intracity and

suburban runs. In 1986 the average distance traveled by a pas- senger was 9.5 kilometers. In that year, taxicabs carried more than

I . 4 billion fares. In the 1980s, private automobiles were rare compared with most Western nations. In 1985 the Soviet Union had

II. 7 million automobiles. Some Western authorities believed that

about one-third of them were owned by the CPSU or the government.

Inland Waterways

The Soviet Union used an extensive inland navigational network,

both natural (rivers and lakes) and man made (canals and reservoirs). The waterways enabled a variety of general and specialpurpose river craft to transport the output of mines, forests, col- lective farms, and factories to domestic and foreign destinations.

Some Soviet ships took on cargo at river ports located well inland

and delivered it directly to ports on the Arctic, Atlantic, or Pacific oceans or on the Baltic, North, or Mediterranean seas. An inland

passenger fleet transported millions of commuters, as well as busi- ness and pleasure travelers. Inland waterways were of prime importance to the economic viability of remote Arctic, Siberian, and

Far Eastern regions, where they constituted the main, and often

the sole, means of surface transportation.

Development of Waterways

Following the Bolshevik Revolution, the new regime decided first on reconstruction and then on expansion and modernization of the

inland waterway system. The plan encompassed opening to navigation, or expanding navigation on, major rivers, particularly in

the Asian part of the Soviet Union, and included new infrastruc- ture ashore.

In the 1930s, two major canals were constructed: one connecting the Baltic and White seas, 227 kilometers long, with nineteen

locks; the other connecting Moscow to the Volga River, 128 kilo- meters long (see fig. 20). Both were built using prisoners, the first at a cost of about 225,000 lives. By 1940 about 108,900 kilometers

of river and 4,200 kilometers of man-made waterways were in operation, which allowed movement of 73.9 million tons originated of

freight. During World War II, most of the inland fleet was con- verted to landing craft for river-crossing operations. As a result

566
Transportation and Communications

of hostilities, inland navigation suffered losses in vessels, canals,

and shore installations. The Fourth Five-Year Plan provided for the restoration of navigation on major waterways in the European part of the Soviet Union

after World War II. It included repair of the fleet, construction

of new vessels, and rebuilding and expansion of port installations.

In the 1950s, construction of the 101 -kilometer canal connecting

the Volga and Don rivers, also built using prisoners, brought all the major inland river ports within the reach of the Black, Baltic,

Caspian, Azov, and White seas. The navigable length of the in- land waterway network reached its peak of 144,500 kilometers in

1970. Thereafter, it began to decline as, on the one hand, distancecutting reservoirs and canals were opened to navigation and, on

the other hand, navigation was discontinued on rivers with a low

traffic density. Thus by 1987 the length of inland waterways under

navigation was reduced to 122,500 kilometers, exclusive of the Caspian Sea. Navigational channels were deepened, and canals and

locks were widened. New waterways, including tributaries of major

rivers, were developed in Siberia and the Far East. As part of that process, the ports of Omsk and Novosibirsk were expanded, and

new ports were built at Tomsk, Surgut, and Tobol'sk. Equipment

capable of handling twenty-ton containers was installed at Krasnoyarsk, Osetrovsk, and ports in the Yakutiya region. The most

heavily navigated sections of Siberia's Ob', Irtysh, Yenisey, and

Lena rivers were deepened to the "minimum guaranteed depth"

of three meters. Further development of navigation on smaller rivers in the Far

East was begun in the early 1980s, and navigation increased on

other waterways serving industrialized areas. By 1985 the Volga

and Kama river locks had reached their traffic limits and required

widening. To respond to increased demand and to replace obsolete vessels, 1,020 dry bulk and oil barges, 247 passenger vessels,

and 945 pusher tugs, freighters, and tankers were put into service

between 1981 and 1985.

The Waterway System

In 1987 the Russian Republic's Ministry of the River Fleet and

the main river transportation administrations of the other republics were, among them, responsible for the 122,500 kilometers of

navigable rivers and man-made waterways. Soviet inland waterways are divided into four main categories by depth: super main

line, with a guaranteed depth of four meters; main line, with at least 2.6 meters of depth; local, with up to 1.4 meters of depth;

567
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Figure 20. Major Inland Waterways, 1984

and small river, with a water depth of up to one meter. In the

European part of the country, the Volga, Kama, Don, and Dnepr

rivers and their reservoirs formed the 7,400-kilometer-long United

Deep-Water Network. This network had thirty-six water reservoirs,

ninety-two locks, and a "guaranteed depth" of four meters on 90

percent of its length. Although many tributaries of large rivers fall generally into the local and small river categories, they nevertheless contributed importantly to many regions' economies, and they

568
Transportation and Communications

represented about 55 percent of the navigable rivers in Siberia and

the Far East. The river fleet was composed of a wide variety of cargo and pas- senger vessels and special-purpose ships, such as tugs and icebreakers. Dry cargo river ships ranged from 150 to 5,000 tons in capacity,

whereas oil barges ranged up to 9,000 tons. Barge sets, that is, motorized barges pushing one or more "dumb" barges, totaled

up to 16,000 tons on Siberian rivers and up to 22,000 tons on the

Volga-Kama waterways.

Among the ships, boats, and motorized and "dumb" barges were

specialized vessels designed to carry fruit, grain, ore, cement, containers, automobiles, and refrigerated cargo. A variety of passenger

vessels, including hydrofoils and air-cushion vehicles, had a pas- senger capacity from a few dozen to 1,000 people. In a special

category were the river-ocean vessels, which included dry bulk carriers (2,700 to 3,000 tons) and liquid tankers (4,800 to 5,000 tons).

They made possible direct shipments between domestic inland ports

and some 300 maritime and river ports in twenty-six countries in

Europe, North Africa, and Asia, including Iran and Japan, as well

as Soviet ports on the Arctic Ocean. The fleet of tugboats, both

pullers and pushers, the latter equipped with automatic couplers

for barge trains, was well adapted to general and specialized operations, including towing huge timber rafts. The tugboats' engine

power ranged from 110 kilowatts to 2,940 kilowatts.

All navigable rivers in the Soviet Union are affected by ice. Depending on the region, the yearly navigation season has been as short as 60 days on northern rivers and as long as 230 days on rivers

in warmer climates. Icebreakers were therefore an essential component of the Soviet inland fleet in order to extend operations beyond the onset of ice. They were particularly important in the

mouths of rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean, where ice tended

to accumulate because of differences between the thawing seasons

of rivers and seas. Icebreakers also helped river vessels to reach

their wintering ports before the end of the navigable season. River Ports and Facilities

River ports facilitated the transfer of cargo from one mode of trans- portation to another. Port facilities, such as piers on free-flowing

rivers, have been constructed to account for the seasonal fluctuations of water levels, which sometimes reach several meters. In 1985

the Russian Republic's inland waterway ports had 162 kilometers

of mooring facilities, half of which were provided with mechanized

transloading equipment. The basic portal cranes were of five-, ten- and fifteen-ton lifting capacity, while container-handling cranes,

569
Soviet Union: A Country Study

having capacities of up to 30.5 tons, were available in major ports.

Floating cranes, conveyor belts, and pneumatic loading/unloading devices for grain, granular materials, and bulk cargo were in use. In 1985 river ports in the Russian Republic had 2,220 pier

and floating cranes. Passenger Transportation

Passenger transportation constituted an important function of

the river fleet, although its share of the overall passenger traffic was small. In 1986 river boats carried 136 million fares. On major

deep-water rivers, intercity or suburban passengers traveled on

rapid—up to ninety kilometers per hour—hydrofoils. On small or shallow rivers, service was provided by surface skimmers and air- cushion vehicles.

The bulk of river travel was, however, for excursions and cruises. Big river liners, some of a catamaran type, equipped with cabins,

dining rooms, and recreational facilities, took from 120 to 1,000

passengers on one-day excursions and on cruises of longer duration. On major summer holidays, the Moscow Navigation Company has transported between 80,000 and 100,000 passengers daily

to and from recreational and tourist areas. Merchant Marine

The Soviet Union has the world's most extensive coastline

along two oceans and twelve seas—which has served as a trans- portation link to the rest of the world. The Arctic Ocean and its seas provided international as well as domestic lines of communication to the economically emerging northern areas and constituted a water bridge between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The Pacific Ocean opened the Soviet Far East areas to trade with Japan

and the Pacific rim countries. Although access to oceans was more

restricted, the Baltic and Black seas provided the Soviet Union with

outlets to the North Atlantic and South Atiantic and to the Mediter- ranean Sea, respectively. A fleet of modern coastal vessels provided an essential, and frequently the sole, transportation link between

the extreme northern and the Far East parts of the country and

the industrialized base. For foreign trade, the Soviet Union relied on a well-equipped and specialized fleet of vessels calling at the

ports of practically every maritime nation in the world. Besides

carrying over half of the country's export-import freight, the Merchant Fleet (Morskoi flot—Morflot) was an effective adjunct to the

Soviet Naval Forces and served the country's political and mili- tary needs.

570
Transportation and Communications

Initial Developments

Between the early 1920s, when the Soviet regime consolidated

its power, and the end of the 1950s, when the merchant marine

and ports had recovered from the damage of World War II, the

Soviet merchant fleet ranked well below those of the major seafar- ing nations of the world. In the 1960s, however, new economic

and political realities caused the Soviet Union to dramatically ex- pand its merchant fleet, ports, shipyards, and related facilities. First,

the regime decided to expand its foreign trade, and thus its in- fluence, with the growing number of newly independent African

and Asian nations. Second, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the

widening conflict in Vietnam with Soviet support for Hanoi, and

the relationship with China demonstrated the need for a merchant

fleet ready to respond to foreign policy and military requirements.

For example, in 1960 Soviet merchant ships carried 45 million tons of freight, but by 1965 they carried more than double the tonnage,

almost 92 million tons, and two years later, in 1967, they trans- ported nearly 141.5 million tons of freight. In terms of units and

tonnage, the merchant fleet went from 590 ships of 3.3 million deadweight tons in 1959 to 990 vessels of 8 million deadweight tons in

1965, thereby rising from twelfth to sixth rank in merchant fleets of the world. The new freighters ranged from 9,000 to 13,500 deadweight tons and were acquired from domestic as well as East German, Polish, Yugoslav, and Finnish shipyards.

The 1970s saw a continued expansion of the merchant fleet, but

the vessels put into operation were generally specialized types that

had been introduced by Western shipowners in the second half

of the 1960s: container carriers, roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO), lighteraboard-ship (LASH), roU-on/float-off (RO/FLO), RO/RO-container

carriers, very large crude carriers (VLCC), and very large bulk

carriers (VLBC). They were put into service on expanding lines to the Americas, including the Great Lakes, and to Asia, Africa,

and Australia. New Soviet ports and shore installations capable

of handling these ships were built or expanded (see fig. 21). Between 1970 and 1980, the number of freight and passenger vessels grew from about 1,400 to 1,725, while their collective tonnage went

from almost 12 million to almost 19 million deadweight tons. In the 1980s, the Soviet merchant marine continued to expand,

although at a less frenetic pace than before. By the end of 1985,

the merchant marine had 1,741 freight-carrying vessels, of which

290 were tankers, reaching a total of about 20 million deadweight

tons. The main types of cargo ships were general and bulk cargo

freighters, multipurpose freighters, container ships, timber carriers

571
Soviet Union: A Country Study

and wood waste carriers, bulk carriers, ore-bulk-ore (ORO) carriers, various tankers, refrigerator ships, and RO/RO, RO-FLO,

and LASH vessels. Fleet Operations

In an effort to attain the highest labor productivity and cost ef- ficiency, maritime authorities embarked on a policy of standardization. For vessels, this meant standardization not only by mission

and areas of operation but also by major components: engines,

cargo-handling equipment, and electronics. The results were higher

fuel efficiency, improved and more efficient repair and maintenance,

increased cargo-carrying capacity (thus decreasing the relative per

ton construction and operating costs), and increased speeds (thereby

ensuring faster delivery and increased vessel productivity). New

ship designs allowed speedier cargo handling and better space utili- zation and resulted in a higher carrying capacity per ship. Automation and mechanization of shipboard operations increased labor

productivity. For instance, automated control devices enabled oper- ation of a large cargo ship's engine room by one crewman. Most seas adjoining the Soviet coastline, particularly the Arctic

Ocean, the northern Pacific Ocean, and the Baltic Sea, have short

navigable seasons. To keep the sea-lanes open and prolong the

navigable season, a sizable and diversified fleet of ice-breaking vessels was required. The vessels ranged from small harbor tugicebreakers to large, nuclear-powered, oceangoing icebreakers, as well as Arctic freighters and tankers of up to 35,000 deadweight tons. Arctic freighters were especially constructed with reinforced hulls,

resembling those of icebreakers, to enable the ships to proceed

through ice up to one meter thick. Arctic freighters' superstructures were protected against the severe weather to allow the crew

to move from one part of the ship to another without being ex- posed to cold and ice. Deck de-icing equipment allowed them to operate at temperatures of as low as - 50 °C.

In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union had the world's largest pas- senger vessel fleet. One of its major tasks was to provide transportation to the Arctic and Far Eastern coastal areas, where ships were

frequently the sole means of travel. Small vessels, such as hydrofoils

seating about 120 passengers and reaching speeds up to forty kilo- meters per hour, operated in the coastal areas of the Baltic, Black,

Azov, and Caspian seas. Old passenger liners, some built prior

to World War II and acquired as war reparations, catered to for- eign cruise clientele, generally in contiguous waters. Modern and

well-equipped cruise ships, however, either were built expressly

for Morflot in foreign yards, mainly in East Germany, or were built

572

Figure 21. Major Maritime Ports, Airports, and Sea Routes, 1986

574
Transportation and Communications

chiefly in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and

Britain for Western cruise lines and were subsequently acquired

by Morflot in the 1970s and 1980s. With cabin accommodations

for 250 to 700 passengers, they catered to Western tourists and

plied the world's oceans from the Norwegian fjords to the South

Pacific islands. In the mid-1980s, Morflot' s oceangoing passenger

fleet numbered some eighty liners with a total of about 25,000

berths.

Morflot operated several major ferry lines, both international

and domestic. In 1988 two important international train ferry lines were jointly operated, one with Bulgaria, the other with East Germany. The lines had been put into service to avoid transiting Romanian and Polish territory, respectively. The Soviet-Bulgarian ferry

between Il'ichevsk and Varna began service in 1978. It has used

two Soviet and two Bulgarian ships, each with a capacity for 108

seventy-ton freight cars on three decks. This line has shortened by

six days the delivery time between the two countries.

In 1986 the Soviet-East German ferry service began between

Klaipeda, in the Lithuanian Republic, and Mukran, on the island

of Riigen in East Germany. When in full operation (scheduled for 1990), the line was to use six Mukran-class ferryboats, three belonging to each country. Each boat was designed to carry 103 freight cars of up to eight-four tons each that could roll on and off directly

from the shore, thus reducing each boat's turnaround time to only

four hours. The round trip between the two ports has taken only

forty-eight hours. The annual peak capacity of the six ferries by

1990 was projected at 5 million tons. Since 1984 a Baltic automobile ferry has been operating between Leningrad and Stockholm.

Among the domestic routes were the Caspian Sea ferry lines,

the Crimea-Caucasus lines, and the Sea of Japan line between

Vanino and Kholmsk. Some automobile ferries in the Far East had

trips lasting up to fifteen days and had cabin accommodations for 432 passengers.

The Soviet Union's freight and passenger fleets were supported

in ports and at sea by a large diversified fleet of auxiliary craft. They included harbor and ocean tugs, oceangoing salvage and res- cue vessels, fire boats, various service craft, and floating cranes,

as well as civil engineering craft, such as dredges, used in the construction and maintenance of harbors and navigational channels.

In 1986 the Soviet Union had the world's largest oceangoing fish- ing fleet, comprising about 4,200 vessels under the jurisdiction of

the Ministry of the Fishing Industry. Research and surveying ships

numbered more than 200. They were for the most part not operated by Morflot but by various institutes of the Academy of Sciences

575
574

Soviet Union: A Country Study

(see Glossary) for oceanographic research and surveying, such as

fisheries, marine biology, and oil and gas exploration. According

to Western authorities, however, many of these ships were manned

at least in part by naval crews and performed work for the Soviet

Naval Forces. Usually, these were modern units outfitted with

sophisticated equipment, including intelligence- gathering devices.

Most Soviet ports fell into one of three categories. General cargo

ports handled a variety of break-bulk, container, RO/RO, LASH,

or bulk cargo ships at the same type of pier. Specialized ports trans- loaded dry or liquid bulk cargo, such as ores, coal, grain, petroleum, and chemicals. They had automated transloading equipment

suitable for a particular type of cargo. Major ports, and some

smaller ones, had facilities and equipment to handle both types of

ships.

The merchant fleet's cargo, passenger, and auxiliary vessels constituted an indispensable logistical component of the Soviet Naval

Forces and provided the armed forces with strategic sealift capabilities. According to the United States Department of Defense,

Morflot ships, particularly RO/RO, RO/FLO, LASH, and combination RO/RO-container ships, were fast, versatile, and capable of handling combat and combat support vehicles and equipment.

Moreover, the majority were able to enter most of the world's harbors. LASH and RO/FLO ships were capable of unloading their

cargo at sea and could thereby support amphibious operations.

RO/ROs and container ships required minimally prepared shore

facilities to discharge their cargo. Nearly half the cargo ships were

equipped with cranes capable of lifting the heaviest military armor

and vehicles, thereby reducing the dependence on prepared port

facilities. Morflot 's tankers and cargo vessels were also used for out-of-area refueling and replenishment of Soviet naval vessels oper- ating far from home waters. Merchant ships were sometimes

equipped with sophisticated communications and navigational

devices, served as intelligence gatherers, and had protection against

chemical, biological, and radiological hazards. According to some

Western naval authorities, many Soviet merchant and fishing vessels possessed mine-laying capabilities. In the event of hostilities, the

Morflot passenger fleet, with a total of about 25,000 berths in peacetime, was capable of transporting several times that number of

troops into operational areas. Civil Aviation

The civilian Air Fleet (Aero not—Aeroflot) played a major role in transporting passengers but a minor role in transporting cargo.

Civil aviation was the third most important transporter of passengers

576
Potemkin Steps leading to the main sea terminal, Odessa,

Ukrainian Republic

Hydrofoil on the Neva River, Leningrad, Russian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

577
Soviet Union: A Country Study

and other scientific and exploration missions, Aeroflot used specially equipped airplanes and helicopters. Medical assistance and

evacuation, especially in remote areas, was provided by aircraft

such as the An- 14 and An-28 and by the Ka-26 and Mi-8 helicopters, which were able to operate from most level surfaces. Various

types of agricultural missions were performed by the work horse,

the An-2, and its updated version, the An-3, as well as the Ka-26

helicopter.

Aeroflot was also responsible for such services as ice patrol in

the Arctic Ocean and escorting of ships through frozen seas, oil exploration, power line surveillance, and transportation and heavy

lifting support on construction projects. For the latter tasks, Aeroflot used, in addition to smaller helicopters, the Mi- 10 flying crane, a twin-turbine aircraft with a lifting capacity of 11,000 to 14,000

kilograms, depending on the engines. Hauling of heavy cargo, in- cluding vehicles, was performed by the world's largest helicopter,

the Mi-26. Its unusual eight-blade rotor enabled it to lift a maximum payload of some twenty tons. In 1986 Aeroflot served over 3,600 population centers and had

a route network, excluding overlapping routes, that extended

1,156,000 kilometers, of which 185,000 kilometers were international routes. Aeroflot' s share of total freight transported by all means of transportation was only 0.01 percent, or 3,157,000 tons

originated. Nevertheless, it carried 116.1 million passengers (almost

19 percent of the total passenger-kilometers), of whom 3.4 million were on international flights. The disproportion between domestic and international air travel reflected not only foreign travel restrictions imposed on Soviet citizens but underscored the importance

of aircraft as an essential—sometimes the sole—link to remote cities, towns, and settlements. Thus, in 1986 Siberia, the Far North, and

the Far East, although sparsely populated, accounted for 26 percent

of Aeroflot 's cargo and passenger transport.

Aeroflot also connected the Soviet Union with ninety-seven

foreign countries; the main international hub was Moscow's

Sheremetevo Airport. Other cities with international airports in- cluded Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Yerevan, Tashkent, Irkutsk, and

Khabarovsk.

Aeroflot' s domestic flights frequently have become harrowing

experiences for both Western and Soviet passengers, who have complained of long waits and indifferent service at ticket offices, seemingly interminable waiting at airport terminals poorly equipped

with food and toilet facilities, passengers forced to sit in hot air- plane cabins without air conditioning, and indifferent cabin crews. Shortages of fuel and spare parts were among the major causes of

578
Transportation and Communications

after the highway and railroad systems in terms of passengerkilometers. Although it transported only a small fraction of the cargo

shipped on the other modes of transportation, Aeroflot was the

preferred carrier where speed was essential. Aeroflot provided many

services not performed by Western airlines, such as the spraying

of fertilizers and pesticides over fields and forests, forest fire detection and control, pipeline inspection, medical evacuation, logisti- cal support for oil and other exploration and extraction ventures,

construction projects, and scientific expeditions to polar regions.

Frequently, Aeroflot airplanes or helicopters were the sole means

of reaching remote Siberian or northern settlements. Lastly, Aeroflot 's crews and aircraft constituted the strategic air transport reserve of the Soviet armed forces. Postwar Evolution of Aeroflot

During World War II, Soviet civil aviation was infused with new

technology, consisting of transport airplanes, such as the American DC-3 and DC-4, supplied under the lend-lease agreement.

As a result, Aeroflot experienced rapid growth in the postwar years. Between 1950 and 1955, a major route expansion occurred when

the capitals of the constituent republics and major administrative

centers were interconnected by air service. By 1955 the Soviet Union

had established air links with neighboring communist countries in

Europe and Asia.

Aeroflot entered the jet age in 1956, when it put into service the

world's first jet airliner, the twin-engined Tu-104. It carried seventy

passengers or twelve tons of cargo at a range of up to 4,000 kilo- meters. Other jet or turboprop aircraft were soon acquired by Aeroflot: the An- 10, 11-18, and Tu-114 turboprops; the short-range

Yak-40; the medium-range Tu-134A; the medium- to long-range

Tu-154; and the long-range I1-62M jet liners. Aeroflot Operations

In the mid- and late 1980s, Aeroflot operated a diversified fleet of both jet and turboprop aircraft, designed for either cargo or pas- sengers and adapted to the geographic and climatic conditions of

the country and to its economic needs. Many of the aircraft had

raised wings to operate from unimproved airstrips, including frozen

marshes or Arctic ice floes, and capable of lifting tall, wide, and

heavy vehicles, including medium and heavy tanks (see table 46,

Appendix A).

For tasks other than conventional passenger and cargo transportation, Aeroflot had available many types of general and specialpurpose fixed and rotary-wing aircraft. For geological, weather,

579
Soviet Union: A Country Study

delayed or canceled flights. According to the head of the Ministry

of Civil Aviation's Main Administration for Aviation Work and

Transport Operations, a shortage of fuel was expected to keep at least 15 million people from flying on Aeroflot in 1988.

The close relationship between Aeroflot and the Soviet armed

forces was underscored by the fact that the minister of civil aviation has been a high-ranking general or marshal of the Air Forces. Aeroflot pilots held reserve commissions in the Air Forces. The

1,600 medium- and long-range passenger and cargo aircraft of

Aeroflot were also part of the strategic air transport reserve, ready

to provide immediate airlift support to the armed forces. Indeed,

many aircraft in Aeroflot 's inventory were of the same basic design as military aircraft and, even when loaded with bulky cargo

and vehicles, were capable of operating from unimproved fields. They were characterized by high wings, low fuselages with cargo/

vehicle loading ramps, and landing gear suitable for unimproved

or marshy terrain. Short-range airplanes and helicopters were avail- able for appropriate military support missions. Civil aviation also served as a cover for military operations. According to a Western

authority, military aircraft belonging to the Military Transport Aviation (Voennaia transportnaia aviatsiia) have been painted in Aeroflot colors for use as food relief and arms or personnel transports

to foreign countries.

Pipelines

Although oil pipelines were first laid in Baku in 1872, the use

of pipelines to move liquids and gases over long distances was es- sentially a post-World War II development, with most use occur- ring since 1970. In 1988 about 95 percent of crude oil and over 20 percent of refined petroleum products, as well as nearly 100 per- cent of natural gas, were shipped by pipeline. In 1986 almost 653

million tons originated of crude oil and refined petroleum products were transported by a large-diameter pipeline network of 81,500

kilometers. About 616 billion cubic meters of natural gas entered

the 185,000-kilometer gas pipeline system in 1986. Other products

shipped by pipelines included chemicals, petrochemicals, salts, coal, ores, and construction minerals.

The main oil pipelines were relatively new and of large

diameter—1,020 and 1,220 millimeters. About 65 percent of the

oil pipelines, however, were of medium diameter—530 and 820

millimeters or smaller. They linked oilfields with refineries, and

in turn the refineries were linked with main user areas or export

outlets, such as the port of Ventspils on the Baltic or the towns

580
Moscow's Central Telegraph Office, decorated for the seventy-second

anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

of Brest (near the border with Poland) and Uzhgorod (near the

borders with Czechoslovakia and Hungary).

The major gas pipelines ran from the principal natural gas

producing regions of Central Asia, western Siberia (twelve largediameter lines), and the Volga-Ural, Baku, and North Caucasus

regions to major domestic and foreign industrial zones (see fig. 22).

Natural gas pipelines were of 1,420 millimeter, 1,220 millimeter,

1,020 millimeter, and smaller diameters, the latter representing

just over half the total length.

Among the better known pipelines were the Northern Lights line from the Komi petroleum deposit to Brest on the Polish border,

the Soiuz line running from Orenburg to Uzhgorod near the

Czechoslovak and Hungarian borders, and the Export pipeline from

the Urengoy gas field to L'vov and thence to West European countries, including Austria, Italy, West Germany, France, Belgium,

and the Netherlands. The 1,420-millimeter Export pipeline was

4,451 kilometers long. It crossed the Ural and Carpathian mountains and almost 600 rivers, including the Ob', Volga, Don, and

Dnepr. It had forty-one compressor stations and a yearly capacity

of 32 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

581
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Communications

Communications systems were controlled by the regime and were

primarily used by it to convey decisions and to facilitate the exe- cution of directives affecting the economy, national security, and

administrative governmental functions. The Ministry of Communications, a union-republic ministry (see Glossary), was

responsible for radio, telegraph and telephone transmissions, communications satellites, and the postal service. Several other governmental organizations were concerned with communications,

including the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting, the Ministry of Defense (for military communications),

the Ministry of Culture (for educational broadcasts), and others

that controlled and operated electronic communications for their

own needs. Communications organizations were also on the republic and lower administrative levels. Electronic communications systems in the Soviet Union, especially radio and television broadcasting, experienced a rapid growth

in the 1960s and 1970s (see Radio; Television and Video Cassette

Recorders, ch. 9). Although telephone communications were also expanded in the same period, the rate was slower. By 1989 the

Soviet Union had a powerful telecommunications system that sent radio, television, and telephone messages to almost any location

in the world.

In 1965 the Soviet Union launched the Molniia (Lightning) satellite communications system linking Moscow to remote towns and

military installations in the northern parts of the country. The Molniia system, the world's first domestic satellite communications net- work, retransmitted radio and television broadcasts originating in

Moscow. It was used as the initial back-up teleprinter link for the

"hot line" between Moscow and Washington. The system also transmitted signals to spacecraft in the Soiuz, Saliut, and other space

programs. The Molniia system employed several satellites following elliptical orbits and several ground stations that exchanged signals with them as they came into range. In 1971 the Soviet Union launched Intersputnik, an international

satellite communications network, with thirteen other member nations: Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), East Germany,

Hungary, Laos, Mongolia, the People's Democratic Republic of

Yemen (South Yemen), Poland, Romania, and Vietnam. Algeria,

Iraq, Libya, and Syria became members subsequently, and

Nicaragua and Cambodia agreed to the construction of ground

stations in 1986. Headquartered in Moscow and governed by a

582

Figure 22. Major Petroleum Deposits and Pipelines, 1982

584
Transportation and Communications

board representing the member nations, Intersputnik employed

Molniia communications satellites to link the telephone, telegraph,

television, and radio systems of member nations. Each member

nation was responsible for building and operating its own ground

station, and the Soviet Union had two dedicated stations—at Vladimir and Dubna. Intersputnik participants used centrally lo- cated ground stations to relay communications when they did not

have direct access to the same satellite. Communications satellites in geostationary orbits, i.e., the satellite's position remained fixed relative to a point on the earth, were

first launched by the Soviet Union in 1975. In 1985 the geostationary, or Statsionar, system employed several different kinds

of communications satellites, including the Raduga (Rainbow),

Gorizont (Horizon), and Ekran (Screen). Since 1975 the Raduga

satellites have been generally used to relay domestic message traffic between distant locations in the Soviet Union. They have also elec- tronically transferred the daily newspapers Pravda and Izvestiia from

Moscow to Khabarovsk for same-day printing in the Soviet Far

East. The Gorizont satellites' main functions have been international communications with ground stations, selecting global,

regional, zone, or spot beams as needed. Several Gorizont satellites have relayed electronic versions of Pravda and Izvestiia to Irkutsk

and Krasnoyarsk for printing and distribution. Some Western

authorities considered Gorizont satellites capable of providing Soviet

television programs inexpensively to Third World countries. Ekran

satellites were used to relay radio and television signals to community antenna systems in remote areas. The Ministry of Communications operated almost 92,000 post

and telegraph offices and telephone exchanges, most of which were

in rural locations. In 1986 it forwarded about 8.5 billion letters,

50.3 billion newspapers and magazines, and 449 million telegrams.

In addition, it processed 814 million money orders and pension

payments. Despite constitutional guarantees of privacy of personal

correspondence, telephone conversations, and telegraph communications, in the late 1980s the regime continued to authorize extensive eavesdropping. Domestic and international mail was subject

to being opened and examined by government censors. Foreign

publications "which may cause political and economic prejudice

to the Soviet Union" were generally prohibited, and parcels from

foreign addresses were routinely searched for a wide variety of prohibited articles, including consumer goods and food products, and

were returned or "lost."

Since the 1960s, the government has tried to expand and update

the telephone system, which, by Western standards of availability

585


Soviet Union: A Country Study

and service, was woefully underdeveloped. In 1988 semiautomatic

and automatic telephone exchanges were coming on line within

urban centers, and direct long-distance dialing was expanding. To

respond to a growing demand for better telecommunications, in

the 1980s the Soviet Union turned to Western communications

firms to acquire digital telephone switching equipment, for which

the need was rapidly growing.

At the end of 1986, an estimated 33 million telephones were con- nected with, or had access to, the Ministry of Communications

network. However, the total number of telephone sets connected

to Soviet networks was 39.5 million, which indicates that 6.5 million sets were on separate networks not belonging to the Ministry

of Communications. Of the 33 million sets within the Ministry of

Communications system, 27.7 million were on urban and 5.3

million on rural networks. Furthermore, of this total, 18.5 million

telephone sets were classified as residential, which meant not only

sets in private residences but also ones located in communal areas, such as hallways of multifamily residences or in housing projects.

Indeed, according to official Soviet data, only 28 percent of urban

and 9.2 percent of rural families had telephones in 1986. In early

1987, for instance, 13.3 million requests were made for installa- tions of telephones in cities alone.

Other telecommunications systems, using both cable and micro- wave carriers for facsimile and data transmission systems, although

under expansion by governmental authorities, still lagged behind

the user demand for their services. User needs, however, determined neither the availability nor the quality of communications

services in the Soviet Union. Government planners, following directives of the CPSU, allocated resources for communications and

transportation with little reference to individual users. The regime

gave precedence to the communications needs of decision makers

and to the transportation needs of the national economy. Thus,

it favored development of railroads, which served as the major longdistance transporter of freight. It also emphasized pipelines, as well

as the maritime and air fleets, all of which grew substantially during the 1970s and 1980s. In contrast, the regime limited development of private automobiles and maintained a road network that

primarily served areas with substantial industry and urban populations.

* * * The overall Soviet transportation system is analyzed by Holland

Hunter and Vladimir Kontorovich in "Transport Pressures and

586
Transportation and Communications

Potentials." A detailed study of the transportation of extracted

energy resources by rail, water, and pipeline can be found in Matthew J. Sagers and Milford B. Green's The Transportation of Soviet Energy Resources. A brief but useful transportation overview is also found in J. P. Cole's Geography of the Soviet Union. An insight into

Soviet urban transportation services is provided in Paul M. White's

Planning of Urban Transport Systems in the Soviet Union. Holland Hunter

and Deborah Kaple's The Soviet Railroad Situation assesses railroad

operations, and Soviet and East European Transport Problems, edited

by John Ambler, Denis Shaw, and Leslie Symans, treats Soviet

railroads within the East European context. For current reporting on Soviet railroad developments, the following trade publications

may be consulted: Rail International, Railway Gazette International, and

International RailwayJournal. For a comprehensive summary of Soviet

railroads including operating statistics, locomotives and rolling

stock, trackage, new construction, and technical data and characteristics, the latest yearbook ofJane's Railway Systems is an excellent source. A useful evaluation of rural trucking problems is in

Judith Flynn and Barbara Severin's "Soviet Agricultural Transport," as well as in Elizabeth M. Clayton's "Soviet Rural Roads."

D.M. Long's The Soviet Merchant Fleet is a good work to consult on

the state of Morflot. Useful background material on the Soviet civil airline from its inception to its maturity can be found in Hugh MacDonald's Aeroflot. For Aeroflot operations in the 1980s, including

service, flight crew proficiency, accidents, and handling of hijackings, the two-part article by Michael York, "Flying with Aeroflot,"

is helpful. For information about aircraft, the latest Jane's All the World's Aircraft should be consulted. (For further information and

complete citations, see Bibliography.)

587

Chapter 15. Foreign Trade
A merchant ship being loaded in a Soviet
TRADE HAS TRADITIONALLY played only a minor role in

the Soviet economy. In 1985, for example, exports and imports

each accounted for only 4 percent of the Soviet gross national

product. The Soviet Union maintained this low level because it could draw upon a large energy and raw material base and be- cause it historically had pursued a policy of self-sufficiency. Other

foreign economic activity included economic aid programs, which

primarily benefited the less developed Council for Mutual Economic

Assistance (Comecon) countries of Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam,

and substantial borrowing from the West to supplement hardcurrency (see Glossary) export earnings.

The Soviet Union conducted the bulk of its foreign economic

activities with communist countries, particularly those of Eastern

Europe. In 1988 Soviet trade with socialist countries amounted to 62 percent of total Soviet foreign trade. Between 1965 and 1988,

trade with the Third World made up a steady 10 to 15 percent

of the Soviet Union's foreign trade. Trade with the industrialized

West, especially the United States, fluctuated, influenced by political relations between East and West, as well as by the Soviet

Union's short-term needs. In the 1970s, during the period of detente, trade with the West gained in importance at the expense of

trade with socialist countries. In the early and mid-1980s, when

relations between the superpowers were poor, however, Soviet trade

with the West decreased in favor of increased integration with

Eastern Europe.

The manner in which the Soviet Union transacted trade varied

from one trade partner to another. Soviet trade with the Western

industrialized countries, except Finland, and most Third World

countries was conducted with hard currency, that is, currency that was freely convertible. Because the ruble was not freely convertible, the Soviet Union could only acquire hard currency by selling

Soviet goods or gold on the world market for hard currency. Therefore, the volume of imports from countries using convertible cur- rency depended on the amount of goods the Soviet Union exported

for hard currency. Alternative methods of cooperation, such as barter, counter trade, industrial cooperation, or bilateral clearing

agreements were much preferred. These methods were used in

transactions with Finland, members of the Comecon, China, Yugoslavia, and a number of Third World countries.

591
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Commodity composition of Soviet trade differed by region. The

Soviet Union imported manufactured, agricultural, and consumer

goods from socialist countries in exchange for energy and manufactured goods. The Soviet Union earned hard currency by exporting fuels and other primary products to the industrialized West

and then used this currency to buy sophisticated manufactures and

agricultural products, primarily grain. Trade with the Third World

usually involved exchanging machinery and armaments for tropical foodstuffs and raw materials.

Soviet aid programs expanded steadily from 1965 to 1985. In

1985 the Soviet Union provided an estimated US$6.9 billion to the Third World in the form of direct cash, credit disbursements,

or trade subsidies. The communist Third World, primarily Cuba,

Mongolia, and Vietnam, received 85 percent of these funds. In

the late 1980s, the Soviet Union reassessed its aid programs. In

light of reduced political returns and domestic economic problems,

the Soviet Union could ill afford ineffective disbursements of its limited resources. Moreover, dissatisfied with Soviet economic as- sistance, several Soviet client states opened trade discussions with

Western countries.

In the 1980s, the Soviet Union needed considerable sums of hard

currency to pay for food and capital goods imports and to support

client states. What the country could not earn from exports or gold

sales it borrowed through its banks in London, Frankfurt, Vienna,

Paris, and Luxembourg. Large grain imports pushed the Soviet

debt quite high in 1981 . Better harvests and lower import requirements redressed this imbalance in subsequent years. By late 1985,

however, a decrease in oil revenues nearly returned the Soviet debt

to its 1981 level. At the end of that same year the Soviet Union

owed US$31 billion (gross) to Western creditors, mostly commercial banks and other private sources. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union attempted to reduce its hardcurrency debt by decreasing imports from the West and increasing oil and gas exports to the West. It also sought increased

participation in international markets and organizations. In 1987

the Soviet Union formally requested observer status in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and in 1988 signed a nor- malization agreement with the European Economic Community.

Structural changes in the foreign trade bureaucracy, granting direct

trading rights to select enterprises, and legislation establishing joint

ventures with foreigners opened up the economy to the Western

technical and managerial expertise necessary to achieve the goals

established by General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev's program

of economic restructuring (perestroika—see Glossary).

592
Foreign Trade

Development of the State Monopoly on Foreign Trade

The government of the Soviet Union has always held a monopoly on all foreign trade activity, but only after the death ofJoseph V.

Stalin in 1953 did the government accord importance to foreign

trade activities. Before that time, the Bolsheviks' (see Glossary)

ideological opposition to external economic control, their refusal

to pay Russia's World War I debts, and the chaos of the Civil War

(1918-21) kept trade to the minimum level required for the country's industrial development (see Revolutions and Civil War,

ch. 2). Active Soviet trade operations began only in 1921, when

the government established the People's Commissariat of Foreign

Trade.

The commissariat's monopoly on internal and external foreign

trade was loosened, beginning in 1921, when the New Economic

Policy (NEP) decentralized control of the economy (see The Era

of the New Economic Policy, ch. 2). Although the commissariat

remained the controlling center, the regime established other or- ganizations to deal directly with foreign partners in the buying and

selling of goods. These organizations included state import and ex- port offices, joint stock companies, specialized import and export

corporations, trusts, syndicates, cooperative organizations, and

mixed-ownership companies.

The end of the NEP period, the beginning of the First Five-Year

Plan (1928-32), and the forced collectivization of agriculture beginning in 1929 marked the early Stalin era (see Stalin's Rise to Power, ch. 2). The government restructured foreign trade operations according to Decree Number 358, issued in February 1930,

which eliminated the decentralized, essentially private, trading practices of the NEP period and established a system of monopoly

specialization. The government then organized a number of for- eign trade corporations under the People's Commissariat of Foreign

Trade, each with a monopoly over a specific group of commodities.

Stalin's policy restricted trade as it attempted to build socialism

in one country. Stalin feared the unpredictable movement and dis- ruptive influence of such foreign market forces as demand and price

fluctuations. Imports were restricted to factory equipment essential for the industrialization drive that began with the First FiveYear Plan.

World War II virtually halted Soviet trade and the activity of

most foreign trade corporations. Trade was conducted primarily

through Soviet trade representatives in Britain and Iran and the

Soviet Buying Commission in the United States. After the war,

Britain and other West European countries and the United States

593
Soviet Union: A Country Study

imposed drastic restrictions on trade with the Soviet Union. Thus,

Soviet foreign trade corporations limited their efforts to Eastern

Europe and China, establishing Soviet-owned companies in these

countries and setting up joint-stock companies on very favorable

terms. Comecon, founded in 1949, united the economies of Eastern

Europe with that of the Soviet Union (see Appendix B).

Soviet trade changed considerably in the post-Stalin era. Post- war industrialization and an expansion of foreign trade resulted

in the proliferation of all-union (see Glossary) foreign trade organizations (FTOs), the new name for foreign trade corporations and

also known as foreign trade association. In 1946 the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade was reorganized into the Ministry of

Foreign Trade. The Ministry of Foreign Trade, through its FTOs,

retained the exclusive right to negotiate and sign contracts with

foreigners and to draft foreign trade plans. The State Committee

for Foreign Economic Relations (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po

vneshnim ekonomicheskim sviaziam—GKES), created in 1955,

managed all foreign aid programs and the export of complete fac- tories through the FTOs subordinate to it. Certain ministries,

however, had the right to deal directiy with foreign partners through

their own FTOs.

OnJanuary 17, 1988, Izvestiia reported the abolition of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and GKES. These two organizations were merged into the newly created Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, which had responsibility for administering foreign trade

policy and foreign aid agreements. Other legislation provided for the establishment of joint enterprises. The government retained

its monopoly on foreign trade through a streamlined version of the

Soviet foreign trade bureaucracy as it existed before the January

17 decree.

Structure of the Foreign Trade Bureaucracy

In 1988 the foreign trade bureaucracy reflected the monopoly

specification system created by the 1930 Decree Number 358. the

authority of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)

and the Council of Ministers, six central bodies, the Ministry

of Foreign Economic Relations, and numerous FTOs together

planned, regulated, monitored, and carried out all Soviet foreign

economic activity (see fig. 23).

Administration

Although the CPSU had ultimate authority over all foreign eco- nomic activity, in the late 1980s administrative control was centralized in the Council of Ministers. More specifically, the council's

594
Foreign Trade

State Foreign Economic Commission coordinated the activities of

ministries and departments in the area of economic and scientific cooperation with socialist, developing, and developed capitalist

states. Six central bodies under the Council of Ministries played important roles in foreign economic relations. The import and export of

goods, services, and resources were managed by the State Planning

Committee (Gosudarstvennyi planovyi komitet—Gosplan), the State Committee for Material and Technical Supply (Gosudarstvennyi

komitet po material' no-tekhnicheskomu snabzheniiu—Gossnab), and

the State Committee for Science and Technology (Gosudarstvennyi

komitet po nauke i tekhnike—GKNT). Gosplan formulated all import and export plans, coordinated the allocation of investment and

other resources, and had final authority over all decisions concerning foreign trade, including trade levels and commodity composition. Gossnab coordinated the allocation of resources not handled

by Gosplan and, as the central agency responsible for matching supplies with customers, played a major role in selecting and allocat- ing imports. GKNT negotiated technical cooperation agreements

and monitored license and patent purchases and sales in order to introduce new technology into the Soviet economy.

The State Committee on Prices (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po

tsenam—Goskomtsen), the Ministry of Finance, and the State Bank

(Gosudarstvennyi bank—Gosbank) held jurisdiction over the

financing of foreign trade. Goskomtsen established prices for all imports and some exports. The Ministry of Finance controlled the

balance of payments (see Glossary) and monitored the impact of

foreign trade on the state budget. Finally, Gosbank set the exchange

rate for the ruble (for value of the ruble—see Glossary) and managed the system of exchange within the Soviet Union. Gosbank

supervised the Foreign Economic Activity Bank (Vneshnii

ekonomicheskii bank—Vneshekonombank; until January 1, 1988,

known as the Foreign Trade Bank), which provided international

banking services for Soviet FTOs.

Operation

Until 1988 the two operative bodies involved solely and directly

in foreign economic operations were GKES and the Ministry of

Foreign Trade (see fig. 24). The Ministry of Foreign Trade for- mulated draft import and export plans and regulated commodity

trade. GKES supervised foreign aid programs and the export of

complete plants. The Ministry of Foreign Trade or GKES had jurisdiction over most FTOs, which negotiated and signed commercial contracts with foreigners on behalf of individual enterprises

595
Soviet Union: A Country Study

COMMUNIST PARTY

OF THE

SOVIET UNION

PRESIDIUM COUNCIL OF

MINISTERS

STATE FOREIGN ECONOMIC

COMMISSION

MANAGEMENT AGENCIES

U STATE COMMITTEES

PLANNING (GOSPLAN) MATERIAL AND TECHNICAL SUPPLY (GOSSNAB) SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (GKNT) PRICES (GOSKOMTSEN)

FINANCIAL AGENCIES —| MINI STRY OF FINANCE STATE BANK (GOSBANK)

u

FOREIGN ECONOMIC

ACTIVITY BANK (VNESHEKONOMBANK)

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC

RELATIONS

OTHER

MINISTRIES

(13) OTHER AGENCIES

(6)

FOREIGN TRADE

ORGANIZATIONS

(57) FOREIGN TRADE

ORGANIZATIONS

FOREIGN TRADE

ORGANIZATIONS

' Urttil January 1988, known as the Foreign Trade Bank (Vneshtorgbank). ^Organized in January 1988 by the merging of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations (GKES).

Source: Based on information from United States, Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Directory ofSoviet Officials: National Organizations, Washington, 1988; and H. Stephen Gardner, Soviet Foreign Trade, Boston, 1983, 3.

Figure 23. Foreign Trade Bureaucracy, 1988

(see Glossary). FTOs were generally organized by product, as had

been the foreign trade corporations of the 1930s.

Some industrial ministries or other agencies, however, had their

own FTOs. As of early 1987, for example, forty-eight FTOs were under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and nine

596
Foreign Trade

under the GKES, whereas the Ministry of the Maritime Fleet, the

Ministry of the Fishing Industry, and the Ministry of Trade, among

others, had their own FTOs. In addition, certain other agencies

had their own FTOs: the Chamber of Commerce and Industry,

which handled international trade exhibitions; the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports; the Central Union of Cooperatives; the State Committee for Publishing Houses, Printing Plants,

and the Book Trade; the State Committee for Cinematography;

and the State Committee for Science and Technology.

Structural Reforms, 1986 to Mid-1988

The cumbersome foreign trade bureaucracy contributed to a number of problems that hindered the efficiency and effectiveness

of foreign trade. The lack of direct contact between Soviet enterprises and their foreign customers or suppliers frustrated both parties

by unnecessarily delaying contract negotiations and the specification of technical details. In a May 1986 interview with Izvestiia,

the general director of the Ministry of Foreign Trade's All-Union

Association for the Export and Import of Technical Equipment,

Boris K. Pushkin, reported that after an enterprise submitted a

request for a foreign item, two to three years were required before

it was included in the import plan and funds were allocated for

its purchase. In the interim, the needs of the enterprise had often

changed. Pushkin stressed the need to free enterprises from unnecessary petty supervision and excessive regulation.

Taking such problems into account, the Twenty-Seventh Party

Congress in February-March 1986 declared that the party antici- pated a step-by-step restructuring of [the country's] foreign trade

in order to make exports and imports more effective. In August

of the same year, the CPSU Central Committee and the Council

of Ministers adopted the decree ,"On Measures for Improving

Management of External Economic Relations," which outlined

drastic steps to change the structure of the foreign trade bureaucracy.

Also in August 1986, the Council of Ministers' State Foreign

Economic Commission became a permanent body within the council, giving more authority and visibility to the commission, the

domestic activities of which previously went largely unreported.

The staff was augmented, and the chairman acquired a rank equivalent to that of deputy prime minister. The new charter stated that

the commission's role was "to formulate and implement the country's foreign economic strategy so as to enhance its potential contributions to acceleration [uskorenie—see Glossary], strengthen the

Soviet position in the world economy, and promote structured and

597
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Y

OF TRADE 2

u LEG

INI REI _iO so o

Li.

598
Foreign Trade

organized development of economic cooperation with all groups

of countries."

Until 1987 the forty-eight FTOs subordinate to the Ministry of

Foreign Trade administered more than 90 percent of Soviet for- eign trade turnover. In 1987 the ministry lost control of 20 per- cent of Soviet foreign trade turnover. The government granted

direct foreign trade rights to twenty-one ministries and state committees, sixty-seven industrial enterprises, and eight interbranch

scientific production complexes. Exporting enterprises gained the

right to retain part of their hard-currency earnings. Each ministry

or enterprise was to pay for its investment imports with its own

hard currency, and the heads of ministries and enterprises became

personally responsible for the efficient use of hard-currency funds.

These measures gave enterprises more influence in import decision making.

OnJanuary 13, 1987, the Council of Ministers adopted the reso- lution "On Questions Concerning the Creation, on U.S.S.R. Territory, and the Activities of Joint Enterprises, International

Associations, and Organizations with the Participation of Soviet

and Foreign Organizations, Firms, and Management Bodies," or, more simply, a law on joint ventures. This legislation opened up

enterprises inside the Soviet Union for the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution (see Glossary), to foreign participation. Joint ventures were to facilitate the acquisition and assimilation of Western

technology, managerial know-how, and marketing abilities. Optimistic about the economic effects of their new undertaking, Soviet

officials declared that 85 to 90 percent of "the most important types

of machinery" would meet world technical standards by 1990. The

Soviet Union's vast natural resources and its lucrative, previously

closed, domestic market attracted Western companies. By August

1988, more than 50 joint ventures were registered in the Soviet

Union, and approximately 300 were under negotiation.

Nevertheless, numerous obstacles arose in the first eighteen

months after the government adopted the joint venture law. Complaints by Western partners dealt with uncertainties concerning

Soviet trade regulations, problems with the supply of goods, the

dilemma of the nonconvertibility of the ruble, difficulties finding

qualified Soviet managers, problems in projecting production costs (as of 1989 Soviet domestic prices were administratively set and

not based on market forces), and even complications finding office space in Moscow. Soviet trade officials' efforts to accommodate

these complaints have included the decentralization of the foreign

trade bureaucracy, the establishment of a management institute

in Moscow, price reforms, and various legal reforms.

599
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Before Western businessmen could recover from the confusion

and disruption caused by this series of reforms, a second series began

in early 1988. Effective January 1, 1988, the Foreign Trade Bank

(Vneshnii torgovii bank—Vneshtorgbank) was renamed the Foreign Economic Activity Bank (Vneshnii ekonomicheskii bank

Vneshekonombank). The name change did not signify a major

change in the bank's duties but simply more accurately reflected

the nature of its operations. Vneshtorgbank had branched out from

the simple management of foreign trade transactions to provide

currency, credit, and accounting services as well. In a change from

its previous duties, Vneshekonombank was required to administer

new procedures dealing with Soviet firms that had recently acquired

direct foreign trade rights.

Also on January 1, 1988, the New Enterprise Law went into

effect, making enterprises economically accountable for their own

business operations by 1989. According to this law, the government had the power to disband unprofitable businesses, and each

ministry and its subordinate enterprises gained the responsibility for their own foreign trade activities. In addition, Gosplan,

Gossnab, and GKNT relinquished some of their rights to allocate

money and goods. Finally, the Ministry of Foreign Trade lost control of 1 5 percent more of its foreign trade turnover when fourteen

additional enterprises and four other ministries acquired direct for- eign trade rights.

Yet probably the most significant change in the foreign trade

mechanism occurred on January 17, 1988, when Izvestiia announced

the abolition of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the GKES. The

Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, headed by Konstantin

F. Katushev, former head of the GKES, assumed the duties of the

two agencies. ' 'Thus, the state monopoly on foreign trade and its state-wide aspects remains centralized," reported the Soviet for- eign trade monthly Vneshniaia torgovlia (Foreign Trade), "while operational functions are continually being shifted to the business level." In March 1988, the journal reported that approximately 20 per- cent of foreign trade turnover was handled by the eighty-one firms

that had been granted the right to deal directly with foreigners.

Other reforms followed in April 1988, when the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers agreed on a new charter for the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In general, the chamber monitored foreign trade conducted outside the new Ministry

of Foreign Economic Relations. In addition, the chamber assisted

Soviet production enterprises in locating Western partners and

learning foreign trade practices.

600
Foreign Trade

Trade with Socialist Countries

In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union traded with fourteen socialist countries. The political and economic relationships between the

Soviet Union and these countries determine the four groups into

which these countries can be divided: members of Comecon; Yugoslavia; China; and the developing communist countries of Cambodia, Laos, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North

Korea).

Business with socialist countries was conducted on a bilateral,

country-by-country basis in which imports balanced exports. Soviet

oil exports to these countries bought machinery and equipment and

industrial consumer goods, as well as political support without the

expenditure of freely convertible foreign currency. In addition,

Soviet aid programs, which took the form of direct loans or trade

subsidies, almost exclusively involved socialist countries.

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

The Soviet Union formed the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) in 1949, in part to discourage the countries

of Eastern Europe from participating in the Marshall Plan (see Glossary) and to countereact trade boycotts imposed after World War

II by the United States and by Britain and other West European

countries. Ostensibly, Comecon was organized to coordinate eco- nomic and technical cooperation between the Soviet Union and

the member countries. In reality, the Soviet Union's domination

over Comecon activities reflected its economic, political, and mili- tary power. In 1989 Comecon comprised ten countries: the six original members—Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland,

Romania, and the Soviet Union—plus the German Democratic

Republic (East Germany, which joined in 1950), Mongolia (1962),

Cuba (1972), and Vietnam (1978). Albania, although it joined in

February 1949, stopped participating in Comecon activities in 1961

and formally withdrew in 1987.

Since 1949 the Soviet Union has traded primarily with other

Comecon members (see fig. 25). In 1960 the Soviet Union sent 56 percent of its exports to and received 58 percent of its imports

from Comecon members. From that time, the volume of this trade

has steadily increased, but the proportion of Soviet trade with

Comecon members decreased as the Soviet Union sought to in- crease trade with Western industrialized countries. In contrast to 1960, trade with Comecon members accounted for only 42 per- cent of Soviet exports and 43 percent of Soviet imports in 1980.

The European members of Comecon have looked to the Soviet

Union for oil; in turn, they have provided machinery, equipment,

601
Soviet Union: A Country Study

PERCENT

70-i

1960 1970 1980 1987

YEAR

Comecon Countries

^

Other Socialist Countries

[Q Developed Western Countries

Third World Countries

Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1987 g., Moscow, 1988.

Figure 25. Composition of Foreign Trade, Selected Years, 1960-87

agricultural goods, industrial goods, and consumer goods to the

Soviet Union. Because of the peculiarities of the Comecon pricing

system, throughout the 1970s and early 1980s Comecon prices for Soviet oil were lower than world oil prices. Western specialists have

debated the political motivation of this implicit price subsidy to Comecon members. The cohesiveness within Comecon members

602
Foreign Trade

seemed remarkable when in 1985 the fall in the world price left Comecon members paying above-market prices for Soviet oil. The membership of Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam in Comecon

has served Soviet foreign policy interests more than the economic

welfare of Comecon members. In general, the more economically

developed European members have supported the three less developed members by providing a large market for their exports, often

at above-market prices. Most of Cuba's sugar and nickel and all of Mongolia's copper and molybdenum have been imported by

the Soviet Union. In addition, the Soviet Union has established

naval and air bases in Cuba and Vietnam.

Since 1985 Gorbachev has called for an increase in trade with

Comecon members. At the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in

February-March 1986, both he and Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov stressed the need to improve cooperation with the socialist countries on the basis of Comecon's Comprehensive Programfor Scientific and Technical Cooperation to the Year 2000. This program stressed the

self- sufficiency of Comecon countries in five key areas: electronics,

automation of production, nuclear power, biotechnology, and development of new raw materials. It also called for improvement

of plan coordination, joint planning, Comecon investment stra- tegy, production specialization, and quality of machinery and equipment exported to the Soviet Union (see Appendix B).

Yugoslavia

In 1964 Yugoslavia negotiated a formal agreement of cooperation with Comecon. This relationship allowed Yugoslavia to maintain its nonaligned position while acquiring almost all the rights

and privileges of a full Comecon member. In the 1980s, the Soviet

Union's trade relationship with Yugoslavia resembled its relationship with full members of Comecon. The Soviet Union exported

fuel, ferrous metals, plastics, and fertilizer to Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia's machine-tool, power-engineering, shipbuilding, and con- sumer goods industries supplied the Soviet Union with soft-currency

goods (see Glossary).

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Yugoslavia became more dependent on Soviet oil as hostilities in the Persian Gulf cut off its supply of Iraqi oil. In addition, from 1970 well into the 1980s ac- tual trade with the Soviet Union exceeded planned trade volumes.

Thus, in 1983 the Yugoslav government informed Soviet Prime

Minister Nikolai A. Tikhonov of its desire to decrease trade with

the Soviet Union in the mid- to late 1980s. Because of the huge

foreign currency debt accumulated by Yugoslavia from 1981 to 1985, however, the Soviet Union remained its most important trade

603
Soviet Union: A Country Study

partner in the late 1980s. In fact, for some Yugoslav products, such

as shoes, the Soviet Union was the sole foreign buyer.

China

In the 1950s, the Soviet Union claimed half of China's foreign

trade. The political rift that developed between the two countries

in the late 1950s culminated in 1960 with the withdrawal of more

than 1,000 Soviet specialists from China and an official break in

trade relations in 1964. Although it had been only an observer,

China stopped attending Comecon sessions in 1961. Economic

relations between the Soviet Union and China resumed in 1982.

Primarily as a result of Soviet political concessions and pressures on the Chinese to expand trade, trade volume between the two

countries increased tenfold between 1982 and 1987.

In the 1980s, the Soviet Union proved to be an ideal trade part- ner for China. China's exports were not competitive on the world

market, and its foreign currency reserves were severely depleted

by record foreign trade deficits in 1984 and 1985. Likewise, the

Soviet Union, producing dated technology that was difficult to market in more industrially advanced countries and acquiring a growing

hard-currency debt, eagerly pursued the Chinese market. Each

country would sell the other goods it could not market elsewhere,

and each could conserve scarce hard currency by bartering. The

Soviet Union possessed machinery, equipment, and technical knowhow to help China develop its fuel and mineral resources and power,

transportation, and metallurgical industries. China could offer a wealth of raw materials, textiles, and agricultural and industrial consumer goods.

Stepped-up economic relations reflected Soviet flexibility in over- coming various political and administrative stumbling blocks. By

mid- 1988 Gorbachev was speaking of reducing Soviet troops on

the Chinese border, Vietnam had removed half of its troops from

Cambodia, and Soviet troops had begun their withdrawal from

Afghanistan (see Sino-Soviet Relations, ch. 10). Reforms of the

Soviet foreign trade complex established free trade zones (see Glossary) in the Soviet Far East and Soviet Central Asia, simplifying

border trade between the two countries. Soviet trade officials per- suaded the Chinese to expand business ties beyond border trade

into joint ventures, coproduction contracts, and the export of sur- plus Chinese labor to the Soviet Union. The Peking Restaurant

in Moscow, specializing in Chinese cuisine, became the first joint

venture between the Soviet Union and China. In April 1988,

China's minister of foreign economic relations and trade, Zheng

Toubin, stated that China would continue to expand trade with

604
Foreign Trade

the Soviet Union "at a rapid pace," thus rewarding Soviet persis- tence in expanding trade with China.

Cambodia, Laos, and North Korea

Soviet economic relations with non-Comecon communist states have taken the form of aid and trade. In 1987 approximately 85

percent of Soviet aid went to the communist Third World. By far the largest share of these funds was absorbed by Cuba, Mongolia,

and Vietnam. The rest was left to Cambodia, Laos, and North

Korea. Pledges of Soviet aid increased steadily from 1985 through

1988 and were divided evenly between direct aid and trade subsidies. Commodity exchange was characterized by the Soviet Union's

providing machinery, fuel, and transportation equipment in return

for Laotian ores and concentrated metals, North Korean rolled fer- rous metals and labor, and Cambodian rubber.

Trade with Western Industrialized Countries

The Western industrialized countries include the countries of

Western Europe, as well as Australia, Canada, Japan, New

Zealand, South Africa, and the United States (see table 47, Appendix A). Soviet trade with industrialized countries, except Finland, consisted of simple purchases paid for on a cash or credit basis,

direct exchange of one good for another (Pepsi-Cola for Stolichnaya vodka, for example), or industrial cooperation agreements

in which foreign firms participated in the construction or operation of plants in the Soviet Union. In the latter instances, payments

were rendered in the form of the output of new plants. By contrast, trade with Finland, which does not have a convertible cur- rency, was conducted through bilateral clearing agreements, much

like Soviet trade with its Comecon partners. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet Union relied heavily on various

kinds of fuel exports to earn hard currency, and Western partners

regarded the Soviet Union as an extremely reliable supplier of oil and natural gas. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union gave domestic priority to gas, coal, and nuclear power in order to free more oil reserves for export. This was necessary because of higher production costs and losses of convertible currency resulting from the drop

in world oil prices. The development of natural gas for domestic

and export use was also stimulated by these factors. Between 1970

and 1986, natural gas exports rose from 1 percent to 15 percent

of total Soviet exports to the West.

Because of the inferior quality of Soviet goods, the Soviet Union

was unsuccessful in increasing its exports of manufactured goods.

In 1987 only 18 percent of Soviet manufactured goods met world

605
Soviet Union: A Country Study

technical standards. As an illustration of these problems in quality, Canadian customers who had purchased Soviet Belarus trac- tors often found that the tractors had to be overhauled on arrival

before they could be sold on the Canadian market. In 1986 less than 5 percent of Soviet exports to the West consisted of machinery.

Other Soviet nonfuel exports in the 1990s included timber, exported

primarily to Japan, and chemicals, the export of which grew substantially in 1984 and 1985.

In the 1980s, Soviet imports from Western industrialized countries generally exceeded exports, although trade with the West

decreased overall. One-half of Soviet agricultural imports were from

developed countries, and these imports made up a considerable

portion of total imports from the West. Industrial equipment formed

one-quarter of Soviet imports from the West, and iron and steel products, particularly steel tubes for pipeline construction, made

up most of the rest. Over the course of the 1980s, high-technology

items gained in importance as well. In the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet trade with the Western industrialized countries was more dynamic than was Soviet trade with other

countries, as trade patterns fluctuated with political and economic

changes. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union exchanged its energy and raw materials for Western capital goods, and growth in trade was

substantial. Soviet exports jumped 55 percent, and imports jumped

207 percent. The Soviet Union ran a trade deficit with the West

throughout this period.

In 1980 the Soviet Union exported slightly more to the West

than it imported. After a temporary shortage of hard currency in

1981, the Soviet Union sought to improve its trade position with

the industrialized countries by keeping imports at a steady level and by increasing exports. As a result, the Soviet Union began

to run trade surpluses with most of its Western partners. Much

of the income earned from fuel exports to Western Europe was used

to pay off debts with the United States, Canada, and Australia,

from which the Soviet Union had imported large quantities of grain.

In 1985 and 1986, trade with the West was suppressed because

of heightened East-West political tensions, successful Soviet grain

harvests, high Soviet oil production costs, a devalued United States

dollar, and falling oil prices. Despite increases in oil and natural

gas exports, the Soviet Union's primary hard-currency earners,

the country was receiving less revenue from its exports to the West.

The Soviet Union sold most of its oil and natural gas exports for United States dollars but bought most of its hard-currency imports

from Western Europe. The lower value of the United States dollar meant that the purchasing power of a barrel of Soviet crude

606
oil, for example, was much lower than is the 1970s and early 1980s.

In 1987 the purchasing power of a barrel of Soviet crude oil in ex- change for West German goods had fallen to one-third of its purchasing power in 1984.

With the exception of grain, phosphates used in fertilizer production, and high-technology equipment, Soviet dependence on Western imports historically has been minimal. A growing hardcurrency debt of US$31 billion in 1986 led to reductions in imports from countries with hard currencies. In 1988 Gorbachev

cautioned against dependence on Western technology because it required hard currency that "we don't have." He also warned that

increased borrowing to pay for imports from the West would lead

to dependence on international lending institutions.

The United States

Trade between the United States and the Soviet Union aver- aged about 1 percent of total trade for both countries through

the 1970s and 1980s. Soviet-American trade peaked in 1979 at US$4.5 billion, exactly 1 percent of total United States trade.

The Soviet Union continuously ran a trade deficit with the United

States in the 1970s and early 1980s, but from 1985 through 1987

the Soviet Union cut imports from the United States while maintaining its level of exports to balance trade between the two countries.

607
Soviet Union: A Country Study

In 1987 total trade between the United States and the Soviet

Union amounted to US$2 billion. The Soviet Union exported chemicals, metals (including gold), and petroleum products in addition

to fur skins, alcoholic beverages, and fish products to the United

States and received agricultural goods—mostly grain—and industrial equipment in return. The value of exports to the Soviet Union

in 1987 amounted to US$1.5 billion, three-quarters of which consisted of agricultural products and one-quarter industrial equipment.

Competition from other parts of the world, improvements in

Soviet grain production, and political disagreements between the

two countries adversely affected American agricultural exports to the Soviet Union in the 1980s. In 1985 and 1986, trade was the

lowest since 1973. The Soviet Union had turned to Canada and

Western Europe for one-third of its grain supplies, as well as to Argentina, Eastern Europe, Australia, and China. United States government price subsidies helped to expand grain exports in 1987

and 1988.

The United States has long linked trade with the Soviet Union

to its foreign policy toward the Soviet Union and, especially since

the early 1980s, to Soviet human rights policies (see table 48, Appendix A). In 1949, for example, the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom—see Glossary) was established by Western governments to monitor the export of sensitive

high technology that would improve military effectiveness of members of the Warsaw Pact (see Appendix C) and certain other countries. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which was attached to the

1974 Trade Reform Act, linked the granting of most-favored-nation

status (see Glossary) to the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate.

In 1987 the United States had reason to reassess its trade policy

toward the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had restructured and

decentralized authority for trade under the Ministry of Foreign

Trade, made improvements in human rights policies, cooperated

in arms control negotiations, and shown a willingness to experiment with joint ventures. Furthermore, the United States government recognized that restrictive trade policies were hurting its own

economic interests. In April 1988, Soviet and American trade dele- gations met in Moscow to discuss possibilities for expanded trade.

Through increased trade with the United States, the Soviet Union

hoped to learn Western management, marketing, and manufacturing skills. Such skills would increase the ability of the Soviet

Union to export manufactured goods, and thus earn hard currency,

and would improve its competitiveness on the world market. The

delegations declared that Soviet-American cooperation would be

608
American fast food served near Gor'kiy Park, Moscow

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

expanded in the areas of food processing, energy, construction

equipment, medical products, and the service sector. Western Europe

In the mid-1980s, West European exports to the Soviet Union

were marginal, less than 0.5 percent of the combined gross national

product (GNP—see Glossary) of countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD—see Glossary).

OECD countries provided the Soviet Union with high-technology

and industrial equipment, chemicals, metals, and agricultural

products. In return, Western Europe received oil and natural gas

from the Soviet Union.

Although oil and gas were the primary Soviet exports to Western

Europe, they represented only a small percentage of Western Europe's substantial fuel imports: Soviet oil provided 3 percent and

natural gas 2 percent of the energy consumed in Western Europe.

The completion of the Urengoy-Uzhgorod export pipeline project

increased the importance of Soviet natural gas to Western Europe

in the second half of the 1980s. In 1984 France, Austria, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), and Italy began receiving natural gas from western Siberia through the pipeline, for which

the Soviet Union was paid in hard currency, pumping equipment,

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

and large-diameter pipe. By 1990 the Soviet Union expected to supply 3 percent of all natural gas imported by Western Europe,

including 30 percent of West Germany's gas imports.

Unlike the United States, the countries of Western Europe have

not viewed trade as a tool to influence Soviet domestic and foreign

policies. Western Europe rejected the trade restrictions imposed

by the United States after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in

1979 and the declaration of martial law in Poland in 1980. From

1980 to 1982, the United States embargoed the supply of equipment for the Urengoy-Uzhgorod natural gas pipeline, but Western

Europe ignored United States pleas to do the same.

Despite the poor relations between the superpowers in the early

and mid-1980s, Western Europe tried to improve international re- lations with the Soviet Union. One major step in this direction was

the normalization of relations between Comecon and the European

Economic Community (EEC). After fifteen years of negotiations,

the EEC approved an accord that established formal relations with

Comecon effective June 25, 1988. Although it did not establish

bilateral trade relations, the agreement 4 'set the stage" for the ex- change of information. This accord marked Comecon's official recognition of the EEC.

Japan

In 1985 trade with the Soviet Union accounted for 1.6 percent

ofJapanese exports and 1 percent ofJapanese imports; Japan was

the Soviet Union's fourth most important Western trading part- ner (see table 49, Appendix A). Japan's principal exports to the

Soviet Union included steel (approximately 40 percent ofJapan's

exports to the Soviet Union), chemicals, and textiles. The Soviet

Union exported timber, nonferrous metals, rare-earth metals, and

fuel to Japan. In 1986, despite a reduction in trade between the

two countries, the Soviet Union had a trade deficit with Japan.

In 1987 trade dropped another 20 percent.

Numerous controversies have thwarted Soviet-Japanese trade.

The Toshiba affair, in which Japan was accused of shipping equipment to the Soviet Union that was prohibited by CoCom, caused

Japanese-Soviet trade to decrease in 1987. In addition, the Japanese

constantly prodded the Soviet Union to return the islands off the

Japanese island of Hokkaido that had come under Soviet control

after World War II (see Soviet-Japanese Relations, ch. 10). For

its part, the Soviet Union complained of the trade imbalance and

static structure of Japanese-Soviet trade.

In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union tried to increase its exports

to Japan and diversify the nature of the countries' relationship.

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Foreign Trade

Soviet proposals have included establishing joint enterprises to exploit natural resources in Siberia and the Soviet Far East, specifically, coal in the southern Yakutiya of Siberia and petroleum on

Sakhalin; cooperating in the monetary and credit fields; jointly sur- veying and studying marine resources and peaceful uses of space;

and establishing joint activities in other countries. The Soviet Union

also proposed branching out into joint ventures in the chemical

and wood chip industries, electronics, machine tools, and fish processing. The first Japanese-Soviet joint enterprise, a woodprocessing plant in the Soviet Far East, began operation in March

1988. The Soviet Union provided the raw materials, and Japan

supplied the technology, equipment, and managerial expertise.

Finland

In contrast to the variable trade relationships the Soviet Union

has had with other West European countries, its relationship with

Finland has been somewhat stable because of five-year agreements

that regulated trade between the countries. The first was established in 1947, and 1986 marked the beginning of the eighth. Accounting procedures and methods of payment were agreed upon

every five years as well by the Bank of Finland and Vneshtorgbank. A steady growth in trade between the two countries occurred

throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

In the late 1980s, Finland was the Soviet Union's second most

important trading partner among the Western nations, after West

Germany. Trade with Finland, however, was based on bilateral

clearing agreements (see Glossary) rather than on exchange of hard

currency used with other Western trading partners. In 1986 the

Soviet Union shipped 4 percent of its exports to and received 3 percent of its imports from Finland. Finland provided the Soviet

Union with ships, particularly those suited to Arctic conditions;

heavy machinery; and consumer goods such as clothing, textiles,

processed foodstuffs, and consumer durables. The Soviet Union

exported oil, natural gas, and fuel and technology for the nuclear

power industry.

The system of bilateral clearing agreements on which SovietFinnish trade was based required that any increase in Finnish imports from the Soviet Union be accompanied by a corresponding

increase in exports to the Soviet Union in order to maintain the

bilateral trade balance. At the beginning of the 1980s, Finland in- creased its imports of Soviet oil, which allowed it to increase its exports to the Soviet Union. This procedure accounted for the

steady growth in Soviet-Finnish trade into the late 1980s. By 1988

about 90 percent of Soviet exports to Finland consisted of oil.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Because the Finns imported more oil than they could consume

domestically, they reexported it to other Scandinavian and West

European countries. The Finns complained in late 1987 and early

1988 of a decline in Soviet ship orders and delinquent payments.

The share of Finland's exports to the Soviet Union, which had previously been as high as 25 percent, dropped to 15 percent in 1988.

Trade with Third World Countries

The Third World embraces those countries the Soviet Union

terms "developing countries." This category includes those countries of socialist orientation that have some sort of privileged eco- nomic affiliation with the Soviet Union, such as Afghanistan,

Angola, Iraq, and Nicaragua, but excludes the developing countries ruled by Marxist-Leninist (see Glossary) parties, such as Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Soviet trade with the Third World has

been marked by two characteristics. First, although the Soviet

Union has generally played only a minor role in Third World trade,

Soviet imports or exports have formed a large portion of the total trade of some countries. Second, the Soviet Union has concentrated

its trade with the Third World in the hands of relatively few partners. For example, in 1987 India, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Argentina,

Egypt, Turkey, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Malaysia together ac- counted for 75 percent of Soviet imports from and 80 percent of

Soviet exports to the Third World.

Although Soviet trade with the Third World increased in volume

from 1965 through 1985, it remained between 13 and 15 percent

of total Soviet trade for exports and 10 and 12 percent for imports.

The Third World's trade with the Soviet Union, however, decreased

in the 1970s and into the 1980s. These data include Cuba, since

the only figures available concerning Third World trade with the

Soviet Union include Cuba. As a percentage of overall Third World

trade, the Soviet Union's share fell from 3.9 percent in 1970 to 2.5 percent in 1981 . Deducting Soviet trade with Cuba, which has

been considerable, would show an even smaller role played by the

Soviet Union in Third World trade. In the late 1980s, the Soviet

Union sought arrangements that would allow it to maintain a level of trade that minimized the loss of hard currency.

Balance of Trade

During the 1980s, the Soviet Union exported more to Third

World countries than it imported from them. Official Soviet statis- tics showed a trade deficit for this period, but arms and military

equipment sales, which were not reported and are thus termed

"unidentifiable" exports, accounted for approximately 50 percent

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Icebreaker Otto Schmidt, used to clear the way for cargo ships

Courtesy United States Navy

of total exports to the Third World throughout the 1980s. Thus,

the Soviet Union's hard-currency balance of trade (see Glossary),

including arms sales, with the Third World was positive from 1980

through 1986. In fact, the Soviet Union's positive hard-currency

trade balance with the Third World exceeded its hard-currency

deficit with the Western industrialized countries in 1985 and 1986.

For this reason, the Soviet Union showed an overall positive hardcurrency trade balance for these years. Until the mid-1970s, bilateral clearing agreements were the

primary means by which the Soviet Union settled accounts with

its Third World partners. By the early 1980s, hard-currency payments had become the preferred means of settlement. Clearing

agreements were used in less than half of all trade transactions.

On occasion, the Soviet Union bartered arms for oil. Composition of Trade

Not including arms sales, machinery accounted for 20 percent

of total sales to the Third World in 1985. Soviet exports of

machinery took up an even higher relative share of total sales to Algeria, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, the People's Democratic Republic

of Yemen (South Yemen), and Turkey. From 1980 through 1984,

fuel, mostly oil, made up approximately 33 percent of overall Soviet

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

exports to the Third World, including 50 percent of its exports to Asia and 60 to 70 percent of its exports to Latin America. Since

1985 greater competition on the world market resulting from fall- ing world oil prices and rising Soviet extraction costs has prompted

the Soviet Union to try to replace its export of oil with manufactured goods.

The Soviet Union has been the largest arms exporter to the Third

World for a number of years. Major arms customers were concentrated in the belt of countries that stretches from North Africa

to India, close to the Soviet Union's southern border. Some 72

percent of Soviet weapons exports went to Algeria, India, Iraq,

Libya, and Syria. Other important customers included Afghanistan,

Angola, Ethiopia, South Yemen, and the Yemen Arab Republic

(North Yemen). The Soviet Union lost arms customers in the 1980s,

however, when Brazil and Egypt began to expand their arms sales to the Third World. India, which had experienced improvements

in its hard-currency balance in the 1980s, also started to buy arms

from other suppliers. In an effort to retain its share of Indian arms

customers, the Soviet Union continued to offer India its most

sophisticated weapons at even more attractive rates. The Soviet Union has long been an importer of Third World

agricultural products. These imports increased dramatically after 1980 because of poor Soviet harvests from 1979 into the early 1980s

and the United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union in

1980 and 1981. From 1980 to 1985, food and agricultural goods,

half of them grain, made up 50 percent of Soviet imports from the

Third World. In the first nine months of 1986, the decrease in grain

purchases accounted for most of the 22 percent drop in imports

from the Third World.

Africa and Latin America supplied most of the food imports other

than grain. Throughout the 1980s, food imports steadily rose, but

imports from individual countries fluctuated. Because of these fluc- tuations, the Soviet Union was often considered an unstable trade

partner compared with Western customers.

Because the Soviet Union was a major producer and exporter

of most of the world's minerals, its import requirements for many

other commodities (nonferrous metals, in particular) were sporadic.

Nonetheless, the Soviet Union was a stable importer of some minerals, particularly bauxite and phosphate rock. The Soviet Union

imported up to 50 percent of its bauxite from Guinea, Guyana,

India, Indonesia, and Jamaica. Phosphate rock was abundant in

the Soviet Union, but because extraction costs were high most of

this mineral was imported from Morocco and Syria.

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Foreign Trade

A decline in Soviet imports of manufactured goods in the 1970s

led Third World countries to pressure the Soviet Union to increase

the import of these goods in the 1980s. In 1982 the Soviet demand

for Third World manufactures began to rise. By 1984 manufactured goods, including manufactured consumer goods, made up

25 percent of Soviet imports from the Third World.

Beginning in 1973, in an effort to earn hard currency, the Soviet

Union began to import oil from Third World countries for reex- port to Western industrialized countries. This activity slowed from

1980 to 1982, recovered in 1983 through 1985, and continued to increase in 1986. Late that year, the Soviet Union signed an agree- ment with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

(OPEC) that restricted the amount of oil it could buy for reexport.

By 1988 this agreement had not cut total Soviet oil receipts,

however, because oil was paid to the Soviet Union as compensation for arms sales. Africa, Asia, and Latin America

During the 1980s, the geographical pattern of Soviet-Third World

trade changed markedly (see table 50, Appendix A). A decrease

in trade with North Africa and the Middle East balanced a substantial increase in trade with sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and

Latin America.

In 1987 about 50 percent of the Soviet Union's total identified

exports to the Third World went to Asia, and India was the Soviet

Union's biggest trade partner. In exchange for Soviet oil and oil products, India supplied food, raw agricultural material, clothing,

textiles, and machinery. India was also the Soviet Union's sole significant Third World supplier of equipment and advanced technology, e.g., computers and copiers, much of which was produced

by Indian subsidiaries of Western multinational corporations.

Malaysia, another important partner of the Soviet Union in Asia, was an important supplier of rubber, palm oil, and tin. From 1980 to 1983, Soviet exports to Africa increased slightly to 30 percent of its Third World exports and decreased thereafter.

Imports from Africa fluctuated from 1980 to 1985 but remained

at about 25 percent. Nigeria was the Soviet Union's only important trade partner in sub-Saharan Africa, receiving Soviet machinery and exporting cocoa. Exports to Latin America grew during the 1980s and reached

8 percent in 1985. Latin America's share of Soviet Third World

imports was high (40 percent in 1982) because of large imports of

Argentine grain. As the Soviet Union's main grain supplier,

Argentina was the Soviet Union's most significant import partner

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

in the Third World in 1980, 1981, and 1983. In 1986 the Soviet

Union renewed its grain agreement with Argentina for another five years. However, because of a US$11 billion trade deficit with

Argentina that the Soviet Union had amassed from 1980 through

1985 and the successful Soviet harvest of 1986, the Soviet Union

cut its grain imports from Argentina drastically. In 1986 they were

at a six-year low.

Countries of Socialist Orientation

The countries of socialist orientation can be categorized into two

groups: those that had observer status in Comecon and those that were not observers but had privileged affiliations with Comecon

member countries (see table 51 , Appendix A). The Soviet Union's

trade with the Third World has always been heavily skewed toward

countries of socialist orientation. Soviet aid provided most of the

foreign capital for these countries and influenced their domestic

economic development significantly. The Soviet Union often profited more politically than economically from this trade: most Soviet

surpluses were not repaid but became clearing credit, long-term

cooperation credit, or short-term commercial credit. In 1986 the countries that had formal agreements with, or observer status in, Comecon were Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia,

Laos, and South Yemen. These countries were all characterized

by political instability, low GNP, and low export potential. The

share of exports to this group rose from 1 4 percent of total Soviet

identified exports to the Third World in 1980 to 28 percent in the

first nine months of 1986. Afghanistan, a recipient of Soviet

machinery and military equipment, was the Soviet Union's most

significant partner in this group. By contrast, trade with South

Yemen was negligible.

Countries that had privileged affiliations with Comecon were

Algeria, Benin, Burma, Congo, Guinea, Madagascar, Nigeria,

Syria, and Tanzania and, at times, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Seychelles,

and Zimbabwe. Throughout the 1980s, Soviet exports to these countries oscillated, for example, from 27 percent in 1981 to 15 percent

in 1983. This fluctuation, as well as fluctuations in imports, was

primarily a result of changes in trade with Iraq, a major Soviet armsfor-oil trading partner in the Third World.

Trade with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),

particularly Iraq and Algeria, absorbed the largest share of the Soviet

Union's "unidentified" exports (see table 52, Appendix A).

616
Loaded tanker Iman at sea Roll-on/roll-off ship, named for composer Nikolay Rimskiy-Korsakov

Courtesy United States Navy

617
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Although Soviet statistics usually showed a very low or negative

trade balance with these countries, the balance was probably high

because of arms sales. In the 1980s, some OPEC countries, particularly Iran and Iraq, together with Syria, which was not a member of OPEC, exchanged oil for Soviet arms and military

equipment. Oil from these countries was resold to the West for hard currency. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union attempted to increase its exports of nonmilitary goods to these countries. In May

1986, the Soviet Union and Iraq agreed to increase Soviet nonmilitary equipment sales, and in August 1986 an attempt was made

to revive Iraqi gas sales. Gorbachev's Economic Reforms

When Gorbachev delivered his report on the CPSU's economic

policy on June 12, 1985, he noted that growth in exports, particularly machinery and equipment, was slow because the poor quality of Soviet goods prohibited them from being competitive on the

world market. In the next three years, Gorbachev introduced many

changes that would enable the foreign trade complex to better support his economic policy of acceleration. By May 1988, the struc- ture of the Soviet foreign trade complex had been changed, and

operations had been dramatically overhauled (see Structural Reforms, 1986 to Mid-1988, this ch.).

The price reform called for by the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress was an important step in improving Soviet international eco- nomic involvement. Soviet officials admitted that pricing was

' 'economically unsubstantiated" and "unrealistic." They understood that although a fully convertible ruble would not be possible

for some time, prices that more accurately reflected production costs, supply and demand, and world market prices were essential for developing a convertible currency. The nonconvertible ruble and

the Soviet pricing system discouraged Western businessmen who

could not accurately project production costs nor easily convert their

ruble profits.

The new joint venture law, passed on January 13, 1987, opened

up the Soviet economy to foreign participation, particularly in

manufacturing. It was believed that the experience gained in such

ventures would facilitate integration into the world economy. Specifically, through upgraded production processes, the Soviet Union

could export more competitive manufactured goods and decrease

its dependency on energy and raw materials to earn hard currency.

In August 1987, the Soviet Union formally requested observer

status in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT

see Glossary). The Soviet Union also expressed its desire to join

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Foreign Trade

other international economic organizations and establish contacts with other regional groups. A major step in this direction occurred

in 1988 when the Soviet Union signed a normalization agreement

with the EEC. The Soviet government, however, professed no in- terest in joining the World Bank (see Glossary) or the International

Monetary Fund (IMF—see Glossary). Although Soviet officials claimed that the international monetary system "was not managed

properly," it is more likely that IMF and World Bank regulations were the obstacles: both institutions required that members' cur- rencies be freely convertible and that members provide accurate information concerning gold sales and economic performance.

Gorbachev transformed the role of foreign trade in the Soviet

economy. Whereas imports previously were regarded exclusively

as a vehicle to compensate for difficulties in the short term, Soviet

economists under Gorbachev declared that imports should be

regarded as alternatives to domestic investment and that exports

should serve to gauge the technical level of domestic production.

Foreign economic ties were to support growth in production beyond the capacities of the domestic economy. The Soviet Union

could thus take a place in the world market that was commensurate

with its scientific and technical progress and political weight.

* * * Numerous English-language sources cover aspects of Soviet for- eign trade. The foreign economic relations section of volume two

of the report submitted to the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee in November 1987 entitled Gorbachev's Economic

Plans is particularly informative on Soviet-American trade, the

Soviet Union's debt situation, and Soviet economic involvement

in the Third World. H. Stephen Gardner's Soviet Foreign Trade very

clearly lays out the institutional and political foundations for Soviet

foreign economic decision making through 1980. Two chapters, one by Wilfried Czerniejewicz and another by Kazuo Ogawa, in

Siberia and the Soviet Far East describe trade relations between the

Soviet Union and Western Europe and the Soviet Union and Japan.

Although it is dated, Soviet Foreign Trade by Glen Alden Smith is one of the best references covering all aspects of Soviet trade.

An accurate source of Soviet trade data is the Central Intelli- gence Agency's Handbook of Economic Statistics, published in September of each year. Jerry F. Hough's Opening Up the Soviet Economy

devotes one chapter to Gorbachev's foreign trade reforms and

another to the way American businessmen and government offi- cials should view these changes. (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

619

Chapter 16. Science and Technology
Montage of a nuclear reactor at the Ukrainian Academy of

Sciences, a cosmonaut in a space suit, a woman operating a

computer, and an industrial robot
SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL progress has played a

crucial role in the domestic and foreign relations of the Soviet Union

and other modern, industrialized nations. New domestic developments have promised to strengthen the Soviet economy, enhance

military capabilities, and significantiy influence Soviet relations with

other countries.

The Soviet Union has placed great emphasis on science and tech- nology. Soviet leaders since Vladimir I. Lenin have stressed that

the growth of science and technology is essential to overall economic

expansion of the country. They have overseen the development

of a massive network of research and development organizations

that in the 1980s employed more scientists, engineers, and researchers than any other nation. Their commitment also has been reflected in the annual increase in government funds allocated to science

and technology and in the efforts made to incorporate science and

mathematics courses in the school curriculum at all levels. In 1989

Soviet scientists were among the world's best-trained specialists in

several critical fields. The results of this commitment to science and technology have

been mixed. In some areas, the Soviet Union has achieved notable success. For example, in 1964 two Soviet scientists, Nikolai

Basov and Aleksandr Prokhorov, shared a Nobel Prize, together

with the American Charles H. Townes, for their research in developing the laser. Soviet scientists also have excelled in space

research. In 1957 they launched the first artificial earth satellite,

Sputnik (see Glossary), and in 1989 they still held several records

for longevity in space. Other strengths have included high-energy

physics, selected areas of medicine, mathematics, and welding tech- nologies. And in some military-related technologies the Soviet

Union has equaled or even surpassed Western levels. In other areas, the Soviet Union has been less successful. In

chemistry, biology, and computers the Soviet Union in 1989 re- mained far behind the technological levels achieved in the West

and in Japan. Research and development in industries producing consumer goods has received littie attention, and the goods produced

in those industries have long been considered to be of extremely

low quality by Western standards.

This disparity in the achievements of Soviet technological development has resulted from a combination of historical, economic,

planning, and organizational factors. All have combined to produce

623
Soviet Union: A Country Study

a system in which scientists and engineers have had little incentive

to innovate because of immense bureaucratic obstacles and because

of limited professional and personal rewards.

In the 1980s, the problems of science and technology received

considerable attention in the Soviet Union. Cognizant of their country's serious economic shortcomings, leaders stressed the importance of scientific and technological advances to end the Soviet

Union's dependence on extensive economic development (see Glossary) and to move toward intensive development. In the middle

of the decade, the new leadership began examining the problems

of Soviet science and technology and launched numerous programs

and reforms aimed at improving the country's research, development, and production processes. Early Development

Soviet leaders since Lenin have stated as one of their long-term

goals the development of a powerful scientific and technological

base. Yet at various times since the Bolshevik Revolution (see Glossary) of 1917, Soviet leaders have faced situations in which the immediate economic, military, and political demands on science and

technology outweighed the long-term goals. Thus, the pursuit of

short-term objectives affected scientific and technological development at some times by retarding its expansion and at other times

by laying the foundation for weaknesses that emerged later. Despite

this, Soviet science and technology have grown immensely in terms

of organizations, personnel, funding levels, and output.

When the Bolsheviks (see Glossary) seized power in 1917, they

inherited a poorly developed scientific and technological base. The

major science organization at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution was the Academy of Sciences, founded by Peter the Great in

1725 in hopes of developing an indigenous science base and of

eliminating his country's reliance on foreign science. Peter intended

the academy to conduct research, serve as an advisory board to the tsar, and organize the empire's higher and secondary education.

In its early years, the academy struggled to resolve such issues as defining its responsibilities and reducing the extensive governmental control over academy activities. Its second charter, issued

in 1803, relieved the academy of its educational responsibilities and

removed some governmental controls, particularly regarding membership selection. The government continued to interfere in the

work of scientists, however, particularly those who advocated

progressive ideas that challenged the old order as accepted by the

tsar and the Russian Orthodox Church. The academy's third

charter (1836) proclaimed it the country's chief scientific body. The

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Science and Technology

academy continued in this role, focusing primarily on basic research,

through the end of tsarist rule. Its achievements during this time were noteworthy. Dmitrii I. Mendeleev (1843-1907) compiled the

periodic table of the elements, Nobel Prize recipient Ivan P. Pavlov

(1849-1936) conducted research on conditioned reflexes, and

Konstantin E. Tsiolkovskii (1857-1935), a pioneer in modern rocketry, studied the theory of cosmic flight.

Another key issue that confronted the academy at the outset was

the extent of foreign involvement in Russian science. Peter the Great

eagerly opened Russia to the West and encouraged the participation of Western scientists in the development of Russian science.

Thus, the academy initially was staffed by scientists from western

Europe, principally of Germanic origin. The strong foreign in- fluence continued well into the nineteenth century. A Russian was

not elected to the academy until the 1740s, and Russians did not assume control of the academy until the late 1800s. Under the

Bolsheviks, science suffered some initial setbacks but then benefited from the government's decision to expand it. In the early years, many Bolsheviks feared scientists because of ideological differences.

A number of scientists were arrested or executed; others emigrated

to escape from the Bolsheviks. Those who stayed worked under

difficult conditions: few facilities, inadequate housing, shortages

of food, little access to the West, and strict political controls.

Not long after the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin moved to improve the situation facing scientists. In policy pronouncements, he

emphasized the need to develop a Soviet scientific and technological base as the way to modernize industry. He argued that technological progress was necessary to counter the perceived threat posed

by the West and to demonstrate the strength of socialism (see Glossary) to the world.

During the 1920s, Soviet science began to expand. Many new

research institutes were added to the academy, which in 1925 was

redesignated the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. Governmental support of science increased under the New Economic Policy

(NEP) introduced in 1921 (see The Era of the New Economic Policy, ch. 2). Overall, the living and working conditions of scientists improved as research potentials expanded and as opportunities for the international exchange of information resumed. Research in

such fields as biology, chemistry, and physics flourished during this period.

Science and technology underwent significant changes during

the years ofJoseph V. Stalin's reign. The changes occurred primarily in response to three factors: Stalin's industrialization drive, his

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

efforts to enforce strict ideological control over science, and the out- break of World War II. In 1928 Stalin initiated his drive to transform the Soviet Union

into an industrial power, technologically independent of the West.

Many new institutions were established to provide the applied

research foundation needed to develop industrial technologies. Even

institutes subordinate to the Academy of Sciences were directed

to stop theoretical research and to focus on "practical" problems

applicable to industry. In 1935 the academy adopted a charter that

created the Engineering Sciences Division to oversee the academy's

increased involvement in applied research.

At the same time that Stalin was encouraging the expansion of

science, he also was trying to establish firmer ideological control over science. Over time, his efforts led to a significant reduction

in scientific effort. In 1928 Stalin initiated a purge of scientists,

engineers, and technical personnel in an effort to remove the old

generation and replace them with younger scientists who supported

communist ideology. In 1934 the academy was moved from Leningrad to Moscow, where political control was easier to maintain.

Stalin's Great Terror (see Glossary) ravaged the ranks of scientists and engineers. Many research and development programs had

to be halted simply because the leading experts were either arrested or executed. Scientific ties with the West also were severed during

this time. The extent of Stalin's interference in science became evi- dent in the post-World War II era. Stalin insisted that ideology

be a part of all scientific research. In the natural sciences, he en- couraged research that was compatible with the tenets of dialecti- cal materialism (see Glossary). Such an environment opened the

door for the influence of such individuals as Trofim D. Lysenko,

a leading biologist and agronomist. Lysenko argued that the characteristics of a living organism could be altered by environment and

that those acquired characteristics could be inherited, a theory that

he tried to prove by numerous fraudulent experiments. His ideas

fit nicely with Marxist emphasis on environmental influences and

won him the support of Stalin. With that backing, Lysenko was

able to arrange the removal and arrest of scientists who opposed

his views. His influence continued well into the 1950s, when genetics

research in the Soviet Union came to a virtual standstill. Another factor affecting science and technology under Stalin was

the outbreak of World War II. Soviet science and technology

suffered badly during the initial period of the war. Many research

institutes and industrial facilities were destroyed or seized during

the German offensive. The facilities that remained were evacuated

to the eastern portions of the Soviet Union. There, all efforts were

626
Science and Technology

directed toward developing science and technology in support of

the war effort. Not surprisingly, military-related research and development thrived, while research and development in civilian sec- tors received little attention.

The war demonstrated to Stalin the backwardness of Soviet

science and technology. After the war, he ordered the continued

expansion of the research and development base, particularly in

defense and heavy industries. Allocations for science increased, new

research facilities opened, and salaries and perquisites for scientists were improved dramatically. All available personnel, including captured German scientists and imprisoned Soviet scientists, were employed. This effort led to some important technological

successes, such as the explosion of an atomic bomb in 1949 and

the design of new series of tanks, aircraft, artillery, and locomotives.

Stalin's death in 1953 led to a more relaxed environment for

science and technology growth. At the Twentieth Party Congress

in 1956, Nikita S. Khrushchev denounced Stalin for imprisoning

thousands of the country's leading scientists, many of whom

Khrushchev later rehabilitated (see Glossary). Under Khrushchev

the number of research workers almost tripled, and the number

of research institutes doubled. International scientific communications and cooperation resumed. Exchanges with the West were

encouraged as a means of acquiring technologies that Soviet scientists could assimilate and then duplicate.

Khrushchev also initiated major changes in the organization of

science and technology. In 1957 he abolished the industrial ministries in favor of regional economic councils (sovety narodnikh

khoziaistv —sovnarkhozy). Khrushchev thought that research, development, and production facilities subordinated to the sovnarkhozy could

cooperate on programs more easily than they could under the

ministerial system. The experiment failed, partly because of excessive duplication of effort. In 1965, under the leadership of Leonid I. Brezhnev, the industrial ministries were restored. The second major

organizational change occurred in 1961, when the Academy of

Sciences was reorganized. Concerned that the academy had focused

too much on industrial research projects, Soviet leaders transferred

the industry-oriented institutes to state committees. The leadership then directed the academy to focus on fundamental research.

Under Brezhnev the Soviet Union launched another drive to modernize science and technology. Several economic and organizational reforms were instituted, but none was radical enough to cause

significant improvement. Under his policy of detente, scientific contacts and exchanges with the West increased. Soviet leaders sought

long-term agreements with Western firms as a means of acquiring

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

advanced technologies. Eventually, internal disagreements over the

appropriate level of technological interaction with the West, cou- pled with restrictions placed by the West, led to a decline in contacts. Scientific and technological policies under Iurii V. Andropov

and Konstantin U. Chernenko brought little change. Of the two

leaders, Andropov seemed more interested in accelerating Soviet

scientific and technological growth, but neither leader lived long

enough to have much impact.

The Administration of Science and Technology

The administration of civilian science and technology encompassed policy making, planning, and financing for the administration of nonmilitary science and technology. Policy making was

primarily the responsibility of the Communist Party of the Soviet

Union (CPSU) but also involved various all-union (see Glossary)

governmental organs. At the all-union level, planning included the

Council of Ministers, the State Committee for Science and Technology (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po nauke i tekhnike—GKNT),

the Academy of Sciences, and the State Planning Committee

(Gosudarstvennyi planovyi komitet—Gosplan). Below the all-union

level, planning was handled by branch ministries and by republic or regional academies. Financing involved almost all these organizations, which worked in conjunction with the Ministry of Finance

(see Administrative Organs, ch. 8).

Policy Making

The formulation of scientific and technological policy in 1989 was centered in the highest CPSU components, the Politburo and

the Secretariat (see Politburo; Secretariat, ch. 7). As the party's

top decision-making body, the Politburo defined priorities and the

broad policies needed to meet them. Its decisions were reflected

in policy deliberations and in decrees issued by the Council of

Ministers. Day-to-day decisions on science and technology matters were the responsibility of the Secretariat, the party's chief ex- ecutive body.

Despite their responsibilities, individual members of the Polit- buro and the Secretariat did not have the scientific and technical

expertise needed to make policy decisions without assistance. They

relied on experts working in subordinate party organs and in the

governmental apparatus. The Science and Education Institutions

Department was the key technical unit within the CPSU Central

Committee. It functioned as a high-level advisory staff to the Polit- buro and as an overseer of policy implementation. The department

also was responsible for monitoring the work of the Academy of

628
Science and Technology

Sciences and of education institutions. Other Central Committee

departments contributed to policy making for their particular

branches.

Advice also was provided by personnel working in GKNT, the

Academy of Sciences, and the Council of Ministers. In addition,

party authorities relied on advice from special commissions

composed of leading scientists and technical experts. These commissions, created by the Council of Ministers, have advised on particularly important science and technology policy matters affecting

key sectors of the economy.

Planning

After formulating the nation's broad science and technology

policy, the CPSU issued directives to the governmental organs

responsible for planning specific programs. At the all-union level,

planning involved the Council of Ministers, GKNT, the Academy

of Sciences, Gosplan, and, to a much lesser extent, the Supreme

Soviet.

The Council of Ministers was responsible for implementing the

party's broad directives. It frequently issued decrees that reflected

science and technology decisions made by the Politburo. These

decrees served as the base on which science and technology plans

and programs were formed. The council also confirmed the five- year plans and the annual plans for science and technology,

developed measures to improve management of research and development, and resolved issues relating to authors' and inventors'

rights, cadre training, and labor wages. The council operated primarily through its Presidium, whose membership included heads

of many agencies concerned with science and technology.

Founded in 1965 and subordinate to the Council of Ministers,

GKNT functioned as the central organ responsible for overall coor- dination of scientific and technological programs. GKNT met once

or twice a year to decide major policy directions. Between meetings it relied on a collegium to meet weekly to examine issues. GKNT oversaw the work of a small number of research institutes. The administrative functions of GKNT included working with

the Academy of Sciences and other interested organizations to plan

and coordinate the development of science and technology. GKNT

contributed to the five-year planning process by drafting a list of

major problems and working with relevant state committees and

the Academy of Sciences to develop proposals. GKNT evaluated

the level of scientific and technological development in branches of

the economy and worked with science and technology policy-making

bodies to develop methods to improve research and innovation.

629
Soviet Union: A Country Study

GKNT also played an important role in coordinating and in

monitoring interbranch problems, i.e., those that involved more

than one industrial ministry. Proposals to conduct a project on an

interbranch problem were submitted by a ministry to GKNT for approval. GKNT then oversaw the implementation of the project.

GKNT also was responsible for improving the flow of information within the research and development infrastructure. Finally,

GKNT was responsible for establishing and maintaining communications with foreign countries on scientific and technological

cooperation and on the purchase of foreign technologies.

Another key organization was the Academy of Sciences, which

both administered and performed scientific research and development. Working with GKNT and Gosplan, the academy coordinated and produced research and development plans for its subordinate research facilities and for any facility involved in a program under its jurisdiction. The academy made proposals on funding, personnel, and materials for research and development. It also worked with GKNT to develop and submit to the Council of

Ministers proposals for introducing new technology and forecasting trends in the economy.

The Academy of Sciences was responsible for translating national

plans into specific programs carried out by subordinate facilities.

It oversaw science and technology planning for its divisions, regional

branches, and the republic academies of sciences.

As the nation's chief planning organ, Gosplan was responsible

for incorporating science and technology programs into the national

economic plan. It worked with GKNT and the Academy of Sciences

to plan the introduction of research and development results into

the economy, to determine the overall volume of needed capital

investment, and to decide funding levels for science and technology programs, material supplies, training, and wages. Within

Gosplan, the Unified Science and Technology Department was the

primary unit engaged in science and technology planning. It was

aided by advisory councils and commissions organized in key eco- nomic sectors. Below the top policy-making level, science and technology plans were implemented by the industrial ministries and the Academy

of Sciences. The Soviet economy has been organized and directed

by a complicated, centralized industrial system (see Industrial Organization, ch. 12). The leadership of each ministry was responsible for planning science and technology programs carried out within

its specific industrial branch. The leaders based their plans on the

national economic plans given to them by the higher authorities

(see Economic Planning and Control, ch. 11).

630
Officer on the bridge of a modern Soviet merchant ship explaining

the instruments, Murmansk, Russian Republic

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

631
Soviet Union: A Country Study

The science and technology planning process involved four levels of documents. The broadest plans spelled out the long-term (fifteen to twenty years), comprehensive program. These documents

presented the best judgment of experts about future economic

trends, probable developments in science and technology, and the resources needed to achieve those developments. The next level of documents consisted of the main directions of economic and social development, which included a section on the development of

science and technology. The developmental directions provided

preliminary targets for the first five years of the period covered

and a very general planning framework for the remaining years

(the directions can cover ten to fifteen years). The third-level document was the five-year plan and the annual plans derived from it. This has been the key document used by branch managerial or- gans to organize their work. The final document, the institute plan, was based on the five-year plan and described the research and

development projects to be undertaken by a particular institute. Financing

Decisions about the financing of Soviet science and technology

involved many of the same high-level party and government or- gans involved in the policy-making and planning processes. One

aspect of these processes has been the determination of resources

to be allocated to specific science and technology programs. That

determination has been made by the CPSU Politburo, the Council of Ministers, GKNT, and the Academy of Sciences. The Ministry of Finance has made specific science and technology allocations

in accordance with approved plans. The State Bank (Gosudarstvennyi bank—Gosbank) has issued credit for science and technology development projects.

Several other organizations were involved in the administration

of Soviet science and technology. The State Committee for Material

and Technical Supply (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po material' no- tekhnicheskomu snabzheniiu—Gossnab) was responsible for supplying science and technology organizations with needed equipment

and instruments. The State Committee for Labor and Social Problems (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po trudu i sotsial'nym voprosam

Goskomtrud) was concerned with labor and wage issues. The State Committee for Standards (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po stan- dartam—Gosstandart) assigned and directed the development of

nationwide technical and economic standards. It approved new stan- dards and oversaw the adherence of science and technology

organizations to the standards. The State Committee for In- ventions and Discoveries (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po delam

632
Oceanographic research ship Vizir, of the Yug class Courtesy United States Navy

izobretenii i otkrytii—Goskomizobretenie) maintained a state registry of inventions and discoveries, and it issued authors' certificates and patents. The All-Union Institute for Scientific and Technical

Information (Vsesoiuznyi institut nauchnoi i tekhnicheskoi informatsii—VINITI) functioned as an information center containing

abstracts of worldwide scientific and technical literature. Science and Ideology

The extent to which the CPSU and communist ideology in- fluenced Soviet science and technology has varied over time. During the Civil War (1918-21) and particularly during the Stalin era, party controls over science were extensive and oppressive. In the

1980s, party influence over science has been far less rigid but still evident.

According to one Western scholar, the CPSU controlled science

in four ways. First, the CPSU maintained control by formulating

the country's overall science and technology policy. Second, the

party ensured that its policies were implemented at all levels of

government through a network of all-union, regional, and local party organizations that oversaw the work of science and technology organs operating at comparable levels. Even in research insti- tutes or factories, local party committees exerted their authority

633
Soviet Union: A Country Study

by requiring directors and managers to adhere to party dictates

(see Primary Party Organization, ch. 7). Local party committees

reported to higher authorities on plan fulfillment, labor discipline,

and worker morale.

Third, the CPSU exercised full power over appointments to key

positions, controlling the appointment of high-level administrators,

mid-level managers, and probably institute directors and research

laboratory and department heads (see Nomenklatura, ch. 7). The

fourth method of control was ideological, including that exercised over both the professional and the private lives of scientists. The

CPSU controlled individuals' work through its authority to dis- miss personnel, to deny bonuses or fringe benefits, to restrict travel and publishing opportunities, and to impose other disciplinary

actions. Control over personal lives was maintained through

the Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi

bezopasnosti—KGB) and was evident during the 1970s and early

1980s, when the government harshly treated dissident scientists ac- cused of nonconformity with party policies. The treatment eased

under General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who, for example, permitted dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov to return to Moscow from internal exile in Gor'kiy.

Influence, though, has not been one sided. Science officials have

had opportunities to affect party decisions. Since the mid-1950s,

many top party officials have cultivated close ties to prominent scientists. This proximity has allowed scientists to influence decisions

directly through their associations with policy makers or through

appointments to policy advisory councils. Another opportunity has

been appointment to top-level party organs. The number of scientists with membership in the CPSU Central Committee rose from

seven in 1951 to nineteen in 1981. At the lower levels, facility

managers often have used their close ties with party representatives to acquire more funds or better supplies.

Research, Development, and Production

Organizations

In 1989 the Soviet scientific and technological establishment consisted of a variety of organizations engaged in the research, development, and production of new products or processes. In general,

each organization specialized in one phase of the process and in one sector of industry.

Many types of organizations were involved. Western specialists

placed them in three broad categories: research institutions, design organizations, and production facilities. In the first category,

the most numerous organizations were the scientific research

634
Science and Technology

institutes (nauchno-issledovatel 'skie instituty—Nils), which focused on

scientific research, both basic and applied. Each Nil was headed

by an appointed director, who oversaw a staff of researchers and

technical personnel. Another type of research institution, the

research laboratory (laboratoriia) , operated independently or as a component of a larger Nil or a production plant.

The second category, design organizations, included design

bureaus (konstruktorskie biuro—KBs) and technological institutes (tekh- nologicheskie instituty). Each of these encompassed a range of facili- ties with such tides as special design bureau (spetsial'noe konstruktorskoe biuro—SKB), central design bureau (tsentraVnoe konstruktorskoe biuro),

and project design and technology bureau (proektno-konstruktorskoe

i tekhnologicheskoe biuro). Design bureaus planned new products and

machines, although some also conducted research. Technological

institutes had responsibility for designing new processes, installa- tions, and machinery.

The third category included production facilities that manufactured the new product or applied the process developed by the

research and design facilities. The output and testing of industrial

prototypes, industrial innovation processes, or small-batch production prior to the stage of mass production occurred in experimental production or pilot plants (various Russian designations, e.g., opytnye zavody, opytnye stantsii) . These functioned independently or were attached to production facilities, research institutions, or design organizations.

In addition to their categorization according to the operational

phase in which they were most involved, research, development,

and production facilities were characterized according to their or- ganizational affiliation: industrial ministries, university and higher

education, or the Academy of Sciences system.

Industrial ministries controlled the majority of science and technology organizations, including all types of research institutions,

design organizations, and production facilities. The precise number of facilities in 1989 was not available because the Soviet press

stopped publishing such statistics about a decade earlier. Western

specialists, however, reported that in 1973 there were 944 independent design organizations, and in 1974 there were 2,137 industrial Nils. The number of production facilities undoubtedly

exceeded both those figures.

Industrial science and technology organizations tended to concentrate on one broad area, such as communications equipment,

machine tools, or automobiles. They were directly subordinate to the industrial ministry responsible for that sector (see Industrial

Research and Design, ch. 12). Science and technology work in

635
Soviet Union: A Country Study

ministries was directed by scientific-technical councils within the

ministries; the councils comprised the ministry's leading scientists and engineers.

The second organizational affiliation, the higher education sys- tem, has been administered by the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education. In addition to training scientists, the

ministry's system provided a research base whose contribution to national scientific research and development has been growing. Its system included such varying scientific organizations as Nils, design bureaus, problem laboratories (problemnye laboratorii), branch

laboratories (ptraslevye laboratorii) , scientific sectors (nauchnye sektory), and such specialized institutions as computer centers, observatories, and botanical gardens. The number of organizations in

the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education and

the percentage of the country's overall science budget allocated to them remained relatively small. In the late 1980s, their contribution was increasing with the expansion of contract research.

The third organizational affiliation, the Academy of Sciences,

in 1989 was divided into four sections: physical sciences, engineering, and mathematics; chemistry and biology; geosciences; and social sciences. Grouped into these subject areas were approximately

300 research institutes employing more than 58,000 people. The

network also included the separate academies of sciences in each

of the fifteen union republics of the Soviet Union (except the Russian Republic, which was represented by the all-union academy)

and regional divisions, the most prominent of which has been the

Siberian Division. The academy also had responsibility for specialized schools, such as the All-Union Academy of Agricultural

Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences.

As the most prestigious scientific establishment in the Soviet

Union, the Academy of Sciences has attracted the country's best

scientists. Membership has always been attained through election.

In January 1988, the academy had approximately 380 academicians and 770 corresponding members. Of these, about 80 academicians and 1 70 corresponding members were elected in December

1987. This election was noteworthy because it was the first held

since the review of academy personnel policies had begun a year

earlier. The review led to a number of measures directed at removing some of the older members from active participation, such as requiring them to retire at age seventy-five. The new rules also lowered the age at which a scientist could be elected to the academy and established an age limit beyond which officials who were

not academicians could hold top-level administrative positions, such

as institute director. Once voted into the academy, a member held

636
Science and Technology

that title for life (as an example, dissident Sakharov retained his

academician status even while in internal exile in Gor'kiy).

The members of the academy usually met once a year in general assembly to discuss major issues, to vote on organizational matters, and to elect new members. In October 1986, the general

assembly elected Gurii Marchuk, formerly chairman of GKNT,

as its president. Marchuk replaced Anatolii P. Aleksandrov, who

had served as president for eleven years. Soviet scientists and governmental officials have debated the precise role of the Academy of Sciences in the development of science

and technology since the inception of the Soviet state. Such dis- cussions continued during the 1980s. Statutes defined the academy's mission as conducting primarily basic or fundamental

research. Some scientists and administrators, even within the academy, have argued that this was appropriate and that the academy

should not engage in applied research. Many others, however, have

argued that the academy has to be involved in applied research

not only because it employs the best scientific talent in the nation

but also because fundamental science drives technological development and causes technological breakthroughs. In his speech to the

Nineteenth Party Conference in June 1988, academy president

Marchuk stressed that "fundamental scientific research is the basis

of all science and all scientific and technical progress. It defines

the prospects for ten to twenty years hence, it achieves the breakthroughs both in the production sphere and in the sphere of

knowledge of nature and society."

Soviet Innovation: Problems and Solutions

Central to an understanding of Soviet science and technology

is an understanding of the innovation process. Innovation, which

is the transfer of a scientific discovery (new product or process)

into production, has long been a problem for the Soviet Union.

Despite a strong scientific base, the country has had a mixed record

of innovation. Although in some—particularly defense-related

industries Soviet scientists and engineers have scored major technological successes, in many other—particularly consumer

industries they have failed to implement useful innovations. In the

late 1980s, the status of innovation was a key concern of the leadership, which sought new policies and institutional arrangements to

facilitate the process. In the 1980s, several key problems affected Soviet innovation.

One was that factory managers had little incentive to introduce

new products or processes. Innovation in a command economy

differs greatly from innovation in a market economy. In the latter,

637
Soviet Union: A Country Study

the drive to introduce technological change emanates from the

producers, who attempt to satisfy consumer demand before competitors do. In the Soviet economy, production of innovative

products and processes has been assigned by government planners.

Producers have been directed by top-level planning organs to in- corporate in their plants' output a newly innovated product or

process. Yet in the Soviet economy a plant's success has been measured by the gross output required by the annual plan. Factory

managers have strived to fulfill the plan in terms of the quantity

of goods produced. Managers have viewed introducing a new

product or process, which may result in a slowdown in production, as an impediment to their goal of plan fulfillment. They generally have been unwilling to forgo certain success in exchange for potentially greater, yet unguaranteed, future capability.

Another problem concerned pricing policies. In the Soviet econ- omy, prices of goods have been determined by central planners

rather than in response to market demand. To boost innovation,

planners sometimes permitted factory managers to charge higher

prices for newly introduced products. These prices often were set too low to compensate for the increased cost of production and for the risk of failure. Therefore, prices have done little to encourage

innovation. In fact, according to one Western specialist, this pricing mechanism often has been counterproductive. It promoted a

practice whereby managers tended to exaggerate the degree of

novelty of a new or improved product to central pricing authorities in an attempt to receive permission to charge higher prices and

thus boost profits. Incentives given to industrial research development personnel on the basis of the expected return from a new in- novation also have failed to improve the process. Yet another problem has been the organizational separation

among the various facilities engaged in research, development, and

production. The separation occurred because Soviet scientific and

technological facilities have tended to specialize in one phase of the

research-to-production cycle. Research institutions, design organizations, testing facilities, and production facilities operated independently from one another. As a result, the transfer of a scientific discovery from the necessary development and testing phases to

final production has necessitated crossing multiple organizational

boundaries. To be successful, such transfers required stringent inter- organizational cooperation to ensure proper timing and exchange

of information. Soviet and Western observers agree that this cooperation has been generally lacking in the Soviet Union, where in- stitutional interests have tended to override other considerations

638
Geological research ship Morskoi geolog, of the Meridian class Courtesy United States Navy

and information exchange among scientists and engineers has been

limited.

Organizational separation, however, was not limited to the suc- cessive stages of the research-to-production cycle. Soviet facilities also were separated in terms of their organizational affiliation. The

results of scientific research and design work often must cross or- ganizational boundaries to enter production. This has imposed yet

another layer of bureaucracy, which has done little to encourage

innovation. The most difficult barrier has been that existing between research institutions subordinate to the Academy of Sciences

and production facilities subordinate to an industrial ministry. Even

within the industrial ministry system, production facilities subordinate to one ministry have been hesitant to cooperate with those

subordinate to a different ministry.

The ability to innovate also has been hurt by a lack of research

and development equipment and of experimental testing and

production facilities. Equipment has been inadequate in quality

and quantity. The absence of appropriate testing facilities has af- fected all science and technology organizations but has been particularly evident in the Academy of Sciences organizational network.

Academy scientists generally have had to rely on industry to make

available testing and production facilities, but, as they often stated

639
Soviet Union: A Country Study

in the 1980s, industry did not comply. As a result, academy offi- cials, especially those in the Siberian Division and in the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, initiated the development of the

academy's own experimental facilities. Funding has been another key factor adversely affecting innovation. In theory, one of the advantages of a command economy

is the ability to concentrate resources in a given area. Over the

years, the Soviet Union has repeatedly taken advantage of this ability by focusing resources on technologies and industries considered

to have strategic importance, e.g., the military. Yet priority allo- cation, by definition, has been limited. Not all industries can receive

the same attention. Indeed, the Soviet experience has been one in

which selected industries and technologies were developed at the

expense of others.

To some degree the innovation problems in the 1980s were a

result of deliberate choices made in response to conditions arising

after 1917. According to Ronald Amann, a Sovietologist affiliated with the University of Birmingham in England, some decisions

made by Soviet leaders to overcome technological backwardness

significantly influenced the long-range development of technology.

The decisions were those that focused on replicating Western models

instead of fostering Soviet innovation, that concentrated resources on industries considered by the leadership to have strategic importance, and that compensated for the shortage of skilled manpower

by developing specialized and centralized research and development organizations in each branch of industry. These decisions contributed to the evolution of a system that in the 1980s was

characterized by uneven technological progress and by the sepa- ration of science and production facilities. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, Soviet leaders' responses

to these innovation difficulties has been a series of economic and

organizational reforms. They have introduced measures aimed at improving planning and at providing greater financial incentives

to organizations engaged in innovation. They also have tried to overcome the barriers separating research, development, and

production facilities. The implementation of reforms accelerated

under Gorbachev, who viewed the improvement of Soviet science

and technology as crucial to his goal of economic restructuring

(perestroika—see Glossary). In September 1987, the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers issued a decree called "On the Changeover of Scientific Organizations to Full Cost Accounting and Self- Financing.

Basically, the decree changed the way in which all types of scientific organizations were financed. Instead of receiving state funds

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Science and Technology

allocated to finance the operation of the entire organization, scientific establishments would be financed on the basis of specific

research, planning, and design projects. These would be arranged

through contracts with other organizations, primarily industrial enterprises (see Glossary). The theory behind this change was to en- courage scientific organizations to generate a "product" more useful

to industry and to assume more responsibility for the applicability

of their output. To increase the incentives for assuming greater

responsibility, the decree also stipulated that the basic source of an organization's wage and incentive funds would be the profits

earned by that organization. A similar decree, the Law on State Enterprises (Associations), was issued at approximately the same

time. It granted to industrial enterprises greater authority to manage

their own operations and established a closer link between funds

for worker benefits and enterprise profits.

The organizational remedies instituted under Gorbachev ex- panded several arrangements to attempt to bridge the gap between

scientific and production entities. The first involved the scientific production associations (nauchno-proizvodstvennye ob

3 'edineniia—

NPOs), which were introduced in the late 1960s. NPOs combined

under one management all facilities involved in a particular

research-to-production program—the research institutions, design

organizations, testing facilities, and production facilities. Soviet lead

ers considered this arrangement more conducive to innovation

because it enabled one leading component, usually the research

institution, to coordinate the work of the other components engaged

in the process. Although officials admitted that NPOs have had

operational problems (such as poor planning and lack of an ex- perimental base), they rated NPOs as successful overall. In 1986

they began an expansion in the number of NPOs. Whereas in 1985

there were approximately 250 NPOs (roughly the same number

that existed in the early 1970s), in 1986 there were 400, with an

additional 100 projected for the following year. A similar organizational remedy was the formation of the interbranch scientific-technical complex (mezhotraslevoi nauchno-tekhnicheskii kompleks—MNTK). Based on so-called engineering centers es- tablished in the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, MNTKs were

initiated in 1985. MNTKs differed from NPOs in that they en- compassed, as their name implies, facilities subordinate to vari- ous administrative authorities, including the Academy of Sciences.

MNTKs were also larger than NPOs; in fact, some MNTKs in- cluded several NPOs and industrial production associations. In January 1988, Soviet officials reported that more than twenty MNTKs,

including approximately 500 organizations and enterprises and

641
Soviet Union: A Country Study

elements of more than sixty ministries and departments, had been

formed.

MNTKs were charged with coordinating and performing all the

research and development work in their given area, from basic

research to production. To facilitate their work, MNTKs were empowered to request resources in addition to those allocated by the

plan; to receive priority in establishing pilot production bases and

in ordering materials and resources; and to have the right to demand full delivery of the ordered amounts.

In an assessment of the MNTKs published in January 1988, two

Soviet economists discussed the accomplishments of the "Rotor"

and "Mikrokhirurgiia glaza" MNTKs. The former had expanded the production of automatic rotary and rotary conveyor lines

in 1987 and expected to more than double production in 1988. The

Rotor MNTK also developed a rotary conveyor line for the injection molding of items made of thermoplastic materials. The Mikrokhirugiia glaza MNTK was credited with developing a new

technology for performing higher quality operations that significantly shortened overall treatment time. On the negative side,

however, the economists listed several problems hindering the oper- ation of MNTKs: lack of cooperation of superior organs, substantial lag in the development of experimental facilities, shortage of

designers and manufacturing engineers, insufficient authority to obtain financing, absence of a unified plan for an MNTK, and

confusion regarding the composition of MNTKs. Despite these criti- cisms, Soviet authorities in the late 1980s repeatedly stated their

support of MNTKs and presented them as a promising link between science and production.

Technology and Information Transfer

Soviet leaders have tried to overcome technological backwardness by acquiring technology from the more advanced Western and

Asian countries. Since 1917 Soviet officials have worked to obtain

not only foreign equipment but also technological processes, knowhow, and information. Acquisitions have helped the Soviet Union,

in some cases, to compensate for a poorly developed indigenous

technology and, in other cases, to bolster or provide a missing component in an otherwise fairly well-established industry.

The transfer of foreign technology began not long after the

Bolshevik Revolution and continued through the 1980s, although

the official emphasis, as well as the kind and quantity of technology transferred, varied greatly over time. Lenin initially wanted

to avoid any dependence on Western technological imports, but

the lack of funds for indigenous development forced him to seek

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Science and Technology

limited foreign investments. Stalin emphasized technological

autarchy. He expended huge resources in efforts to develop in- digenous science and technology, and he severely restricted contacts with Western businessmen and scientists. Nonetheless, severe backwardness in some key industries forced Stalin to engage in

short-term borrowing from the West. During World War II, the

Soviet regime used captured German equipment and technological experts to help develop lagging Soviet industries.

The post-Stalin era brought renewed interest in dealing with the

West. Khrushchev eased restrictions on Soviet access to Western

technology but found that Western governments sought political

concessions in return for trade agreements. Under Brezhnev, Soviet

technology acquisitions increased markedly. Many long-term agree- ments, as well as accords providing for foreign construction of in- dustrial plants in the Soviet Union, were signed during the Brezhnev

era. By the late 1970s, however, both Western and Soviet leaders

began to question the political and economic wisdom of technology transfers. By the early 1980s, technology transfers from the

United States to the Soviet Union were curtailed severely in response

to political, economic, and military concerns. At the same time,

however, the Soviet Union began trying to obtain Japanese technology—particularly electronics, computer science, and metallurgy

because the Japanese were much less restrictive in their exports.

In 1986 Gary K. Bertsch, a United States specialist in Soviet

technology, described five means by which technology has been

transferred to the Soviet Union. The most direct, and probably

the most common, was the commercial sale of equipment to the

Soviet Union. When the West provided opportunities, Soviet leaders increased purchases of Western equipment.

The second type of transfer included the extensive and complicated modes of industrial cooperation between Western firms and

their Soviet counterparts. According to Bertsch, this cooperation

has had many forms, among them: sales of equipment (sometimes

for complete production systems or turnkey plants), including tech- nical assistance; licenses of patents, copyrights, and production

know-how; franchises of trademarks and production know-how;

purchases and sales between partners, involving exchanges of in- dustrial raw materials and intermediate products; subcontracts in- volving the provision of production services; sales of plant,

equipment, and technology with payment in resulting or related

products; production contracting, involving agreement for trans- ferred production capabilities in the form of capital equipment and

technology; coproduction agreements allowing partners to produce

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

and market the same products resulting from a shared technology;

and joint research and development.

Another type of transfer involved foreign travel by Soviet scientists, participation by them in academic and scholarly conferences,

and screening of literature. In the early 1980s, as part of a general

tightening of policies on technology export, the United States government began restricting Soviet scientists from traveling in and

attending meetings in the United States to prevent their access to American science and technology. Screening of literature has been

a valuable source of information for the Soviet Union. Soviet scientists have had easy access to Western and Japanese publications,

and for years they have relied heavily on this literature as a primary

source of foreign technology.

The fourth type of transfer was covert acquisition. This kind of

transfer was the most feared because of its potential impact on Soviet

and United States military development. The ways in which the

Soviet Union acquired technology varied and involved more than

their intelligence services. For example, some acquisitions were car- ried out by Soviet diplomats stationed worldwide. Other acquisitions were made by diverting controlled technology products from

legitimate trade destinations to the Soviet Union. Finally, some

acquisitions occurred through legitimate firms established by the

Soviet Union or East European countries in Western nations.

The fifth type of transfer was intergovernmental agreements on

scientific and technological cooperation. In the early 1970s, for ex- ample, the United States and the Soviet Union concluded eleven

separate agreements pledging cooperation in such fields as science

and technology, environmental protection, atomic energy, medicine, and energy. In some cases, these agreements led to frequent

exchanges between American and Soviet scientists cooperating in

specific areas. This type of arrangement, however, decreased

markedly in the late 1970s as the United States responded to Soviet

emigration policies and to Soviet involvement in Afghanistan and

in Poland. Under Gorbachev, cooperative agreements resumed.

Using these forms of transfer, the Soviet Union obtained a range

of technologies, some of which probably had significant military

applications. The chemical and automotive industries relied heavily on Western imports. In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union bought

equipment badly needed for the gas pipeline it was building from

Urengoy to Uzhgorod. It acquired technologies applicable to the

military, including complete computer systems designs, concepts,

and software, plus a variety of Western general-purpose computers,

minicomputers, and other hardware. It acquired low-power, lownoise, high- sensitivity receivers; optical, pulsed power source and

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Science and Technology

other laser-related components; and titanium alloys, welding equipment, and furnaces for producing titanium plates applicable to submarine construction.

These acquisitions raised concerns in the West that the Soviet

Union was deriving too many military and economic benefits in- imical to Western interests. Some critics argued that technology

transfers allowed the Soviet Union to save millions of rubles (for

value of the ruble—see Glossary) in research and development costs and years of development time. They also argued that Soviet ac- quisitions allowed the regime to modernize critical sectors of in- dustry without absorbing rising military production costs, to achieve

greater weapons performance, and to incorporate countermeasures

to Western weapons. They further argued that the West should

impose stricter controls on such transfers. This position was adopted

by the United States government in the early 1980s, when it began

imposing strict controls and urging West European governments

to follow suit. Not everyone agreed with this position, however. Western analysts

in the late 1980s pointed out that both the econometric and the case- study approaches used to assess the impact of technology transfers produced tentative results. One conclusion was that the Soviet ex- perience in using and assimilating Western technology was a mixed

success. In some cases, particularly in military-related industries,

the Soviet Union was successful in incorporating Western equipment or processes. In other areas, the equipment was used ineffi- ciently or not at all. Many Soviet scientists and policy makers shared this negative

assessment. During the 1980s, the Soviet press published many

articles in which Soviet officials complained that they were wasting valuable hard currency to purchase equipment that lay idle be- cause of industry's inability or unwillingness to install it. Other

officials, including former Academy of Sciences president Aleksandrov, argued that the Soviet Union did not need to import Western

technology because it had the capability to develop it domestically.

In fact, too much reliance on Western imports had harmed the

Soviet Union because indigenous institutions had been denied the

opportunity to develop the technology and, hence, to grow technologically.

Despite these arguments, the policy under Gorbachev appeared

to Western observers to increase technological trade. Soviet authorities instituted some organizational changes to facilitate and to en- courage more contact with Western firms. Yet Gorbachev also

expressed concern over the balance of payments issue and cautioned

against too many purchases from the West.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Military Research and Development

Science and technology in defense and civilian sectors differed

markedly in both organization and performance. Military research

and development generally functioned more efficiently and produced more advanced technologies.

The principal organizations involved in Soviet military science

and technology were subordinate to the defense industrial ministries. The ministries responsible for research, design, and production of military equipment and weapons or their components

consisted of the Ministry of the Aviation Industry, the Ministry

of the Communications Equipment Industry, the Ministry of the

Defense Industry, the Ministry of the Electronics Industry, the

Ministry of General Machine Building, the Ministry of the Machine

Tool and Tool-Building Industry, the Ministry of Medium Machine

Building, the Ministry of the Radio Industry, and the Ministry

of the Shipbuilding Industry. These nine ministries were among

the eighteen ministries of the machine-building and metal-working

complex (MBMW) under the control of the Defense Council (see

Machine Building and Metal Working, ch. 12). Each of the nine

ministries incorporated institutes engaged in applied research and

a network of bureaus responsible for designing and developing new

military equipment and processes. In 1989 these ministries directed

the work of thousands of plants making weapons and weapons components, at least 450 military research and development organizations, and approximately fifty major design bureaus. (Other

industrial ministries contributed to military research, development,

and production. For example, some military vehicles were produced

by the Ministry of Automotive and Agricultural Machine Building, and fuel and chemical warfare agents were produced by the

Ministry of the Chemical Industry.)

The second category consisted of the Ministry of Defense and

its subordinate research facilities. Little information on these institutes has been published, but their work undoubtedly has been

concentrated on those areas most relevant to military requirements.

These institutes maintained close contact with the industrial research

institutes and the design bureaus. Their main function appeared

to be to evaluate the latest scientific achievements and to forecast

the development of the Soviet armed forces. The third category comprised the facilities considered part of

civilian science. These primarily were the 300 research institutes

affiliated with the Academy of Sciences. Some of the country's most

important military research programs were conducted by the

Academy of Sciences. Other institutes in this category included

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Science and Technology

university facilities and research establishments subordinate to the

civilian production ministries.

The final category consisted of the coordinating agencies. The

most powerful organization was the Military Industrial Commission (Voenno-promyshlennaia komissiia—VPK), which included

representatives from the defense industry ministries, the Ministry

of Defense, Gosplan, and probably the CPSU Secretariat. VPK

monitored and coordinated all military research and development

and production. It reviewed new weapons proposals for their technical feasibility and for production requirements, approved re- search-to-production timetables submitted by lead organizations,

and participated in planning and supervising major technological

programs, apparently including those conducted by Academy of

Sciences institutes. The second important coordinating agency was GKNT.

Although mandated to plan, oversee, and regulate scientific research

and development, evidence on its operation suggested that it had

little direct influence over the defense sector. Nevertheless, GKNT

exerted some general influence over military research and development in that it formulated the basic scientific and technical problems

of the country and worked out the programs needed to address

them.

The various institutional components of military research and

development interacted in a way that generally was far more productive than that of the civilian sector. The defense sector more often

succeeded in seeing a scientific idea through the various development stages into production. Many of those ideas may not have

represented a leading-edge technology (Soviet military research and

development were thought to be more evolutionary than revolutionary), but at least they were carried through into production.

One of the reasons Soviet military research and development

fared better has been the high priority given to it by the regime.

The defense sector received not only more funds but also better resources and the best personnel. Perhaps most important in terms

of priority was the level of political commitment. Maintaining a

strong military capable of matching United States military strength

has been a high priority for Soviet political leaders. This translated

into a strong commitment to ensure that military science and technology developed and functioned to support the Soviet military.

High priority was not the only factor explaining the military sec- tor's superior performance. Another factor was that defense

researchers had better access to development facilities. Research

projects in the military tended not to "die" because of lack of

research facilities' access to development facilities.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Another factor affecting military research and development was

that the defense sector was not so rigidly bound to production quantity rather than quality. Civilian production enterprises often were

reluctant to innovate because of the time needed to adjust a plant's

operations to the production of the new item or use of the new

process. Such adjustments have been viewed in the civilian sector

as interruptions because they cut into the time needed to meet a

plant's production quotas. Military production facilities, which had

rigorous quality-control measures, faced less pressure to meet a

specified production goal.

Finally, coordination among military research and development

establishments was more effective than that in the civilian sector.

Facilities involved in the various phases of the military researchto-production cycle were more inclined to interact with one another.

Furthermore, design facilities in the defense establishment tended

to be larger and more capable of developing a research idea fur- ther through the research-to-production cycle. Design organizations

in the military also tended to generate better design documentation for production plants to implement. Some of the administrative barriers encountered in the civilian sector were overcome in

the military sector, in part by giving lead institutes the power to coordinate efforts for specific programs.

The success of the defense industry has been something Soviet

leaders wanted to replicate across the spectrum of scientific and

technological sectors. Gorbachev patterned many of the reforms

instituted during the mid-1980s after organizational arrangements

and policies in the defense sector. For example, the decision to switch financing of research and development work from funding

of institutes to funding of specific projects, as well as emphasizing

contract work, was adapted from the military sector. Improving

the long-range planning process and the quality-control process were

other examples. To facilitate the reforms, Gorbachev moved several

defense managers into key civilian positions. The idea was that these

individuals would use skills learned in the defense sector to strive for improvements in the civilian sector. Training

Training of scientists and engineers has been an important aspect

of the country's overall scientific and technological effort. Soviet

leaders since Lenin have strongly emphasized education and its contribution to the development of science and technology. The

result has been the emergence of a network of education institu- tions that have trained some of the world's best scientists.

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Science and Technology

Training in science and engineering has generally begun in the

secondary schools. The nationwide curriculum in effect during the

1980s emphasized mathematics, the natural sciences, and languages. By the time students completed their secondary education,

they had taken two years of algebra, two years of geometry, and

one year each of trigonometry, calculus, physics, chemistry, and

biology. Beginning in the seventh grade, those with special skills in the sciences could enroll in optional science courses. Western

specialists have considered Soviet science education, particularly

in physics and mathematics, superior to that received in secondary

schools in the United States. Soviet institutions of higher learning (vysshie uchebnye zavedeniia—

VUZy) included universities and institutes. The universities in the

Soviet Union offered five-year programs that tended to be narrowly

focused. Advanced training in many technical fields was provided

in specialized institutes. The VUZy represented an additional source of research for the development of science and technology. Until

1987 that research was funded primarily through the state budget

and, less frequently, through contracts with industry. The 1987

decree, which changed scientific organizations to self- financing sta- tus, charged Soviet administrators to develop a plan for transferring VUZy to the same financial arrangement.

Despite the success in education, the Soviet Union during the

1980s faced several key problems affecting its ability to train scientists and engineers and to place them where needed. Schools, es- pecially those outside the major urban areas, suffered from a lack

of qualified staff, supplies, and equipment. Efforts during the

mid-1980s to launch an extensive program of computer training were hampered by the lack of computers on which to train stu- dents. Other problems included a high dropout rate and the refusal of many graduates to seek jobs in geographic locations and in

specialties targeted for development by government planners. In

response to these problems, Soviet officials during 1987 and 1988

initiated measures to reform the education system once again.

Among the stated goals were an improvement in the overall training of scientific and technical specialists and the institution of greater

cooperation between VUZy and industry.

The need to provide good training to scientists and engineers

and to tear down bureaucratic impediments between the development of technology and its application in industry became especially important in the late 1980s. Gorbachev's program to reverse

the country's economic decline demanded the increased application of science and technology to make industry more effective. Although much of the needed technology was available in the West,

649
Soviet Union: A Country Study

the Soviet Union could neither politically nor economically afford

to neglect development of its own scientific and technological base.

* * * Many excellent books and articles have been written about Soviet

science and technology by such authors as Loren R. Graham, Philip

Hanson, Bruce Parrott, Simon Kassel, and Thane Gustafson. Some

of the more recent publications by these and other authors include

Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union by Loren R.

Graham; The Communist Party and Soviet Science by Stephen Fortes- cue; and Trade, Technology, and Soviet-American Relations, edited by

Bruce Parrott. Another excellent source on all aspects of science

and technology policy is the compendium of papers submitted to the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress. The

latest edition was released in 1987 and is titled Gorbachev's Economic

Plans. A number of studies on particularly defense-related Soviet

technologies have been published. They include The Technological Level of Soviet Industry, edited by Ronald Amann, Julian M. Cooper,

and R.W. Davies; Industrial Innovation in the Soviet Union, edited by

Amann and Cooper; and Technical Progress and Soviet Economic Development, also edited by Amann and Cooper. For information on

current science and technology issues, the best sources are the Radio

Free Europe/Radio Liberty research reports, the Foreign Broadcast Information Service's Daily Report: Soviet Union, and the Joint

Publication Research Service's translations series, USSR: Science and Technology Policy. (For further information and complete cita- tions, see Bibliography.)

650
Chapter 17. Military Doctrine and

Strategic Concerns
officer describing military strategy
Understanding the stance that the Soviet Union has

adopted on military affairs requires analyzing the meaning the

Soviet regime has given to concepts such as military doctrine, mili- tary policy, and military science, as well as comprehending the ideological basis of these terms. In Soviet military writings, these

concepts overlapped considerably, and Soviet military theorists

stressed their interdependence. Military doctrine represented the

official view on the nature of future wars and on the methods of

fighting them. Military policy offered practical guidelines for struc- turing the Soviet armed forces and for building up Soviet defenses.

Military science—the study of concepts of warfare and of the

weapons needed to accomplish military missions—supported the

formulation of doctrine and policy. Military doctrine and military

policy directed the findings of military science toward fulfillment

of the political goals of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

(CPSU).

Soviet military doctrine was grounded in Marxist-Leninist (see

Glossary) theory as the CPSU interpreted it. The party understood

the world as a battleground of classes and social systems and predicted the "inevitable victory of socialism." Thus the party's inter- pretation of Marxist-Leninist doctrine provided the Soviet military

with a framework for developing strategic and operational concepts

for winning wars.

Soviet military doctrine was the most fundamental and the most

influential of the theoretical concepts that governed the conduct

of Soviet military affairs. It influenced procurement of weapons,

colored threat assessments, and provided a theoretical basis for the

party's military policy. It determined Soviet arms control proposals

and the kinds of arms control agreements that the Soviet Union

would be willing to sign. Together with the government's military

policy, military doctrine shaped Soviet military-strategic initiatives abroad.

Until 1956 Soviet doctrine was based on Lenin's thesis of the

"inevitability of war" between capitalism and socialism (see Glossary). Such a war would be fought in defense of the socialist motherland and end with the clear-cut victory of socialism. Thus, it would

be both defensive and victory oriented. The development and

deployment of nuclear weapons changed doctrinal views on war's

inevitability. It soon became clear that nuclear war would cause such widespread destruction that it could not be a rational tool of

653
Soviet Union: A Country Study

policy, that victory in a nuclear war was problematic, and that a nuclear power ought to deter rather than fight such a war. Soviet

civilian leaders and military theorists expressed their belief in nuclear

deterrence by declaring that a world war with capitalism was no

longer unavoidable . They also argued that the shift in the correlation of forces and resources (see Glossary) in favor of socialism has

made war avoidable. But Soviet political and military leaders did

not condemn the use of nuclear weapons for fighting a war, and

they did not relinquish the requirement to win. As a result, Soviet

military doctrine combined the concepts of nuclear deterrence, nuclear war, and victory.

Consequently, even in the nuclear era, Soviet military science

remained, in the words of the eighteenth-century Russian com- mander Aleksandr Suvorov, a "science of victory" in armed conflict. The most important component of military science, military

art, and the latter' s highest level, military strategy, continued to aim at complete defeat of the adversary. The drive to prevail at

all costs and under all circumstances directed the other two components of military art: operational art and tactics. In the late 1980s,

theoretical concepts for the study and conduct of armed warfare

such as the laws of war, the laws of armed conflict, and the principles of military art—continued to emphasize victory.

Marxist-Leninist military doctrine has had considerable effect on arms control. On all levels—strategic nuclear, theater nuclear,

and conventional—the doctrine's orientation toward victory has

demanded capabilities for fighting and winning wars. The Soviet Union never allowed arms control to interfere with

achievement of its military objectives nor to constrain the strategic

goals of the armed forces. Even in the late 1980s, in spite of General

Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev's "new thinking" (see Glossary)

and his strong emphasis on arms reductions, the military remained

mistrustful of political solutions and reluctant to accept sweeping

changes in doctrine and strategy.

Marxist-Leninist Theory of War

The Marxist-Leninist theory of war provided a basis for Soviet

military theory and practice. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed Marxism (see Glossary), which was further elaborated by

Vladimir I. Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union. The MarxistLeninist view of war rested on the principle that war is a continuation of politics and that the aim of war is to achieve military victory

so as to hasten the political victory of socialism. Soon after the Soviet

Union acquired nuclear weapons, a debate arose in Soviet leadership circles over whether a catastrophic nuclear war could be a

654
Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

continuation of politics. Theorists debated whether waging nuclear war was in the best interests of socialism, or whether MarxistLeninist policy should exclude nuclear war.

Since the 1950s, two lines of argument concerning nuclear war

as a tool of policy have existed in the Soviet Union. Some civilian

and military leaders have maintained that because nuclear war is too destructive, one should never be fought. Conversely, the authors

of a volume entitled Marxism-Leninism on War and the Army, which

has appeared in six editions since 1957 and sets forth the MarxistLeninist philosophy of war as well as the CPSU's official views on

conducting war, have consistently upheld nuclear war as a legitimate continuation of politics and have endorsed the use of nuclear

weapons.

Marxist-Leninist theory of war has not only established theoretical foundations for fighting and averting nuclear wars but also has provided practical guidelines for categorizing wars according

to their "class essence" as just wars (see Glossary) and unjust

(predatory) wars. It also has purportedly discovered objective "laws

of war" (see fig. 26). These laws governed the conduct of war and

promoted victory.

War as a Continuation of Politics

According to Marxist-Leninist theory, the essence of war is political. Lenin adopted the dictum of the nineteenth-century Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz that war is a continuation of

politics by other, i.e., violent, means. In contrast to Clausewitz,

however, who understood politics as the relationship between states, Lenin regarded politics as class struggle within states. Lenin also believed that class struggle within states dictated the kinds of preparation that these states made for war, the declarations of wars between states, the conduct of wars between states, and the outcome

of wars. Contemporary Marxist-Leninist interpretation of war derived

from Lenin's understanding of war as the outcome of class struggle. According to this view, noncommunist states were ruled by

classes that were hostile to the "dictatorship of the proletariat"

established by the Soviet Union and other socialist states. In particular, the Marxist-Leninist understanding of war attributed to the United States, as the most powerful representative of "imperialism" (the final stage of capitalism), the goal of altering the course

of world development by destroying communism (the final stage

of socialism). Marxism-Leninism assigned to the Soviet armed

forces the task of preventing the destruction of communism by

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

MARXIST-LENINIST THEORY OF WAR

Figure 26. Soviet Military-Political Concepts, 1989

waging a defensive but victorious war with all modern weapons

at their disposal.

In the 1960s, before development of the concept of limited nuclear

war, Soviet strategists debated whether or not nuclear war could

be a rational tool of policy because the widespread destruction it would cause could prevent it from promoting socialism's final vic- tory. Some Soviet leaders, notably Nikita S. Khrushchev and the

Soviet military theorists who shared his views, maintained that,

considering the extremes of nuclear violence, nuclear war could

not be a continuation of politics by means of armed force (see Evolution of Military Doctrine, this ch.). In the 1970s, Leonid I. Brezhnev

656
Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

claimed that whoever started a nuclear war would be committing

suicide, and he asserted that the Soviet Union would never be the

first to use nuclear weapons. In the 1980s, Soviet civilian and mili- tary leaders adopted a similar stance, repeatedly declaring that no

victor could emerge in a general nuclear war and that it would lead

to the destruction of humanity. These statements seemed to modify

Lenin's dictum that war is the continuation of politics.

By contrast, the official position on war, as communicated to the military in consecutive editions of Marxism-Leninism on War and

the Army, one of the fundamental works of Soviet military theory,

has remained unchanged. The 1968 edition maintained that all wars,

' 'even a possible thermonuclear one," are and will be "a

continuation of politics by means of armed force." The most re- cent edition available in 1989, Marxist-Leninist Teaching on War and

the Army, published in 1984, deemed a nuclear attack reprehensible but regarded as "just and lawful" the use of nuclear weapons

either to respond to an enemy strike or to forestall an impending

nuclear strike by an adversary. According to this edition, "nuclear

missile war fully retains the general social essence of war' ' and is "a continuation of politics by other, violent means."

This apparent regarding of all weapons, no matter how destructive, as "just and lawful" means for the defense of socialism

stemmed from Marxist-Leninist teaching on just and unjust wars. According to this teaching, wars waged by the Soviet Union and

socialist states allied with it were a "continuation of the politics

of revolution" and led to a revolutionary transformation of the

world. Hence, in the Marxist-Leninist scale of values, all wars

fought by socialist armies were both just and revolutionary. By contrast, all wars waged by "imperialists" were, by definition, unjust. Marxist-Leninist theory also asserted that all wars fought in

defense of the socialist motherland were unconditionally just and

could be fought with all modern weapons, including nuclear ones. Laws of War

The belief that history was on the side of socialism and that

Marxism-Leninism was a basis for discovering "objective" laws

governing social and economic change has caused a proliferation

of laws and principles in Soviet military thought. On the most general level, the laws of war were factors determining the course and

outcome of wars. These laws expressed the political philosophy of

the CPSU in the military sphere. These laws, however, were not

immutable and could change with the emergence of new military

technologies and new operational concepts.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Joseph V. Stalin, general secretary of the party between 1922

and 1953, believed in the existence of five "permanently operating factors": the stability of the rear, the morale of the army, the

quantity and quality of divisions, the armaments of the armed

forces, and the organizational ability of the commanders. These

factors served as forerunners of the laws of war that were in force

in 1989. Because Stalin's permanently operating factors did not

take nuclear weapons into account, by the 1960s Soviet military

political writers had largely discounted them. A new set of laws,

taking into account new weapons, the new strategic environment,

and the probability that future war would be mainly nuclear, did

not appear until 1972, with the publication of Colonel Vasilii E. Savkin's The Basic Principles of Operational Art and Tactics. Savkin's

four laws of war in the nuclear era specified four factors upon which

the course and outcome of a war waged with unlimited use of all means of conflict depended. First, he said it depended on the corre- lation of available military forces; second, on the correlation of the

overall military potential of each side; third, on the political content of the war; and fourth, on the correlation of the moral-political

capabilities (see Glossary) and the psychological capabilities of the

people and armies of the combatants.

In 1977 the Soviet Military Encyclopedia refined and augmented

Savkin's laws and listed six laws of war that the 1984 edition of

Marxist-Leninist Teaching on War and the Army reiterated almost ver- batim. According to the most recent set of laws, the course and

outcome of war depended on the following factors: the political goals

of the war, which had to be just and revolutionary; and the correlation of the economic forces, scientific potentials, moral-political

forces, and military forces of the warring sides. Yet another law,

added in the 1984 edition of Marxist-Leninist Teaching on War and

the Army, stressed the "dependence of the development and changes

in the methods of warfare on quantitative and qualitative changes

in military technology and on the moral and combat qualities of

the military personnel."

Since Savkin first formulated his laws of war in 1972, a reordering of priorities has occurred. Savkin put the strictly military,

primarily nuclear capabilities in first place. In 1977 and 1984,

however, they occupied last place, with political goals in first place.

The 1984 edition reflected the realization that new weapons and new strategies could revolutionize future warfare and that high stan- dards of training and combat readiness of military personnel would assume more importance than before.

In addition to the laws of war just listed, which mainly influ- enced the course of war, Marxist-Leninist thought ostensibly has

discovered the "law of objective victory," which predetermined

658
Soviet and American officials observing the detonation of

a Soviet SS-12 missile in compliance with the Intermediate-Range

Nuclear Forces Treaty

Courtesy United States On-Site Inspection Agency

the outcome of war and expressed the "historical inevitability of the

triumph of the new over the old/' That is, victory would go to the

side that represented the new, more progressive socioeconomic sys- tem and that used the country's potential more effectively. Soviet

military-political writers often cited Soviet victory in World War

II as historic proof that no force in the world was capable of stopping the progress of a socialist society. Soviet military theorists also have invoked the experience of World War II to prove the superiority of a socialist economy in supplying weapons and war materiel.

They have stressed Soviet ability to produce sophisticated military

technology. "Victory will be with the countries of the world socialist system," Soviet military writers announced confidendy in 1968, be- cause "they have the latest weapons." In 1984 Colonel General

Dmitrii A. Volkogonov, chief editor of the 1984 edition of MarxistLeninist Teaching on War and the Army, made the relationship between

weapons and victory even more specific when he wrote that "the

attainment of victory is directly dependent on the availability and

sufficient quantity of modern means of warfare."

The Party and Military Doctrine and Policy

Marxist-Leninist teaching on war and the armed forces defined

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

the essence of wars, their origins, and the laws governing the con- duct of war. In developing Soviet military doctrine and policy, the

CPSU relied on this teaching and on its forecasts of the nature of

future wars, as well as on the concepts and weapons proposals for- mulated by Soviet military science. Military doctrine was the party

line on military affairs. It defined the potential adversaries, the nature of future wars, the force requirements, the general direction

of military development, the preparation of the country for war,

and even the type of weapons needed to fight a war. The party's

military policy defined the political aims of the Soviet state and

proposed concrete measures for developing and strengthening the

state's military might by improving the organization and the ar- maments of the armed forces. Soviet military theorists asserted that military doctrine had a

military-political and a military-technical component and that doctrine overlapped with military science and strategy. MarxistLeninist teaching shaped the political aspect of doctrine, which defined the party's overriding military-political goals and was by far the more important of the two components. The technical dimension of military doctrine dealt with available means and capabilities, as well as with future technologies, and drew on the findings

of Soviet military science. In its concern with capabilities, the tech- nical aspect of doctrine also overlapped with the technical component of military policy and with military strategy. The latter coordinated technical means and methods with military concepts

for the attainment of political goals.

Soviet leaders maintained that Soviet military doctrine always

had been defensive, yet because it favored an offensive strategy

and stressed the need to achieve victory, Western analysts have

often termed Soviet military doctrine offensive. The acquisition

of nuclear weapons by the Soviet armed forces not only caused dis- agreement over whether nuclear war could be a continuation of

politics by violent means but also introduced divergence into Soviet

views on the role nuclear weapons could play in deterring or fighting a war. Soviet military strategists appeared to endorse both

nuclear deterrence and nuclear war-fighting (see Glossary) but

placed a greater stress on war-fighting. Even the adoption of conventional options and the downgrading of the military utility of

nuclear weapons by some military leaders in the 1980s did not re- move the doctrinal requirement to fight and prevail in a nuclear war. Evolution of Military Doctrine

Soviet military theorists first formulated a uniform military doctrine in the 1920s under the influence of both Lenin's teachings

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

on the defense of the socialist homeland and the writings of

Mikhail V. Frunze, a prominent Bolshevik (see Glossary) com- mander in the Civil War (1918-21) and a military theoretician.

Frunze considered the basic conditions for the vitality of doctrine

to be, first, its uniformity, i.e., doctrine should be the same for

all services of the armed forces, and, second, "its conformity with

the state's objectives and the resources at its disposal."

Since Frunze, Soviet doctrinal views on the nature and likeli- hood of future war have evolved as Soviet theorists have attempted

to adapt doctrine to the changing nature of future war, to the shifting

alignment of forces in the world, and to changes in the domestic

economy and in the combat potential of the Soviet armed forces. The most important changes in Soviet views on the nature of war came after World War II. At that time, Stalin added the concept of the "two camps" —two mutually irreconcilable coalitions

and their impending worldwide clash to the traditional Soviet concepts of capitalist encirclement (see Glossary) and inevitability of

capitalist attack. In February 1956, the Twentieth Party Congress

modified the idea of inevitability when Khrushchev declared that a world war with capitalism was no longer "fatalistically inevitable.

'

Doctrinal views on the methods of fighting a future world war

also have changed significantly since the end of World War II. Stalin, who for most of his rule did not have a nuclear arsenal,

envisioned future war as a fierce combined arms struggle in Europe.

As both the United States and the Soviet armed forces in Europe

acquired nuclear weapons in the 1950s, Soviet views gradually

changed. In 1960 and 1961, Khrushchev tried to impose the concept of nuclear deterrence on the military. Nuclear deterrence holds

that the reason for having nuclear weapons is to discourage their use by a potential enemy. With each side deterred from war because

of the threat of its escalation into a nuclear conflict, Khrushchev

believed, "peaceful coexistence" (see Glossary) with capitalism

would become permanent and allow the inherent superiority of so- cialism to emerge in economic and cultural competition with the

West.

Khrushchev hoped that exclusive reliance on the nuclear fire- power of the newly created Strategic Rocket Forces would remove

the need for increased defense expenditures (see Strategic Rocket

Forces, ch. 18). He also sought to use nuclear deterrence to justify

his massive troop cuts; his downgrading of the Ground Forces, tradi- tionally the "fighting arm" of the Soviet armed forces; and his

plans to replace bombers with missiles and the surface fleet with

nuclear missile submarines.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Khrushchev's attempt to introduce a nuclear doctrine limited

to deterrence into Soviet military thought misfired. Discussion of

nuclear war in the first authoritative Soviet monograph on strate- gy since the 1920s, Marshal Vasilii D. Sokolovskii's Military Strate- gy (published in 1962, 1963, and 1968) and in the 1968 edition of

Marxism-Leninism on War and the Army, focused upon the use of

nuclear weapons for fighting rather than for deterring a war. Should

such a war break out, both sides would pursue the most decisive

aims with the most forceful means and methods. Intercontinental

ballistic missiles and aircraft would deliver massed nuclear strikes on the enemy's military and civilian objectives. The war would

assume an unprecedented geographical scope, but Soviet military

writers argued that the use of nuclear weapons in the initial period

of the war would decide the course and outcome of the war as a whole. Both in doctrine and in strategy, the nuclear weapon reigned

supreme.

After Khrushchev's ouster in 1964, Soviet doctrine began to consider the new United States concept of "flexible response," i.e., a graduated response to aggression on several levels, beginning with

conventional arms. In the mid-1960s, Soviet military thinkers al- lowed for the possibility of a phase of conventional warfare preceding

a general nuclear war. Another adjustment also occurred in the

mid-1960s, as doctrine evolved to maintain that a world war need

not inevitably escalate to an intercontinental nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States. Soviet doctrine al- lowed for the possibility of avoiding such an exchange altogether

and limiting nuclear strikes to specific theaters of war. Soviet mili- tary strategists held that nuclear war could be fought in and confined to Western and Central Europe and that both United States and Soviet territory might escape nuclear devastation. Finally, after 1967, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) offi- cially adopted the "flexible response" concept and began to struc- ture its forces accordingly, Soviet doctrine began to consider the

possibility of fighting an entire war with conventional arms. It did,

however, allow for the likelihood of the adversary's escalating to the use of nuclear weapons.

Military Doctrine in the Late 1980s

The 1970s and 1980s were a period of questioning and transition

in Soviet doctrine and strategy. Soviet military doctrine continued

to assume that the Soviet Union could fight and prevail in a nuclear war and that Soviet strategic nuclear missiles could influence a

war's course and outcome. Nevertheless, prominent military figures

voiced concern about the military efficacy of nuclear weapons,

662
SS-13 intercontinental ballistic missile Courtesy United States Department of Defense

among them the former chief of the General Staff, Marshal of the

Soviet Union Nikolai V. Ogarkov; Colonel General Makhmut A.

Gareev, author of a monograph on military theoretician Frunze;

and Volkogonov, chief editor of Marxist-Leninist Teaching on War

and the Army. They each expressed reservations about whether a world war of the future could be fought and won with nuclear

weapons. Ogarkov, in particular, advanced the revolutionary view

that a twenty-first-century battlefield might be dominated by nonnuclear, high-technology armaments and a global war could be

fought with conventional weapons alone. In the mid- to late 1980s, CPSU leaders and some military offi- cials began to focus on the political aspects of Soviet national security and deemphasized its military aspect. They advocated a new

military doctrine based on the defensive concept of "reasonable suffi- ciency" and on a military potential "sufficient for safeguarding the

security of the country" but not adequate for launching offensives,

especially surprise attacks on an adversary. In 1987 some military

spokesmen also mentioned the possible reformulation of Soviet mili- tary doctrine. The chief of the General Staff, Marshal of the Soviet

Union Sergei F. Akhromeev, and the minister of defense, Marshal

of the Soviet Union Dmitrii T. Iazov, declared that a new Soviet

military doctrine was being developed in accordance with the principles of the "new thinking" in foreign and military policy. In May

1987, the Warsaw Pact's Consultative Committee met in East Berlin and adopted a document on a defense-oriented military doctrine. In particular, the document called for reduction of conventional ar- maments in Europe to a level that could not support offensive operations.

When asked to explain the purportedly new concepts of war

prevention and military sufficiency, however, Warsaw Pact and

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Soviet spokesmen mentioned an emphasis on quality, high combat readiness, and decisive counteroperations, in short, a victory

orientation that a purely defensive doctrine based on "reasonable

sufficiency" could not support. The contradiction at the heart of

Soviet doctrine, which claimed to be defensive but posited war

scenarios calling for applying force offensively, damaged Soviet

credibility in the West and led to conflicting views on Soviet in- tentions. Many Western analysts, among them William T. Lee

and Richard F. Staar, continued to interpret Soviet intentions as "very aggressive." Others, such as Michael MccGwire and Raymond L. Garthoff, who focused on the Soviet viewpoint, saw the

Soviet Union as being constrained by doctrinal requirements and

threat assessments to adopt a force posture adequate for fighting a world war with both nuclear and conventional weapons.

In the late 1980s, a consensus emerged in the West on the probable Soviet doctrine. Western specialists believed that the Soviet

Union would not start a nuclear war without provocation.

They also believed, however, that, should a war start, the Soviet

Union would strive for victory and for protection of its territory

from enemy strikes. Western specialists also held that the Soviet

leadership would prefer to fight a conventional war in Europe and,

should such a war escalate, would try to limit a nuclear war to Central and Western Europe. A protracted conventional conflict in the

shadow of nuclear weapons, possibly worldwide, was another likely

option. Many Western analysts also thought that, despite having

in 1982 unilaterally forsworn the first use of nuclear weapons, the

Soviet Union retained the option of a surprise first strike against

the United States. They maintained that Soviet leaders would consider this option if they believed they could thereby win the war

and limit damage to the homeland.

Doctrine and Weapons Programs

The relation between the military-political and military-technical

aspects of Soviet doctrine and weapons programs was direct and

unmistakable. A direct link existed between the military-political

component of doctrine, operational requirements, weapons pro- grams, and force deployments. Doctrinal requirements could remain

unfulfilled for years, but they usually were met as technologies be- came available. Hence, a knowledge of the military-political component of Soviet doctrine was helpful for forecasting the direction

of Soviet military technology.

The doctrine developed by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s

bore little relation to actual conditions, and the Soviet Union needed fifteen years to develop the weapons described in the 1962 edition

664
Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

of Sokolovskii's Military Strategy. In October 1986, Ogarkov wrote

that the Soviet Union required an industry capable of solving the

most difficult defense-equipment problems and producing the

sophisticated weapons needed to win a war without using nuclear

weapons. He projected a future requirement to develop new equipment and weapons, a requirement that Soviet industry might not

be able to fulfill for many years. And, should the party's doctrinal

view of a future war differ from Ogarkov' s, this requirement might

never be translated into actual weapons programs.

When formulating their goals for new, important weapons sys- tems, Soviet leaders considered both doctrinal pronouncements on

the nature of future wars and estimates of the external military threat

supplied by the General Staff (see General Staff, ch. 18). The ser- vices of the armed forces reviewed their missions and drew up

weapons acquisition plans in cooperation with research institutes

and design bureaus (see Research, Development, and Production

Organizations, ch. 16). The General Staff prepared a consolidated

plan, which it forwarded to the Defense Council to be recommended

for the Politburo's approval (see Defense Council, ch. 18). Although

the professional expertise of the military influenced the weapons

request that filled a doctrinal requirement, the party made the final decision on the weapons to be produced.

Military Policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

In addition to developing military doctrine, the CPSU developed

military policy, which was much broader than doctrine. Whereas

doctrine contains the guiding principles on the essence of future wars and on the methods and weapons for fighting them, military

policy guides the development and strengthening of the state's mili- tary might through improving the organization and armaments of

the armed forces so that they can be used successfully to achieve

the state's political goals. Military policy is closely linked to military strategy. Policy defines the objectives of war and focuses the

attention of strategy on the tasks to be performed. Strategy's

dependence on policy increased with the acquisition of nuclear

weapons, the use of which was controlled by the political leadership. Like military doctrine, Soviet military policy had two components: military-political and military-technical. Soviet military

theorists frequently referred to these components simply as militarypolitical policy and military-technical policy.

According to the Soviet understanding of the term, militarypolitical policy defined the political aims of the state, evaluated the

international environment and the military potentials of probable adversaries, and established guidelines for Soviet military

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

involvement in the world. It both overlapped and supported Soviet

foreign policy. Military-political policy took into account the eco- nomic, social, scientific, and specifically military capabilities of the

Soviet state and was used by the party to determine the optimal

directions for structuring the armed forces and for strengthening

the economic-technical base of the state's defense. Concerned about

the integrity and security of the state, the party could modify its military policy as the interests of the state changed. Soviet spokesmen nevertheless stressed the continuity and consistency of the

party's military policy and of the military-political course of the

Soviet Union.

The Soviet military-industrial complex was run according to the

military-technical component of the party's military policy, which

determined the cycles of military modernization. According to Soviet sources, major weapons development programs were car- ried out every ten to twelve years. As in doctrine, military recom- mendations influenced policy, but the party retained complete

control over the formulation of a uniform military-technical policy and over its implementation by government organizations.

Military Science

Although the party formulated doctrine and policy, military

science—the study and practice of armed conflict—was the preserve

of military professionals. According to Soviet military theorists,

military science was a system of knowledge dealing directly with

the nature and laws of armed conflict, the preparation of the armed

forces and the country for war, and the methods of waging war.

It comprised both the theory of military affairs and its practical

applications in combat. Military scientists studied and defined the

laws of armed conflict, which were said to be objective, i.e., in- dependent of human consciousness. They also formulated subjective interpretations of these laws, known as principles of military

art. Unlike doctrine, military science permitted differing views and

even debates among military professionals concerning the nature

and methods of armed combat.

The principal components of military science are military art, subdivided into military strateg operational art, and tactics; the

command and control of troop,;; the structuring (or development)

of the armed forces; training and indoctrination; military economics;

military geography and history; and the increasingly important

military-technical sciences, such as artillery science, naval science,

cybernetics, topography, and geodesy. A main component of mili- tary science is military art, which focuses on the theory and practice of conducting military actions on land, at sea, and in the air.

666
Yankee-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine under way

Courtesy United States Navy

Reputedly, scientific forecasting is one of the most important

functions of military science. Computer modeling and operations

research are used to predict the military-technical nature of future wars and the evolution of military technology and of military af- fairs in general. Forecasting provides valuable input into military

doctrine and can cause modification of doctrinal pronouncements on the type of war the Soviet Union may have to fight in years

to come. Another key function of military science is long-term planning for development and deployment of the most effective weapons

for future conflicts. Like doctrine and policy, Soviet military science traced its ori- gins to Lenin's teachings on the defense of the socialist motherland.

Soviet military theorists credited Lenin not only with laying the foundation of Soviet military doctrine and policy but also with founding

Soviet military science. Lenin also has played a prominent role in

developing Soviet military strategy. Lenin's belief that political so- lutions would promote the spread of communism better than would

military ones and that armed conflict was merely a continuation of

politics by forcible means relegated military science to a subordinate

role. Thus Soviet military science was not autonomous but was, in

fact, a handmaiden of the party's military doctrine and policy.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Laws of Armed Conflict

Soviet military scientists studied and defined objective laws of

armed conflict that focused on the military struggle. These laws

represented the professional military consensus on the best methods

of waging combat in order to achieve victory on the battlefield. Although Soviet military theorists maintained that the laws of armed

conflict ' 'express the internal, essential, necessary, stable relationships between the phenomena manifested in the course of an armed

conflict," the laws were far from immutable. They retained their

validity until Soviet military thinkers discovered other laws that

provided better solutions to the same problems. Thus the laws of

armed conflict defined in the 1970s that relied on massive strikes with nuclear weapons for the solution of most military tasks ap- peared outdated in the 1980s, when the Soviet military was emphasizing conventional options.

Two laws of armed conflict, however, purportedly remained unaffected by technological change. They were the law of dependence

of the forms of armed combat on the material basis of the battle and operation, i.e., on people and equipment, and the law stating

that the side with the greater combat power will always be favored

in any batde or operation.

Principles of Military Art

The principles of military art are the basic ideas for the organization and conduct of battles, operations, and wars, and they can

be applied on tactical, operational, and strategic levels. These principles evolve over time: some lose their significance, others acquire a new content, and new principles emerge. The 1978 Soviet Military Encyclopedia listed the following eleven principles of military art: high combat readiness; surprise and striving to seize and retain

the initiative; full use of all means and methods of combat; close cooperation among the services, also known as the principle (or

concept) of combined arms; concentration of essential efforts; simultaneous destruction of the enemy to the entire depth of the enemy's

deployment; full use of the moral-political factor; strict and uninterrupted troop control; steadfastness and decisiveness; comprehensive security of combat activity; and timely restoration of

reserves. These principles guided Soviet commanders in planning,

preparing, and waging armed combat.

Military Art

Military art is the theory and practice of preparing and con- ducting military actions on land, at sea, and in the air. Its three

components—military strategy, operational art, and tactics —are

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

interconnected and mutually supporting. Military strategy is con- cerned with the conduct of the war as a whole.

Operational art deals with the preparation and conduct of mili- tary actions within geographical limits of a theater of military operations {teatr voennykh deistvii—TVD; see Glossary). Operational art

is employed to achieve the goals set under strategy. It links stra- tegy and tactics, in that tactical missions are assigned to support

theater operations. Military tactics defines combat methods for the

battlefield. Although it is subordinate to operational art and strategy,

tactics can influence both the operational and the strategic levels of war.

Military Strategy

Military strategy is the most important component of military

art. The study of strategy was an important part of Soviet military

life, and all services of the Soviet armed forces followed the same

military strategy. Strategists investigated the nature of war and its conduct, as well as the conduct of strategic operations. They defined the missions of the armed forces and specified the resources needed to accomplish them. Soviet strategists also studied the capabilities and strategies of probable adversaries and devised measures

to counter them. Military strategy and military science supplied

policy makers with the results of military- scientific research on the

best methods for attaining a war's objectives. At the same time,

the recommendations of military strategy and military science

helped shape military doctrine, the principles of which then guided

strategy in the conduct of war. Nuclear Strategy in the 1950s

After the explosions of the first Soviet atomic device in 1 949 and

the Soviet hydrogen bomb in 1953, the Soviet armed forces ac- quired nuclear weapons. Also introduced in the 1950s were ballistic- and cruise-missile technologies, jet engines, and artificial earth satellites, as well as computers and automated control systems. These

important events were known in the Soviet Union as the "revolution in military affairs." Of all the new developments, nuclear

weapons most affected Soviet strategy. Nuclear weapons altered the nature and methods of armed struggle on the strategic level because

they could accomplish the military's strategic tasks without operational art and tactics. Not until Stalin's death in 1953, however,

could the Soviet military begin exploring the full strategic potential

of the new weapons. Although he had pushed for the development of the "bomb," Stalin played down its importance and did

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

not encourage the military to formulate a new strategy incorporating

nuclear weapons.

Transition to a nuclear strategy began in the mid-1950s, when

Soviet military thinkers began recognizing the importance of surprise, of the initial period of war, and of using nuclear strikes to determine the course and outcome of a war. In February 1955,

Marshal Pavel A. Rotmistrov published in the Soviet journal

Voennaia mysV (Military Thought) a ground-breaking article on

"surprise." He stressed the importance of landing the first, "preemptive" nuclear blow to destroy the enemy's weapons when

the latter was preparing a surprise attack. Since the mid-1950s,

the concept of preempting an enemy's nuclear weapons has be- come firmly entrenched in Soviet military thought.

As the Soviet military came to view nuclear weapons as particularly suitable for general war, it needed a strategy for their use. In 1957 a series of military seminars at the highest level helped

leaders develop the elements of a new nuclear strategy. A group

of Soviet military strategists under the direction of Marshal Sokolovskii continued the work of the seminars. In 1962 they published

Military Strategy, the first Soviet treatise on strategy since 1927.

The Sokolovskii Era, 1962-68

In January 1960, Khrushchev unveiled the new nuclear stra- tegy in a speech to the Supreme Soviet. According to Khrushchev,

this strategy's aim was deterring war rather than fighting it (see

Evolution of Military Doctrine, this ch.). Despite Khrushchev's

emphasis on deterrence and reductions in military manpower,

Sokolovskii 's Military Strategy focused on apocalyptic scenarios for fighting a world war with nuclear weapons and stressed the need

for mass armies. The idea of preemption resurfaced, this time on

an intercontinental basis, because the Soviet Union had acquired

nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and could

threaten the territory of the United States. Sokolovskii maintained

that the Soviet side had to "frustrate" an enemy coalition's attack

by delivering massive nuclear strikes on the enemy's territories. These strikes would destroy not only the enemy's weapons but also the enemy's will to continue the war, thus limiting the damage from

a retaliatory strike. This view of nuclear strategy prevailed during most of the 1960s.

Soon after the publication of the third edition of his Military Strategy

in 1968, however, Sokolovskii wrote with an eye on the future:

"Military affairs are entering or have already entered the next stage

of their development, and apparently it is necessary to introduce

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

essential changes into military art." Such changes began to occur

in the 1960s and continued through the 1970s and 1980s.

New Strategic Options, 1968-89

Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Soviet military leadership tried

to add new, less destructive, strategic options, not only as a response

to NATO's "flexible response" concept but also because the leaders

began to doubt the possibility of a true victory in an all-out nuclear war. Although most military writings upheld the obligatory belief

in socialism's victory, doubters hinted that not only imperialism

but also socialism could perish in a nuclear holocaust.

The search for options intensified in the 1970s, after the Soviet

Union had achieved rough nuclear parity with the United States,

thereby making a nuclear war with the West less likely. If escalation had been imminent, the Soviet Union had the capability

accurate and reliable ICBMs with multiple warheads—to limit its strikes to the adversary's weapons, thus reducing the level of violence. Other options examined in the 1970s and 1980s included

a nuclear war limited to Europe, a combined arms offensive with

both nuclear and conventional weapons, and a completely conventional strategic operation in Europe, where Soviet nuclear weapons

deterring Western use of nuclear weapons.

In 1989 two possible future strategic options—space warfare and

ballistic missile defense—had not been officially endorsed but were

available to Soviet planners. Since the 1957 launching of Sputnik

(see Glossary), the Soviet Union had been interested in the mili- tary use of space and had conducted research in this field. Moreover,

in late 1987 Gorbachev admitted that for years the Soviet Union

had been conducting basic research on a space-based defense against

ballistic missiles, similar to the United States Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

Yet even in 1989, the addition of new strategic options did not

alter the basic nuclear war scenario of the 1960s. Two monographs

published in 1985 and 1986 by Gareev and Lieutenant General

Pavel A. Zhilin, respectively, reaffirmed the increased importance

of surprise during the initial period of a nuclear war. According

to these specialists, such a "surprise nuclear strike," if successful,

could determine both the course and the outcome of a war. Soviet

belief that the United States was acquiring nuclear missiles capable of delivering a surprise strike and was developing an antimissile shield to protect United States territory from Soviet retaliation

contributed to the Soviet military's perception of the growing role of strategic surprise.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Operational Art

Operational art involves the translation of strategic goals into

military objectives in TVDs by conducting decisive theater campaigns. Although a single military strategy existed for the Soviet

armed forces, each of the five armed services had its own operational art and tactics. Three enduring concepts that have shaped

Soviet operational art since the 1920s have been the concept of the

TVD, the principle of combined arms, and the theory of deep offen- sive operations.

TVDs divided the world into manageable military-geographic

sectors. In 1983 the Soviet Military Encyclopedic Dictionary defined a TVD as part of a continent or an ocean "within the boundaries

of which are deployed strategic groupings of the armed forces and

within which military operations are conducted." Around its periphery the Soviet military recognized five continental TVDs with

their surrounding seas: the Northwestern, Western, Southwestern,

Southern, and Far Eastern. Oceanic TVDs were located in the

Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic oceans (see fig. 27).

The combined arms concept is a major principle of Soviet military

art. It means that all services are integrated and coordinated to achieve victory in a war, an operation, or a battle. The concept ori- ginated in the 1920s, when Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail N.

Tukhachevskii understood combined arms primarily as the cooperation between artillery and infantry in land warfare. Since then,

as the Soviet armed forces have added new weapons systems such

as tanks, aircraft, submarines, and ballistic and cruise missiles, combined arms acquired a new meaning as it began to signify the in- teraction of all services of the armed forces to attain strategic goals.

The deep offensive operation theory evolved in the 1920s and

1930s as an outgrowth of the combined arms concept. The deep

offensive operation called for the destruction of the enemy to a substantial depth of its deployment, for the use of mobile groups in

the enemy's rear, for a breakthrough of tactical defense, and for encirclement and subsequent destruction of enemy troops. During World War II, Soviet commanders stressed coordination of

troops, operational maneuver, and operational breakthrough, as well as the necessity of conducting an operation with combined

forces on several fronts. New types of operations emerged, such

as air and antiair operations, and combined operations of the

Ground Forces, Air Forces, and Naval Forces. In the 1950s, the

increased mobility of armor and the striking power of nuclear

weapons bolstered the concept of the deep offensive operation.

Nuclear weapons produced fundamental operational changes.

The scope and depth of an operational offensive grew, and its violence intensified. Soviet military thinkers believed that they could

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

achieve a decisive victory by delivering preemptive nuclear strikes on objectives deep in the enemy's rear and, subsequently, by encircling, cutting off, and destroying the enemy's troops with nuclear

and conventional munitions. Soviet military writers soon began

to point out, however, that radioactive contamination, fires, and

floods caused by massive nuclear strikes could interfere with the success of operations.

In the 1970s, the Soviet Union built up its conventional forces

in Europe and adopted new operational concepts for the conduct

of a deep offensive operation using both conventional and nuclear

weapons. A conventional phase was to precede the nuclear phase.

By the early 1980s, the Soviet military had developed an all- conventional option for a deep offensive operation in a TVD (see

Offensive and Defensive Strategic Missions, this ch.).

Tactics

Tactics is the aspect of military art concerned with the preparation and conduct of offensive and defensive combat actions by ele- ments of the armed forces on land, in the air, and at sea. Soviet

military writers distinguish four basic tactical combat actions:

offense, the meeting engagement (in which both belligerents meet

while advancing), defense, and withdrawal. They view defense as a temporary action, for only offense can bring about a complete

rout of the enemy and victory.

In the early 1960s, nuclear weapons became the "basic means

of destruction on the field of battle." Soviet tacticians believed that

nuclear strikes during an engagement would help the Soviet armed

forces to seize and retain the initiative on a tactical level and achieve

victory in battle. The new emphasis on nuclear weapons led to changes in tactical concepts. Instead of massive concentration of

forces on the main direction of attack, theorists advocated concentration of nuclear strikes and maneuver by troops and by nuclear

missiles.

Soviet military theorists came to realize that use of nuclear

weapons by both belligerents could complicate offensive tactical combat by slowing down the Soviet advance while strengthening

the enemy's defense. Because increased mobility and high rates of advance formed the most important Soviet operational and tactical principles, the Soviet military began to perceive nuclear

weapons as problematic. Thus, in the late 1960s and the 1970s,

Soviet military planners began to reorient tactics away from reli- ance on nuclear weapons toward reliance on new conventional

weapons. Concepts such as the concentration of forces on the main

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

axis, partial victory, and economy of force again assumed their

prenuclear importance.

Soviet tactics in the 1980s has experienced a resurgence, in part

because improved conventional weapons with greater ranges and

accuracies became available. Also, the 1979 Soviet invasion of

Afghanistan provided a training ground for tactical conventional

combat in mountainous and desert terrain and drew the atten- tion of Soviet military theorists to the importance of tactics in

warfare. Two revised editions of Lieutenant General Vasilii G.

Reznichenko's Tactics were published in the 1980s: one in 1984

and a revised and augmented one in 1987. Reznichenko described

tactics as the most dynamic component of contemporary military

art, a component that could influence the operational and even the

strategic levels of war. In the 1987 edition of Tactics, Reznichenko

included new defensive concepts but emphasized the offensive, sup- ported by air superiority, fire superiority, and electronic warfare.

He favored conventional rather than nuclear preemption, for, if used preemptively, long-range precision-guided munitions could

predetermine the outcome of a combined arms battle. Strategic Missions of the Armed Forces

The General Staff had the responsibility for formulating the stra- tegic missions of the five services of the Soviet armed forces. The

Soviet military has defined a strategic mission as one "whose ful- fillment in the course of an armed conflict leads to an abrupt change

in the operational strategic situation .... Successful accomplishment of a strategic mission usually results in attainment of numerical

superiority over the enemy, in seizure of important areas and in- stallations on his territory .... Successful accomplishment of a

series of strategic missions leads to the attainment of intermediate

and ultimate strategic goals." Because the ultimate strategic goal

of war is victory over the adversary, the successful accomplishment

of strategic missions is indispensable.

The General Staff had the responsibility for assessing external

threats and drawing up Soviet war plans. It reconciled its plans

with Soviet military doctrine and policy. The General Staff also determined the nature of strategic missions, as well as the weapons

used and the size of forces needed to accomplish these missions

(see table 53, Appendix A).

Traditionally, the Soviet military has structured its armed forces offensively, on the basis of worst-case threat assessments. The

primacy of offense over defense was challenged in the nuclear age, when strategic offense was often combined with strategic defense.

In 1989, in spite of the new doctrinal emphasis on defense, most

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

branches of the Soviet armed forces, such as the Strategic Rocket

Forces, the Air Forces, the Naval Forces, and the Ground Forces,

still had mainly offensive missions. The Ground Forces played a leading role in the combined arms strategic operation in a TVD.

By contrast, the Air Defense Forces were to carry out active defense

of the homeland by destroying the enemy's weapons and aircraft,

whereas Civil Defense was to protect the country from nuclear

devastation. In the 1980s, the Soviet military reinforced the combined arms concept on the strategic level by reorganizing and re- structuring the Soviet armed forces. Threat Assessments and Force Requirements

Since the nuclear era began, worst-case threat assessments have

dominated Soviet military thinking. As a result, even during the

years of detente and strategic arms control, Soviet military policy

and doctrine have called for disproportionately large forces for the

fulfillment of strategic missions, and Soviet military planners have

drawn up plans in response to doctrinal requirements.

In the 1980s, Soviet worst-case scenarios centered on the modernization of the United States ICBMs, on United States deployment of the Trident ballistic missile submarine armed with

long-range, accurate nuclear missiles, and on United States procurement of low-flying ground-, sea-, and air-launched cruise missiles.

Soviet spokesmen also persisted in portraying SDI as an offensive

system and claimed that it would enable the United States to launch

a first strike against Soviet territory with impunity.

Dmitrii Iazov, appointed minister of defense in 1987, adopted

a contradictory position on Soviet military planning and threat as- sessment. Implying that the Soviet Union was willing to scale down

its military expenditures and would modify its military doctrine

and strategy, Iazov publicly endorsed reductions in the nuclear and

conventional armaments of both the United States and the Soviet

Union to a level commensurate with a defense-oriented doctrine

and strategy. Yet he retained the traditional worst-case scenario

when he called for a robust Soviet nuclear capability that could

punish an attacker "even under the most unfavorable circumstances." Although he relied on "reasonable sufficiency" rather

than on superiority, Iazov also defined "reasonable sufficiency"

in traditional terms as the ability to "reliably guarantee the defense

of the Socialist Community" with armed forces structured and

equipped for offensive action.

Offensive and Defensive Strategic Missions

Traditionally, the overall mission of the Soviet armed forces has

been to deter war in peacetime and to defend the Soviet Union

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

and the socialist states allied to it in wartime. Should war break

out, the Soviet armed forces were expected to fight decisively and

to achieve victory. Soviet unified military strategy, common to all services, was primarily offensive, and defense was only a temporary

expedient. The primacy of strategic offense over strategic defense

appeared indisputable. Since the advent of nuclear weapons,

however, strategic offense and defense have become intertwined,

and offensive and defensive strategic missions frequendy coalesced.

The combined arms concept was expressed in this growing inter- dependence between offense and defense in Soviet unified strategy

because many strategic missions involved overlap and cooperation

and would be performed by more than one service (see Military

Art, this ch.). The Soviet military envisaged most strategic operations, both offensive and defensive, as mutually reinforcing components of a single strategic plan. In the 1980s, Soviet strategists

believed that the synergistic effect of combined arms would maximize the armed forces' potential to achieve unambiguous victory.

To reinforce the combined arms concept on a strategic level, the

Soviet military reorganized the Soviet armed forces. It centralized

command and control, established theater commands in TVDs

directly responsible to the Supreme High Command, and improved

early warning systems (see Main Military Council, ch. 18). The

new Soviet command infrastructure would enable the Soviet military to change speedily from a peacetime to a wartime footing.

Strategic Offense

The Strategic Rocket Forces, the Naval Forces, the Air Forces,

and the Ground Forces have had predominantly offensive missions.

Since their founding in 1959, the Strategic Rocket Forces have been

charged with using their intercontinental and intermediate-range

ballistic missiles to destroy military and economic targets in the

United States and on the Eurasian landmass in the initial period

of war. The Strategic Rocket Forces were to preempt an enemy

attack by launching Soviet missiles first or to prevent the destruction of Soviet missiles by launching them soon after the enemy's

missiles had left their silos. Thus the Soviet initial strike could be

both offensive and defensive. In their offensive posture, the Strategic Rocket Forces could change the correlation of forces and

resources and tip the nuclear balance in the Soviet Union's favor.

At the same time, should the Soviet strike succeed in destroying

United States missiles before launch, it would prevent a United States nuclear strike (see Military Doctrine in the Late 1980s, this ch.).

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Strategic Rocket Forces enjoyed an

undisputed predominance in nuclear strategy. By the 1980s,

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

however, the Soviet military appeared to have downgraded the Stra- tegic Rocket Forces. Soviet spokesmen, beginning with Ogarkov

in 1981, began to refer to these forces, together with the nuclear

Naval Forces and the Air Forces, as an integral part of a combined

arms triad of "strategic nuclear forces."

The Air Forces also have had an offensive-defensive mission similar to that of the Strategic Rocket Forces. In contrast to the Strategic Rocket Forces, however, the Air Forces' intercontinental

capabilities had been very limited until the early 1980s. In addition to the Tu-26 (Backfire) bomber with a largely theater-level use, in the mid-1980s the Soviet military deployed the intercontinental Tu-160 bomber and equipped its Tu-95 bombers with air- launched cruise missiles (ALCMs). Because cruise missiles could

be conventionally armed, in the late 1980s the Air Forces were beginning to acquire a significant conventional capability for stra- tegic missions.

Of all the services, the Naval Forces experienced the most dramatic mission expansion after the 1960s. Their mission evolved

from coastal defense to worldwide power projection in peacetime

and to denial of the use of the seas to adversaries in wartime through

the disruption of sea lines of communication. In the 1970s, the

"father" of the modern Soviet Naval Forces, Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, had lobbied for independent strategic missions for the Naval

Forces. Admiral Vladimir Chernavin, however, who succeeded

Gorshkov as the Naval Forces commander in chief in 1986, appeared content to have a strong but less independent Naval Forces,

well integrated into the traditional combined arms concept and a uniform, all-services strategy. The strategic nuclear mission was

the only Naval Forces mission in which Western analysts had noted some retrenchment since the 1960s. In the 1960s, nuclear war was

expected to start with a massive nuclear exchange, and strikes by

submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) were to supplement

the initial strike by the Strategic Rocket Forces. In the 1970s and

1980s, when the Strategic Rocket Forces built up their counterforce capability, the primary strategic mission of the Naval Forces was to provide a secure reserve force, withheld from the initial nuclear strikes, and to protect this force from enemy antisubmarine warfare.

The strategic mission of the Ground Forces has been defense

of the territorial and political integrity of the Soviet Union and its socialist allies and, in case of war, conducting combined arms operations in the TVDs with the support of air, air defense, and navy

elements. In Europe the goal of the strategic combined arms mission

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Tu-26 (Backfire) strike bomber

Courtesy United States Navy

has been defeating NATO as quickly as possible and occupying

Western Europe without destroying its economic base.

Strategic Operation in a Theater of Military Operations

The concept of the combined arms operational offensive in a

theater of military operations (teatr voennykh deistvii—TVD) developed in the 1920s as the theory of the deep offensive operation (see

Military Art, this ch.). According to this theory, Soviet infantry,

armor, and artillery would coordinate to achieve operational goals

with operational breakthroughs and firepower. The deep offensive

operation concept underlies the modern, expanded theater operation, which, according to Marshal Ogarkov, is ''no longer a front or group of fronts, but a strategic operation in a TVD" and can

lead directly to the achievement of strategic objectives. Since the

mid-1970s, such an operation in the Western TVD, covering

NATO's Central Region, was expected to be fought mainly with

new, improved conventional weapons. Although primarily offensive, the modern strategic operation also incorporated defensive

concepts because of changes in NATO strategy.

American military expert Phillip Petersen believed that a conventional air operation against NATO's airfields and nuclear

weapons sites would substitute aviation and the fire of conventional

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

missiles for nuclear strikes. The air operation could neutralize

NATO's air defense assets, destroy nuclear weapons, and disrupt

command and control capabilities. Highly mobile first- and secondechelon ground forces, known as operational maneuver groups,

could break through the forward defenses and penetrate deep into

the enemy's rear. If NATO's nuclear weapons could be successfully destroyed, Warsaw Pact tanks and armored personnel carriers could advance rapidly across Western Europe to the North

Sea coast and to the Danish Straits before NATO could mobilize

fully and bring reinforcements from North America. Similar operations would take place in the Northwestern and Southwestern

TVDs and would continue until Soviet troops achieved the stra- tegic objective of victory in Europe.

Although Soviet military theorists traditionally have deemphasized defensive operations, in the 1980s they paid more attention

to defensive concepts on the strategic, operational, and tactical levels and called defense "an essential form of combat action." In

the 1980s, Soviet military writers also emphasized the increased

depth of operational defenses in connection with the deep-strike

concepts incorporated in the United States Army's AirLand

Battle doctrine (see Glossary) and in NATO's Follow-on-ForcesAttack (FOFA—see Glossary) concept. The Soviet concept of

defense has been distinguished by extreme "combat activeness,"

i.e., using massive firepower to destroy the enemy's aircraft and

attacking ground forces while Soviet forces prepare a counterattack. Strategic Defense

The Air Defense Forces, known until their 1980 reorganization

as the National Air Defense Forces, was the one service whose mission was almost entirely defensive (see Air Defense Forces, ch. 18).

These forces were to protect the country from nuclear attack. Formed in 1948 to counter the threat of strategic bombers, the National Air Defense Forces had no capability against ballistic missiles, which became the main threat in the 1960s. The preemptive

mission of the Strategic Rocket Forces filled this gap and lightened

the burden of the National Air Defense Forces. The principal mission of the Air Defense Forces has remained

practically unchanged since the 1950s. However, according to Sokolovskii's Military Strategy, air defense included both defense

against ballistic missiles and space defense. In 1989 one antiballistic missile site around Moscow protected both the capital and the

National Command Authority housed there. Extensive Soviet

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

research on defense against ballistic missiles, however, pointed to a possible change in Soviet reliance on strategic offense.

In addition to the active defense that the mission of the Air

Defense Forces has called for, the Soviet Union has invested heavily

in civil defense. The declared mission of civil defense has been to provide "reliable protection for the population against weapons

of mass destruction in wartime" through construction of shelters

for the leadership, hardening and dispersal of industry, and evacuation of leadership and civilians from cities. Such efforts continued

in the 1980s, despite civilian leaders' statements denying the viability of defense against nuclear weapons and acknowledging that

nuclear war would be suicidal.

Global Strategic Concerns

Since the late 1960s, when the Soviet Union was about to achieve

nuclear parity with the United States, Soviet military support for the global task of promoting Marxism-Leninism intensified. Hoping

that the attainment of strategic parity with the United States would

deter the latter from interfering with Soviet international activism,

the Soviet Union set out to aid and abet the forces of socialism and

"national liberation" worldwide.

Soviet doctrine called not only for nuclear and nonnuclear capabilities to fight a world war but also for adequate conventional forces to support the "external function" of the Soviet armed forces in

defense of "socialist gains" and of the fighters for world revolution. Two components of the "internationalist duty" of the Soviet

armed forces emerged: "socialist internationalism," the defense

of socialist countries allied to the Soviet Union; and "proletarian

internationalism," the assistance given to "wars of national liber- ation" in the Third World.

Soviet spokesmen have emphasized repeatedly that the Soviet

Union does not believe in the "export of revolution" but opposes

the export of "counterrevolution, " i.e. , actions by Western powers

that would hinder the historic progress of socialism. In the 1970s,

combating "counterrevolution" became part of the "internationalist duty" of the Soviet armed forces. The Soviet Union has attempted, not always successfully, to reconcile Marxist-Leninist doctrine with state interests. Soviet leaders have tried to satisfy doctrinal requirements while pursuing the

military and foreign policies of the Soviet state. Projected worldwide, Marxism-Leninism evolved from a purely revolutionary ideol- ogy into an ideology rationalizing the actions of a superpower. Often

state interests were a more reliable guide than ideology to understanding Soviet actions.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Force Projection on the Periphery

The Soviet armed forces have exercised their "external function" mainly on the periphery of the Soviet Union. They occupied

eastern Poland in 1939 and annexed Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1940 (see Prelude to War, ch. 2). Subsequentiy, during World

War II they "liberated" Eastern Europe from German rule and

then incorporated it into a bloc of socialist states (see Appendix C).

The Soviet Union managed to turn these territories into an out- post of socialism, as well as into a defensive buffer against an in- vasion from the West. This buffer became increasingly valuable

to the Soviet Union both as an extension of Soviet air defenses to the end of the Soviet defense perimeter and as a potential springboard for an offensive against NATO.

In 1956 the Soviet Union set a precedent for military intervention "in defense of socialism" when it suppressed the uprising that

threatened communist rule in Hungary. In August 1968, the Soviet

Union again intervened militarily in Eastern Europe when it in- vaded Czechoslovakia in response to the Czechoslovak reform

movement begun in the spring. The invasion later was justified on the basis of the doctrine of "limited sovereignty" of socialist

states. Also known as the Brezhnev Doctrine, the doctrine was first enunciated on September 21 , 1968, in a Pravda editorial, to justify

the invasion. Because Czechoslovakia and Hungary lie on the Soviet

defense perimeter, national security considerations, in addition to ideological and political concerns, undoubtedly played a part in

the Soviet decision to intervene.

The December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan was another case

in which doctrinal concerns and interests of state security coalesced

(see Asia, ch. 10). Although nominally nonaligned, Afghanistan

was, according to Soviet arguments, well on its way to socialism

in 1979, and a reversal was unacceptable to the Soviet Union. In

addition, because Afghanistan borders the Soviet Union, Soviet

leaders sought to prevent it from aligning itself with the West or from becoming an Islamic republic allied to Ayatollah Sayyid

Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini's Iran. The invasion, although "correct" according to Soviet ideological criteria, plunged the Soviet

Union into one of the longest local wars (see Glossary) it had ever

fought, second only to the 1939-40 Soviet-Finnish War, in which

over 100,000 Soviet troops died. In 1988 the Soviet leadership

declared that it would negotiate a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and seek a political setdement. On April 14, 1988, Soviet

foreign minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze signed an agreement in

Geneva providing for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan by February 15, 1989.

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Missile cruiser Slava

Courtesy United States Navy

The invasion of Afghanistan tarnished the Soviet image abroad,

where the invasion was perceived and condemned as an act of aggression. Some Western analysts regarded it as an unprecedented

extension of the Brezhnev Doctrine of " socialist internationalism"

to a country that was nonaligned and thus not part of the world

socialist system (see Glossary). A majority vote in the United Nations (UN) censured the invasion as a flagrant intervention in the

internal affairs of a sovereign state. Soviet leaders hoped that the

1988 Geneva agreement, which stipulated a unilateral withdrawal

of Soviet forces, would placate world opinion and repair the politi- cal damage done by the war. The only benefit that the Soviet Union appeared to have derived

from the war in Afghanistan was the use of Afghan territory to

train Soviet troops to fight in mountainous terrain and to test Soviet

weapons. However, Soviet concepts of offense and combined arms, and Soviet troops and weapons, fared poorly in the difficult mountain terrain. Tanks were of little use in ground combat in narrow

mountain passes. The Soviet military learned that helicopters were

of greater importance in the mountains because helicopters could

carry out air attacks and could land troops on enemy territory. The

Soviet military also found that the enemy's surface-to-air missiles

posed a grave threat to attacking Soviet aircraft. Thus, the Soviet

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Union probably decided to withdraw from Afghanistan not only

for political but also for military reasons. Military Presence in the Third World

The Soviet Union has sought to restructure international rela- tions and to achieve a world socialist system largely through political influence; however, it has not reneged on the promise of military

aid for revolutionary movements in the Third World under the

principle of ''proletarian internationalism" (see Glossary). Soviet

leaders reaffirmed this principle in the 1986 party program (see

Glossary) of the CPSU. Yet the Soviet Union has also sought to advance Soviet state interests by gaining a military foothold in stra- tegically important areas of the Third World.

Because of the dual and often contradictory nature of Soviet objectives in the Third World, the Soviet military has had successes and failures in its dealings with it. Two large-scale, successful Sovietsupported interventions took place, in Angola in 1975 and in Ethiopia in 1977. In both places the Soviet Union provided arms and

military advisers and used Cuban troops to help pro-Soviet ele- ments consolidate power. By contrast, in 1976 the Soviet Union

suffered a reversal in Egypt where, after years of massive military

assistance, the Egyptian government asked Soviet advisers to leave,

canceled access for the Soviet Naval Forces, and abrogated the

Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union. Similarly, Somalia, once the most important Soviet client in sub-Saharan

Africa, abrogated its friendship treaty in 1977 because of the Soviet

tilt toward Ethiopia and denied use of naval facilities at Berbera

to the Soviet Naval Forces. In the 1980s, combating "counterrevolution" in the Third World was not an unqualified success for the

Soviet military, which, for political reasons, had shunned direct

intervention in countries far from Soviet borders. In the 1980s,

Soviet military aid to allied regimes in Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, and Cambodia was unable to rid these beleaguered Marxist

regimes of "counterrevolutionary" resistance forces. The Soviet Union has long been the world's major supplier of

military advisory assistance. According to the United States government, in 1986 about 21 ,000 Soviet and East European military advisers (most of whom were Soviet advisers) were stationed in Third

World countries, including about 8,000 in Africa, almost 6,000

in the Middle East, and about 3,000 in Afghanistan. The Soviet

Union has also used military "proxies," or allied forces, to substitute for or buttress Soviet military advisers serving in Third World

countries. Advisers and combatants from Cuba, Vietnam, the

Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), the People's

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen), and Eastern

Europe—particularly the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and Bulgaria—have been used in various Third World countries, such as Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozambique.

Despite ideological setbacks, the Soviet Union has derived considerable military-strategic advantage by establishing bases and

naval access in the Third World. In the 1980s, facilities were avail- able to the Soviet Union at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, Aden and

the island of Socotra in South Yemen, Massawa and the island of

Dahlak in Ethiopia, Luanda in Angola, and Maputo in Mozambique. Part of a worldwide Soviet military support structure, such

installations increased Soviet influence in the Third World. American analyst Alex Alexiev has argued that Soviet arms deliveries

to certain countries have actually been attempts to pre-position war

materiel in case of global war. Alexiev believed such pre-positioning

to have taken place in Libya, where Soviet deliveries increased the

number of tanks and armored personnel carriers from 175 in 1971

to 4,400 in 1983. Similarly, South Yemen had 50 tanks and no

armored personnel carriers in 1975, while in 1982, after Soviet shipments, it had 450 modern tanks and 300 armored personnel carriers. In 1989 Soviet global military initiative appeared to be on hold.

On the one hand, Gorbachev declared his "solidarity with the forces of national liberation and social emancipation" throughout the

globe. On the other hand, his "new thinking" in foreign and mili- tary policy deemphasized "military-technical solutions" to the

world's problems and seemed to promise fewer Soviet military fo- rays into the Third World and less interference in the internal af- fairs of socialist allies. Many Western observers believed that

Gorbachev wanted to replace emphasis on Soviet military power

with an approach that combined economic, political, and military

instruments of power.

Arms Control and Military Objectives

Since the late 1960s, the Soviet Union has made arms control an important component of its foreign and military policy. Soviet

public diplomacy liberally used arms control and disarmament slo- gans. Arms control proposals and signed agreements, however, have

been carefully coordinated with doctrinal requirements and weapons

programs.

Soviet objectives in all areas of arms control—strategic, space, intermediate-range nuclear, and conventional weapons—have been,

first, to help avert a world war, and, second, to prevent the ero- sion of Soviet capability for fighting such a war. If efforts to avert war were to fail, Soviet leaders required that their armed forces

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

be able to fulfill military missions and win all military conflicts. War was to be avoided by entering into agreements that would

limit an adversary's weapons and forestall the adversary's development of a war-winning military posture. Capability for fighting

and winning a war was to be continued by acquiring the neces- sary arsenal within the constraints of an agreement and by maintaining it against all odds.

Strategic Arms Control

Strategic arms control imposes limitations or stipulates reductions in the numbers of Soviet and United States intercontinental

nuclear weapons that are capable of reaching each other's homelands. Weapons limited have included ICBMs, SLBMs, bombers

armed with nuclear bombs and cruise missiles, and antiballistic missile systems. Motivated by its desire to avert a nuclear war and

to be prepared to fight one, the Soviet Union has sought strategic arms control agreements that would limit United States nuclear

capabilities for intercontinental attack but would permit the Soviet

Union to amass a strategic arsenal for fighting and winning a nuclear war. Averting a World War

According to the worst-case scenario, still accepted by Soviet plan- ners in 1989, a world nuclear war could start with a disarming first strike on the Soviet Union's strategic nuclear weapons and on its strategic command and control centers (see Military Art, this ch.).

An arms control agreement that is advantageous to the Soviet Union

would help deter such a calamity by constraining the strategic forces of the United States and denying it the weapons needed to execute a strategic attack with impunity.

Before agreeing to limit its strategic forces, the Soviet Union

wanted at least numerical equality with the United States. When

arms control was first discussed in the early 1960s, under no cir- cumstances were Soviet leaders willing to settle for a "minimum

deterrent." For example, when President Lyndon B. Johnson pro- posed in January 1964 to freeze both Soviet and United States stra- tegic missiles at existing levels, the Soviet Union refused because

the "freeze" would have codified their strategic inferiority. Yet

in 1969, after the Soviet Union began to deploy the third generation of ICBMs (the SS-9, SS-11, and SS-13) and was developing

the fourth generation (the SS-17, SS-18, and SS-19), it agreed

to hold the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT—see Glossary)

with the United States. In 1972 the negotiations resulted in the

signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) and of

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

the Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive

Arms. Essentially, both agreements froze the deployment of stra- tegic defensive and offensive armaments.

Because the Soviet Union wanted to continue the buildup of its strategic offensive forces, it accepted the offensive arms limitation

grudgingly. Its main motive in signing the agreements resulting

from the first series of SALT negotiations, known as SALT I, was

to prevent the United States from deploying an effective defense

against ballistic missiles. The Soviet Union clearly preferred a vulnerable adversary that would be deterred from striking by the

prospect of massive Soviet retaliation on the adversary's unprotected

weapons, economy, and population.

Retaining a Capability to Fight and to Win

In addition to deterring a nuclear world war, Soviet strategic

forces were expected to fight it and to win it. SALT I was acceptable to the Soviet military not only because it made war less likely

but also because the Soviet military would have the capability to carry out its intercontinental strike mission even in a worst-case

scenario. By limiting defensive systems to one installation in each

country, the ABM Treaty guaranteed that Soviet missiles could

successfully penetrate United States airspace.

Because SALT I limited the number of ballistic missile launchers but not the number of warheads, the Soviet Union was able

to increase its intercontinental missile arsenal. It used new technologies to equip its land- and sea-based strategic missiles with several warheads, known as multiple independently targetable reentry

vehicles (MIRVs). The Soviet military also greatly improved the

accuracies of its missiles, especially the SS-18 and SS-19 ICBMs.

In 1979, when President Jimmy Carter and General Secretary

Leonid Brezhnev signed the second SALT agreement in Vienna,

the Soviet Union had 5,000 warheads on its strategic missiles, an

increase of 2,500 since 1972. By 1986 the number of Soviet stra- tegic warheads exceeded 10,000. Thus neither of the SALT agree- ments significantly constrained Soviet nuclear modernization and

the growth of the Soviet arsenal, whose ultimate aim was to hold

at risk the vulnerable United States force of land-based Minuteman III missiles.

Soviet leaders objected to United States proposals in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START), a new round of talks to reduce nuclear arsenals, that began in June 1982, because, if ac- cepted, such proposals would have cut in half the number of Soviet

ICBMs, their principal war-fighting component. In the mid-1980s,

when it began deploying the fifth generation of ICBMs (the mobile

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

SS-24 and SS-25 missiles, to assume part of the SS-18 mission),

the Soviet Union began to show interest in reducing the number

of its heavy SS-18 missiles. Since their deployment in 1974, the

United States had viewed the SS-18s as the most threatening and

destabilizing component of the Soviet arsenal. In 1989 the Soviet

leaders continued to link reduction of the SS-18s to severe restric- tions on the testing of SDL First unveiled by President Ronald W.

Reagan in March 1983, SDI promised to yield advanced technologies for a North American antimissile shield. Should SDI prove

feasible, it could render Soviet nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete, according to some Western specialists.

This prospect alarmed the Soviet military because such a shield

could prevent it from attaining its two most important military objectives: avoiding wars and being prepared to fight them. In 1989

the Soviet Union appeared willing to agree to deep cuts in its offensive weapons in order to derail SDI or at least to force the United

States to ban SDI-related tests in space for a minimum of ten years. Objectives in Space

Soviet interest in space, both for peaceful and for military use, has been intense since the 1950s. During talks on limiting the mili- tary use of space, Soviet negotiators have tried to block development of defensive and offensive United States space systems. At

the same time, the Soviet Union has conducted extensive research

in military space-based technologies.

Negotiations

Attempts to limit the military use of space began soon after the

Soviet Union rejected President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1958

proposal to prohibit all military activity in space. The rejection was

understandable because the Soviet Union had just launched the

first artificial earth satellite, Sputnik, and was interested in deploying

military reconnaissance satellites. In 1963, however, the Soviet

Union signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty with the United States and Britain, prohibiting the explosion of nuclear weapons in the

atmosphere, and in 1967 it became party to the Outer Space Treaty,

which banned the deployment of nuclear weapons in earth orbit

and on celestial bodies.

In March 1977, President Carter, concerned about Soviet

resumption of antisatellite tests, called for talks about banning antisatellite (ASAT) weapons. Although the United States pressed for a comprehensive ban on such systems, the Soviet Union was unwilling to dismantle its operational ASAT in view of the heavy and

still growing United States dependence on reconnaissance satellites.

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

After three rounds of negotiations, the talks were suspended in

December 1979 after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

In international and bilateral forums, the Soviet Union tried to derail advanced space defense plans. In 1981, 1983, and 1984, the

Soviet Union, anxious to prevent deployment of a United States

ballistic missile defense system in space, submitted three separate

draft treaties to the United Nations. Each treaty proposed to ban

weapons stationed in orbit and intended to strike targets on earth,

in the air, and in space. The treaties would have blocked the development of a space-based ABM system and precluded military use of vehicles like the space shuttle. In March 1985, bilateral talks on space and space weapons limitations between the United States and the Soviet Union opened in Geneva. In early 1989, the Soviet

Union had not achieved its principal objective in the talks—to derail SDL

Soviet Space Weapons Development

Since the Sputnik launch in 1957, the military potential of space

has fascinated Soviet leaders. The 1962 and 1963 editions of

Sokolovskii's Military Strategy advocated development of a military

capability in space. In the late 1960s, the Soviet Union developed

the fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS)—a nucleararmed space weapon with a depressed trajectory. The 1967 Outer

Space Treaty neutralized the FOBS threat, but the Soviet Union

retained an interest in undertaking offensive missions in space as part of its combined arms concept. In 1971 it acquired a groundbased orbital ASAT interceptor, the stated purpose of which was

defensive but which could also attack satellites in near-earth orbit. The Soviet Union developed a variety of satellites that in 1989 were

capable of reconnaissance, missile-launch detection, attack warning, command and control, and antisatellite functions. The Soviet

Union also had impressive manned space programs with military

implications, mostly aboard the Saliut and Mir space stations. In

addition, by 1989 the Soviet Union had explored advanced space

weapons, both defensive and offensive, using lasers, particle beams,

radio frequencies, and kinetic energy. Although Soviet negotiators at the Geneva space talks portrayed Soviet space efforts as peaceful, in the late 1980s Soviet scientists and military strategists

continued to study space in their search for new weapons and mili- tary options.

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Arms Control

Intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) are nuclear weapons

systems with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. They could

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

be used in a theater operation either at the outset of hostilities or

after nuclear escalation on the battlefield. INF arms control be- came a Soviet concern in the 1980s, when United States nuclear

missiles were deployed in Western Europe to offset new Soviet INF

deployments on Soviet territory. Although the 1987 IntermediateRange Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) led to the dismantling

of the most threatening, longer-range INF missiles, capable of hit- ting Soviet territory, Soviet strategists viewed complete denuclearization of Europe as the most desirable end of INF arms control.

Threat Reduction

Since the 1950s, the Soviet Union has viewed United States nuclear weapons deployed in Europe and capable of striking the

Soviet Union as being particularly threatening. The Soviet mili- tary first formulated its preemptive nuclear strategy in the 1950s

to neutralize the threat of United States strategic bombers armed

with nuclear weapons and stationed in Europe. In 1979 NATO

decided to offset Soviet deployments of the new intermediate-range

SS-20 missiles by deploying new United States nuclear systems

in Western Europe. These systems—108 Pershing II missiles and

464 ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs)—could reach Soviet

territory. The Soviet military regarded both systems as a grave

threat because of their high accuracy and because of the Pershing

IPs short flying time (under ten minutes). The Soviet Union as- serted that both the Pershing lis and the hard-to-detect GLCMs

could make a surprise strike against the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union tried both antinuclear propaganda and negotiations to forestall the NATO deployments. Formal negotiations

began in November 1981, at which time the United States proposed

the " global zero option," banning or eliminating all United States and Soviet longer-range intermediate nuclear forces (LRINF), in- cluding Soviet SS-4s, SS-5s, and SS-20s, and the United States Pershing lis and GLCMs. The Soviet Union rejected the "global

zero option" and insisted on including the British and French

nuclear components in INF reductions.

In October 1986, at the Reykjavik Summit, the Soviet Union

ceased insisting on including British and French weapons in an INF agreement. Nevertheless, it attempted to link an INF agreement to strategic arms reductions and to the renunciation of SDI.

Only after Soviet negotiators abandoned all linkages and agreed

to destroy all Soviet longer-range and shorter-range INF in Europe and Asia and to permit on-site inspection were they able to achieve their goal: the eventual removal of the Pershing lis and

GLCMs that are capable of reaching Soviet territory.

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

The INF Treaty, signed on December 8, 1987, in Washington

by President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev, stipulated that each party would eliminate all of its intermediate-range missiles and their launchers. These missiles included Soviet SS-4, SS-5,

SS-20 longer-range INF (with ranges between 1,000 and 5,500

kilometers), and SS-12 and SS-23 shorter-range missiles (with

ranges between 500 and 1,000 kilometers). The treaty called for the destruction of about 2,700 United States and Soviet missiles.

Denuclearization of Europe

Since the 1950s, Soviet leaders have sought complete removal

of nuclear weapons from Western Europe. Stripping Europe of

nuclear weapons not only would reduce the nuclear threat on the

Soviet periphery but also would make easier a Soviet conventional offensive in Europe. In 1988, even before the INF agreement

had been ratified by the United States Senate, Soviet spokesmen

were advocating removal of all nuclear weapons from Europe. They

especially focused on NATO's tactical nuclear weapons arsenal,

deployed mainly in the Federal Republic of Germany (West

Germany)

.

In late 1987, Foreign Minister Shevardnadze asserted that on INF agreement was a step toward denuclearization and that its signing proved that "the Soviet Union and the United States have fi- nally spoken together the first word in a nuclear-free vocabulary. '

Soviet and Soviet-sponsored denuclearization initiatives in Europe

have included several proposals for a nuclear-weapon-free corridor

in Central Europe (submitted between 1956 and 1987 by the Soviet

Union, Poland, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia), as well as

for nuclear-weapon-free zones in Northern Europe, the Balkans,

and the Mediterranean. If such zones were established, the United

States and NATO would have to withdraw nuclear weapons not

only from Europe but also from the surrounding seas. Conventional Arms Control

For many years, the Soviet Union could not reconcile conventional arms control with its military objectives of avoiding wars and being prepared to fight them. Soviet operational concepts have

called for numerical superiority in conventional forces both to deter

the adversary from starting a war and to destroy the adversary's

forces and armaments and occupy its territory should a war break

out. Yet deep reductions in Soviet armed forces have a precedent:

Khrushchev reduced conventional forces by more than 2.1 million personnel between 1955 and 1958, and he announced further

reductions of 1.2 million troops in 1960.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Since Khrushchev's ouster in 1964, the Soviet military has

frowned on personnel reductions. In the 1960s, when United States secretary of state William Rogers suggested negotiations to reduce

armed forces in Europe, the Soviet leaders resisted bitterly. They

finally agreed to negotiate in exchange for United States participation in a European security conference. The Mutual Balanced

Forces Reduction (MBFR) talks began in 1973 but remained

stalemated for years. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Soviet

conventional buildup in Europe progressed. Soviet leaders showed

interest in the talks only in December 1975, when the Western

proposal included a reduction in United States tactical nuclear

weapons in Europe.

In 1987 the Soviet Union called for a new forum to discuss the

balance of conventional forces in Europe "from the Atlantic to the

Urals." Soviet leaders appeared to espouse the new Soviet stra- tegic concepts of "reasonable sufficiency" and nonprovocative

defense, and they maintained that reductions in conventional forces should make it impossible for either side to undertake offensive ac- tions and launch surprise strikes. However, the Soviet military

resisted a defensive concept because deep cuts in personnel and

armaments such as tanks could prevent Soviet forces from pursuing their military objectives under the doctrine calling for victory.

In December 1988, Gorbachev announced unilateral reductions

in Soviet armed forces. Soviet forces were to be reduced by 500,000

men by 1991. Soviet forces in the Atlantic-to-the-Urals area were

to be reduced by 10,000 tanks, 8,500 artillery pieces, and 800 combat aircraft. Several Soviet tank divisions were to be withdrawn

from Eastern Europe, together with assault-landing and assault- river-crossing units. Soviet and East European divisions were to be reorganized, with a major cutback in the number of tanks.

During 1988 and 1989, the Non-Soviet Warsaw Pact (NSWP) countries also announced unilateral reductions in manpower and conventional armaments.

In 1989 the Soviet leadership appeared to be interested in

negotiating seriously on conventional arms control in order to reduce the threat of new Western weapons and operational concepts, to create a "breathing space" for internal economic and social restructuring, and to divert manpower and resources to the

country's economy. New negotiations on Conventional Forces in

Europe (CFE) opened in March 1989. Both Warsaw Pact and

NATO negotiators expressed interest in stabilizing the strategic

situation in Europe by eliminating capabilities for initiating sur- prise attacks and large-scale offensive actions.

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

Although Gorbachev proclaimed his commitment to a doctrine

that emphasized war avoidance, diplomacy, and the achievement

of political goals with political means, the Soviet military continued

to press for high-quality military capabilities, commensurate with

perceived present and future threats to Soviet national security. Soviet military authorities endorsed Gorbachev's arms control efforts as well as the concepts of parity and "reasonable

sufficiency." Nevertheless, they supported Gorbachev's pragmatic

policies largely in the hope that a renewed economy would help

create a modern industrial base. Such a base, they believed, would

make it possible not merely to counter Western emerging technologies but also to produce fundamentally new weapons for the

twenty-first century.

A transformation of NATO and of the Warsaw Pact, as proposed by Soviet leaders in 1989, would necessitate that both sides

adopt a defensive, no-victory doctrine, stressing negotiations and

restoration of the status quo. On the Soviet side, this would call for rejecting or circumventing Marxist-Leninist dogma and for revising political goals. Only then could the rewriting of Soviet mili- tary art yield a strategy, operational art, and tactics based on

genuinely defensive principles, excluding deep offensive operations,

massive counteroffensives, and the requisite capabilities. In 1989,

however, Soviet military doctrine still bore the burden of MarxistLeninist revolutionary ideology predicting the eventual worldwide

ascendancy of socialism.

* * * Most original sources on Soviet military doctrine, policy, and

strategy are available only in Russian. However, a good introduction to Soviet military thought, The Soviet Art of War, edited by

Harriet F. Scott and William F. Scott, is a judicious combination

of the editors' commentaries and of excerpts from translated writings of Soviet military authorities. Paul D. Kelley's Soviet General

Doctrinefor War, a 1987 publication of the United States Army Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center (USAITAC), contains a

detailed treatment of Soviet military doctrine and military science.

Students of Soviet tactics should also consider William P. Baxter's The Soviet Way of Warfare, in which the author discusses the offensive and defensive options of Soviet tactical combat. Michael

MccGwire's Military Objectives in Soviet Foreign Policy offers a comprehensive overview of Soviet strategic and military objectives and

of Soviet operational planning. Finally, the annual Department of

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Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns

Defense publication Soviet Military Power presents the official United

States Department of Defense view of Soviet military developments.

For the reader who would like to study Soviet military thought,

the United States Air Force series of translations of Soviet military monographs is invaluable. Among the most illuminating and

thought-provoking in the series are the 1972 translation of the 1968

classic, Marxism-Leninism on War and the Army, and the controversial Basic Principles of Operational Art and Tactics by V.E. Savkin.

Although the heavy emphasis on nuclear weapons in both works

appeared outdated in the 1980s, the doctrinal tenets and many of

the strategic and operational concepts remained valid. Scientific- Technical Progress and the Revolution in Military Affairs, edited by N.A.

Lomov and published in 1973, is an important reminder that

nuclear weapons were only a stage in the technological revolution

and that other revolutionary developments may follow. (For fur- ther information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

694
Chapter 18. Armed Forces and

Defense Organization
Facets of the armed forces
IN 1988 THE ARMED FORCES of the Soviet Union celebrated

their seventieth anniversary. As old as the Soviet state, they have

been highly integrated into its political, economic, and social sys- tems. The missions of the Soviet armed forces were to defend the

Soviet Union and its socialist (see Glossary) allies, to ensure favorable conditions for the development of the world socialist system

(see Glossary), and to assist the national liberation movements

around the world. The armed forces have defended communist parties that dominated Soviet-allied socialist countries as well as the

Soviet Union. They also have projected military power abroad to help pro-Soviet forces gain or maintain political power. Thus, the

armed forces have provided the military might that is the basis of

the Soviet Union's claim to be a superpower with global interests. To ensure that the military pursues these largely political objectives, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) controlled

the armed forces through a combination of political indoctrination,

co-optation, and party supervision at every level. The Soviet armed forces, the world's largest military establishment, in 1989 had nearly 6 million troops in uniform. The armed

forces had five armed services rather than the standard army, navy,

and air force organizations found in most of the world's armed

forces. In their official order of importance, the Soviet armed ser- vices were the Strategic Rocket Forces, Ground Forces, Air Forces,

Air Defense Forces, and Naval Forces. The Soviet armed forces

also included two paramilitary forces, the Internal Troops and the

Border Troops.

The Soviet Union has always been a militarized state. One-fourth

of the entire Soviet population in 1989 was engaged in military

activities, whether active duty, military production, or civilian mili- tary training. Yet the sheer size of the armed forces has not trans- lated directly into combat power. Manpower, training, logistics,

equipment, and economic problems combined to limit the operational effectiveness of Soviet forces. Many servicemen were assigned

nonmilitary duties that in many other countries were performed

by civilians. Organizational Development and Combat Experience

Immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks (see Glossary) merged their 20,000-man army, the Red Guards,

with 200,000 Baltic Fleet sailors and Petrograd garrison soldiers

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

who supported the Bolsheviks. Bolshevik leader Vladimir I. Lenin

decreed the establishment of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army

on January 28, 1918, and Leon Trotsky was the first commissar

of war. The Bolsheviks recognized the importance of building an army under their control; without a loyal army, the Bolshevik or- ganization itself would have been unable to hold the power it had

seized.

The early Red Army was egalitarian but poorly disciplined. The

Bolsheviks considered military ranks and saluting to be bourgeois

customs and abolished them. Soldiers elected their own leaders and

voted on which orders to follow. This arrangement was abolished,

however, under pressure of the Civil War (1918-21), and ranks were reinstated (see Civil War and War Communism, ch. 2). Because most professional officers had joined the anti-Bolshevik, or White, forces, the Red Army initially faced a shortage of ex- perienced military leaders. To remedy this situation, the Bolsheviks recruited 50,000 former Imperial Army officers to command

the Red Army. At the same time, they attached political commissars to Red Army units to monitor the actions of professional com- manders and their allegiance to the Russian Communist Party

(Bolshevik), the name of the Bolshevik organization as of March

1918. By 1921 the Red Army had defeated four White armies and

held off five armed, foreign contingents that had intervened in the

Civil War.

After the Civil War, the Red Army became an increasingly

professional military organization. With most of its 5 million soldiers demobilized, the Red Army was transformed into a small regular

force, and territorial militias were created for wartime mobilization. Soviet military schools, established during the Civil War,

began to graduate large numbers of trained officers loyal to the

party. In an effort to increase the prestige of the military profession, the party downgraded political commissars, established the

principle of one-man command, and reestablished formal military

ranks.

During the 1930s, Soviet leader Joseph V. Stalin's five-year plans

and industrialization drive built the productive base necessary to modernize the Red Army. As the likelihood of war in Europe in- creased later in the decade, the Soviet Union tripled its military

expenditures and doubled the size of its regular forces to match

the power of its potential enemies. In 1937, however, Stalin purged

the Red Army and deprived it of its best military leaders (see The

Period of the Purges, ch. 2). Fearing or imagining that the military posed a challenge to his rule, Stalin jailed or executed an esti- mated 30,000 Red Army officers, including three of five marshals

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Armed Forces and Defense Organization

and 90 percent of all field grade officers. Stalin also restored the

former dual command authority of political commissars in Red

Army units. These actions were to severely impair the Red Army's

capabilities in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-40 and in World

War II. After occupying the Baltic states and eastern Poland under the

terms of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939, the Soviet

Union demanded territorial concessions from Finland in late 1939

(see Foreign Policy, 1928-39, ch. 2). When the Finnish government refused, the Red Army invaded Finland. The resulting war

was a disaster for the Soviet Union. Although the Soviet Union

has not published casualty statistics, about 100,000 Red Army

troops are believed to have died in the process of overcoming the

small, poorly equipped Finnish army.

The Red Army had little time to correct its numerous deficiencies before Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, which began his war against the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941. At the

beginning of the Great Patriotic War (see Glossary), the Red Army

was forced to retreat, trading territory for time. But it managed

to halt the Wehrmacht's blitzkrieg in December 1941 at the gates

of Moscow. In 1942 the Wehrmacht launched a new offensive

through the Volga region aimed at seizing Soviet oil resources in

the Caucasus. At this critical moment, Stalin reinstituted one-man command and gave his field commanders more operational in- dependence. The Red Army encircled and destroyed German forces in the city of Stalingrad in a battie that ended in February 1943.

In the summer of 1943, the Red Army seized the strategic initia- tive, and it liberated all Soviet territory from German occupation

during 1944. After having driven the German army out of Eastern

Europe, in May 1945 the Red Army launched the final assault on

Berlin that ended the Great Patriotic War. The Red Army emerged

from the war as the most powerful land army in history. (After

the war, the army was known as the Soviet army.) The defeat of

the Wehrmacht had come, however, at the cost of 7 million mili- tary and 13 million civilian deaths among the Soviet population.

From the late 1940s to the late 1960s, the Soviet armed forces

focused on adapting to the changed nature of warfare in the era

of nuclear arms and achieving parity with the United States in stra- tegic nuclear weapons. Conventional military power showed its con- tinued importance, however, when the Soviet Union used its troops

to invade Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to keep

these countries within the Soviet alliance system (see Appendix C). In the 1970s, the Soviet Union began to modernize its conventional

warfare and power projection capabilities. At the same time, it

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

became more involved in regional conflicts or local wars (see Glossary) than ever before. The Soviet Union supplied arms and sent military advisers to a variety of Third World allies in Africa, Asia,

and the Middle East. Soviet generals planned military operations

against rebels in Angola and Ethiopia. Soviet troops, however, saw

little combat action until the invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. They fought a counterinsurgency against the Afghan

rebels, or mujahidin, for nearly eight and one-half years. An esti- mated 15,000 Soviet soldiers had been killed and 35,000 wounded

in the conflict by the time Soviet forces began to withdraw from

Afghanistan in May 1988. All 110,000 Soviet troops deployed in

Afghanistan had been withdrawn by February 1989, according to Soviet authorities.

Strategic Leadership of the Armed Forces

Four main organizations controlled the Soviet armed forces. The

Defense Council, which included the highest party and military

officials in the Soviet Union, was the supreme decision-making body on national security issues. The Main Military Council, the Ministry of Defense, and the General Staff were strictly military organizations.

Defense Council

The Soviet Constitution states that the Presidium of the Supreme

Soviet forms the Defense Council. First mentioned by the Soviet

press in 1976, the Defense Council has been the organ through

which the CPSU Central Committee, the Supreme Soviet, and the

Council of Ministers supposedly exercised supreme leadership of

the armed forces and national defense. In reality, these bodies car- ried out the Defense Council's decisions on issues concerning the

armed forces and national defense.

The general secretary of the CPSU has normally been the chairman of the Defense Council and the only member of the Defense

Council identified in the Soviet media. As chairman of the Defense

Council, the general secretary has also been the supreme com- mander in chief of the Soviet armed forces. The chairman of the

Council of Ministers, the chairman of the Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—KGB), the minister

of internal affairs, the minister of foreign affairs, and the minister

of defense have also probably served as members of the Defense

Council. Their official duties have enabled them to implement decisions reached in the Defense Council. The Defense Council has

been described as a working group of the Politburo, and its decisions

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Armed Forces and Defense Organization

have probably been subject to ratification by a vote in a full meeting of the Politburo.

The Defense Council has made decisions on political-military

and military-economic issues, using analyses and recommendations

it received from the Main Military Council, the Ministry of

Defense, and the General Staff. The Defense Council, according

to some Western authorities, would approve changes in military

doctrine and strategy, large operations, the commitment of troops

abroad, and the use of nuclear weapons. It has decided on major

changes in the organizational structure of the armed services and

the appointment or dismissal of high-ranking officers. In addition,

the Defense Council has been the highest link between the econ- omy and the military, which were also intertwined at lower levels. The Defense Council has determined the size of the military budget.

It has approved new weapons systems and coordinated the activities of the Ministry of Defense with those of ministries and state committees engaged in military research, development, and production.

Main Military Council

The Main Military Council was made up of the top leadership

of the Ministry of Defense. The minister of defense was its chair- man. The three first deputy ministers of defense, the eleven deputy

ministers of defense, and the chief of the Main Political Directorate

of the Soviet Army and Navy were members of the Main Military

Council.

In peacetime the Main Military Council has been responsible

for the training, readiness status, and mobilization of the armed

forces. It coordinated the activities of the five armed services and

resolved interservice disputes over the allocation of roles and missions, material resources, and manpower. The Main Military

Council also presented the Defense Council with the economic and

budgetary requirements of the armed forces, based on the force structure proposed by the General Staff and the armed services.

In wartime the Main Military Council would become the headquarters (stavka) of the Supreme High Command (Verkhovnoe

glavnokomandovanie—VGK) of the armed forces. The Main Military Council would then report through the minister of defense to the supreme commander in chief and the Defense Council. The

Supreme High Command would control military operations

through the General Staff and subordinate commands.

Ministry of Defense

The Ministry of Defense, an all-union ministry (see Glossary), was technically subordinate to the Council of Ministers, as well

701
Soviet Union: A Country Study

as to the Supreme Soviet and the CPSU Central Committee. In

1989 it was, however, larger than most other ministries and had

special arrangements for party supervision of, and state participation in, its activities. The Ministry of Defense was made up of the

General Staff, the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army

and Navy, the Warsaw Pact, the five armed services, and the main

and central directorates (see fig. 28). The minister of defense has

always been either a leading CPSU civilian official or a Ground

Forces general; the position has presumably been filled on the

recommendation of the Defense Council with the approval of the

Politburo, although the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet has made

the formal announcement. The three first deputy ministers of

defense were the chief of the General Staff, the commander in chief

of the Warsaw Pact, and another senior officer with unspecified

duties. First deputy ministers of defense have also been selected

from the Ground Forces. In 1989 the eleven deputy ministers of

defense included the commanders in chief of the five armed ser- vices as well as the chiefs of Civil Defense, Rear Services, Construction and Troop Billeting, Armaments, the Main Personnel

Directorate, and the Main Inspectorate.

The Ministry of Defense directed the five armed services and

all military activities on a daily basis. It was responsible for field- ing, arming, and supplying the armed services, and in peacetime

all territorial commands of the armed forces reported to it. The

Ministry of Defense has been staffed almost entirely by professional

military personnel, and it has had a monopoly on military information because the Soviet Union has lacked independent defense

research organizations frequentiy found in other countries. This

monopoly has given high-ranking Soviet officers undisputed in- fluence with party and government leaders on issues, ranging from arms control to weapons development to arms sales abroad, that

affect the position and prestige of the armed forces. General Staff

The General Staff has been the center of professional military

thought in the Soviet Union. Like the Ministry of Defense, the

General Staff has been dominated by the Ground Forces. In 1989

the chief, two first deputy chiefs, and three deputy chiefs of the

General Staff were all Ground Forces officers. The General Staff

had five main directorates and four directorates. They performed

strategic and operational research and planning, provided strategic

military intelligence and analysis to the Defense Council, dealt with

foreign military attaches, and gave occasional press briefings on

political-military issues.

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Armed Forces and Defense Organization

In wartime the General Staff would become the executive agent

of the Supreme High Command, supervising the execution of mili- tary strategy and operations by subordinate commands. The General Staff would exercise direct control over the three combat arms

of the armed forces that operate strategic nuclear weapons and

would coordinate the activities and missions of the five armed

services.

The Armed Services

The general organization of the Strategic Rocket Forces, Ground

Forces, Air Forces, Air Defense Forces, and Naval Forces at the

command level paralleled the organization of the Ministry of

Defense. The commander in chief of an armed service was an administrative rather than an operational commander. He equipped,

trained, and supplied the forces of the service, but operational

control rested with the Defense Council and was exercised through

the General Staff. Each armed service had two first deputy commanders in chief, one of whom was chief of the main staff for the service (see fig. 29).

The other had unspecified duties. The deputy commanders in chief were numerous. They commanded the combat arms and other

branches of the service. Some deputy commanders in chief were

responsible for premilitary and combat training, military education institutions, rear services, or armaments for the service as a whole. The armed services also had deputy commanders in chief

with specialized duties. For example, the Strategic Rocket Forces

had a deputy commander in chief for rocket engineering. Other

deputy commanders in chief had responsibilities that were unknown

to Western observers. The commander in chief, first deputy com- manders in chief, and deputy commanders in chief, together with

the chief of the service's political directorate, represented the military council or top leadership of the service.

The main staff of each service planned the operational employment of its service in coordination with the General Staff in the

Ministry of Defense. In peacetime the main staff controlled the

territorial commands or components of a service.

Strategic Rocket Forces

The Strategic Rocket Forces, the newest Soviet armed service,

in 1989 were the preeminent armed service, based on the continued

importance of their mission. Their prestige had diminished somewhat, however, because of an increasing emphasis on conventional

forces. The Strategic Rocket Forces were the main Soviet force used

for attacking an enemy's offensive nuclear weapons, its military

703
Soviet Union: A Country Study

MAIN POLITICAL DIRECTORATE OF THE

SOVIET ARMY

AND NAVY

MINISTRY

OF DEFENSE

MINISTRY OF DEFENSE

MAIN AND

CENTRAL DIRECTORATES

MAIN DIRECTORATE FOR NAVIGATION AND OCEANOGRAPHY

MAIN DIRECTORATE FOR MILITARY EDUCATION

INSTITUTIONS MAIN PERSONNEL

DIRECTORATE

MAIN INSPECTORATE CENTRAL ARCHIVES DIRECTORATE

MILITARY BAND

DIRECTORATE

MILITARY TRIBUNAL DIRECTORATE

PREMILITARY TRAINING DIRECTORATE

PHYSICAL TRAINING AND SPORTS DIRECTORATE

MAIN MILITARY PROCURACY

WARSAW PACT MILITARY DISTRICTS (16)

STRATEGIC

ROCKET FORCES

GROUND

FORCES

GENERAL STAFF OF THE ARMED FORCES

DIRECTORATES

MAIN INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE

MAIN COMMUNICATIONS

DIRECTORATE

MAIN FOREIGN

MILITARY ASSISTANCE DIRECTORATE

MAIN OPERATIONS

DIRECTORATE

MAIN ORGANIZATION AND MOBILIZATION DIRECTORATE

MILITARY SCIENCE DIRECTORATE

MILITARY TOPOGRAPHY

DIRECTORATE EXTERNAL RELATIONS DIRECTORATE TREATY AND LEGAL DIRECTORATE

GROUPS

OF FORCES (4)

AIR DEFENSE

FORCES

NAVAL FORCES

AIR FORCES

CIVIL DEFENSE REAR

SERVICES ARMAMENTS CONSTRUCTION AND BILLETING

Figure 28. Organization of the Ministry of Defense, 1988

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Armed Forces and Defense Organization

facilities, and its industrial infrastructure. They operated all Soviet

ground-based intercontinental, intermediate-range, and mediumrange nuclear missiles with ranges over 1 ,000 kilometers. The Strategic Rocket Forces also conducted all Soviet space vehicle and

missile launches.

In 1989 the 300,000 Soviet soldiers in the Strategic Rocket Forces were organized into six rocket armies comprised of three to five divisions, which contained regiments of ten missile launchers each.

Each missile regiment had 400 soldiers in security, transportation,

and maintenance units above ground. Officers manned launch sta- tions and command posts underground.

In 1989 the Strategic Rocket Forces had over 1,400 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 300 launch control centers, and

twenty-eight missile bases. The Soviet Union had six types of operational ICBMs; about 50 percent were heavy SS-18 and SS-19

ICBMs, which carried 80 percent of the country's land-based ICBM

warheads. In 1989 the Soviet Union was also producing new mobile, and hence survivable, ICBMs. A reported 100 road-mobile

SS-25 missiles were operational, and the rail-mobile SS-24 was

being deployed.

The Strategic Rocket Forces also operated SS-20 intermediaterange ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and SS-4 medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs). Two-thirds of the road-mobile Soviet SS-20

force was based in the western Soviet Union and was aimed at Western Europe. One-third was located east of the Ural Mountains and was targeted primarily against China. Older SS-4 missiles were deployed at fixed sites in the western Soviet Union. The

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), signed

in December 1987, called for the elimination of all 553 Soviet SS-20

and SS-4 missiles within three years (see Intermediate-Range

Nuclear Forces Arms Control, ch. 17). As of mid- 1989, over 50

percent of the SS-20 and SS-4 missiles had been eliminated.

Ground Forces

Despite its position as the second service in the armed forces hier- archy, the Ground Forces were the most politically influential Soviet

service. Senior Ground Forces officers held all important posts

within the Ministry of Defense as well as the General Staff. In 1989

the Ground Forces had 2 million men, organized into four combat arms and three supporting services.

Motorized Rifle Troops and Tank Troops

Combat elements of the Ground Forces were organized into

combined arms and tank armies. A combined arms army included

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

SERVICE

COMMANDER IN CHIEF

CHIEF OF

THE POLITICAL DIRECTORATE

COMMANDER IN CHIEF

CHIEF OF MAIN STAFF

FIRST DEPUTY

COMMANDER IN CHIEF

DEPUTY COMMANDER IN CHIEF, COMMANDER OF A COMBAT ARM

DEPUTY COMMANDER IN CHIEF, CHIEF OF A SERVICE BRANCH

DEPUTY COMMANDER IN CHIEF

DEPUTY COMMANDER IN CHIEF FOR ARMANENTS

DEPUTY COMMANDER IN CHIEF FOR COMBAT TRAINING DEPUTY COMMANDER IN CHIEF FOR REAR SERVICES DEPUTY COMMANDER IN CHIEF FOR PERSONNEL

DEPUTY COMMANDER IN CHIEF FOR MILITARY EDUCATION

INSTITUTIONS DEPUTY COMMANDER IN CHIEF FOR PREMILITARY TRAINING

Figure 29. Typical Organization of an Armed Service, 1988

three motorized rifle divisions and a tank division. A tank army

had three tank divisions and one motorized rifle division. In the

late 1980s, the Ground Forces began to field corps that were more

than twice the size of a single division. In 1989 the Soviet Union

had 150 motorized rifle and 52 tank divisions in three states of readiness (see Glossary). A motorized rifle division had 12,000 soldiers

organized into three motorized rifle regiments, a tank regiment, an artillery regiment, an air defense regiment, surface-to-surface

missile and antitank battalions, and supporting chemical, engineer,

signal, reconnaissance, and rear services companies. A typical tank

division had 10,000 soldiers organized into three tank regiments

and one motorized rifle regiment. In 1989 the Ground Forces also included eight brigades of air assault, or air-mobile, units that con- ducted helicopter landing operations.

The Motorized Rifle Troops have been mechanized infantry since

1957. The Soviet Union has fielded a new model of armored

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Armed Forces and Defense Organization

personnel carrier (APC) every decade since the late 1950s, and in

1967 it deployed the world's first infantry fighting vehicle (IFV).

Similar to an APC , the tactically innovative IFV had much great- er firepower, in the form of a 73mm main gun, an antitank missile launcher, a heavy machine gun, and firing ports that allowed

troops to fire their individual weapons from inside the vehicle. In

1989 the Soviet Union had an inventory of over 65,000 APCs and

IFVs, with the latter accounting for almost half of this inventory.

The Soviet Ground Forces viewed the tank as their primary

weapon. In 1989 the Tank Troops had five types of main battle tanks, including the T-54/55, T-62, T-64, T-72, and T-80. The

greater part of the total tank inventory of 53,000 consisted of older,

although still highly potent, T-54/55 and T-62 tanks.

Rocket Troops and Artillery

The Rocket Troops and Artillery have been an important combat arm of the Ground Forces because of the Soviet belief that fire- power has tremendous destructive and psychological effect on the

enemy. In 1989 the Ground Forces had eighteen artillery divisions,

in addition to the artillery and missile units organic to armies and

divisions. Artillery and surface-to-surface missile brigades were at- tached to each combined arms or tank army. An artillery regiment

and a surface-to-surface missile battalion were parts of each Soviet

motorized rifle and tank division. In 1989 the Rocket Troops and

Artillery manned 1,400 "operational-tactical" surface-to-surface

missile launchers.

The December 1987 INF Treaty between the United States and

the Soviet Union called for the elimination of all short-range ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 1,000 kilometers. The

treaty required the elimination of more than 900 Soviet SS-12 and

SS-23 missiles. As of mid- 1989, all SS-12 missiles had been eliminated. All SS-23 missiles had to be eliminated before the end of

1989, according to the terms of the treaty. After the reductions mandated in the treaty, the Soviet battlefield missile inventory will still contain over 1,000 modern SS-21 missiles with a range of about

100 kilometers that were not covered in the treaty as well as older

SS-1 missiles, a large number of unguided free rocket over ground

(FROG) missiles, and Scud missiles. These tactical missiles can

deliver nuclear or chemical weapons as well as conventional munitions.

In 1989 the Rocket Troops and Artillery had approximately

30,000 artillery pieces; of these, 10,000 were capable of firing con- ventional high-explosive, nuclear, or chemical rounds. Since the

1970s, this powerful combat arm has fielded more than 5,000

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

self-propelled 122mm and 152mm howitzers, 152mm and 203mm

guns, and 240mm mortars. These artillery pieces, which are mounted on tank chassis, have replaced some towed artillery pieces. The

Rocket Troops and Artillery also had truck-mounted multiple rocket

launchers, each with forty tubes, to provide massive fire support

for the Ground Forces. Air Defense of Ground Forces The Ground Forces relinquished control of air defense for their

field formations in 1948 when the National Air Defense Forces

later renamed the Air Defense Forces—became an independent

armed service. In 1958, however, Soviet air defense was decentralized again, and the Ground Forces acquired antiaircraft guns

and formed tactical air defense units. In the 1960s, air defense be- came an integral combat arm of the Ground Forces. Since then,

Air Defense of Ground Forces has been independent from the Air

Defense Forces, although coordination of their respective operations remained necessary.

Air Defense of Ground Forces was equipped with a potent mix

of antiaircraft artillery as well as surface-to-air missiles to defend

Ground Forces units against attacking enemy aircraft. During the

1970s, the Soviet military introduced five new self-propelled air defense and radar systems into its force structure. In 1989 Air

Defense of Ground Forces operated 5,000 surface-to-air missiles

and 12,000 antiaircraft guns organized into brigades, regiments,

and batteries. As of 1989, combined arms and tank armies had

air defense brigades equipped with high-altitude SA-4 surfaceto-air missiles. Motorized rifle and tank divisions had air defense

regiments with the mobile SA-6 or SA-8 for medium- to low-level

protection. Ground Forces regiments had SA-9, SA-13, and

ZSU-23-4 antiaircraft gun batteries. Motorized rifle and tank battalions had surface-to-air missile platoons equipped with new lowaltitude, shoulder-fired SA-16 and older SA-7 missiles.

Chemical Troops, Engineer Troops, and Signal Troops

The Chemical Troops, Engineer Troops, and Signal Troops were

independent branches that provided support to all the military ser- vices, but principally to the Ground Forces. The chiefs of these

services reported directly to the minister of defense. Units of the

Chemical Troops, Engineer Troops, and Signal Troops responded

to the in-branch chief regarding administrative and technical matters but were operationally subordinate to the commander of the for- mation to which they were attached. Chemical Troops, Engineer

708
T-72 tank

Courtesy United States Defense Intelligence Agency

Troops, and Signal Troops were organized into battalions and companies within armies and divisions.

The general mission of the supporting troops was to facilitate the advance of the Ground Forces and to eliminate obstacles blocking their path. The Signal Troops operated tactical radio and wire

communications networks and intercepted enemy signals for combat

intelligence purposes. They also operated strategic underground

cable, microwave, and satellite communications systems. The

Engineer Troops were principally combat engineers. They operated the self-propelled bridging vehicles and amphibious ferries that

tanks and armored vehicles depend on to cross deep rivers. In wartime the Engineer Troops would also clear mines, antivehicle obstacles, and battlefield debris for the Ground Forces. The mission of the Chemical Troops was to defend the armed

forces against the effects of "weapons of mass destruction"

nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons. With 50,000

soldiers in 1989, the Chemical Troops constituted the world's largest NBC defense force. The Chemical Troops would perform NBC

reconnaissance; mark contaminated areas; and decontaminate

personnel, weapons, and terrain during wartime. They operated

30,000 armored combat vehicles equipped for NBC reconnaissance

and truck-mounted systems equipped to spray decontaminating

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

solutions on the surface areas of tanks, combat vehicles, and aircraft. The Chemical Troops demonstrated the use of helicopters

for NBC defense during the large-scale radiation cleanup operation after the Chernobyl' (see Glossary) nuclear reactor accident

in April 1986. In 1989 the Chemical Troops did not operate offensive delivery systems. Yet the strength of Soviet chemical defense

provided an offensive potential by enhancing the ability of Soviet

forces to fight on contaminated battlefields. Thus, supported by

the Chemical Troops, Soviet forces were better prepared than any

other in the world for NBC operations.

Air Forces

In 1989 the Air Forces had 450,000 personnel in three combat arms and one supporting branch, the Aviation Engineering Service. The Air Forces also provided and trained prospective cos- monauts for the Soviet space program. Air Forces personnel

operated all military aircraft except aircraft belonging to the Air

Defense Forces and the Naval Forces. In 1989 the Air Forces were

organized into air armies consisting of several air divisions. Each

air division had three air regiments with three squadrons of about

twelve aircraft each.

Strategic Air Armies

The Strategic Air Armies were organized in the late 1970s from

elements of Long-Range Aviation. Their mission was to attack the

enemy's strategic delivery systems and infrastructure, including

missile and bomber bases. The Strategic Air Armies were organized

into five air armies of bomber aircraft of several types. In 1989

these included Tu-95 long-range strategic bombers, a type first deployed in the late 1950s and continuously upgraded since then.

Since the early 1980s, more than seventy of these bombers have

been modified to carry air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs). A

new intercontinental-range bomber, the Tu-160, which also bears

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) designation Blackjack, became operational in 1989. In the late 1980s, long-range

bombers carried a small, but increasing, percentage of all Soviet

strategic nuclear weapons.

Although its name implies an intercontinental mission, most Stra- tegic Air Armies aircraft were medium- and short-range bombers.

In 1989 the Soviet Union had Tu-16, Tu-22, and Tu-26 mediumrange bombers. The Tu-16 and Tu-22 aircraft entered service in

large numbers in the early 1960s. The Tu-26, sometimes called

the Tu-22M and designated the Backfire bomber, was first fielded

in 1974. In 1989 the Strategic Air Armies also included Su-24

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Armed Forces and Defense Organization

fighter-bombers, which had a combat radius of over 1,000 kilo- meters. Medium-range bombers and fighter-bombers would support military operations by striking the enemy's nuclear delivery

systems, airfields, air defense systems, and command, control, and

communications facilities in a theater of war. Frontal Aviation

Frontal Aviation was the Soviet Union's tactical air force assigned

to the military districts and the groups of forces. Its mission was

to provide air support to Ground Forces units. Frontal Aviation

cooperated closely with the Air Defense Aviation arm of the Air

Defense Forces. Protected by the latter' s fighter-interceptors, Frontal Aviation in wartime would deliver conventional, nuclear, or chemical ordnance on the enemy's supply lines and troop concentrations to interdict its combat operations. It would be under the

operational control of Ground Forces field commanders. In 1989

Frontal Aviation was divided into sixteen air armies composed of

fighter, fighter-bomber, tactical reconnaissance, and electronic warfare aircraft. In 1989 Frontal Aviation operated about 5,000 fixed- and rotarywing combat and reconnaissance aircraft, which included 270

Su-25, 650 Su-17, and 1,050 MiG-27 ground attack aircraft. It also operated 450 MiG-29 and 350 Su-24 deep interdiction fighterbombers, in addition to the 450 that belonged to the Strategic Air

Armies. The Air Forces used the heavily armed Su-25, first deployed in 1979, effectively during the early years of the war in

Afghanistan when mujahidin forces lacked modern air defense

systems.

During the 1980s, the Soviet Union doubled the size of its force

of helicopters. Helicopter regiments and squadrons were attached

to Frontal Aviation's air armies to provide tactical mobility for,

and additional fire support to, the Ground Forces. The Mi-6, Mi-8,

and Mi-2 6 helicopters would transport motorized rifle units and

equipment into battle or land assault units behind enemy lines. The Mi-24, often referred to as the Hind, was the most heavily

armed helicopter in the world. It was used extensively in both fire support and air assault roles in Afghanistan. In 1989 the Soviet

Union was testing a new helicopter, the Mi-28, designed to be an

antitank helicopter.

Military Transport Aviation

Military Transport Aviation provided rapid strategic mobility

for the armed forces. Its missions were to transport the Airborne

Troops for rapid intervention by parachute and to supply and

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

resupply Soviet forces abroad, and deliver arms and military equipment to Soviet allies around the world. In 1989 Military Transport Aviation had five air divisions, including 200 An-12, 55 An-22,

340 11-76, and 5 An-124 transport aircraft. Having entered ser- vice only in 1987, the An-124 was the first Soviet transport that

could lift outsized equipment such as main battle tanks.

In addition to these military transports, in wartime the 1,600

aircraft of Aeroflot, the national airline, would be used to augment

the capabilities of Military Transport Aviation (see table 46, Appendix A). For this reason, the Ministry of Civil Aviation closely

coordinated its activities with the General Staff and the Air Forces. Aeroflot flight crews, for example, were reserve officers of the Air

Forces. Moreover, in 1989 the minister of civil aviation was an

active-duty general officer. Military Transport Aviation assumed a high-profile role in for- eign policy in the 1970s when it airlifted weapons to such allies as Egypt, Syria, Ethiopia, and Angola. In December 1979, its trans- port aircraft flew 1 50 sorties to drop and land an Airborne Troops

division and its equipment into Afghanistan. Western analysts es- timated that Military Transport Aviation can lift one Airborne

Troops division a distance of 4,000 kilometers. With Aeroflot trans- ports and passenger aircraft, three divisions can be lifted at once. Air Defense Forces

The National Air Defense Forces became a separate armed ser- vice in 1948 and were given the mission of defending the Soviet

industrial, military, and administrative centers and the armed forces against strategic bombing. After Air Defense of Ground Forces was

formed in 1958, the National Air Defense Forces focused on stra- tegic aerospace and theater air defense. Around 1980 the National

Air Defense Forces yielded responsibility for theater antiaircraft

systems to Air Defense of Ground Forces and was renamed the

Air Defense Forces. In 1989 the Air Defense Forces had more than

500,000 personnel and operated the world's most extensive stra- tegic air defense network.

Antiaircraft Rocket Troops and Air Defense Aviation

In 1989 the Antiaircraft Rocket Troops manned 12,000 strategic

surface-to-air missile launchers at 1,400 sites inside the Soviet

Union. These forces were organized into brigades of launch battalions. Soviet SA-3 and SA-5 antiaircraft missiles, first produced

in the 1960s, together with older SA-1 and SA-2 missiles, constituted over 90 percent of the Soviet surface-to-air missile inventory.

In the late 1980s, the new SA-10 was entering service to replace

712
MiG-23 fighter aircraft armed with antiaircraft missiles Courtesy United States Navy

Scud-B ballistic missile on a transporter-erector-launcher

Courtesy United States Defense Intelligence Agency

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

SA-1 and SA-2 missiles. The Soviet Union also had another antiaircraft missile, the SA-1 2, under development. Western authorities believed the SA-10 and SA-1 2 had improved capabilities to destroy aircraft and missiles at low altitudes. In support of the Air

Defense Forces, the Radiotechnical Troops operated 10,000 groundbased air surveillance radars for surface-to-air missile operations.

In addition, the air defense systems of the Warsaw Pact countries were highly integrated into the Soviet network, effectively extending the range of Soviet early warning capabilities.

The other combat arm of the Air Defense Forces, Air Defense

Aviation, had the mission of preventing aircraft and cruise missiles from entering Soviet airspace. In wartime it would strive to establish air superiority and provide air cover for Frontal Aviation's deep strike and ground attack aircraft. In 1989 Air Defense

Aviation had 2,000 fighter-interceptor aircraft organized into air regiments. The Su-15, MiG-23, and MiG-25, first produced in

the late 1960s and early 1970s, constituted 80 percent of Air Defense

Aviation's inventory. The Soviet Union's newest interceptors, the

MiG-31 and Su-27, deployed in the early 1980s, represented 10

percent of the force in 1989. The MiG-29, which first appeared

in 1984, may also eventually be deployed with Air Defense Aviation. These new fighter-interceptors had "look-down, shoot-down"

radars for engaging aircraft and cruise missiles penetrating Soviet

airspace at low altitudes. Since the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union

has built four new airborne warning and control system (AWACS)

aircraft on an 11-76 airframe. These AWACS aircraft have improved

Air Defense Aviation's ability to direct interceptors against enemy

bombers, fighters, and cruise missiles in aerial combat.

Although equipped with numerous modern weapons systems,

the Air Defense Forces have made operational errors that have

raised serious questions about their command, control, and communications systems and training. In September 1983, Soviet inter- ceptors shot down a South Korean passenger jet that strayed into

Soviet airspace over Sakhalin. In May 1987, Mathias Rust, a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), flew his pri- vate airplane into Soviet airspace and landed in Red Square in

Moscow. As a result, the commander in chief of the Air Defense

Forces, a former fighter pilot, was fired and replaced with a highranking Ground Forces officer who had extensive combined arms

experience.

Missile and Space Defenses

Missile and space defenses have been effective arms of the Air

Defense Forces since the mid-1960s. In 1989 the Soviet Union had

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Armed Forces and Defense Organization

the world's only operational antiballistic missile (ABM) and antisatellite (ASAT) systems.

The Soviet Union deployed its first ABM defense system around

Moscow in 1964. It consisted of surface-to-air missiles that could

be launched to destroy incoming ballistic missiles. The Soviet leaders

have continually upgraded and developed the capabilities of this

initial system. A major modernization of interceptor missiles began

in the late 1970s, and by 1989 the Soviet Union had up to thirtytwo improved SH-04 launchers in operation and a fundamentally

new SH-08 interceptor missile under development. The newest

SA-10 and SA-12 surface-to-air missiles reportedly also had a limited capability to destroy cruise, tactical, and possibly even stra- tegic ballistic missiles. Such a capability would tend to blur the

distinction between missile defense and strategic air defense sys- tems. In 1989 the Radiotechnical Troops operated eleven ground-based

radars and numerous satellites to provide strategic early warning

of enemy missile launches. They also manned six large phasedarray radars for ballistic missile detection. These radars could also serve as target acquisition and tracking radars to guide ABM

launchers as part of a nationwide defense against ballistic missiles.

In 1989 the Soviet Union was building three additional sites for phased-array radars.

The Soviet Union has had an operational ASAT interceptor sys- tem since 1966. In wartime it would launch a satellite into the same

orbit as an opponent's satellite. The ASAT satellite would then maneuver nearby and detonate a conventional fragmentation or a nuclear warhead to destroy its target. Thus, the interceptor system

has posed a threat to an adversary's command, control, and communications, navigation, reconnaissance, and intelligence-gathering

satellites in low-earth orbits, a capability that would be critical in

wartime.

By 1989 the Soviet Union was spending an estimated US$1 bil- lion annually on scientific research into advanced technologies with

potentially great ASAT and ABM applications, including groundbased laser, particle beam, radio frequency, and kinetic energy

weapons. Soviet space programs also served Soviet missile and space

defenses. In 1989 the Soviet effort in space was a broad-based one

that included approximately 100 launches yearly, development of a reusable space shuttle and a spacecraft, and deployment of a third

generation manned space station. These capabilities could also be

used, for example, to conduct military operations in space, to repair

and defend satellites, or to build and operate weapons platforms.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Many Western analysts have concluded that the military directs

the Soviet civilian space program.

Naval Forces

Before 1962 the Soviet Naval Forces were primarily a coastal

defense force. The Cuban missile crisis and United States quarantine of Cuba in 1962, however, made the importance of ocean- going naval forces clear to the Soviet Union. In 1989 the Soviet

Naval Forces had nearly 500,000 servicemen organized into five combat arms and gave the Soviet Union a capability of projecting

power beyond Europe and Asia.

Submarine Forces Submarines were the most important component of the Soviet

Naval Forces. In 1989 the Soviet Union had the largest number

of ballistic missile submarines in the world. Most of the sixty-two

ballistic missile submarines could launch their nuclear-armed missiles against intercontinental targets from Soviet home waters. The

deployment of mobile land-based ICBMs in the late 1980s, however, could reduce the importance of ballistic missile submarines

as the Soviet Union's most survivable strategic force. Soviet attack submarines have had an antisubmarine warfare

(ASW) mission. In wartime the attack submarine force—203 boats

in 1989—would attempt to destroy the enemy's ballistic missile and

attack submarines. Since 1973 the Soviet Union has deployed ten

different attack submarine classes, including five new types since

1980. In 1989 the Soviet Union also had sixty-six guided missile

submarines for striking the enemy's land targets, surface combatant

groups, and supply convoys.

Surface Forces Between 1962 and the early 1970s, the Soviet Union's World

War II-era Naval Forces became a modern guided missile cruiser

and destroyer force. In addition, in the late 1970s the Soviet Union

launched its first nuclear-powered Kirov-class batde cruiser, its third

class of guided missile cruisers, and two new classes of guided missile

destroyers. These surface forces have had the peacetime task of sup- porting Soviet allies in the Third World through port visits and

arms shipments as well as visibly asserting Soviet power and in- terests on the high seas. In wartime, they would conduct both anti- ship and antisubmarine operations.

A variety of auxiliary ships supported the Naval Forces and the

armed forces in general. In 1989 the Soviet Union operated sixtythree intelligence- gathering vessels, manned by naval reservists and

equipped with surface-to-air missiles. It also had the world's largest

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

fleet of oceanographic survey and marine research vessels. Over

500 ships gathered and processed data on the world's oceans that

would be crucial to the Soviet Union in wartime. In 1989 eleven

specially equipped vessels, including the new Marshal Nedelin class, monitored and tracked Soviet and foreign space launches. Yet

Western experts have noted that the Soviet Naval Forces still lacked

enough specialized underway replenishment vessels to provide adequate logistical support to naval combatants at sea. Naval Aviation

Naval Aviation was primarily land based; its main mission was

to conduct air strikes on enemy ships and fleet support infrastructure. The importance attached to its antiship mission was shown

by the fact that Naval Aviation has received almost as many Tu-26

bombers as have the Strategic Air Armies. Naval Aviation also provided ASW and general reconnaissance support for naval operations.

In 1989 Naval Aviation consisted of nearly 1 ,000 fixed-wing air- craft and over 300 helicopters. The Naval Aviation fleet included

130 Tu-26 and 230 Tu-16 medium-range bombers armed with air- to-surface cruise missiles for carrying out antiship strikes. Naval

Aviation also had 100 Su-17 and Su-24 fighter-bombers that provided close air support to Naval Infantry. Older aircraft in Naval

Aviation's inventory have been converted into ASW and maritime

reconnaissance platforms.

Since the 1970s, the Soviet Naval Forces have attempted to over- come their major weakness—fleet air defense beyond the range of

land-based aircraft—by deploying four Kiev-class aircraft carriers. These carriers each had a squadron of Yak-38 fighters. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union was also constructing and fitting out its first two Tbilisi-class carriers. Western observers expected that a

variant of the new Su-27 or MiG-29 fighter would become the main

Soviet carrier-based aircraft. Soviet carriers also operated Ka-25

and Ka-27 naval helicopters for ASW reconnaissance, targeting,

and search-and-rescue missions.

Naval Infantry

In the early 1960s, Naval Infantry became a combat arm of the

Soviet Naval Forces. In 1989 Naval Infantry consisted of 18,000

marine troops organized into one division and three brigades. Naval

Infantry had its own amphibious versions of standard armored

vehicles and tanks used by the Ground Forces. Its primary wartime missions would be to seize and hold strategic straits or islands

and to make seaborne tactical landings behind enemy lines. The

Soviet Naval Forces had over eighty landing ships as well as two

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Armed Forces and Defense Organization

Ivan Rogov-class amphibious assault docks. The latter were as- sault ships that could transport one infantry battalion with forty

armored vehicles and their amphibious landing craft. At seventyfive units, the Soviet Union had the world's largest inventory of

air-cushion assault craft. In addition, many of the Soviet merchant

fleet's (Morflot) 2,500 oceangoing ships could off-load weapons and

supplies in an amphibious landing.

Coastal Defense Forces Protecting the coasts of the Soviet Union from attack or invasion from the sea has remained one of the most important missions of the Naval Forces. To defend an extensive coastline along

the Arctic and Pacific oceans and the Baltic, Black, and Caspian

seas, the Soviet Union has deployed a sizable and diverse force. Defending naval bases from attack has been the primary focus of

the Coastal Defense Forces. In 1989 the Coastal Rocket and Artillery Troops, consisting of a single division, operated coastal artillery and naval surface-to-surface missile launchers along the

approaches to naval bases. A large number of surface combatants,

including light frigates, missile attack boats, submarine chasers,

guided missile combatants, amphibious craft, and patrol boats of

many types, also participated in coastal defense.

Airborne Troops and Special Purpose Forces

The Soviet Union had substantial specialized forces having missions and subordinations distinct from those of the regular mili- tary services. The Airborne Troops, subordinated to the Supreme

High Command in wartime, were closely linked to the Ground

Forces and to Military Transport Aviation. The Special Purpose

Forces (Voiska spetsial'nogo nazacheniia—Spetsnaz), designed to operate deep behind enemy lines, were controlled by the General

Staffs Main Intelligence Directorate (see Glossary). In 1989 the Airborne Troops were more numerous than all the

other airborne forces of the world combined. The Airborne Troops

consisted of seven divisions. Each division had 7,000 troops or- ganized into three paratroop regiments and an artillery regiment.

The Airborne Troops had specially designed air-transportable and,

in some cases, air-droppable equipment. Their inventory included

light infantry fighting vehicles for transporting and protecting air- borne forces on the ground and self-propelled 85mm assault guns

to provide them with firepower.

The Airborne Troops were the primary rapid intervention force

of the armed forces. They spearheaded the Soviet invasions of

Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979 by seizing the

719
Soviet Union: A Country Study

airports in Prague and Kabul, respectively. The performance of

the Airborne Troops in Afghanistan raised their status as an elite combat arm. The Spetsnaz has been the subject of intense speculation among

Western experts because little is known about it. In 1989 the Soviet

Ground Forces had about 30,000 Spetsnaz troops organized into

sixteen brigades. In 1989 the Soviet Naval Forces also had four

elite naval Spetsnaz brigades trained to reconnoiter, disrupt, or sabotage enemy naval installations and coastal defenses. One

Western view held that, in wartime, small Spetsnaz teams would

be assigned reconnaissance missions up to several hundred kilo- meters behind enemy lines. Spetsnaz units would then provide

Soviet forces with targeting data on important enemy rear area facilities. Another view was that Spetsnaz troops would be emplaced

weeks before a war to assassinate the enemy's political and military leaders; to sabotage its airfields; to destroy its nuclear weapons

facilities; and to disrupt its command, control, and communications systems. Proponents of this view asserted that Spetsnaz teams

assassinated the unpopular Afghan communist leader Hafizullah

Amin before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.

Rear Services

In 1989 a deputy minister of defense served as chief of Rear Services for the Soviet armed forces. The Rear Services supplied the

armed forces with ammunition, fuel, spare parts, food, clothing,

and other materiel. In 1989 the chief of the Rear Services had nine

main and central directorates and four supporting services under

his command. The deputy commanders in chief for rear services

of the armed services, the deputy commanders for rear services

of territorial commands, and nearly 1.5 million soldiers reported

to him.

The Central Military Transportation Administration was the

primary traffic management organization for the armed forces, coor- dinating and planning supply movements by all means of transport. The Central Food Supply Administration both procured food

from civilian agricultural enterprises (see Glossary) and operated

a military state farm (see Glossary) system to supply troops, particularly those serving in remote areas. Similarly, the Central

Clothing Supply Administration had its own clothing factories to manufacture uniforms and specialized gear. The main and central directorates operated post exchange, health care, and recreational facilities for military personnel. The Rear Services also provided financial reports on armed forces activities to party and

government organs.

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Armed Forces and Defense Organization

The chief of the Rear Services commanded the Railroad Troops,

Road Troops, Pipeline Troops, and Automotive Troops. The mission of these supporting services was to construct and maintain the

Soviet Union's military transport infrastructure. The Automotive

Troops, for example, provided the drivers and mechanics needed

to maintain and drive cargo trucks loaded with supplies from rail- heads to operational units in the field. After the initial airlift of

Soviet forces and equipment into Afghanistan in December 1979,

these troops built permanent rail lines, roads, and pipelines between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan to resupply the Soviet

forces in that country.

Formerly divided among independent maintenance, medical, and

motor transport companies, the provision of rear services in Soviet

regiments has become the responsibility of unified materiel support units. As in most armies, these materiel support units were

subordinate to operational commanders, although they worked with

the next highest chief of rear services on technical matters. Construction and Troop Billeting was an independent supporting service, similar to the Rear Services, headed by another deputy

minister of defense. Construction and Troop Billeting served as a large, mobile force of cheap labor to erect military bases and troop

quarters as well as civilian and government buildings. The service

has been used to complete high-priority projects and to work in

harsh environments. Construction and Troop Billeting has built

military installations in the Soviet Far East since 1969, major air- ports, and the Moscow Olympics complex. The service has also worked on Siberian natural gas pipelines and the Baykal-Amur

Main Line (BAM—see Glossary).

Civil Defense

Civil defense was another part of Soviet strategic defense. It originated with the large-scale relocation of defense industries from the

western Soviet Union to east of the Ural Mountains in 1941 . Civil

defense reappeared in the late 1940s as antiaircraft units were at- tached to Soviet factories to defend them against strategic bombing. By the early 1970s, the emphasis on civil defense increased,

and the chief of Civil Defense became a deputy minister of defense.

Each union republic had a general officer as the chief of civil defense

in the republic.

In 1989 the purpose of civil defense was to provide protection

for leadership and population in wartime and to ensure the Soviet

Union's ability to continue production of military materiel during

a nuclear or a protracted conventional war. Officers from Civil

Defense were attached to union republic, oblast (see Glossary), raion

721
Soviet Union: A Country Study

(see Glossary), and municipal governments, as well as to large

industrial and agricultural enterprises, and assigned to supervise

civil defense work, organization, and training. These staff officers developed and implemented detailed plans for the wartime relocation of important defense industrial facilities and the evacuation

of labor forces to alternative sites. They supervised the construction of blast shelters and other installations to ensure that these

structures could withstand nuclear strikes. Civil Defense operated

a network of 1 ,500 underground shelters that could protect 175,000

top party and government officials. In 1989 Civil Defense had

150,000 personnel.

After a nuclear exchange, the civil defense effort would be di- rected at reestablishing essential military production through decontamination, first aid, and civil engineering work to clear collapsed

structures and to restore power supplies, transportation, and communications. Civil Defense trained in peacetime by conducting

simulations of the aftermath of a nuclear attack and small-scale

evacuation exercises. It was also called on to fight fires, conduct

rescue operations, decontaminate areas affected by nuclear and

chemical accidents, and provide natural disaster relief. Specialized and Paramilitary Forces

Under Soviet law, two armed services were outside the control

of the Ministry of Defense but were nonetheless part of the Soviet

armed forces. These services, the Internal Troops and the Border

Troops, were subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and

the KGB, respectively. Although often termed "militarized police,"

the Internal Troops and the Border Troops were military organizations, equipped, like motorized rifle regiments, with tanks and

armored personnel carriers.

Internal Troops

In 1989 the Internal Troops had a personnel strength of about

340,000 soldiers. These troops had the mission of suppressing

demonstrations, revolts, riots, strikes, or other challenges to the

regime that the militia (police) could not contain (see Internal

Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, ch. 19). The use of In- ternal Troops instead of the Ground Forces in these situations

helped to preserve the favorable image of the latter with the population. In extreme circumstances, the Internal Troops also served

as the party's counterweight to the military services. In addition to these peacetime roles, the Internal Troops also have

been assigned wartime missions. In time of war, they would support frontline operations by providing rear security against enemy

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Armed Forces and Defense Organization

sabotage, defending supply and communications lines, and operating prisoner-of-war and penal battalions. In the early days of World

War II, the Internal Troops manned machine gun detachments

located behind Soviet frondine units. The detachments were charged

with firing on Red Army soldiers who tried to retreat or desert. Border Troops

The mission of the Border Troops, which included 230,000 per- sonnel in 1989, was to prevent unauthorized entry by foreigners

into the Soviet Union and to keep Soviet citizens from leaving the

country illegally (see Border Troops of the Committee for State Security, ch. 19). The troops patrolled clearly demarcated strips

along Soviet state frontiers that contained antivehicle obstacles,

fences, and barbed wire. The Border Troops used guard dogs,

sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment and sensors, and

helicopters to perform their duties over vast, sparsely populated

frontier regions.

The Border Troops also guarded the Soviet Union's oceanic

frontiers. Its Maritime Border Troops operated within the twelvemile limit of Soviet territorial waters and were equipped with

frigates, fast patrol boats, hydrofoils, helicopters, and light aircraft. In wartime the Border Troops would become a frontline combat

service. Stationed on the frontiers, Border Troops units absorbed

the brunt of Nazi Germany's surprise invasion of the Soviet Union

in June 1941 and fought defensive actions against the German army.

The Border Troops also saw combat action in 1969 in border clashes with Chinese soldiers on islands in the Ussuri River.

In addition to the Border Troops, the KGB had other troops

engaged in military-related activities that were not mentioned in

legislation governing the armed forces (see Internal Security Troops,

ch. 19). The KGB controlled elite units that guarded the highest

party officials and stood a continuous ceremonial guard at the Lenin

Mausoleum. The special KGB signal troops also operated communications linking the party with the Ministry of Defense and

the major territorial commands. Another KGB armed force guarded

sensitive military, scientific, and industrial installations in the Soviet

Union and, until the late 1960s, controlled Soviet nuclear warhead

stockpiles.

Territorial Organization of the Armed Forces

The armed forces had a peacetime territorial organization that

would facilitate a rapid shift to a wartime footing. In 1989 the Soviet

Union was divided into sixteen military districts and four fleets (see

fig. 30). In addition, one flotilla, two naval squadrons, and six major

groups of forces were stationed outside the Soviet Union.

723
Soviet Union: A Country Study

724
Armed Forces and Defense Organization

Military Districts

Military districts were the basic units of Soviet military administration. The system of sixteen military districts had evolved in

response to the Soviet Union's perception of threats to its security. For example, in 1969 the Turkestan Military District was di- vided to create the Central Asian Military District and enable the

Soviet Union to double its military forces and infrastructure along

the border with China. In wartime most military districts would

become fronts (see Glossary).

Senior Ground Forces officers have always commanded military

districts, and experience in commanding a military district was ap- parently a prerequisite for promotion to most of the important

Ministry of Defense positions. Commanders of military districts have deputy commanders responsible for specific military activities. Each military district had a military council, which included

the commander of the district, his first deputies—one of whom was

also chief of staff—the chief of the political directorate for the district, and the first secretary of the party bureau of the union republic

in which the district was located.

Military districts were combined arms formations. A military

district commander controlled not only the Ground Forces in the

district but also the Air Forces and the Air Defense Forces (see

fig. 31). The commanders of the Air Forces and the Air Defense

Forces reported to the district commander on operational matters

as well as to the main staffs of their services. The military district's officers worked closely with party and government officials to plan

wartime mobilization and rear services, civil defense, and military

training for civilians. They supervised military training in both

civilian and military education establishments located in the district. Military districts coordinated activities with the Border

Troops, which had a system of ten districts organized separately

from the military districts. In 1989 twelve of Frontal Aviation's sixteen air armies were sta- tioned in the most important military districts. Western experts

disagreed over the organization of the system of air defense districts. Some argued that as many as ten air defense districts, separate

from military districts, still existed. It seemed more likely, however,

that when the National Air Defense Forces became the Air Defense

Forces after 1980, all remaining air defense districts were integrated

into the military districts. At that time, commanders of the Air

Defense Forces became deputy commanders of the military districts. Only the Moscow Air Defense District continued to be

mentioned in the press, possibly because it operated the ABM

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

MILITARY DISTRICT

COMMANDER

CHIEF OF

THE POLITICAL DIRECTORATE

FIRST DEPUTY

COMMANDER

CHIEF OF STAFF

COMMANDERS OF

GROUND FORCES

COMMANDER

OF AIR FORCES

COMMANDER OF

AIR DEFENSE FORCES

CHIEF OF

CHEMICAL TROOPS

CHIEF OF

SIGNAL TROOPS

CHIEF OF

ENGINEER TROOPS

FIRST DEPUTY

COMMANDER

DEPUTY COMMANDER

FOR COMBAT TRAINING DEPUTY COMMANDER

FOR ARMAMENTS

DEPUTY COMMANDER FOR

REAR SERVICES

DEPUTY COMMANDER FOR

MILITARY EDUCATION

INSTITUTIONS DEPUTY COMMANDER

FOR CIVIL DEFENSE

DEPUTY COMMANDER FOR CONSTRUCTION AND TROOP BILLETING DEPUTY COMMANDER

FOR PREMILITARY TRAINING

CHIEF OF

PERSONNEL

CHIEF OF PHYSICAL

TRAINING AND SPORTS

SPORTS COMMITTEE

MILITARY PROCURACY

MILITARY TRIBUNAL

Figure 31. Organization of a Typical Military District, 1988

726
Armed Forces and Defense Organization

system that protected the capital city and the National Command

Authority.

In 1989 the Ground Forces had sixty-five divisions, kept at between 50 and 75 percent of their projected wartime strengths, in

the westernmost military districts of the Soviet Union. The Ground

Forces also had fifty-two divisions at less than half their wartime

levels in the Siberian, Transbaykal, Central Asian, and Far East

military districts along the border with China and twenty-six lowreadiness divisions in the Transcaucasus, North Caucasus, and

Turkestan military districts. Fleets, Flotillas, and Squadrons

The command organization of the four fleets was similar to that

of the military districts. The fleet commander had a deputy for each

of the combat arms of the Naval Forces, and he supervised the naval

bases and ports in the fleet's area. Each fleet had a Naval Aviation

air army, a naval Spetsnaz brigade, and several battalions of the

Coastal Rocket and Artillery Troops. The fleets reported to the

Main Staff of the Naval Forces; in wartime they would come under

the operational control of the Supreme High Command and the

General Staff. Although the Naval Forces operated numerous flotil- las on inland seas and large lakes, only the Caspian Flotilla was

operational in 1989.

The Northern Fleet, based at Murmansk-Severomorsk, was the

most important Soviet fleet, having a force of over 170 submarines

in 1989. The Pacific Fleet, based at Vladivostok, had the best amphibious and power projection capabilities of the Naval Forces. In

1989 it had the only Naval Infantry division, two aircraft carriers,

and 120 submarines. In wartime the Northern and Pacific fleets would become components of oceanic theaters of military operations (teatry voennykh deistvii—TVDs; see Offensive and Defensive

Strategic Missions, ch. 17). The Baltic and Black Sea fleets, as well

as the Caspian Flotilla, would become maritime components of continental TVDs in wartime.

Since the mid-1960s, the Naval Forces have increasingly been

deployed abroad. In 1964 the Mediterranean squadron became the

first permanently forward-deployed Soviet naval force. Since its inception, it has usually had thirty-five to forty-five ships. In 1968

the Soviet Union established an Indian Ocean squadron of fifteen to twenty-five ships. Access to ports and airfields in Vietnam, Syria,

Libya, Ethiopia, the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen

(South Yemen), and Seychelles in the 1980s has enabled the Soviet

Naval Forces to repair their ships, fly ocean reconnaissance flights,

and maintain these forward deployments. In 1989 Cam Ranh Bay

727
Soviet Union: A Country Study

in Vietnam had the largest concentration of Soviet vessels outside

the countries of the Warsaw Pact. Groups of Forces Stationed Abroad

In 1989 the Soviet Union had six major groups of forces sta- tioned abroad. The groups of Soviet forces in Eastern Europe in- cluded thirty Ground Forces divisions and four air armies in the

German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary (see Appendix C). These groups of forces

have been in Eastern Europe since 1945 and have been used on

several occasions to suppress anticommunist uprisings in those countries and keep them within the Soviet alliance system. They have

also been the main concentration of Soviet forces against NATO.

They were continuously manned and equipped at wartime levels. The Group of Soviet Forces in Germany was the most important

Soviet territorial command. In 1989 it had 400,000 troops organized

into nineteen divisions and five armies. Its importance was underscored by the fact that it was commanded by a commander in chief, like the five armed services.

When the cuts announced by Gorbachev in December 1 988 are completed in 1991, 50,000 Soviet troops and six Soviet tank divisions will have been withdrawn from East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary (see Conventional Arms Control, ch. 17).

In addition to its forces stationed in Eastern Europe, the Soviet

Union continued to maintain a large troop presence in Afghanistan

throughout most of 1988. The Soviet 40th Army's four divisions

and other forces—116,000 troops in all—had been fighting in

Afghanistan for nearly nine years by late 1988. In mid- 1988 the

Soviet Union began a full-scale withdrawal from Afghanistan. The

withdrawal was completed by early 1989. The Soviet Union has

also had forces stationed in Mongolia since that country became

an ally in 1921. Under a plan articulated in a 1986 Vladivostok

speech, Gorbachev withdrew one Soviet division, leaving four in

Mongolia.

The Party and the Armed Forces

The CPSU had three mechanisms of control over the country's

armed forces. First, the top military leaders have been systematically integrated into the highest echelons of the CPSU and subjected to party discipline. Second, the CPSU has placed a network

of political officers throughout the armed forces to influence the

activities of the military. Third, the KGB, under the direction of

the CPSU, has maintained a network of officers and informers in

the armed forces.

728
Armed Forces and Defense Organization

Political-Military Relations

Fearing the immense popularity of the armed forces after World

War II, Stalin demoted war hero Marshal Georgii K. Zhukov and

took personal credit for having saved the country. After Stalin's

death in 1953, Zhukov reemerged as a strong supporter of Nikita S. Khrushchev. Khrushchev rewarded Zhukov by making him minister of defense and a full Politburo member. Concern that the

armed forces might become too powerful in politics, however, led

to Zhukov's abrupt dismissal in the fall of 1957. But Khrushchev

later alienated the armed forces by cutting defense expenditures on conventional forces in order to carry out his plans for economic

reform. Leonid I. Brezhnev's years in power marked the height

of party-military cooperation because he provided ample resources

to the armed forces. In 1973 the minister of defense again became

a full Politburo member for the first time since 1957. Yet Brezh- nev evidently felt threatened by the professional military, and he

sought to create an aura of military leadership around himself in an effort to establish his authority over the military. In the early 1980s, party-military relations became strained over

the issue of resource allocations to the armed forces. Despite a downturn in economic growth, the chief of the General Staff, Nikolai V.

Ogarkov, argued for more resources to develop advanced conventional weapons. His outspoken stance led to his removal in September 1984. Ogarkov became commander in chief of the Western

TVD, a crucial wartime command position that exists primarily on paper in peacetime. He was retired under Gorbachev and as- sumed a largely ceremonial post in the Main Inspectorate. His in- fluence was considerably diminished, although he continued to publish in the military press. Gorbachev, who became general secretary in March 1985, was

a teenager during the Great Patriotic War and apparently never

served in the armed forces. He has downgraded the role of the mili- tary in state ceremonies, including moving military representatives

to the end of the leadership line-up atop the Lenin Mausoleum during the annual Red Square military parade on November 7 . Gorbachev used the Rust incident in May 1987 as a convenient pretext

for replacing Sergei Sokolov with Dmitrii T. Iazov as minister of

defense (see Air Defense Forces, this ch.). Gorbachev has also emphasized civilian economic priorities and "reasonable sufficiency"

in defense over the professional military's perceived requirements.

Military Representation in the Party

As of 1989, only two career military ministers of defense had

become full Politburo members. Since 1984 the minister of defense

729
Soviet Union: A Country Study

has been only a candidate member. The top leaders in the Ministry of Defense, however, have been regularly elected as members

or candidate members of the Central Committee. Central Committee membership apparently has come with certain important

posts and major field commands. The military presence in the Central Committee has varied little over time, normally constituting

between 7 and 12 percent of this influential body.

Military officers with full membership on the Central Committee have generally included the minister of defense, the first deputy

ministers of defense, the deputy ministers of defense, the chief of

the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy, the

chief and one or two members of the Main Inspectorate, the com- mander of the Moscow Military District, and the commander in

chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. At the TwentySeventh Party Congress in February-March 1986, full Central

Committee membership was granted to the commanders of the

Western and Far Eastern TVDs.

Candidate members of the Central Committee from the armed

forces have included the commanders of all the military districts and fleets, the first deputy chief of the Main Political Directorate

of the Soviet Army and Navy, the chiefs of the political directorates

of the armed services, and the chairman of the Voluntary Society

for Assistance to the Army, Air Force, and Navy (Dobrovol'noe

obshchestvo sodeistviia armii, aviatsii i flotu—DOSAAF; see Glossary). All military representatives on the Central Committee were

also deputies of the Supreme Soviet. Other military officials were

elected to the party's Central Auditing Commission (see Central

Auditing Commission, ch. 7). Party-military interaction also occurred at lower levels, and it enabled the armed forces to coordinate their activities with local party officials and draw on them for assistance. The commanders

of military districts and fleets were usually members of the party

bureau and deputies of the supreme soviet of the republic in which

the district or fleet was located (see Intermediate-Level Party Organizations, ch. 7). Other senior military officers sat on oblast, raion, or city party committees.

Party Control in the Armed Forces

The Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy

was responsible for party control over the armed forces. It or- ganized, conducted, and reported on political and ideological

indoctrination in the armed forces, supervised the military press, and monitored the ideological content of military publications.

730
Armed Forces and Defense Organization

The Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy

was subordinate to the Ministry of Defense, as well as to the CPSU

Central Committee. It had the official status of a Central Committee department and reported to the Central Committee outside

the military chain of command (see Secretariat, ch. 7). These reports

included information on the political attitudes and reliability of

armed forces personnel and high-ranking officers in particular. The

Central Committee's Party Building and Cadre Work Department

used the information on political reliability supplied by the Main

Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy to approve or deny appointments, assignments, and promotions of professionally

qualified officers at the rank of colonel and above (see Nomenklatura, ch. 7). The Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy

supervised a network of political organizations and officers within

the armed forces. Every armed service, territorial command, and

supporting service had a political directorate. Service branches, di- visions, and military education institutions had political sections,

which were smaller than directorates. Each political section had

a small staff that included a chief, a deputy chief, several senior

political instructors, and officers responsible for ideology and

propaganda, party organizational work, and the Komsomol (see

Glossary). A party commission of high-ranking personnel was at- tached to each political directorate and section. A deputy com- mander for political affairs was assigned to each unit of company,

battery, and squadron size or larger (see fig. 32). Smaller military

units had primary party organizations (PPOs—see Glossary). Each

PPO had a secretary, and secretaries met in their regiment's or

ship's party committee to elect a party bureau. About 80 percent

of all companies in the Ground Forces had party organizations.

They were present in half the company-sized units of the armed

forces as a whole.

A deputy commander for political affairs (zamestiteV komandira

po politicheskoi chasti—zampolit) served as a political commissar of

the armed forces. A zampolit supervised party organizations and

conducted "party political work" within a military unit. He lec- tured troops on Marxism-Leninism (see Glossary), the Soviet view

of international issues, recent CPSU decisions and documents, and

the party's tasks for the armed forces. For Soviet military personnel, political training averaged between two and four hours every

week. It was usually squeezed into what might otherwise be off- duty hours and was therefore widely resented. The zampolit was

also responsible for resolving morale, disciplinary, and interpersonal

731
Soviet Union: A Country Study

POLITBURO

CENTRAL COMMITTEE

1

PARTY BUILDING AND CADRE WORK

DEPARTMENT

MAIN POLITICAL DIRECTORATE OF THE

SOVIET ARMY AND NAVY

DIRECTORATES

MILITARY PRESS

PARTY BUILDING AND CADRE WORK

AGITATION AND PROPAGANDA

PERSONNEL

SOCIAL SCIENCES

ARMED

SERVICES

POLITICAL DIRECTORATES (5)

MINISTRY OF

DEFENSE

DEPARTMENTS

KOMSOMOL WORK

MILITARY-SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

SOCIAL SCIENCES TEACHING

TECHNICAL MEANS

OF PROPAGANDA

CENTRAL COURSES FOR

POLITICAL WORKERS

GROUPS OF

FORCES

POLITICAL DIRECTORATES (4)

MILITARY

DISTRICT

POLITICAL DIRECTORATES (16)

COORDINATION COMMAND

Figure 32. Apparatus of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Armed Services, 1988

problems, which were chronic in military units. These problems

often involved poor living conditions, conflicts among different nationalities, and poor attitudes toward training. Like the old politi- cal commissars, the modern zampolit remained responsible for keeping soldiers, and even entire frontline combat units, from

deserting or defecting.

732
Armed Forces and Defense Organization

Since World War II, the zampolit has lost all command authority,

although retaining the power to report to the next highest political of- ficer or organization on the political attitudes and performance of

the unit's commander. Negative reports from the zampolit could exert considerable influence on the course of a commander's career. Yet

under the principle of one-man command, tension between professional and political officers has decreased. Commanders were fully

responsible for the political state of the troops under them, and this responsibility forced them to allow adequate time for political

training.

In 1989 over 20 percent of all armed forces personnel were CPSU

or Komsomol members. Over 90 percent of all officers in the armed

forces were CPSU or Komsomol members. The figures for party

membership were even higher in such armed services as the Strategic Rocket Forces or the Border Troops, in which political relia- bility has been especially crucial. The Komsomol was important

in the armed forces because most soldiers and young officers were

in the normal age- group for Komsomol membership.

The KGB has been another instrument of party control over the

armed forces. Its Third Chief Directorate had special counterintelligence sections that operated within regiments. The "special

sections" used networks of informers inside units to monitor for- eign contacts of armed forces personnel and to protect military

secrets. Unknown to a commander or zampolit, a KGB officer could

be reporting on their political attitudes, outside of military or Main

Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy channels.

Military Economics

With the notable exceptions of Khrushchev and possibly Gorbachev, Soviet leaders since the late 1920s have emphasized military production over investment in the civilian economy. As a result,

the Soviet Union has produced some of the world's most advanced

armaments, although it has been unable to produce basic consumer

goods of satisfactory quality or in sufficient quantities (see Industrial Organization; The Consumer Industry, ch. 12).

Defense Spending

In 1988 military spending was a single line item in the state budget,

totaling 21 billion rubles (for value of the ruble—see Glossary), or about US$33 billion. Given the size of the military establishment,

however, the actual figure was at least ten times higher. Western

experts have concluded that the 21 billion ruble figure reflected

only operations and maintenance costs. Other military spending,

including training, military construction, and arms production, was

733
Soviet Union: A Country Study

possibly concealed within the budgets of all-union ministries and

state committees. The amount spent on Soviet weapons research

and development was an especially well-guarded state secret. Since

the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union has devoted between 15 and 17

percent of its annual gross national product (GNP—see Glossary)

to military spending, according to United States government

sources. Until the early 1980s, Soviet defense expenditures rose between 4 and 7 percent per year. Since then, they have slowed

as the yearly growth in Soviet GNP slipped to about 2 percent on

average. In 1987 Gorbachev and other party officials discussed the

extension of glasnos? to military affairs through the publication of a detailed Soviet defense budget. In early 1989, Gorbachev an- nounced a military budget of 77.3 billion rubles, but Western

authorities estimated the budget to be about twice that. Military Industries and Production

The integration of the party, government, and military in the

Soviet Union has been most evident in the area of defense-related

industrial production. The Defense Council made decisions on the

development and production of major weapons systems. The

Defense Industry Department of the Central Committee supervised

all military industries as the executive agent of the Defense Council. Within the government, the deputy chairman of the Council

of Ministers headed the Military Industrial Commission. The Military Industrial Commission coordinated the activities of many

industrial ministries, state committees, research and development

organizations, and factories and enterprises that designed and

produced arms and equipment for the armed forces. The State Planning Committee (Gosudarstvennyi planovyi

komitet—Gosplan) had an important role in directing necessary

supplies and resources to military industries. The main staff and

deputy commander in chief for armaments of each armed service

first determined their "tactical-technical" requirements for weapons

and equipment and forwarded them to the General Staff, which

evaluated and altered them to conform to overall strategic and operational plans. Then the deputy minister of defense for armaments

transmitted the General Staffs decisions to industrial ministries

engaged in military production. He controlled several thousand

senior military officers who represented the military within the

industrial ministries. These military representatives supervised the

entire process of military production from design through final as- sembly. They inspected, and had the authority to reject, all out- put not meeting the military's specifications and quality control

standards.

734
Armed Forces and Defense Organization

In 1989 the defense industry consisted of a number of industrial

ministries subordinate to the Council of Ministers. The names of

most of these ministries did not indicate the types of weapons

or military equipment they produced. The Ministry of Medium

Machine Building manufactured nuclear warheads. The Ministry of General Machine Building produced ballistic missiles (see

fig. 33; Machine Building and Metal Working, ch. 12). Other

ministries, such as the Ministry of Automotive and Agricultural

Machine Building, also produced military equipment and components, but to a lesser extent of their total output.

These defense industrial ministries operated 1 50 major arms as- sembly plants in addition to the more than 1,000 factories that

produced components for military equipment. Each ministry had

a central design office and several design bureaus attached to it. The design bureaus, named for the chief designers who headed them

in the past, built competing prototypes of weapons based on the

military's specifications. The central design office then selected the

best design and, if the military approved it, began serial production. The aircraft design bureaus were best known because Soviet

aircraft carry their designations. The Mikoian-Gurevich (MiG) and

Sukhoi (Su) bureaus designed fighters; the Antonov (An), Iliushin

(II), and Tupolev (Tu) bureaus developed transport and bomber

aircraft. The Mil (Mi) and Kamov (Ka) bureaus designed heli- copters.

The high priority given to military production has traditionally

enabled military- industrial enterprises to commandeer the best

managers, labor, and materials from civilian plants. In the late 1980s, however, Gorbachev transferred some leading defense in- dustry officials to the civilian sector of the economy in an effort to make it as efficient as its military counterpart.

Military Technology

The Soviet Union has taken an incremental approach to military research and development. The military has deployed early

versions of weapons and equipment with limited capabilities and

has gradually improved them. The same basic weapons system has

usually been fielded over a period of years in several different variants. Arms designers have relied heavily on integrating components from earlier models into new systems in order to provide

stability and compatibility in the production process. The armed

forces have tended to favor weapons that were produced in mass

quantities, were reliable, and were easy to use in combat over ex- pensive, complex, and technologically superior armaments. Following this rule of simplicity, the Soviet Union has produced many

735
Soviet Union: A Country Study

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736
Armed Forces and Defense Organization

outstanding and tactically innovative weapons. Nevertheless, it has

had difficulties producing more sophisticated systems, such as large

airframes, small nuclear reactors, and quiet submarine propellers.

These problems have forced it to resort to technological espionage

and to copying Western designs. The State Committee for Science

and Technology has tasked KGB officers and other Soviet officials in Western countries to acquire the components or technologies

needed to produce certain armaments.

Uniforms and Rank Insignia

In 1989 the uniforms and rank insignia of the Soviet armed forces were similar for all services, except the Naval Forces. Uniforms

of officers and enlisted men differed only in the quality of the material used, not in their cut and style. The services could be distin- guished from each other by the colors of the shoulder boards, the

collar tabs, and the service hat bands. In each service, the uniforms

for women generally were of the same color and fabric as those

provided for men. Marshals, generals, and admirals wore doublebreasted uniform coats. All services, except the Naval Forces, used

full-length, medium gray, winter overcoats. Lower ranking enlisted

personnel wore olive drab short overcoats. Naval personnel wore

black overcoats in winter. In general, Soviet naval uniforms (in

cut, color, and style) and rank insignia resembled those of foreign

navies.

Each service generally had five categories of uniforms: full dress,

dress, service, field, and work, with variants for winter and summer.

Full dress uniforms were worn during such special military occasions as formal reviews, parades, annual service holidays, ceremonies conferring promotions or military decorations, and when taking

the military oath or performing in honor guards. Dress uniforms were used for national anniversaries, such as the that of the Bolshevik Revolution; for official receptions; while attending the theater;

and as otherwise ordered. Service uniforms were worn for routine

duty and during off-duty hours. Field uniforms were worn during

training, maneuvers, and firing exercises. Work uniforms were worn while performing equipment maintenance, fatigue detail, and

construction tasks. The colors of the uniforms varied according to the service and

the category of uniform. Full dress uniforms were sea green for the Ground Forces and the Strategic Rocket Forces and nonaviation components of the Air Forces and the Air Defense Forces. Aviation components' uniforms were blue. Officers of all services wore

gold belts, breeches, and boots with full dress uniforms. The dress

uniforms resembled the full dress uniforms, except that long trousers

737
Soviet Union: A Country Study

and low quarter shoes were worn. The service uniforms and field uniforms for all services were olive drab. Officer field uniforms had

color- suppressed insignia instead of gold, and the garrison cap or

steel helmet was substituted for the service hat. The work uniform

for all services was a field uniform devoid of rank insignia. It was

usually an old field uniform or overalls worn as a protective gar- ment over a field uniform.

Each of the Naval Forces four categories of uniforms (full dress,

dress, service, and work) had seasonal variants. The full dress

uniforms—white for summer and navy blue for the remainder of

the year—were worn with dirks and white gloves. Dress uniforms were less ornate than full dress uniforms, and ribbons replaced

medals. Service uniforms were the same as dress uniforms, but

without dirks and white gloves. A summer service uniform variation had a bluejacket and a garrison cap instead of a service hat. Junior enlisted personnel wore service uniforms, which were white,

navy blue, white top and blue bottoms or the reverse, or other vari- ants in winter and summer. Their jumpers had broad light blue

collars with three white stripes. Shipboard work uniforms were

either gray or khaki. Lower ranked seamen wore visorless hats with

black bands and pigtail ribbons in the back.

All services exhibited rank insignia on shoulder boards, using

a system of gold stripes with gold stars on colored backgrounds

and colored piping on the edges (see fig. 34; fig. 35; fig. 36). Naval

officers also wore sleeve stripes. Shoulder boards of marshals, general officers, and admirals possessed large stars on broad, ornate

gold stripes with piping on the edges. Shoulder boards of field grade

officers displayed three longitudinal gold stripes and smaller gold

stars, and those of company grade officers had two longitudinal

gold stripes and even smaller stars. Shoulder boards of warrant

officers had two or three gold stars superimposed on a gold checkerboard pattern. Enlisted ranks were indicated by transverse or

longitudinal gold stripes on shoulder boards.

The background colors of shoulder boards, collar tabs, and service

hat bands varied with the service and the branch of service. The

Strategic Rocket Forces had black shoulder boards, as did the

Rocket Troops and Artillery, Engineer Troops, Tank Troops, and

certain other components of the Ground Forces. The Motorized

Rifle Troops had red shoulder boards. The Air Forces and aviation

personnel of the Air Defense Forces had light blue shoulder boards,

as did the Airborne Troops. The Naval Forces had navy blue shoulder boards (see table 54, Appendix A). Metallic insignia of gold

or silver were also employed to identify selected branches of the

services. Personnel belonging to one service or branch but serving

738
Armed Forces and Defense Organization

in another wore the background color prescribed for the latter ser- vice or branch. For example, members of an artillery battalion,

which was a component of a motorized rifle division, wore the red

shoulder boards and collar tabs of the Motorized Rifle Troops but

displayed the crossed cannon insignia of the Rocket Troops and

Artillery on their collar tabs. The Airborne Troops wore the light

blue background color of the Air Forces, but with the insignia of

the Airborne Troops on their collar tabs. An exception allowed the

Administration Troops, Medical Troops, Military Procuracy,

Quartermaster Troops, and Veterinary Troops to wear the color

magenta—prescribed for their branches regardless of assignment.

The shoulder boards of enlisted personnel of the armed forces, ex- cept the Naval Forces, had large Cyrillic letters identifying the particular component. For instance, the Cyrillic "CA" signified Soviet

army and was used for the five services except the Naval Forces; other letters identified the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Border Troops of the KGB, and other elements.

Military Manpower

According to the Soviet Constitution, all citizens had a "sacred"

duty to defend the Soviet Union, to enhance its power and prestige, and to serve in its armed forces. The armed forces have been

manned through conscription based on the provisions of the 1967

Law on Universal Military Service. In 1989 about 75 percent of

Soviet armed forces personnel were conscripts, and 5 percent were

career noncommissioned officers (NCOs). The professional officer corps constituted 20 percent of the armed forces. An extensive

reserve and mobilization system would augment regular forces in

wartime. The Soviet Union also had a compulsory premilitary train- ing program for the country's youth. In the late 1980s, the number of draft-age youths was stable, but fewer Russians and more

non-Russians were being inducted into the armed forces. Premilitary Training

Military and physical fitness training began at the age of ten in

the Pioneers. Their activities emphasized military-patriotic indoctrination, marching, and discipline. The Pioneers also guarded

Soviet war monuments and participated in military sports games

held every summer since 1967. In the games, children were divided

into commanders, staff, and troops for maneuvers that simulated

partisan warfare behind enemy lines. Members of the Komsomol,

age fourteen and older, participated in more sophisticated military

games.

739
Soviet Union: A Country Study

740
Armed Forces and Defense Organization
Soviet Union: A Country Study

When the terms of service for soldiers and sailors were reduced

by one year in 1967, the government introduced general preconscription military training. The institution of preconscription training was designed to compensate for the reduced length of military

service by providing basic military training prior to induction.

DOSAAF organized and conducted premilitary training for young men and women between the ages of sixteen and eighteen.

In principle, every secondary or vocational-technical school, fac- tory, and collective farm (see Glossary) in the Soviet Union had

a DOSAAF organization. Millions of Soviet teenagers received 140

hours of instruction in military regulations, small arms, grenade

throwing, vehicle operation and maintenance, first aid, civil defense,

and chemical defense. This training enabled them to learn advanced

military skills more quickly after conscription. The Soviet press

has claimed that each year 75 million people were involved in over 300,000 DOSAAF programs nationwide. DOSAAF also had its own publishing house and monthly journal.

Each union republic had a DOSAAF organization headed by

a chairman and a central committee. DOSAAF worked closely with

the ministries of education and the state committees for physical

culture and sports in the union republics; it also maintained close

relations with the deputy commanders for premilitary training in

the military districts. The Premilitary Training Directorate within

the Ministry of Defense supervised DOSAAF, yet the DOSAAF

budget was separate from that of the Ministry of Defense.

The best DOSAAF clubs were found in the Russian Republic,

which included 51 percent of the population in the late 1980s and

75 percent of the territory. The clubs offered specialist training,

such as skiing, parachute jumping, scuba diving, motorcycle driving, seamanship, flying, and radio and electronics maintenance,

which were not available in the other republics. Yet many DOSAAF

organizations throughout the country lacked qualified or full-time

military instructors. Providing time and facilities for DOSAAF

training was an added burden on schools and factories. In 1989

the southern Soviet republics were often criticized in the military

press for having poor premilitary training programs and sending

unprepared recruits to the armed forces. One Western observer

estimated that only half the Soviet troops actually received pre- scribed DOSAAF instruction prior to induction. Approximately

one-third of all inductees, however, possessed a technical military

specialty that they had learned in a DOSAAF club.

Conscripts

Under the 1967 Law on Universal Military Service, all male

citizens must serve in the armed forces beginning at the age of

742
Armed Forces and Defense Organization

eighteen. The conscription period for servicemen was two years

except for sailors, which was three years. The 1967 law reduced

the conscription period from three and four years, respectively, to provide more labor for the economy. A nationwide system of over

4,000 military commissariats (voennye komissariaty—voenkomaty; sing.,

voenkomat—see Glossary) at the republic, oblast, raion, and city levels was responsible for conscription and veterans affairs. A voenkomat was accountable to the commander of the military district in which

it was located. All males had to report to a voenkomat when they

turned seventeen. The induction commission of the voenkomat gave

potential recruits a physical examination and reviewed their school

and DOSAAF training records.

Each year over 2 million eighteen-year-olds have reported to voenkomat induction commissions. They have reported in the spring

and the fall depending on whether their birthdays were in the first or second half of the year. Based on quotas assigned by the General

Staffs Main Organization and Mobilization Directorate, the voenko- mat either assigned recruits to one of the armed services or granted

deferments. Assignments were based on the physical attributes, education, skills, and political background of individual conscripts. The

services that required technical abilities or high reliability, therefore, received conscripts with the highest qualifications. For ex- ample, the Airborne Troops accepted only recruits that had been

fully trained in parachute jumping by DOSAAF. By contrast, the

Ground Forces and the Rear Services have had to take less qualified

inductees. Overall, however, 90 percent of servicemen have had

a secondary education.

The voenkomaty granted about one-quarter of eighteen-year-old

men deferments from service because of ill health or family hardship. Eighteen-year-olds were also exempted from service if they were enrolled in a higher education institution. They were required,

however, to participate in the reserve officer training program of

that institution. Those who had participated in such training programs could serve as little as a year of active duty after graduation. In 1982 education exemptions were restricted to those enrolled

in a list of institutions approved by the Ministry of Defense. Young

men not conscripted into the armed forces at eighteen remained

liable to induction until age twenty-seven. The number of men

deferred and later conscripted was probably small, however. Deferments were reportedly obtained from some induction commissions

for a bribe of 1 ,000 rubles. The practice has been common enough

that the Law on Universal Military Service mentioned punishment

for granting illegal deferments. Soviet law did not provide for a

conscientious objector status. In 1987, however, a pacifist group

743
Soviet Union: A Country Study

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Armed Forces and Defense Organization

called Trust took advantage of Gorbachev's policy of glasnost' to protest compulsory service in the armed forces. Life in the Soviet Armed Forces On the day before beginning to serve in the armed forces, Soviet

conscripts have traditionally attended an induction ceremony in

which local CPSU officials and veterans gave patriotic speeches.

The next day, they were transported directly to the military unit

in which they would serve their two- or thre^-year tours of duty.

Neither the conscripts nor their families knew its location beforehand. After one month of basic training that reviewed their premilitary training, conscripts took the military oath in their regiments.

In the oath, conscripts swore to guard state and military secrets, to master the craft of war, to protect state property, and to defend

the homeland and government without sparing life or blood.

Soviet troops lived under harsh conditions and strict discipline.

The practice of stationing troops in isolated areas outside their home

republics or regions and the system of internal passports kept the

desertion rate relatively low; the location of Soviet troops far from

their home region also enabled them to be deployed more easily

against a rebellious local population. Troops had about an hour

per day of "free" time, much of which was used for additional

political training and mandatory sports activities. Leave and temporary passes were not issued as a matter of course. New conscripts

could also expect to be harassed by soldiers in their second year

of service. Such hazing occasionally spilled over into physical abuse

and theft by senior soldiers against first-year troops. Conscripts were paid between 3 and 5 rubles per month, about enough to buy

cigarettes. Low pay for conscripts conserved the Ministry of

Defense's resources, but soldiers often became burdens for their

families, who sent them money.

The rate of alcoholism among military personnel was reported

to be higher than in society as a whole, a fact that could be at- tributed to the boredom and isolation of life in the barracks. In

addition, the expense and difficulty involved in obtaining alcohol

often resulted in petty corruption and the sale of military supplies on the black market. Soldiers were confined to the stockade for minor infractions of this type. They were sent to penal battalions

for more serious offenses, and time spent there did not count as time toward their discharge.

Units trained six days every week in winter and summer cycles.

The majority of parade drill, tactics, weapons, chemical defense,

political, and physical training took place in garrison. The armed

forces have strictly limited live firings of weapons, field exercises,

745
Soviet Union: A Country Study

days at sea, and flight time. The average serviceman might participate in several three-day regimental exercises and possibly one

larger exercise in the military district in a two-year tour of duty.

In addition to their military training, units have often been called on to help with harvesting. The semiannual turnover of conscripts,

one-quarter of total conscript manpower, has meant that new in- ductees were constandy being assimilated into the armed services.

This turnover and the two-year service term made it difficult to train and retain specialists to work on sophisticated weapons

systems.

Semiannual discharge orders from the minister of defense released

troops completing their active duty and automatically enlisted them

in the reserves. These troops also had the option of reenlisting as extended service soldiers or applying to become noncommissioned

officers. Few did so, however. On returning home, released conscripts had to register as reserves with the voenkomat and report to

it changes in their residence, health, education, or family status until their reserve obligation ended at age fifty.

Noncommissioned Officers

The armed forces had a very low percentage of noncommissioned

officers (NCOs) compared with other armies of the world and even

fewer career NCOs. Soviet NCOs were essentially conscripts. At

the time of induction, each voenkomat selected a few recruits to be- come NCOs. After training for from several weeks to six months,

these new NCOs were assigned to units, but their authority over

other conscripts was limited by their youth and inexperience.

Moreover, because only 5 percent of Soviet military personnel were NCOs, junior commissioned officers had to perform many tasks

assigned to sergeants in other countries' armies. The armed forces

have made an effort to build a career NCO corps in order to re- tain needed skills, improve small unit leadership, and make a mili- tary career more attractive to conscripts. For example, in 1972 the

Ministry of Defense instituted the NCO rank of warrant officer

between the ranks of sergeant and junior officer. NCOs could also attend a six- to nine-month specialist course to become platoon com- manders and company technicians.

National Minorities in the Armed Forces The military tried to give the impression that soldiers of differ- ent nationalities served together harmoniously, but the number of

articles in the military press devoted to relations between ethnic

groups itself indicated the persistence of nationality conflict within

the armed forces. Rather than contributing to nation building,

746
Armed Forces and Defense Organization

service in the armed forces reportedly was more likely to increase

ethnic and linguistic consciousness. In the late 1980s, the Soviet

Union's non-Slavic minority groups comprised one-quarter of the

conscript pool. Western experts estimated that, as Slavic birthrates

declined, by the year 2000 one-third of draft-age males would be

non-Slavic.

The armed forces, however, appeared to have mechanisms in

place for maintaining control over national minorities in their ranks.

The armed forces have been dominated by Slavs in general and

Russians in particular. Russian has been the only language of com- mand, and Slavs constituted 80 percent of all combat personnel

and 95 percent of the officer corps. Although more non-Slavs will have to be drafted in the future, a pervasive inability, or unwillingness, to read or speak Russian among non-Slavic, and particularly Central Asian, recruits has impeded their training and

advancement in the military. Because the Russian language was

not taught to conscripts in the armed forces, non-Slavs have been

limited to assignments in nontechnical and noncombat positions.

Most Central Asian conscripts were assigned to Construction and

Troop Billeting and served their two years in construction battal- ions. They received little combat training.

The military leadership viewed non-Slavs as potentially unreliable

frontline troops. For example, Central Asian Muslim soldiers were

deployed in Afghanistan during the early days of the war but had

to be withdrawn because they sympathized with their coreligionists

in that country. Moreover, non-Slavs were rarely assigned to the

elite armed services. They were, however, recruited to serve with

the Internal Troops in the Russian Republic because they could

be counted on to suppress any disturbance in areas inhabited by

ethnic Slavs.

Women in the Armed Forces Under the Soviet Constitution, women had the same legal obli- gation as men for the defense of the Soviet Union and have been

called on to discharge it. A women's battalion existed at the time

of the Bolshevik Revolution and during the Civil War. Approximately 800,000 women served in both combat and noncombat roles during World War II. According to the 1967 Law on Universal

Military Service, women with medical or other special training must

register for the draft, but they have not been inducted. Women

between nineteen and forty may volunteer for active duty. In wartime women would be drafted for "auxiliary or special duty. '

' The

1967 law did not specify whether they would be used in combat.

In the late 1980s, an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 women were

747
Soviet Union: A Country Study

serving in the armed forces in medical, communications, and administrative support positions. Women were not admitted to military education institutions, and few became officers. Many Western

observers believe that the armed forces will have to rely more on women in the future as the number of available Slavic men declines.

Officers

The profession of officer in the armed forces has been prestigious and well respected in the Soviet Union. The number of officers was very large, in part because the armed forces have contained

a large number of conscripts and relatively few NCOs. The presence

of a political officer, or zampolit, in every company or battery also has significantly raised the total number of officers. As of 1989, the Soviet Union had the world's largest officer train- ing system. At the secondary level, it had eight Suvorov military

schools and the Nakhimov Naval Secondary School to prepare

fifteen- and sixteen-year-old cadets, who were often sons of officers, for direct admission into higher military education institutions.

In 1989 the Soviet Union had about 140 higher military schools,

which trained officers for each armed service or combat arm. Young

men between seventeen and twenty-one who had a secondary education could apply for admission into higher military schools. Ser- vicemen under the age of twenty-three could also apply. Admission was based on a competitive examination in Russian language and

literature, Soviet history, physics, and mathematics, as well as a thorough review of an applicant's political and educational background.

Each higher military school had over 1,000 cadets and trained

either command, engineering, or political officers for a particular

combat arm (see table 55, Appendix A). The four- or five-year cur- riculum of command schools included about 60 percent military

science, weapons, and tactics instruction and 40 percent general

sciences education and political training. Cadets in political or en- gineering schools received correspondingly more political or technical instruction. Upon graduation cadets received university

diplomas and were commissioned as junior lieutenants. The higher

military schools and reserve officer training programs in about 900

civilian higher education institutions produced about 60,000 new

officers for the armed forces each year. Junior officers remained in their assignments for long periods

and were evaluated for promotion every four years based on their

professional knowledge, performance, and moral-political capabilities (see Glossary). Some junior officer promotions were almost

automatic because the time-in- grade requirement for advancement

748
Armed Forces and Defense Organization

in rank was only two years. Officers' monthly pay ranged between

150 rubles for lieutenants and 2,000 rubles for generals, which was

considerably more than the salary of most managers in the civilian sector. Officers had greater opportunities to commit infractions of mili- tary law than ordinary servicemen, and their most common criminal

offense was bribery. Officers inspecting units accepted bribes in

return for overlooking training deficiencies, accidents, or disciplinary breaches. The misuse of state property, and vehicles in particular, was also widespread. According to the Law on Universal

Military Service, however, officers could be discharged for committing acts that disgraced their titles. Upon reaching the rank of senior lieutenant or captain, many

officers began to prepare for competitive examinations to enter one

of seventeen military academies. Candidates for admission were

required to have held a regimental command position and received

excellent ratings and to have been endorsed by the political direc- torate of their command or service. The two- or three-year program of a Soviet military academy was similar to command and

staff training or war colleges in Western countries. Each armed

service and combat arm had its own academy. The Frunze Military Academy, the most prestigious at its level, specialized in combined arms training but was attended predominantly by Ground

Forces officers. Advanced study in military academies involved

major military science research projects that were frequently published in books or articles. Military academies awarded diplomas

equivalent to master's or doctoral degrees in the West. They also conducted correspondence courses leading to similar degrees.

Graduation from a military academy was practically a requirement for advancement to higher rank. In particular, graduation

from the Voroshilov General Staff Academy, the highest-level

academy, was a prerequisite for appointment to important Ministry of Defense and General Staff positions. Among its graduates

have been the ministers of defense of the Warsaw Pact countries.

High rank has brought a salary of as much as 2,000 rubles monthly

and other perquisites that come with being part of the elite. For

example, many generals had summer homes reportedly built with

government construction materials and military manpower.

Officers were not under pressure to advance in rank, and higher

ranking officers were not forced to retire early from the armed ser- vices. In theory, an officer could serve as a junior lieutenant until

age forty. Mandatory retirement began at age forty and went up

to age sixty for major generals. Above this rank, general officers could get extensions and were effectively exempt from mandatory

749
Soviet Union: A Country Study

retirement. In practice, many officers who resisted retirement were

put to work in civil defense or DOSAAF organizations. Highranking officers often moved into the Ministry of Defense's Main

Inspectorate as senior inspectors or became the heads of higher mili- tary schools or academies.

Reserves and Wartime Mobilization

The Soviet Union had the world's most elaborate system of wartime mobilization, although it was not certain that the system would

be as impressive in action as it was on paper. Soldiers retained a

reserve obligation until age fifty. For officers, the reserve obligation extended to sixty-five. Thus, Western specialists estimated that over 50 million males were reservists. Local voenkomaty maintained

records of residences and other data that would be important in

mobilizing the reserves. Reserves were divided into two categories of three classes based on age and the amount of refresher training they were supposed

to receive after mobilization. Reserves were subject to periodic call- ups for active duty or training in the local garrison. The amount

of reserve training actually conducted varied greatly.

In 1 989 the Soviet Union had about 9 million servicemen who

had been discharged from active duty in the preceding five years. Only 3 million of them would be needed to bring all active Ground

Forces divisions to full strength in fewer than three days. Western

analysts speculated that large numbers of additional divisions could

be created within two to three months using civilian trucks and

large stockpiles of older weapons and equipment. Such forces could

be employed effectively against NATO's second echelons, as well

as against less formidable opponents.

Reserves, together with additional manpower and equipment

mobilized in wartime, would substantially augment the considerable strength of the peacetime Soviet military. Long favored by

the political leadership, the military has received a large proportion of the human and material resources of the Soviet Union.

Guided and controlled by the CPSU, the military's strategic leaders

have organized, trained, and equipped the Soviet armed forces to capably fulfill their assigned missions.

* * * The single most complete work on the Soviet armed forces is Harriet F. Scott and William F. Scott's The Armed Forces of the USSR.

The Department of Defense's Soviet Military Power, the eighth edition of which was published in 1989, contains information about

750
Armed Forces and Defense Organization

Soviet forces that is not available to the public elsewhere. The Military

Balance, issued annually by the International Institute for Strategic

Studies, is a consistentiy accurate and independent source of in- formation on the size of the Soviet defense effort. Coverage of current developments in Soviet weapons, tactics, strategy, and military

leadership can be found in the regular columns and feature arti- cles of many defense-oriented journals. The Air University Library

Index to Military Periodicals, edited by Emily J. Adams, is an excellent resource for locating these articles. The Soviet Armed Forces Review

Annual, edited by David R. Jones, provides coverage of changes

in the Soviet military from year to year. Richard A. Gabriel and

Ellen Jones have written extensively on the troops behind Soviet

weapons and equipment. Inside the Soviet Army, by a Soviet officer

who defected to the West and writes under the pseudonym Viktor

Suvorov, also contains revealing insights into the operation of and

life in the armed forces. (For further information and complete

citations, see Bibliography.)

751

Chapter 19. Internal Security
Symbols of internal security: the crest of the Committee for State Security (KGB), border guards near a watchtower, and a member

of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD)
IN THE LATE 1980s, the Soviet Union continued to place great

emphasis on ensuring security and internal order. Because it was

governed by a monopolistic party, whose leaders were not democratically elected, the Soviet system had no legitimacy based on

popular support and therefore protected itself from internal and

external threats by means of a strong security system. The system

included the regular police, judicial bodies, prosecuting organs,

and the security police, as well as an external security and foreign

intelligence apparatus. Even in the era of perestroika (see Glossary)

and glasnost' (see Glossary) ushered in by General Secretary

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the organs of internal security still had a key role to play, despite the party leadership's apparent tolerance

of criticism of the political system.

The Soviet security, or political, police had a long history, dating back to the prerevolutionary, tsarist period. Although the tsarist political police was ruthless and unscrupulous, the police organs

established by Vladimir I. Lenin and the Bolsheviks (see Glossary)

in 1917, known as the Vecheka (see Glossary), far surpassed their

predecessors in terms of terror and violence. The Bolsheviks al- lowed the Vecheka almost unrestricted powers to persecute those

who were perceived as "class enemies." This set the stage for the

development of the brutal Stalinist police state, in which millions

of innocent victims perished at the hands of the political police,

controlled by Joseph V. Stalin.

After Stalin died, Nikita S. Khrushchev initiated legal reforms

and reorganized the police apparatus. The terror ended abruptly,

and the political police were brought under the control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—KGB), established in March 1954, was tasked with security functions, and the

Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del—MVD)

was charged with combating ordinary crime and maintaining the

extensive network of labor camps. A new legal code was established

to replace the Stalinist laws, and both the security police and the

regular police were subjected to procedural norms and regulations

in carrying out their functions. Nevertheless, the party leadership

did not eliminate all the legal loopholes and allowed the KGB to circumvent the law when combating political dissent. The KGB

also played an important role in implementing the anticorruption

campaign, which resulted in the ouster of many state and party

755
Soviet Union: A Country Study

officials after General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev died. Among

its other tasks were guarding the leadership and important government buildings; protecting Soviet state borders; and carrying out

intelligence, counterintelligence, and active measures (see Glossary) abroad.

The MVD was restricted to combating ordinary crime and, unlike the KGB, was subjected to constant criticism in the Soviet press, which attacked its inefficiency and corruption. In addition to the

MVD, the Procuracy (Prokuratura) and the Ministry of Justice

played important roles in implementing the laws and administering justice. The Ministry of Defense's Main Military Procuracy,

along with the system of military tribunals, handled crimes within

the armed forces. Both the KGB and the MVD played important roles in the suc- cession crises that followed Brezhnev's death. The KGB, however, was more politically significant than the MVD and, after the early

1970s, had an increasing impact on Soviet domestic and foreign

policy making. To reinforce their coercive role, the KGB and the

MVD had special troops at their disposal, including the Border

Troops, the Security Troops, and the Internal Troops.

Predecessors of the Committee for State Security and

the Ministry of Internal Affairs

The KGB and the MVD had numerous predecessor organizations, dating back to the tsarist period. These organizations contributed significantly to the historical traditions of the modern Soviet

police, which in several ways resembled those of its forerunners.

The Tsarist Period

The 1980s Soviet police system cannot be properly understood

without considering the evolution of the tsarist police, particularly

as it related to Russia's political culture and governmental institu- tions. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Russia was, by all accounts, a "police state," not in the modern sense of the term,

which connotes all the evils of Nazi Germany and Stalinism, but

in the more traditional sense as it applied to certain European states in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, e.g., France and

Prussia. These states, which incorporated secret political police,

spying, and encroachments on individual rights with both paternalism and enlightenment, were motivated by a desire to reform

and modernize.

Russia's monarchical police state was similar to those in western

Europe except that it lagged far behind in its political evolution

and was much less efficient. The foundations of the tsarist police

756
Internal Security

state were established in 1826, when Tsar Nicholas I formed the

so-called Third Section, a political police whose purpose was to protect the state from internal subversion. The staff of the Third Section was small, numbering only forty full-time employees, who were burdened with information-gathering and welfare functions that

extended well beyond the realm of political surveillance. As a result,

its role was vague and poorly defined, and its efforts to combat

political dissent, on the whole, were ineffective.

In 1880, as part of an effort to improve the effectiveness of the

political police, the much-discredited Third Section was abolished

and replaced by the central State Police Department under the

Ministry of the Interior. Its chief responsibility was dealing with

political crimes, and, although its staff consisted of only 161 full- time employees, it had at its disposal the Corps of Gendarmes, numbering several thousand, and a large contingent of informers. In

addition, the notorious " security sections" were established in

several Russian cities following the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 . Despite the fact that its operations were strengthened, the

political police was not successful in stemming the tide of the revolutionary movement, which helped to bring down the Russian monarchy in 1917. Police operations were hampered by the low quality

of personnel and grave deficiencies in training. One of the greatest

impediments to an effective political police was the general reluc- tance on the part of the Russian state to use violence against political dissenters. Herein lies one of the crucial differences between

the monarchical police state of tsarist Russia and the Soviet regime,

which from the outset used violence to preserve its rule and gradually extended the violence to affect broad segments of the population.

Soviet Predecessor Organizations, 1917-54

The Bolshevik regime created a police system that proved to be

far more effective than the tsarist version. It swept away the tsarist police, so despised by Russians of all political persuasions, along

with other tsarist institutions, and replaced it with a political police

of considerably greater dimensions, both in the scope of its authority

and in the severity of its methods. However lofty their initial goals were, the Bolsheviks forcibly imposed their rule on the people. They

constituted a dictatorship of a minority that had to establish a powerful political police apparatus to preserve its domination.

The first Soviet political police, created in December 1917, was

the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage (Vserossiiskaia chrezvychainaia komissiia po bor'be s kontrrevoliutsiei i sabotazhem—VChK; also known

as the Vecheka or the Cheka). The Vecheka was very much an

757
Soviet Union: A Country Study

ad hoc organization whose powers gradually grew in response to various emergencies and threats to Soviet rule (see table 56,

Appendix A). No formal legislation establishing the Vecheka was

ever enacted. It was to serve as an organ of preliminary investigation, but the crimes it was to uncover were not defined, and the

procedures for handling cases were not set forth. This situation was

the result of the extralegal character of the Vecheka, which was

conceived not as a permanent state institution but as a temporary

organ for waging war against " class enemies." Given its militant

role and supralegal status, it is not surprising that the Vecheka,

which was headed by Feliks E. Dzerzhinskii, acquired powers of

summary justice as the threat of counterrevolution and foreign

intervention grew. After an attempt was made on Lenin's life in

August 1918, the Vecheka unleashed its violence on a wide scale,

the so-called Red Terror, which continued until 1920 and caused

thousands to lose their lives. The end of the Civil War (1918-21), the demobilization of the

Red Army, and the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP)

in 1921 brought about a changed atmosphere that seemed incompatible with a terrorist political police. Lenin himself spoke of the

need for a reform of the political police, and in early 1922 the Vecheka was abolished and its functions transferred to the State Politi- cal Directorate (Gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie—GPU).

When the Soviet Union was formed in December 1922, the GPU

was raised to the level of a federal agency, designated the Unified

State Political Directorate (Ob"edinennoe gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie—OGPU), and attached to the Council of People's Commissars. On paper it appeared that the powers of the

political police had been reduced significantly. Indeed, police operations during the NEP period were considerably less violent, and

the staff and budget of the political police were reduced. Initially,

the OGPU was subject to definite procedural requirements regarding arrests and was not given the powers of summary justice that

its predecessor had. But the legal constraints on the OGPU were

gradually removed, and its authority grew throughout the 1920s.

The OGPU was drawn into the intraparty struggles that ensued

between Stalin and his opponents and was also enlisted in the drive

to collectivize the peasantry by force, beginning in late 1929, an

operation that resulted in the death of at least 5 million people.

In July 1934, the OGPU was transformed into the Main Directorate for State Security (Glavnoe upravlenie gosudarstvennoi

bezopasnosti—GUGB) and integrated into the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennykh del

NKVD), which had been given all-union (see Glossary) status

758
Internal Security

earlier that year. The functions of the security police and those of

the internal affairs apparatus, which controlled the regular police

and the militia, were thus united in one agency. The NKVD was

a powerful organization. In addition to controlling the security

police and the regular police, it was in charge of border and inter- nal troops, fire brigades, convoy troops, and, after 1934, the entire penal system, including regular prisons and forced labor camps,

or the Gulag (see Glossary). During the period from 1934 to 1940,

the NKVD took charge of numerous economic enterprises (see Glossary) that employed forced labor, such as gold mining, major construction projects, and other industrial activity. In addition, the

Special Board, attached to the NKVD, operated outside the legal

codes and was empowered to impose on persons deemed '' socially

dangerous" sentences of exile, deportation, or confinement in labor

camps. The Special Board soon became one of the chief instruments of Stalin's purges.

Stalin's domination over the party was not absolute at this time,

however. Dissatisfaction with his policies continued to be manifested

by some party members, and elements existed within the leadership that might have opposed any attempt to use police terror against

the party. Among Stalin's potential challengers was Sergei Kirov,

chief of the Leningrad party apparatus. Conveniently for Stalin,

Kirov was assassinated by a disgruntled ex-party member in December 1934. This provided Stalin with the pretext for launching an assault against the party. Although Stalin proceeded cautiously,

the turning point had been reached, and the terror machinery was

in place. From 1936 to 1938, the NKVD arrested and executed

millions of party members, government officials, and ordinary

citizens. The military also came under assault. Much of the officer corps was wiped out in 1937-38, leaving the country ill prepared

for World War II. The era in which the NKVD, with Stalin's

aproval, terrorized Soviet citizens became known in the West as the Great Terror (see Glossary).

The war years brought further opportunities for the political

police, under the control of Lavrenty Beria, to expand its authority. The NKVD assumed a number of additional economic functions that made use of the expanding labor camp population. The

NKVD also broadened its presence in the Red Army, where it con- ducted extensive surveillance of the troops. Toward the end of the war, the political police moved into areas formerly under German

occupation to arrest those suspected of sympathy for the Nazis.

They also suppressed nationalist movements in the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and western Ukrainian republics.

759
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Beria himself steadily gained power and authority during this period. In early 1946, when he was made a full member of the Polit- buro and a deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers (the new

name for the Council of People's Commissars), he relinquished

his NKVD post, but he apparently retained some control over the

police through his proteges in that organization. In March 1953,

following Stalin's death, Beria became chief of the MVD, which

amalgamated the regular police and the security police into one

organization. Some three months later, he was viewed as a threat

to the leadership and was arrested by his Kremlin colleagues, in- cluding Khrushchev.

The ' 'Beria affair" and the shake-up in the Kremlin that fol- lowed his arrest had far-reaching consequences for the role of the

police in Soviet society. The party leadership not only arrested and

later executed Beria and several of his allies in the MVD but also

took measures to place the political police under its firm control.

Thereafter, violence was no longer to be used as a means of setding

conflicts within the leadership, and widespread terror was not employed against the population.

The Security Apparatus and Kremlin Politics

The Khrushchev period was important for the development of

the internal security apparatus. Legal reforms, personnel changes,

and the denunciation of Stalin had a marked effect on the position

of the police and the legal organs. As the successor to Khrushchev,

Brezhnev did much to reverse the tide of reforms, but later, under

Gorbachev, reforms progressed again. The reforms brought opposition to Gorbachev from the police apparatus because the

changes curtailed police powers.

Khrushchev Period

One of the first reforms instituted by the post- Stalin leadership

under Khrushchev was a reorganization of the police apparatus.

On March 13, 1954 a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet

established the KGB, attached to the Council of Ministers. The

establishment of a state security apparatus separate from that of

the regular police was designed to diminish the formidable powers

that the police had wielded when its activities were concentrated

in one organization. Thereafter, the functions of ensuring politi- cal security would be ascribed to a special police agency, whose

powers were substantially less than they had been under Stalin.

The party leadership also instituted significant legal reforms to protect citizens from police persecution. On May 24, 1955, a new

statute on procurator (see Glossary) supervision was enacted by

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Internal Security

the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. This statute provided

procedural guarantees of procuratorial power to protest illegalities

committed by state agencies and to make proposals for eliminating these illegalities. Another reform that restricted the powers of

the political police and protected citizens from police persecution was the enactment in December 1958 of the Fundamental Principles of Criminal Procedure, which were incorporated into the 1960

Russian Republic's Code of Criminal Procedure and were still in

effect in 1989, although they had been amended several times.

The new codes, which were established according to the Russian Republic model in the other republics as well, subjected the

KGB to the same procedural rules to which other investigative agencies were subject and specified precisely the types of crimes the KGB

was empowered to investigate. A new law on state crimes, enacted on December 25, 1958, and incorporated into the 1960 Code of

Criminal Procedure of the Russian Republic, narrowed the range

of political crimes that were embodied in the Stalinist codes and

made criminal sanctions less severe. Khrushchev's policy of de-Stalinization also had significance for the role of the post-Stalin political police. His famous "secret speech," delivered at the Twentieth Party Congress in February

1956, called attention to the crimes committed by the police under

Stalin. This inevitably weakened the prestige of the KGB and

demoralized its cadres (see Glossary), many of whom had participated actively in the purges.

These police and legal reforms were diminished somewhat by

the appointment in 1954 of two long-time police officials, Ivan Serov

and Sergei Kruglov, to head the KGB and the MVD, respectively.

Serov's past was heavily tainted by his participation in the Stalinist police repression, as was that of Kruglov. Both, however, had lent

their support to Khrushchev when he made his move against Beria,

and apparently they had to be rewarded. Although Khrushchev

and the party leadership wanted to demonstrate that they were

"cleansing the ranks" of the police by purging many officials, they

retained others who were loyal and experienced.

In December 1958, Serov was removed from his post as KGB

chief and replaced by Aleksandr Shelepin, a former Komsomol (see

Glossary) official. With his higher education in humanities and his

untainted record, Shelepin did much to raise the stature of the KGB

and to bring renewed efficiency and legitimacy to it. By the late 1950s, efforts were under way to improve the public image of the

KGB by portraying its officials in a favorable light in the media

and by publishing works on the history of the Soviet political police.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

In addition, changes in the legal codes in 1961 broadened the KGB's

investigative powers.

Shelepin himself may have been largely responsible for the campaign to rehabilitate the security police. Although he left his post

as head of the KGB in December 1961, he continued to oversee

the police in his capacity as Central Committee secretary, and his successor, Vladimir Semichastnyi, was a close ally. Both Shelepin

and Semichastnyi appeared to have joined the ranks of opposition

to Khrushchev sometime before his ouster in October 1964 and

were actively involved in the plot to overthrow the party leader.

De-Stalinization, legal reforms, and various other measures promoted by Khrushchev to curtail the activities of the security police

had no doubt created resentment within its ranks and aroused the

displeasure of leading KGB officials. After Khrushchev

Brezhnev evidently had learned a lesson from Khrushchev's ex- perience and went out of his way to raise the status of the police

and clamp down on political dissent. The KGB's investigative

powers were extended in 1965 to include certain categories of eco- nomic crime, and it continued to be accorded favorable publicity

in the Soviet press. Its growing prestige and authority accom- modated those neoconservative trends that manifested themselves

during the late 1960s and 1970s: curbs on cultural freedom, a crackdown on dissent, and a partial rehabilitation of Stalin.

Brezhnev and his party colleagues became worried about the ambitions of Shelepin, however, and decided to put an end to his in- fluence over the security police. In May 1967, Semichastnyi was removed as KGB chief, and by November of that year Shelepin was out of the Central Committee Secretariat. The new KGB chairman was lurii I. Andropov, a Central Committee secretary who

had served as ambassador to Hungary and later as head of the Liai- son with Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries

Department of the Central Committee. He was apparently a neutral figure politically, agreed upon by all members of the collec- tive leadership; Brezhnev, however, managed to bring in several

of his own proteges to serve directly below Andropov. The most

important of these was a KGB official named Semen Tsvigun, re- portedly Brezhnev's brother-in-law, who was made first deputy KGB

chairman in December 1967. Viktor M. Chebrikov was another offi- cial with links to Brezhnev who was brought to Moscow to serve

in the KGB. The presence of his allies in the KGB leadership was

a source of strength for Brezhnev, and he made certain that their careers prospered. In addition to encouraging favorable publicity

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for the KGB, Brezhnev was careful to ensure that employees of

the KGB were well paid and enjoyed significant privileges and perquisites.

Brezhnev may have underestimated the political prowess of

Andropov, however. Andropov benefited from the increased powers

and prestige that the KGB gained under the Brezhnev leadership

and became a powerful political leader in his own right. As Brezhnev's death became imminent in 1982, Andropov began contending for the top party post. His success in reaching his goal in

November 1982 was due partly to his attack, using KGB files as weapons, on the Brezhnevites for their involvement in corruption.

Not surprisingly, Andropov's short tenure as general secretary

(November 1982-February 1984) was marked by a stronger KGB

role. Even Andropov's illness and death did not result in a decline

for the KGB. On the contrary, the extended period of political upheaval in the Kremlin following his death seemed to increase the

KGB's influence. Its officials received prominent coverage in the

press, and KGB representation on party and state leadership bodies

grew.

Gorbachev Era

After gaining the post of general secretary in March 1985, Gorbachev moved with unprecedented speed to implement personnel

changes in the party and government. His success in getting rid

of so many potential political opponents in such a short time sur- prised Western Soviet experts, particularly because Gorbachev did

not have a substantial power base or patronage network of his own

when he took office. Gorbachev apparendy relied on the same bases

of support that Andropov had used in his ascent to the top, which

included the KGB. According to Western experts, Gorbachev appealed to the KGB for help in purging the Brezhnev old guard.

The main vehicle used by Gorbachev in carrying out these purges was the anticorruption campaign. By the late summer of 1985,

hardly a day passed without a report in the press on cases of bribery,

embezzlement, or other forms of economic crime. In addition to high-level party and state officials, MVD and Procuracy employees came under fire for their failure to uncover crimes. Even MVD

chief Vitalii Fedorchuk fell victim to Gorbachev, losing his post

in early 1986. Fedorchuk' s replacement, Aleksandr Vlasov, was

a former party apparatchik (see Glossary) with no experience in

law enforcement.

Although the regular law enforcement agencies were subjected to sharp attacks for their failure to combat crime, the KGB

remained unscathed, despite the fact that it was empowered by law

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

to investigate certain types of economic crime. There was some

turnover in key KGB posts, but these changes were not nearly as widespread as were the changes in the CPSU apparatus and in other

state agencies.

Numerous signs pointed to the fact that the Gorbachev leadership was cultivating good relations with the KGB by maintaining

its high prestige and political status. KGB chairman Chebrikov was promoted to full membership in the Politburo just a month

after Gorbachev came to power. He also figured prominently

in the Soviet media. At the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in

February-March 1986, for example, he delivered a speech that was

an unprecedented assertion of the power and authority of the KGB.

Although Gorbachev continued to rely on the KGB in his drive

to purge the party and state apparatus of corrupt officials, toward

the end of 1986 signs indicated that his relations with this organization were becoming strained. The KGB cannot have been pleased

about the reformist polices promoted by Gorbachev, in particular

openness in the media and liberalization of cultural norms. Calls

for reform of the judicial and legal systems, voiced with increasing

frequency in the autumn of 1986, signified that the Gorbachev

leadership was attempting to curtail arbitrary KGB actions against

citizens. This attempt became even more apparent in January 1987,

when Chebrikov acknowledged, on the front page of Pravda, that

employees of the KGB had committed illegalities. Such an ac- knowledgment of KGB abuses was unprecedented. Even during

the Khrushchev era, when the crimes of Stalin's security police were

exposed, the KGB was never criticized in the press. Observers

speculated that, having depended initially on KGB support to purge

the Brezhnevites, Gorbachev decided by early 1987 that he was

strong enough to embark on reforms that might antagonize this institution.

It was not long, however, before signs of opposition to Gorbachev's policies arose, and a "conservative backlash" occurred.

Although the opposition appears to have been led by disgruntled

party leaders such as Egor K. Ligachev, the second-ranking member

of the Politburo, the KGB probably joined forces with these conservatives. Chebrikov' s comments, in particular his strident speech

delivered in September 1987, made it clear that the KGB would

not allow the democratic reforms to go too far: "There must be

a clear awareness that the restructuring is taking place in our state and society under the leadership of the Communist Party, within

the framework of socialism and in the interests of socialism. This

revolutionary process will be reliably protected against any subversive intrigues." The subsequent ouster of a leading proponent

764
Internal Security

of Gorbachev's reforms, Moscow party chief Boris N. Yeltsin, was

an indication of the strength of the opposition to Gorbachev.

Although he made some strategic retreats in early 1988, Gorbachev continued to pursue his policy of perestroika, and exposures

of illegal KGB activities continued. Even more threatening for the

KGB were unprecedented revelations about security police terror under Stalin. Although the role of the police in the purges had been

discussed since the Khrushchev era, glasnosV resulted in a much

more devastating critique of the role of the police during this period.

Ethnic unrest of various nationalities, together with increasingly

bold political demands by the Soviet intelligentsia, also presented

the KGB with significant challenges. In a speech delivered in midApril, Chebrikov expressed concern that things were going too far and that some individuals were "unleashing a wide-ranging arsenal

of methods of social demagoguery and substituting bourgeois liber- alism for the essence of the concept of socialist democracy." Subsequently, in October 1988 Chebrikov lost his position as chief of

the KGB and was replaced by Vladimir A. Kriuchkov.

Organization of the Committee for State Security

The basic organizational structure of the KGB was created in

1954, when the reorganization of the police apparatus was carried

out. In the late 1980s, the KGB remained a highly centralized in- stitution with controls implemented by the Politburo through the

KGB headquarters in Moscow.

Structure

The KGB was originally designated as a "state committee at- tached to the Council of Ministers." On July 5, 1978, a new law on the Council of Ministers changed the status of the KGB, along

with that of several other state committees, so that its chairman was a member of the Council of Ministers by law. According to the 1977 Soviet Constitution, the Council of Ministers "coordinates

and directs" the work of the ministries and state committees, in- cluding the KGB. In practice, however, the KGB had more au- tonomy than most other government bodies and operated with a

large degree of independence from the Council of Ministers. The

situation was similar with the Supreme Soviet, which had formal

authority over the Council of Ministers and its agencies. In 1989

the actual powers of the Supreme Soviet, however, gave it little if any power over KGB operations.

The KGB was a union-republic state committee, controlling cor- responding state committees of the same name in the fourteen non- Russian republics. (All-union ministries and state committees, by

765
Soviet Union: A Country Study

contrast, did not have corresponding branches in the republics but

executed their functions direcdy through Moscow.) Below the

republic level, there existed KGB administrations (upravleniia) in

the kraia (see Glossary) and oblasts (see Glossary). In the Russian

Republic, however, there was no republic-level KGB. Oblast KGB

administrations in the Russian Republic were subordinated direcdy

to the central KGB offices in Moscow. At the lower levels, autonomous okruga (see Glossary), cities, and raiony (see Glossary) had

KGB departments or sections.

The KGB also had a broad network of special departments in

all major government institutions, enterprises, and factories. They

generally consisted of one or more KGB representatives, whose

purpose was to ensure the observance of security regulations and

to monitor political sentiments among employees. The special

departments recruited informers to help them in their tasks. A

separate and very extensive network of special departments existed

within the armed forces and defense-related institutions.

Although a union-republic agency, the KGB was highly central- ized and was controlled rigidly from the top. The KGB central staff kept a close watch over the operations of its branches, leaving the

latter minimal autonomous authority over policy or cadre selec- tion. Moreover, local government organs had little involvement

in local KGB activities. Indeed, the high degree of centralization

in the KGB was reflected in the fact that regional KGB branches were not subordinated to the local Soviets (see Glossary), but only

to the KGB hierarchy. Thus, they differed from local branches of

most union-republic ministerial agencies, such as the MVD, which were subject to dual subordination.

The KGB was directed by a chairman—who was formally appointed by the Supreme Soviet but actually was selected by the

Politburo—one or two first deputy chairmen, and several (usually

four to six) deputy chairmen. Key decisions were made by the KGB

Collegium, which was a collective leadership body composed of

the chairman, deputy chairmen, chiefs of certain KGB directorates,

and one or two chairmen of republic KGB organizations.

Functions and Internal Organization

As a state committee with ministerial status, the KGB operated on the basis of a statute (polozhenie), confirmed by the Council of

Ministers, that set forth in legal terms the KGB's powers and duties. Unlike the majority of statutes governing ministerial agencies, the

KGB's statute was not published. Nevertheless, Soviet textbooks on administrative law offered useful statements about the KGB's

role and functions. The KGB's tasks were generally defined in

766
Internal Security

official Soviet publications as encompassing four areas: the struggle against foreign spies and agents, the exposure and investigation of political and economic crimes by citizens, the protection

of state borders, and the protection of state secrets. In addition,

the KGB was charged with a wide range of preventive tasks, which

were designed to eliminate the causes of both political and ordinary crimes. In other words, the KGB was tasked with ferreting

out potential threats to the state and preventing the development

of unorthodox political and social attitudes among the population.

Official Soviet sources did not discuss the internal structure of

the KGB in detail. Nevertheless, some information on KGB or- ganization and functions has been revealed by Soviet defectors and

other sources. In 1988 the KGB had five chief directorates and three

known (possibly another) directorates that were smaller in size and

scope than the chief directorates, as well as various other administrative and technical support departments (see fig. 37). Western

estimates of KGB manpower past ranged from 490,000 in 1973

to 700,000 in 1986.

The First Chief Directorate was responsible for all foreign operations and intelligence- gathering activities. It was divided into both

functional services—training and management of covert agents,

intelligence analysis, and collection of political, scientific, and tech- nological intelligence—and geographic departments for various

areas of the world.

The Second Chief Directorate was responsible for internal political control of Soviet citizens and foreigners residing within the

Soviet Union, including both diplomats and tourists. The Fifth

Chief Directorate also dealt with internal security. Created in the

late 1960s to combat political dissent, it took up some of the tasks

previously handled by the Second Chief Directorate. The Fifth Chief

Directorate had special operational departments for religious dis- sent, national minorities, the intelligentsia and the artistic community, and censorship of literature. The Seventh Directorate

handled surveillance, providing personnel and technical equipment

to follow and monitor the activities of both foreigners and suspect

Soviet citizens. Much of this work was centered in the Moscow

and Leningrad areas, where tourists, diplomats, foreign students,

and members of the Soviet intelligentsia were concentrated. The

Eighth Chief Directorate was responsible for the highly sensitive area of communications. This directorate provided technical sys- tems, including cipher systems, for other KGB departments and

government agencies and also monitored and deciphered foreign

communications

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767
Soviet Union: A Country Study

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Internal Security

The KGB had at least three additional directorates: the Third

Chief Directorate, which dealt with military counterintelligence and

political surveillance of the Soviet armed forces; the Border Troops

Directorate, which protected Soviet land and sea borders; and the

Ninth Directorate, which guarded the Kremlin and key offices of

the CPSU.

In addition to the various directorates and a special network of

training and education establishments, the KGB had a personnel

department, a secretariat, a technical support staff, a finance department, an archives, an administration department, and a party committee. Most of these bodies had counterparts within the different

directorates. Party committees, which existed in every Soviet or- ganization, handled political indoctrination of personnel. Heads

of party committees arranged regular meetings to discuss party matters and served as liaisons between the party and the KGB at vari- ous levels, although party membership was probably universal

among KGB employees. At the republic level, KGB organization was probably similar to that of the central KGB, although republic KGBs did not supervise units of the Border Troops, which were

administered centrally. Nor did they include functions of the Third

Chief Directorate, which was organized primarily along military

service lines or by military district. In addition, functions such as communications and foreign espionage may have been administered

only in Moscow.

Party Control

Although the security police was always a government rather

than a party institution, the party considered this agency to be its own vital arm and sought to maintain the closest supervision and

control over its activities. The KGB was nominally subordinate

to the Council of Ministers. But the CPSU, not the government,

exercised control and direction. Aside from the Politburo, which

probably issued general policy directives, another vehicle for such

party control was, according to Western specialists, the State and

Legal Department of the Central Committee Secretariat (see

Secretariat, ch. 7). This department supervised all government

agencies concerned with legal affairs, security, and defense, including the Ministry of Defense. It implemented party control by approving personnel appointments and exercising general oversight

to ensure that these agencies were following party directives. From

1968 to 1988, the chief of this department, which probably had

a staff of fifty to sixty employees, was Nikolai Savinkin. From the

available evidence, it appears that the department did not involve

itself as deeply in KGB affairs as it did in the activities of other

769
Soviet Union: A Country Study

state agencies, such as the MVD. Given the sensitive nature of

KGB functions, the party leadership may have been reluctant to allocate to the State and Legal Department the most important decisions about KGB personnel and policy. Rather, the Central Committee secretaries charged with oversight responsibilities for the State and Legal Department probably made the key decisions. Such a

portfolio was an important source of political power for a Central

Committee secretary and was therefore a highly coveted responsibility. In January 1987, Anatolii I. Luk'ianov was brought into

the Secretariat to supervise the State and Legal Department. He

was, however, only a junior secretary, so Gorbachev or another

senior secretary may have had the ultimate responsibility. Luk'i- anov, an apparent ally of Gorbachev, had attended Moscow University's Law Faculty when Gorbachev was there in the early 1950s.

Personnel

Party personnel policy toward the KGB was designed not only

to ensure that the overall security needs of the state were met by means of an efficient and well-functioning political police organization but also to prevent the police from becoming too powerful

and threatening the party leadership. Achieving these two goals

required the careful recruitment and promotion of KGB officials who had the appropriate education, experience, and qualifications

as determined by the party. Judging from the limited biographical information on KGB employees, the Komsomol and the party were the main sources of recruitment to the KGB. Russians and

Ukrainians predominated in the KGB; other nationalities were only

minimally represented. In the non-Russian republics, KGB chairmen were often representatives of the indigenous nationality, as were other KGB employees. In such areas, however, KGB headquarters in Moscow appointed Russians to the post of first deputy

chairman, and they monitored activities and reported back to Moscow.

Career patterns indicate that the KGB was a highly professional bureaucratic group with distinct characteristics that set it off from

other Soviet elites. After the purges at the top levels of the police

apparatus and the introduction of party and other cadres into the

newly created KGB in 1954, the influx of outsiders was small, ex- cept at the very highest levels. Turnover rates were low in the

KGB as compared with other bureaucracies, and KGB officials en- joyed security of tenure, as well as numerous material rewards.

The KGB became—and in the 1980s remained—a closed bureaucracy of specialists, similar to the military. The homogeneity of

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Internal Security

their backgrounds and their sense of eliteness created a strong esprit

de corps among KGB officials. Domestic Security and the Committee for

State Security

The KGB had a variety of domestic security functions. It was empowered by law to arrest and investigate individuals for certain

types of political and economic crimes. It was also responsible for censorship, propaganda, and the protection of state and military

secrets. Legal Prerogatives

In carrying out its task of ensuring state security, the KGB was empowered by law to uncover and investigate certain political

crimes set forth in the Russian Republic's Code of Criminal Proce- dure and the criminal codes of other republics. According to the

Russian Republic's Code of Criminal Procedure, which came into

force in 1960 and has been revised several times since then, the

KGB had the authority, together with the Procuracy, to investigate

the political crimes of treason, espionage, terrorism, sabotage, anti- Soviet agitation and propaganda, divulgence of state secrets, smuggling, illegal exit abroad, and illegal entry into the Soviet Union.

In addition, the KGB was empowered, along with the Procuracy

and the MVD, to investigate the following economic crimes: stealing

of state property by appropriation or embezzlement or by abuse

of official position and stealing of state property or socialist property

(see Glossary) on an especially large scale. In carrying out arrests and investigations for these crimes, the

KGB was subject to specific rules that were set forth in the Code

of Criminal Procedure. The Procuracy was charged with ensur- ing that these rules were observed. In practice, the Procuracy had

little authority over the KGB, and the latter was permitted to cir- cumvent the regulations whenever politically expedient. In 1988

closing some of these loopholes was discussed, and legal experts

called for a greater role for the Procuracy in protecting Soviet

citizens from abuse by the investigatory organs. As of May 1989,

however, few concrete changes had been publicized.

It is important to note that the KGB frequendy enlisted the MVD

and the Procuracy to instigate proceedings against political nonconformists on charges that did not fall under the KGB's purview.

Dissidents were often charged for defaming the Soviet state and

violating public order. Sometimes the KGB arranged to have them

charged for ordinary crimes, such as hooliganism or drug abuse.

771
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Policy

The intensity of KGB campaigns against political crime varied

considerably over the years. The Khrushchev period was marked

by relative tolerance toward dissent, whereas Brezhnev reinstituted a harsh policy. The level of political arrests rose markedly from

1965 to 1973. In 1972 Brezhnev began to pursue detente, and the

regime apparently tried to appease Western critics by moderating

KGB operations against dissent. There was a sharp reversal after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, and arrests again became more numerous. In 1986, Gorbachev's second year

in power, restraint was reintroduced, and the KGB curtailed its arrests. The forcible confinement of dissidents in psychiatric hospitals,

where debilitating drugs were administered, was an alternative to straightforward arrests. This procedure avoided the unfavorable

publicity that often arose with criminal trials of dissenters. Also,

by labeling dissenters madmen, authorities hoped to discredit their

actions and deprive them of support. The KGB often arranged for such commitments and maintained an active presence in psychiatric

hospitals, despite the fact that these institutions were not under its formal authority. The Gorbachev leadership, as part of its general

program of reform, introduced some reforms that were designed

to prevent the abuse of psychiatric commitment by Soviet authorities, but the practical effects of these changes remained unclear in

1989.

In addition to arrests, psychiatric commitment, and other forms

of coercion, the KGB also exercised a preventive function, designed

to prevent political crimes and suppress deviant political attitudes.

The KGB carried out this function in a variety of ways. For ex- ample, when the KGB learned that a Soviet citizen was having

contact with foreigners or speaking in a negative fashion about the

Soviet regime, it made efforts to set him or her straight by means

of a "chat." The KGB also devoted great efforts to political in- doctrination and propaganda. At local and regional levels, KGB

officials regularly visited factories, schools, collective farms (see Glossary), and Komsomol organizations to deliver talks on political

vigilance. National and republic-level KGB officials wrote articles and gave speeches on this theme. Their main message was that

the Soviet Union was threatened by the large-scale efforts of Western

intelligence agencies to penetrate the country by using cultural,

scientific, and tourist exchanges to send in spies. In addition, the

KGB claimed that Soviet citizens were barraged by hostile

772
Headquarters of the Committee for State Security (KGB) and

Lubianka Prison,

Dzerzhinskii Square, Moscow

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

Plaque on KGB building,

Moscow, honoring

former KGB chairman

Iurii V. Andropov

Courtesy Jimmy Pritchard

773
Soviet Union: A Country Study

propaganda from the West as part of an effort to undermine the

Soviet system.

Another important facet of KGB preventive work was censorship of literature and other media, which it exercised at both an

informal and a formal level. The KGB censored informally by

harassing writers and artists, arranging for their expulsion from

professional organizations or from their jobs, and threatening them

with prosecution for their unorthodox views. Such forms of intimidation forced many writers and artists to exercise self-censorship

by producing only what they thought would be acceptable. The

KGB maintained strong surveillance over the Union of Writers,

as well as over the journalists' and artists' unions, where KGB

representatives occupied top administrative posts.

The KGB played an important role in the system of formal censorship by taking part in the work of the Main Administration for Safeguarding State Secrets in the Press (Glavnoe upravlenie po

okhrane gosudarstvennykh tain v pechati—Glavlit; see Administration of the Mass Media and the Arts, ch. 9). Some Western

specialists believe that at least one of Glavlit 's deputy chiefs was

a KGB official and that the KGB assisted in Glavlit 's compilation

of its Censor's Index, a thick volume, updated frequently, listing all military, technical, statistical, and other subjects that could not be

publicized without special permission from the Central Committee.

Another important internal security task of the KGB was to provide the leadership with information about the dissident movement

and the political attitudes and opinions of the public as a whole.

This task by its very nature gave the KGB influence over policy,

particularly because Soviet leaders had no direct contact with dis- sidents and nonconformists and thus relied on KGB information

about motives and foreign connections and on its estimates of numbers and support for various groups. The situation probably

changed somewhat after Gorbachev introduced the policy of glasnost' in early 1987. After that the KGB no longer had a monopoly

on information about the country's political mood because Soviet

citizens expressed their views more freely in the press. Nevertheless, the KGB's information gathering continued to be important

because direct criticism of the political system was suppressed. Computers no doubt improved KGB methods of processing information and conducting research.

The KGB was given considerable latitude in carrying out the

party leadership's policy toward dissent. In other words, the Polit- buro decided on broad policy guidelines, but the KGB made the

day-to-day decisions. Many dissidents, for example, viewed the

KGB as extremely powerful and as enjoying considerable autonomy

774
Internal Security

in implementing regime policy. Although the party leadership

clearly determined the general policy toward dissent, it had an in- terest in promoting the idea that the KGB was responsible because

the KGB could then be blamed for the injustices suffered by citizens. Furthermore, the image of the KGB's omnipotence no doubt helped

to prevent anti-Soviet behavior. As Seweryn Bialer, a Western

Sovietologist, observed of the Soviet system, ''Without doubt the

key to stability has been the high visibility of the coercive apparatus and policies."

Special Departments in the Armed Forces

Since the 1920s, an important internal security function of the

security police has been ensuring the political reliability of the armed

forces. This function was carried out through a network of so-called special departments (osobye otdely), which were under the supervision of the KGB's Third Chief Directorate. Officially designated

as a military counterintelligence organization, the Third Chief

Directorate performed tasks that extended far beyond counterintelligence to encompass extensive political surveillance of the mili- tary and other military security duties.

Special departments were responsible for security clearances of

military personnel and for ensuring that security regulations and

procedures were strictiy observed in all branches of the armed forces. Thus they had control over (or at least immediate access to) military personnel files and information relating to the political reliability of members of the armed forces. The leadership claimed that

their armed forces were continually threatened by ideological

sabotage, i.e., attempts by Western governments to subvert in- dividuals through bourgeois propaganda aimed at weakening their

political convictions. Hence a key element of special department

activities was political surveillance on both a formal and an informal level. Officially, special departments were empowered to investigate

armed forces personnel for the same crimes that were under KGB

purview for ordinary citizens. In addition, the KGB had the authority to investigate military crimes defined in Article 259 of the

Russian Republic's Code of Criminal Procedure—disclosure of a

military secret or loss of a document containing a military secret. In investigating cases under their purview, special department employees were supposed to follow set rules of criminal procedure,

but they did not always do so. In 1989, however, they no longer

had the right to conduct trials, as they did during Stalin's time.

Once an investigation was completed, the case was tried by special military tribunals under the Main Military Procuracy.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

In addition to criminal investigations, the special departments

had extensive informal responsibilities for ensuring the political

reliability of the armed forces. Soviet authorities stated that they

prevented political crimes by various preventive measures. Thus

they carried on daily educational activities to increase political

vigilance and communist ideological convictions among the armed

forces and monitored telephone conversations and correspondence of military personnel. Special departments relied heavily on

a broad network of informers, recruited from among military per- sonnel.

The special departments were also charged with protecting all state and military secrets, including those involving nuclear

weapons, a task that placed them in a position of considerable stra- tegic importance. One Soviet official pointed out that "the relia- ble defense of Soviet forces from all types of espionage took on

special significance when the basic defensive strength of the country came to consist of the most contemporary weapons systems,

especially ballistic nuclear weapons."

According to Western sources, the KGB had custody and trans- port responsibilities for nuclear charges, which were separated from

missiles and aircraft, until the late 1960s. At that time the KGB

apparently relinquished its physical control over nuclear warheads,

but it remained involved in the nuclear control process. Not only

did it maintain a strategic communications network independent

of the military communications system, but its responsibilities for protecting nuclear secrets presumably gave the KGB access to nuclear weapons installations as well as to military plans regarding the use of nuclear weapons.

The Foreign Intelligence Role of the Committee

for State Security

The KGB played an important role in furthering Soviet foreign

policy objectives abroad. In addition to straightforward intelligence

collection and counterintelligence, the KGB participated in the

Kremlin's program of active measures. KGB officials also contributed to foreign policy decision making.

Organization

The First Chief Directorate of the KGB was responsible for KGB

operations abroad. According to John Barron, a Western authority, the First Chief Directorate was composed of three separate direc- torates: Directorate S, which oversaw illegal agents (those under

deep cover) throughout the world; Directorate T, responsible for

776
Soviet intelligence collection ship at sea Courtesy United States Navy

the collection of scientific and technological intelligence; and Directorate K, which carried out infiltration of foreign intelligence and

security services and exercised surveillance over Soviet citizens

abroad. In addition, the First Chief Directorate had three important services: Service I, which analyzed and distributed intelligence

collected by KGB foreign intelligence officers and agents, published

a daily current events summary for the Politburo, and made fore- casts of future world developments; Service A, which was re- sponsible for planning and implementing active measures; and

Service R, which evaluated KGB operations abroad.

The operational core of the First Chief Directorate lay in its eleven

geographical departments, which supervised KGB employees as- signed to residencies abroad. These officers, or rezidenty, operated

under legal cover, engaging in intelligence collection, espionage,

and active measures. The long-time head of the First Chief Directorate, Vladimir Kriuchkov, who had served under Andropov and

his successors, was named head of the KGB in 1988. The Second

Chief Directorate also played a role in foreign intelligence in 1989.

It recruited agents for intelligence purposes from among foreigners stationed in the Soviet Union, and it engaged in counterintelligence by uncovering attempts of foreign intelligence services to recruit Soviet citizens.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Intelligence and Counterintelligence

KGB intelligence gathering in the West increased markedly after the era of detente began in 1972. Detente permitted a vast influx

of Soviet and East European diplomatic, cultural, and commercial officials into the United States and other Western countries.

KGB officers and their East European counterparts operated under

various guises, posing as diplomats, trade officials, journalists, scientists, and students. The proportion of Soviet citizens abroad who

were engaged in intelligence gathering was estimated to range from

30 to 40 percent in the United States to over 50 percent in some

Third World countries. In addition, many Soviet representatives

who were not intelligence officers were nevertheless given some sort of assignment by the KGB.

Apparently, the First Chief Directorate had little trouble recruiting personnel for its foreign operations. The high salaries, military rank, access to foreign currency, and opportunity to live abroad

offered attractive enticements to young people choosing a career.

First Chief Directorate recruits were usually graduates of prestigious higher education institutions and had knowledge of one or more foreign languages. The KGB had a two-year postgraduate

training course for these recruits at its Higher Intelligence School

located near Moscow. The curriculum included the use of ciphers, arms and sabotage training, history and economics according to Marxist-Leninist (see Glossary) theory, CPSU history, law, and

foreign languages.

The KGB was the primary agency responsible for supplying the

Kremlin with foreign intelligence. According to former Soviet diplomat Arkady Shevchenko, Moscow cabled out questions on a daily

basis to KGB rezidenty abroad to guide them in their tasks. In addition to political intelligence, KGB officers concentrated increasingly on efforts to acquire advanced Western technology. The KGB

reportedly acted as a collector of militarily significant Western tech- nology (in the form of documents and hardware) on behalf of the

Military Industrial Commission of the Presidium of the Council

of Ministers. This commission coordinated the development of all Soviet weapons systems, along with the program to acquire Western

technology, and it levied requirements among the KGB, the Main

Intelligence Directorate (see Glossary), and several other agencies,

including those of East European intelligence services. The KGB

and the GRU increased their technical collection efforts considerably in the early 1980s, when the number of requirements levied on them by the Military Industrial Commission rose by about 50

percent.

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Internal Security

The Andropov era saw a greater orientation in the KGB toward

electronic espionage—communications intercepts and satellites—to supplement intelligence gathered by agents. According to Robert

Campbell, the Soviet Union deployed at least three satellites for intelligence collection. Some of the intelligence may have been

strictly military and therefore collected by the GRU, but the KGB

reportedly also made use of these satellites. Active Measures

Active measures were clandestine operations designed to further

Soviet foreign policy goals and to extend Soviet influence throughout

the world. This type of activity had long been employed by the

Soviet Union abroad, but it became more widespread and more

effective in the late 1960s. Among these covert techniques was dis- information: leaking of false information and rumors to foreign

media or planting forgeries in an attempt to deceive the public or

the political elite in a given country or countries. The United States was the prime target of disinformation, in particular forgery operations, which were designed to damage foreign and defense policies of the United States in a variety of ways. Defectors reported

that the Soviet Union and its allies circulated forged documents

often purporting to be speeches, letters, or policy statements by

United States officials—containing false information. The use of

international front (see Glossary) organizations and foreign communist parties to expand the Soviet Union's political influence and

further its propaganda campaigns was another form of active measures. The World Peace Council was the largest and most important of Soviet front groups. Together with the International

Department of the Central Committee, the KGB funneled money

to these organizations and recruited agents of the Soviet Union to serve on their administrative bodies.

Other active measures involved support for terrorists and insurgents. As of 1989, there was no direct, public evidence that Soviet

citizens had planned or orchestrated terrorist acts by groups from

Western Europe or the Middle East, but there was much indirect

evidence to show that the Soviet Union did support international

terrorism. The Soviet Union maintained close relationships with

a number of governments and organizations that were direct supporters of terrorist groups. The Soviet Union sold large quantities

of arms to Libya and Syria, for example, and also maintained a

close alliance with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),

providing it with arms, monetary assistance, and paramilitary train- ing. Moscow's surrogate, Cuba, played a central role in Latin

American terrorism by providing groups with training, arms, and

779
Soviet Union: A Country Study

sanctuary, and the Soviet Union's East European satellite states often served as middlemen or subcontractors for channeling aid

to terrorist groups. Although the KGB, with some exceptions,

avoided direct involvement with terrorist operations, it played an

important role in diverting aid to these groups and providing the

Soviet leadership with intelligence reports on their activities. The KGB also was heavily involved in the support of "wars of

national liberation" in the Third World. Together with satellite in- telligence services, the KGB helped to organize military training

and political indoctrination of leftist guerrillas, as well as providing arms and advisers. The manipulation of wars of national liberation

enabled the Soviet Union to influence the political future of the countries in question and to make their new governments more responsive to Soviet objectives. The Soviet regime concentrated mainly on African countries until the late 1970s but then extended its support for "national liberation movements" to Central America, where

it regularly employed the services of Cuba.

The KGB relied heavily on the intelligence services of satellite countries in carrying out both active measures and espionage operations. The intelligence services of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria,

and Cuba formed important adjuncts to the KGB. Although for- mally subordinated to their own governments, these satellite in- telligence services were, according to many Western experts, heavily

influenced by the KGB. A former official in the Czechoslovak in- telligence service stated that Soviet intelligence was informed about

every major aspect of Czechoslovak intelligence activities, and Soviet

advisers (called liaison officers) participated in planning major operations and assessing the results. As far back as the 1960s, the KGB

introduced a new element of coordination with the satellite intelli- gence services through the creation of departments for disinformation in East German, Czechoslovak, and Hungarian intelligence

services and the establishment of direct lines of communication from

these departments to the KGB.

Soviet active measures involved not only KGB and satellite in- telligence services but also several other Soviet agencies, which all participated in a coordinated effort to further Soviet policy objectives. In addition to the KGB, the Central Committee's International Department took a leading role in directing and implementing

active measures.

Influence on Foreign Policy

The KGB participated in the foreign policy decision-making

process at the highest level because its chief was a member of the

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Internal Security

Politburo. At the same time, it influenced the formulation of for- eign policy at a lower level as an executor of that policy, a provider

of information, and a generator of ideas, solutions, and alternatives. Thus, for example, when the Kremlin decided to invade

Czechoslovakia in 1968, KGB chief Andropov, who was an ex- pert on Eastern Europe and had a direct line of intelligence from

Czechoslovakia, presumably influenced the decision-making process

significantly. Furthermore, the KGB, as the main provider of in- telligence to the leadership, was in a position to influence decision

making by screening and interpreting the information. The KGB

probably favored the invasion because of the threat posed by a possible spillover of unrest into the Soviet Union. Also, efforts by

Czechoslovak reformers to reorganize their security police jeopardized KGB operations in Czechoslovakia. Considerable evidence

showed that the KGB, in order to bolster the prointerventionist

position, used intelligence and covert action to produce proof of

counterrevolution in Czechoslovakia.

Andropov did not always favor military intervention as a solu- tion to international problems, however. Other considerations, such

as the Soviet Union's international image, no doubt affected his views on the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan (which he reportedly did not

favor) and the 1980-81 Polish crisis (where he probably was among

those who opposed an invasion). Both these crises occurred at a time

when the KGB was trying to mobilize West European public opinion against plans by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

to introduce intermediate-range missiles in Europe.

Chebrikov did not have Andropov's foreign policy expertise when

he took over as head of the KGB in 1982, but his admission to the

Politburo gave him a voice in foreign policy at the highest level. In addition, many Western experts believe that the KGB chairman

served on the Defense Council, an important collegial decisionmaking body that provided top-level coordination for defense-related

activities of the Soviet government (see Defense Council, ch. 18).

Chebrikov's numerous trips to Eastern Europe after he became head

of the KGB indicated that he was personally involved in KGB operations beyond Soviet borders, and his forceful advocacy of Soviet

"counterpropaganda" efforts abroad implied a commitment to a

strong foreign policy role for the KGB. Kriuchkov, who became

head of the KGB in 1988, had been extensively involved in foreign

operations as the chief of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs

The MVD, which encompassed the regular, or nonpolitical,

police, had a long history in the Soviet Union. It was first established

781
Soviet Union: A Country Study

as the NKVD on November 18, 1917. It has undergone several

organizational and name changes since then. When the KGB was

established in 1954, the security police was separated from the regular police. The MVD was originally established as a union-republic

ministry (see Glossary) with headquarters in Moscow, but in 1960

the Khrushchev leadership, as part of its general downgrading of

the police, abolished the central MVD, whose functions were as- sumed by republic ministries of internal affairs. Then, in 1962 the

MVD was redesignated the Ministry for the Preservation of Public Order (Ministerstvo okhrany obshchestvennogo poriadka

MOOP). This name change implied a break with the all-powerful

MVD created by Beria, as well as a narrower range of functions.

The changes were accompanied by increasing criticism of the regular police in the Soviet press for its shortcomings in combating

crime.

Following Khrushchev's ouster, Brezhnev did much to raise the

status of the regular police. In 1966, after placing one of his proteges, Nikolai A. Shchelokov, in the post of chief, Brezhnev reinstated MOOP as a union-republic ministry. Two years later,

MOOP was renamed the MVD, an apparent symbol of its in- creased authority. Efforts were made to raise the effectiveness of

the MVD by recruiting better-qualified personnel and upgrading

equipment and training. Brezhnev's death, however, left the MVD

vulnerable to his opponents, Andropov in particular. Just a month

after Brezhnev died, Shchelokov was ousted as its chief and replaced

by the former KGB chairman, Vitalii Fedorchuk. Shchelokov was

later tried on corruption charges. A similar fate befell Brezhnev's

son-in-law, Iurii Churbanov, who was removed from the post of

first deputy chief in 1984 and later arrested on criminal charges.

After bringing several officials from the KGB and from the party

apparatus into the MVD, Andropov sought to make it an effective organization for rooting out widespread corruption; Gorbachev

continued these efforts. Functions and Organization

The MVD had a wide array of duties. It was responsible for uncovering and investigating certain categories of crime, apprehending criminals, supervising the internal passport (see Glossary)

system, maintaining public order, combating public intoxication,

supervising parolees, managing prisons and labor camps, providing fire protection, and controlling traffic. Until early 1988, the

MVD was also in charge of special psychiatric hospitals, but a law

passed in January 1988 transferred all psychiatric hospitals to the

authority of the Ministry of Health.

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Internal Security

As a union-republic ministry under the Council of Ministers,

the MVD had its headquarters in Moscow and branches in the

republic and regional government apparatus, as well as in oblasts

and cities. Unlike the KGB, the internal affairs apparatus was subject to dual subordination; local internal affairs offices reported both

to the executive committees of their respective local Soviets and to their superior offices in the MVD hierarchy.

The MVD headquarters in Moscow was divided into several

directorates and offices (see fig. 38). The Directorate for Combating the Embezzlement of Socialist Property and Speculation was

established in the late 1960s to control such white-collar crime as embezzlement and falsification of economic plan records. The

Criminal Investigation Directorate assisted the Procuracy, and on

occasion the KGB, in the investigation of criminal cases. There

was a separate department for investigating and prosecuting minor

cases, such as traffic violations, and the Maintenance of Public

Order Directorate, which was responsible for ensuring order in public places and for preventing outbreaks of public unrest. The members of the militsiia (uniformed police), as part of the

regular police force, were distinguished by their gray uniforms with

red piping. The duties of the militsiia included patrolling public

places to ensure order and arresting persons who violated the law,

including vagrants and drunks. Resisting arrest or preventing a

police officer from executing his duties was a serious crime in the

Soviet Union, punishable by one to five years' imprisonment. Kill- ing a policeman was punishable by death.

The Office of Visas and Registration was charged with registering Soviet citizens and foreigners residing in each precinct of a city

and with issuing internal passports to Soviet citizens. Soviet citizens wishing to emigrate from the Soviet Union and foreigners wishing

to travel within the Soviet Union had to obtain visas from this office. The Office of Recruitment and Training supervised the recruitment of new members of the militsiia, who were recommended by

work collectives and public organizations. The local party and Komsomol bodies screened candidates thoroughly to ensure their political reliability. Individuals serving in the militsiia were exempt from

the regular military draft. Leadership

In January 1986, when Fedorchuk was retired, Aleksandr V.

Vlasov was appointed the chief of the MVD. Vlasov had no background in the police apparatus. In September 1988, Vlasov be- came a candidate member of the CPSU Politburo, and the following

month he was replaced as chief of the MVD by Vadim V. Bakatin.

783
Soviet Union: A Country Study

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784
Internal Security

Bakatin was made a full member of the CPSU Central Committee in March 1986, but his police experience, if any, was not known

in the West. In 1989 Leonid G. Sizov and Vasilii P. Trushin were

first deputy ministers of the MVD. In addition, the MVD had ap- proximately eight deputy ministers.

The MVD published a vast amount of popular literature devoted

to the glorification of the MVD in order to attract well-qualified

cadres to its ranks. The fact that MVD salaries were considerably

lower than those for the KGB and that working conditions were

generally poor (long hours and out-of-date equipment) made re- cruitment somewhat difficult. The MVD underwent an extensive

purge in the mid-1980s as part of the party's effort to rid the or- ganization of corruption and inefficiency. Over 170,000 police

officers were fired between 1983 and 1988 for irresponsibility, lack

of discipline, and violations of the law.

Control by the Party

The chief vehicle for party control over the MVD was the State and Legal Department of the Secretariat, which had a special sec- tion for supervising the MVD. This section presumably participated in the selection of MVD personnel and evaluated the MVD's

work in terms of how well it carried out party directives.

Another means through which the party exercised control over

the MVD was the Political Directorate of the MVD. This directorate, a network of political organs existing throughout the MVD,

was established in 1983 and operated in a way similar to that of

the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy. The

Political Directorate was created because local party officials were not exercising sufficient control over the activities of in- ternal affairs officials but rather were colluding with them in commiting economic crimes. Its chief until April 1988 was Viktor

Gladyshev, a former section chief in the Administrative Organs

Department (present-day State and Legal Department). Gladyshev was replaced by the former personnel chief of the MVD, Anatolii

Anikiev.

The minister of internal affairs was usually a member of the Central Committee but as of 1989 had never enjoyed membership on

the Politburo. Thus the regular police executed party policy but

had little voice in policy formulation at the national level. At the

local level, however, the police chief may have had more impact on decision making in the law enforcement realm because he was

generally included on both the local soviet executive committee and

the local party committee.

785
Soviet Union: A Country Study

The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Judicial Organs,

and Nonpolitical Crime

The Soviet Union had two separate legal systems. The first maintained law and order on a daily basis, enforced the law, and adjudicated disputes that arose among the citizenry. This system was

administered by the organs of justice: the MVD, the Procuracy,

the Ministry of Justice, and the courts. The other legal system,

administered by the KGB on behalf of the party leadership, was

arbitrary and repressive and was used to suppress and punish crit- ics of the Soviet regime. Some cases did not fall neady into one

category or another. There was a gray area in which a seemingly

ordinary case took on a political character. As Western expert

Gordon B. Smith pointed out, "Soviet legal policy must bridge

these two systems, providing a framework for the functioning of

each."

Socialist Legality

Soviet law displayed many special characteristics that derived

from the socialist (see Glossary) nature of the Soviet state and re- flected Marxist-Leninist ideology. Lenin accepted the Marxist con- ception of the law and the state as instruments of coercion in the

hands of the bourgeoisie and postulated the creation of popular,

informal tribunals to administer revolutionary justice. Alongside

this Utopian trend, a dictatorial trend developed that advocated the use of law and legal institutions to suppress all opposition to the

regime. The latter trend reached its zenith under Stalin, when the

administration of justice was carried out mainly by the security police in special tribunals. During the de-Stalinization of the

Khrushchev era, a new trend developed, based on socialist legality (see Glossary), that stressed the need to protect the procedural

and statutory rights of citizens, while still calling for obedience to the state. New legal codes, introduced in 1960, were part of the

effort to establish legal norms in administering laws. Although socialist legality remained in force after 1960, the dictatorial and Uto- pian trends continued to influence the legal process. Persecution

of political and religious dissenters, in flagrant violation of their

legal rights, continued, but at the same time there was a tendency

to decriminalize lesser offenses by handing them over to people's

courts (see Glossary) and administrative agencies and dealing with

them by education rather than by incarceration.

By late 1986, the Gorbachev regime was stressing anew the importance of individual rights in relation to the state and criticizing

those who violated the procedural laws in implementing Soviet

786
Internal Security

justice. This signaled a resurgence of socialist legality as the

dominant trend. It should be noted, however, that socialist legality itself still lacked important features associated with Western

jurisprudence. In particular, the ultimate control of the legal sys- tem lay with the party leadership, which was not democratically

elected by, and therefore not responsible to, the public at large.

The Procuracy

The Procuracy was the most powerful institution in the Soviet

system of justice relating to nonpolitical matters. It was a hierarchical organization representing all public prosecutors, all the way

down to the city or village level. As specified in the Soviet Constitution, the procurator general of the Soviet Union was appointed

by the Supreme Soviet and controlled Procuracy officials throughout

the system. Employees of the Procuracy were not subject to the

authority of their local Soviets, but they were subject to the authority

of the party. The Procuracy had a wide range of functions, involving

itself at all stages in the criminal process. Procurators carried out

investigations of the majority of cases; supervised investigations

carried out by the MVD, the KGB, and the Procuracy's own employees; authorized arrests; prosecuted offenders; and supervised

prisons. In addition, procurators supervised parole and the release

of prisoners and referred judicial decisions to higher courts for review. Procurators also oversaw the operation of all government

bodies, enterprises, officials, and social organizations to ensure that

they were observing the law. Although the Procuracy possessed

the formal authority to supervise the KGB in carrying out arrests and investigations in political cases, there was little evidence that

the Procuracy actually exercised this function.

Military Justice

Military justice in the Soviet Union was administered by the

Main Military Procuracy, which was subordinated to the procurator general and responsible for ensuring that laws were observed

within the military. It also supervised criminal investigations of

armed forces personnel carried out by its employees, as well as by

the KGB (in cases of political crime). Military cases were tried in

military tribunals, which were under the authority of the Supreme

Court.

The Judiciary and the Legal Profession

The court structure in the Soviet Union, set forth in the Constitution and governed by several all-union and republic statutes, was

quite complex. In courts of first instance, one judge sat with two

787
Soviet Union: A Country Study

elected people's assessors (lay judges), who were ordinary citizens,

elected at general meetings of factories, offices, collective farms, or residential blocks for a term of two years. Appellate and review

procedure came before a bench of three judges. Although a legal

education was not required and any citizen over the age of twentyfour could in principle be elected to the post of judge, more than

95 percent of all judges had higher legal education. The party carefully screened candidates for election to the position ofjudge, which

had a term of five years. Most judges above the local level were

party members. In addition to determining innocence or guilt,

judges performed an important function of socialization, often lec- turing defendants for failing to uphold socialist values. Judges were

part of the union-republic Ministry ofJustice and the fifteen republic

ministries of justice. There was no system of binding precedent,

but supreme courts at all-union and republic levels gave ''guiding

explanations" to be followed.

Advocates, or defense attorneys, were controlled by the Ministry of Justice at the all-union and republic level and at the local

level by the justice department of the local soviet. Advocates were

usually law school graduates with some practical training. The

Soviet Union had approximately 18,000 advocates, organized into

colleges of around 150 attorneys each. These colleges maintained

consultation bureaus, each with a staff of about twenty, in most

towns and cities. The bureaus provided legal advice on a variety

of issues, such as divorce, custody, inheritance, property rights,

and housing disputes. The bureaus also offered legal defense for persons accused of criminal offenses. According to the 1977 Constitution, all defendants had the right to legal counsel. Legal fees were set by the state and were low enough for most people to af- ford. According to Soviet emigres, however, many defense lawyers expected additional payments or gifts "under the table."

Legal advisers to government agencies and departments, enterprises, factories, and state farms (see Glossary) were called iuriskon- suVty. Numbering approximately 29,000 in 1989, they represented

their employer in court and drafted internal rules, contracts, and

commercial documents.

Legal Codes and Abuses of the System

The fundamental principles of the civil and criminal branches

of Soviet law were established at the all-union level and then set down in the legal codes of the republics. The Civil Code dealt with

contract law, tort law, and law governing wills and inheritance.

Separate codes existed for family law and labor law. The Criminal Code concerned itself with all aspects of criminal behavior.

788
Internal Security

The Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure of the

Russian Republic were revised completely (along with the codes

of the other republics) in 1960, incorporating the 1958 Fundamental

Principles of Criminal Procedure, approved by the Supreme Soviet.

These codes represented a sharp departure from the Stalinist criminal codes, which had provided a formal legal basis for the arrest and prosecution of innocent citizens on groundless charges. Under

the Stalinist code, for example, an individual could be prosecuted

for committing an act not specifically prohibited by the criminal

code but "analogous" to such an act. The 1960 codes abolished

the principle of analogy.

The 1 960 codes defined political crimes in a more restricted form

and made punishments considerably less severe. They also established procedural rules to govern the arrest and detention of sus- pected criminals. According to the law, a suspect could not be

detained for more than three days without a warrant. Thereafter,

permission for detention had to be obtained from the procurator

or from the courts. The maximum period of pretrial detention was

nine months. At the end of such detention, the accused was entitled

to the services of a defense lawyer. The trial itself was supposed

to be public, with the prosecution conducted by the procurator,

who could recommend sentencing.

Despite the existence of formal laws to protect the rights of the

accused, ample evidence indicated that these laws were not adhered to when political or other interests of the party came into

play. The party was the ultimate authority in the administration

of justice, and party officials frequently interfered in the judicial

process to protect their own interests. Party approval was required

before appointment to any important position in the legal apparatus, and this control over personnel appointments gave the

party substantial power (see Nomenklatura, ch. 7). The party

also exerted influence in the oversight of the legal and judicial

organs.

The party sometimes interfered in the administration ofjustice.

CPSU officials put pressure on procurators, judges, and defense

attorneys in the conduct of individual cases. In some instances,

party officials pressed members of the legal system to arrest and

convict innocent persons who were viewed as politically unorthodox. (In these cases, the KGB was often the agency exerting such

pressure on behalf of the party.) At other times, party officials ar- ranged to have crimes covered up or ignored to protect their personal or economic interests. This situation frequendy occurred with

corruption and bribery offenses.

789
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Nonpolitical Crime and Punishment

The Soviet Union did not publish comprehensive crime statistics, so it is difficult to compare its crime rates with those of other

countries. According to Western observers, robberies, murders,

and other violent crimes were much less prevalent than in the United

States. This was explained by the large police presence, strict gun

controls, and the relatively low incidence of drug abuse. By contrast, white-collar economic crime was extremely common. Bribery

and covert payments for goods and services were universal, mainly

because of the paucity of goods and services on the open market.

Theft of state property was practiced routinely by employees, as were other forms of petty theft. In 1989 the Gorbachev leadership was making a concerted effort to curtail such white-collar crime.

Revelations of corruption scandals involving high-level party employees appeared in the Soviet media on a regular basis, and there were many arrests and prosecutions.

The death penalty, carried out by shooting, was applied in the

Soviet Union only in cases of treason, espionage, terrorism, sabotage, certain types of murder, and large-scale theft of state property

by officials. Otherwise, the maximum punishment for a first of- fender was fifteen years. Parole was permitted in some cases after completion of half of the sentence, and periodic amnesties sometimes also resulted in early release. The Soviet Union had few prisons in 1989. About 99 percent

of convicted criminals served their sentences in labor camps, supervised by the Main Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps (Glav- noe upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh lagerei—Gulag), which was

under the MVD. The camps had four regimes of ascending severity.

In the strict-regime camps, inmates worked at the most difficult jobs, usually outdoors, and received meager rations. Jobs were less demanding and rations better in the camps with milder regimes.

The system of corrective labor was regarded by Soviet authorities

as successful in that the rate of recividism was quite low. Prisons

and labor camps, in the views of former inmates and Western observers, however, were notorious for their harsh conditions, ar- bitrary and sadistic treatment of prisoners, and flagrant human

rights abuses. In 1989 new legislation, which emphasized rehabilitation rather than punishment, was being drafted to "humanize"

the special system. Nevertheless, in 1989 conditions for many

prisoners had changed little. Internal Security Troops

The government of the Soviet Union had several bodies of troops

under its control for the purpose of ensuring internal security. These

790
Moscow militsiia (uniformed police) providing security at the Kremlin for

a meeting of the historic Congress of People's Deputies in May 1989

Courtesy Jonathan Tetzlaff

troops included the Border Troops and Security Troops of the KGB

and the Internal Troops of the MVD.

Border Troops of the Committee for State Security

The Border Troops were organized under the KGB's unnumbered Border Troops Directorate, which was headed in 1989 by

Army General Viktor Matrosov. He was assisted by one or more

first deputy chiefs, several deputy chiefs, and a chief of staff. Within

the directorate, a political administration provided political indoctrination and surveillance on behalf of the party. Western specialists

reported that there was an intelligence administration within the

Border Troops Directorate, but this had not been confirmed by

Soviet sources. The Border Troops strength was estimated in 1989 to be in the

range of 230,000 men. Although under the operational authority

of the KGB, the Border Troops were conscripted as part of the

biannual call-up of the Ministry of Defense, and their induction

and discharge were regulated by the 1967 Law on Universal Military Service, which covered all armed forces of the Soviet Union.

The legal status, duties, and rights of the Border Troops were

set forth in the Law on the State Border, confirmed by the Supreme

791
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Soviet on November 24, 1982. Article 28 defined the basic duties

of the Border Troops. Their duties included repulsing armed in- cursions into Soviet territory; preventing illegal crossings of the

border or the transport of weapons, explosives, contraband, or subversive literature across the border; monitoring the observance of

established procedures at border crossing points; monitoring the

observance by Soviet and foreign ships of navigation procedures

in Soviet territorial waters; and assisting state agencies in the preser- vation of natural resources and the protection of the environment

from pollution. Border guards were authorized to examine documents and possessions of persons crossing the borders and to confiscate articles; to conduct inquiries in cases of violations of the state border; and to take such actions as arrest, search, and interrogation of individuals suspected of border violations.

The Border Troops Directorate administered approximately nine

border districts (pogranichnye okruga), which covered the nearly 63,000

kilometers of the state border. Border district boundaries were dis- tinct from civil or military district boundaries. The nine border

districts were subdivided into detachments (ptriady), covering specific

sections of the border, border command posts {pogranichnye komendatury), passport control points {kontroVno-propusknye punkty), and

border outposts (zastavy). The border area was divided into a border

zone, which included the territory of the district and settlements

adjacent to the state border, and the border strip, which was approximately two kilometers in depth, running directly along the

border. Only permanent residents or those who had obtained special permission from the MVD could enter the border zone. Entry

into the border strip was forbidden without special permission from

the Border Troops.

Soviet sources repeatedly stressed that a border guard was not

only a soldier but also a defender of Soviet ideology. His mission

entailed sensitive political tasks, such as detecting subversive litera- ture, and shooting citizens attempting to escape across the border.

Enlisted men were trained with their operational units, whereas

officers were trained in special Border Troops schools, such as the

Dzerzhinskii Higher Border Command School and the Higher Border School in Moscow. Military-political officers received training

at the Voroshilov Higher Border Military-Political Academy,

founded in the 1930s and located outside Leningrad. In 1972 a higher border military-political school was created in Golytsin, near Moscow. More recently, higher border command faculties were set up at the Frunze Military Academy and the Lenin Military-Political

Academy. The period of instruction at the Dzerzhinskii Higher Bor- der Command School was four years. Officer candidates, who were

792
Internal Security

screened carefully by their local KGB offices before admittance,

took general higher education courses along with specialized mili- tary and political studies.

To ensure a high level of discipline among personnel of the Border

Troops, much attention was devoted to political training and in- doctrination. For this purpose, a network of political organs, the

Political Directorate of the Border Troops, was established within

the Border Troops. It had political departments within all the border

districts, detachments, and education institutions, and a network

of full-time party political officers worked among all troop units.

They conducted political study groups, gave propaganda lectures,

and worked to increase the level of combat effectiveness among

the troops.

Security Troops of the Committee for State Security

The KGB's Security Troops, which numbered about 40,000 in

1989, provided the KGB with a coercive potential. Although Soviet

sources did not specify the functions of these special troops, Western

analysts thought that one of their main tasks was to guard the top

leadership in the Kremlin, as well as key government and party

buildings and officials at the republic and regional levels. Such

troops were presumably under the Ninth Directorate of the KGB

.

The Security Troops also included several units of signal troops,

which were reportedly responsible for installation, maintenance,

and operation of secret communications facilities for leading party

and government bodies, including the Ministry of Defense. These

troops were probably under the command of the Eighth Chief Directorate. Other special KGB troops were intended for counterterrorist

and counterinsurgency operations. Such troops were reportedly employed, along with the MVD's Internal Troops, to suppress public protests and disperse demonstrations, such as that of the Crimean

Tatars in July 1987 and those in the republics of Armenia and Azerbaydzhan in March 1988. Special KGB troops also were trained

for sabotage and diversionary missions abroad.

Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs

Although a component of the armed forces, the Internal Troops

were subordinate to the MVD. Numbering approximately 260,000

men in 1989, they were one of the largest formations of special

troops in the Soviet Union. The Internal Troops were first established in 1919 under the NKVD. Later they were subordinated

to the state security police, and then in 1934 they were incorporated into the expanded NKVD. They were back under the authority of the security police in the early 1950s, but when the KGB

793
Soviet Union: A Country Study

was established in 1954, control of the Internal Troops shifted to the MVD. The chief of the Internal Troops from 1954 to late 1987 was Ivan Iakovlev. Iakovlev's successor was Iurii Shatalin.

Like the regular army, the Internal Troops for the most part were composed of conscripts, who were obliged to serve for a minimum of two years. The Internal Troops accepted candidates for commission both from the ranks of the armed forces and from

civilian society. The MVD had four schools for training members

of the officer corps, as well as a separate school for political officers. The Internal Troops supported MVD missions by supplementing the militsiia in ensuring crowd control in large cities and, in

emergencies, by helping to fight fires. These troops also guarded

large-scale industrial enterprises, railroad stations, certain large

stockpiles of food and materiel, and certain communication centers

that were strategically significant. One of their most important functions was that of preventing internal disorder that might threaten

the regime's political stability. They took a direct role in suppressing

anti- Soviet demonstrations in the non-Russian republics and strikes by Soviet workers. In this capacity, the Internal Troops probably

worked together with the KGB Security Troops. There was little evidence to support the theory that the Internal Troops would serve

as a counterweight to the armed services during a political crisis. Most Internal Troops units were composed of infantry alone and

were not equipped with artillery and tanks; in 1989 there was only one operational division of the Internal Troops in Moscow. According to some Western analysts, the Internal Troops were to per- form rear security functions in the event of war, just as they did

in World War II. Internal security in the Soviet Union involved numerous organizations and was guided by the party leadership. It had always served more than ordinary police functions and had covered such areas

as intelligence gathering and suppression of dissent. The party and

the regime as a whole depended on the internal security apparatus

to ensure their own survival.

* * * Among the sources in English on the history of Soviet internal

security are Ronald Hingley's The Russian Police; George Leggett's

The Cheka; Simon Wolin and Robert Slusser's The Soviet Secret Police; and Boris Levytsky's The Uses of Terror. Amy W. Knight's

The KGB discusses the current security police. H.J. Berman and

J.W. Spindler's Soviet Criminal Law and Procedure provides a useful

794
Internal Security

background for understanding Soviet law and legality. William

Fuller's "The Internal Troops of the MVD SSSR" discusses the

security forces. (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

795

Appendix A

Table

1 Metric Conversion Coefficients and Factors

2 Rulers of Muscovy and the Russian Empire, 1462-1917

3 Comparative Population Development, Selected Years,

1850-1910

4 Historic Land Use, 1797, 1857, and 1887

5 Principal Soviet Leaders, 1917-89

6 Area, Population, and Capitals of the Republics, 1989 Census

7 Natural Resource Potential by Region, 1986

8 Vital Statistics, Selected Years, 1959-86

9 Population Distribution by Sex, Selected Years, 1913-87

10 Population Distribution by Urban-Rural Breakdown, Selected

Years, 1940-87

11 Cities with Populations over One Million, 1989

12 Population Density of the Republics, 1959 and 1982

13 Nationality, Language, and Religion, 1989 Census

14 Autonomous Subdivisions, 1989

15 Republic of Residence and Population of Major Nationalities, 1989 Census

16 Russian and East Slavic Populations in the Republics, 1989

Census

17 Social Groups, 1913, 1959, and 1986

18 Average Monthly Wage by Occupation, 1986

19 Selected Low-Paid Occupations, Early 1980s

20 Urban-Rural Breakdown, Selected Years, 1917-87

21 Average Family Size by Nationality Group, 1979 Census

22 Network of Primary Party Organizations, 1977 and 1987

23 Membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,

Selected Years, 1971-87

24 Social Position of Members of the Communist Party of the

Soviet Union, Selected Years, 1971-87

25 Education Level of Members of the Communist Party of the

Soviet Union, 1967, 1977, and 1987

26 Distribution of Major Nationalities in the Communist Party

of the Soviet Union and in the Soviet Population, 1981

27 Distribution of Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet

Union by Sex, Selected Years, 1971-87

28 Organs and Functions of the Soviet Regime, 1988

29 Treaties of Friendship and Cooperation with Third World

Countries, 1989

797
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 30 Five-Year Plans, 1928-95

31 Estimated Gross National Product by Sector, Selected Years,

1970-88

32 Industrial Production, Estimated Value Added, Selected

Years, 1970-88

33 Selected Ministries Producing Military Weapons and Components, 1989

34 Production of Major Farm Commodities, 1956-87

35 Farm Machinery Pool, Selected Years, 1960-86

36 Sown Area for Major Crops, Selected Years, 1940-86

37 Agricultural Chemicals Delivered, Selected Years, 1970-87

38 Selected Animal Products, Selected Years, 1940-87

39 Freight Traffic by Mode of Transport, Selected Years, 1940-86

40 Major Rail Lines, 1988

41 Principal Electrified Rail Lines, 1987

42 Passengers Boarded by Mode of Transport, Selected Years,

1940-86

43 Metropolitan Rail Systems (Metros), 1987

44 Freight Loaded by Mode of Transport, Selected Years,

1940-86

45 Passenger Traffic by Mode of Transport, Selected Years,

1940-86

46 Principal Aeroflot Aircraft, 1987

47 Hard-Currency Trading Partners, 1970-85

48 Soviet Actions Prompting United States Trade Restrictions,

1974-82

49 Major Noncommunist Trading Partners, 1980, 1985, and 1986

50 Trade with Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Selected Years,

1970-85

5 1 Trade with Countries of Socialist Orientation, Selected Years,

1970-85

52 Trade with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Selected Years, 1970-85

53 Military Capabilities, 1989

54 Insignia Colors of the Armed Forces, 1989

55 Higher Military Schools and Military Academies, 1988

56 Organizational History of the Police, 1989

798
Appendix A

Table 1. Metric Conversion Coefficients and Factors When you know Multiply by To find

Millimeters 0.04 inches Centimeters 0.39 inches Meters 3.3 feet Kilometers 0.62 miles Hectares (10,000 m2 ) 2.47 acres Square kilometers 0.39 square miles Cubic meters 35.3 cubic feet Liters 0.26 gallons Kilograms 2.2 pounds

Metric tons 0.98 long tons

1.1 short tons 2,204 pounds

Degrees Celsius 9 degrees Fahrenheit

(Centigrade) divide by 5 and add 32

799
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 2. Rulers of Muscovy and the Russian Empire,

1462-1917

Period Ruler Rurikid Dynasty

1462-1505 Ivan III 1505-33 Vasilii III 1533-84 Ivan IV (the Terrible) 1584-98 Fedor I Time of Troubles 1598-1605 Boris Godunov

1605 Fedor II 1605-06 First False Dmitrii 1606- 10 Vasilii Shuiskii 1610-13 Second False Dmitrii Romanov Dynasty

1613-45 . Mikhail Romanov

1645-76 Alexis I 1676-82 Fedor III 1682-89 Sofia (regent) 1682-96 Ivan V (co-tsar) 1682-1725 Peter I (the Great) 1725-27 Catherine I 1727-30 Peter II 1730-40 Anna

1740-41 Ivan VI

1741-62 Elizabeth 1762 Peter III 1762-96 i Catherine II (the Great) 1796-1801 Paul 1801-25 Alexander I 1825-55 Nicholas I 1855-81 Alexander II 1881-94 Alexander III 1894-1917 Nicholas II Source: Based on information from Marc Raeff, "History of Russia/Union of Soviet Socialist Republics," Academic American Encyclopedia, 16, Danbury, Connecticut, 1986, 358.

800
Appendix A

Table 3. Comparative Population Development,

Selected Years, 1850-1910

(in millions)

Country 1850 1870 1890 1910 Russia 60 75 92 140 France 36 37 38 39 Germany 35 42 49 65 Austria-Hungary 31 37 43 52

Britain 27 31 37 46 United States 23 38 63 93

Table 4. Historic Land Use, 1797, 1857, and 1887

(in percentages)

Land Use 1797 1857 1887

Fields 42.9 60.3 69.8

Forests 11.2 9.7 7.9 Gardens 1.2 2.9 6.2 Meadows 36.5 20.6 10.2 Unusable 8.2 6.5 5.9 TOTAL 100.0 100.0 100.0

801
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 5. Principal Soviet Leaders, 1917-89

Period Leader Party Post Government Post 1917-24 Vladimir I. Lenin

1924-26 Nikolai I. Bukharin

1926-53

1953-57

1957-64

Lev B. Kamenev

Joseph V. Stalin

Leon Trotsky

Grigorii V. Zinov'ev Joseph V. Stalin

Lavrenty Beria

(until June 1953)

Nikolai A. Bulganin

Nikita S. Khrushchev

Georgii M. Malenkov

Viacheslav Molotov

Nikita S. Khrushchev

1964-75 Leonid I. Brezhnev

Aleksei N. Kosygin

Member of Politburo

-do-

-doGeneral secretary of Central Committee

Member of Politburo

-doGeneral secretary of Central Committee

Member of Presidium 1 -do- Member of Presidium;

first secretary of Central Committee 2 Member of Presidium -doMember of Presidium;

first secretary of Central Committee

Member of Polit- buro; general

secretary of Central Committee Member of Politburo

Chairman of Council

of People's Commissars Member of Council

of People's Commissars

Member of Council

of People's Commissars

Minister of internal

affairs Minister of defense

Chairman of Council

of Ministers 3 Member of Council

of Ministers Chairman of Council

of Ministers

Chairman of Council

of Ministers

802
Appendix A

Table 5. —Continued

Period Leader Party Post Government Post

Nikolai V. Podgornyi

1975-82 Leonid I. Brezhnev

1982-84 Iurii V. Andropov

1984-85 Konstantin U. Chernenko

1985- Mikhail S. Gorbachev

Member of Polit- buro; secretary of Central Committee

Member of Polit- buro; general

secretary of Central Committee-do- -do-

-doChairman of Presid- ium of Supreme

Soviet

Chairman of Presid- ium of Supreme

Soviet-do- 4 —means no position in the government.

1 The Politburo was renamed the Presidium in 1952; in 1966 the name reverted to Politburo.

2 The title general secretary was used until Stalin's death in 1953, after which the title was changed

to first secretary. In 1966 the title reverted to general secretary.

3 In 1946 the Council of People's Commissars was renamed the Council of Ministers.

4 In 1989 Gorbachev was named chairman of the Supreme Soviet by the Congress of People's Deputies. The newly created position superseded that of chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

803
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 6. Area, Population, and Capitals

of the Republics, 1989 Census

Area of Republic 1 Population Population Republic (in square kilometers) of Republic 1 Capital of Capital 2

17,075,400 145,311,000 Moscow 8,815,000

2,717,300 16,244,000 Alma-Ata 1,108,000 Ukrainian 603,700 51,201,000 Kiev 2,544,000 Turkmen 488,100 3,361,000 Ashkhabad 382,000 Uzbek 447,400 19,026,000 Tashkent 2,124,000

Belorussian 207,600 10,078,000 Minsk 1,543,000 198,500 4,143,000 Frunze 632,000 Tadzhik 143,100 4,807,000 Dushanbe 582,000 Azerbaydzhan . . . 86,600 6,811,000 Baku 1,115,000 69,700 5,266,000 Tbilisi 1,194,000 65,200 3,641,000 Vilnius 566,000

64,500 2,647,000 Riga 900,000

45,100 1,556,000 Tallin 478,000 Moldavian 33,700 4,185,000 Kishinev 663,000 Armenian 29,800 3,412,000 Yerevan 1,168,000 TOTAL 22,403,000 3 286,717,000 * 24,008,000

1 Estimated.

2 Estimated. Each republic's capital is also the largest city in the republic.

3 Includes the area of the White Sea and the Sea of Azov.

4 Soviet citizens outside the Soviet Union are included, and hence the total differs from that given on

tables 13 and 15. Further, Soviet statistics sometimes have unexplained discrepancies. Source: Based on information from Izvestiia [Moscow], April 29, 1989, 1-2.

Table 7. Natural Resource Potential by Region, 1986 1 (in percentages)

Region

Fuel and

Energy Minerals Wood Farmland Total Northern and central belt of

9.2 8.9 18.2 63.7 100.0

26.2 7.4 0.5 65.5 100.0 2 Volga-Ural region 39.2 4.1 5.9 50.8 100.0

Siberia and the Soviet Far East . . . 66.0 6.9 11.3 15.8 100.0

. 17.6 14.9 0.2 67.3 100.0

36.2 2.2 61.6 100.0 SOVIET UNION . 38.5 7.5 6.0 48.0 100.0 —means negligible.

1 The potential of a natural resource is affected by the cost effectiveness of its exploitation. Hence, some

resources, although abundant, may be too costly to extract and transport to locations of refinement and use.

2 As published. Source: Based on information from V. Rom (ed.), Ekonomicheskaia i sotsial'naia geogrqfiia SSSR, 1, Moscow, 1986, 128.

804
Appendix A

Table 8. Vital Statistics, Selected Years, 1959-86

Birth Rate

Distribution by Sex and Death Rate Life Expectancy

Population (in p ercentages) (per thousar (in years) Year (in thousands) Male Female Births Deaths Net Male Female Average 1959 . . . 208,827 45 55 25.0 7.6 17.4 64 72 69

1970 . . . 241,720 46 54 17.4 8.2 9.2 65 74 70

1981 . . . 266,600 47 53 18.5 10.2 8.3 63 73 68

1986 . . . 278,800 47 53 20.0 9.8 10.2 65 74 70

Table 9. Population Distribution by Sex, Selected Years, 1913-87

Population Distribution

(in millions) (in percentages) Year Male Female Total Male Female Total

1913 1 79 80 159 50 50 100 1959 2 94 115 209 45 55 100 1970 2 Ill 131 242 46 54 100 1979 2 122 140 262 47 53 100 1987 1 133 149 282 47 53 100

1 Estimated figures.

2 Census figures. Source: Based on information from J. P. Cole, Geography of the Soviet Union, Cambridge,

1984, 248; and Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1987 g., Moscow, 1988, 347.

Table 10. Population Distribution by Urban-Rural Breakdown,

Selected Years, 1940-87

Population Distribution

(in millions) (in percentages) Year Urban Rural Total Urban Rural Total 1940 1 63 131 194 33 67 100 1950 1 69 110 179 39 61 100 1959 2 100 109 209 48 52 100 1970 2 136 106 242 56 44 100 1975 1 154 100 254 61 39 100 1979 2 164 98 262 62 38 100 1983 1 174 96 270 64 36 100

1987 1 186 96 282 66 34 100

1 Estimated figures

2 Census figures.

805
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 11. Cities with Populations over One Million, 1989

(in thousands)

City Population City Population Moscow . . Leningrad Kiev

Tashkent . Khar'kov . Minsk . . . Gor'kiy . . Novosibirsk

Sverdlovsk

Tbilisi . . . Kuybyshev

Yerevan . .

8,769

4,456

2,587

2,073

1,611 1,589

1,438

1,436

1,367 1,260

1,257 1,199

Dnepropetrovsk Baku Omsk

Chelyabinsk . . . Alma-Ata

Odessa

Donetsk Kazan' Perm' Ufa

Rostov-na-Donu

1,179 1,150

1,148

1,143 1,128

1,115 1,110

1,094

1,091 1,083 1,020

Source: Based on information from Izvestiia [Moscow], April 29, 1989, 2.

Table 12. Population Density of the Republics, 1959 and 1982

Number of Persons

(per square kilometer) Percentage Republic 1959 1 1982 2 Change Moldavian 85.6 119.4 39.4 Armenian 59.2 106.4 79.7 Ukrainian 69.4 83.3 20.0 Georgian 58.0 73.2 26.2 Azerbaydzhan 42.7 72.8 70.4 Lithuanian 41.6 53.3 28.1 Belorussian 38.8 46.9 20.8 Latvian 32.9 40.1 21.8 Uzbek 18.4 37.1 101.6 Estonian 26.5 33.2 25.2 Tadzhik 13.8 28.8 108.6 Kirgiz 10.4 18.8 80.7 Russian 6.9 8.2 18.8 Turkmen 3.1 6.1 96.7 Kazakh 3.4 5.6 64.7 SOVIET UNION 9.3 12.1 30.1

1 Census figures.

2 Estimated figures. Source: Based on information from "Chislennost' naseleniia, ego rost i razmeshchenie,"

in L.M. Volodarskii (ed.), Naselenie SSSR, Moscow, 1983, 15.

806
Appendix A

Table 13. Nationality, Language, and Religion, 1989 Census 1

National Language Percentage

Is Native Fluent in Population Language Russian Religion

Nationality and Language

Nationalities listed in 1979 census Russian 145,071,550 Ukrainian 44,135,989 Uzbek 16,686,240

Belorussian 10,030,441 Kazakh 8,137,878 Azerbaydzhan 6,791,106 Tatar 6,645,588 Armenian 4,627,227 Tadzhik 4,216,693 Georgian 3,983,115 Moldavian 3,355,240 Lithuanian 3,068,296 Turkmen 2,718,297

Kirgiz 2,530,998 German 2,035,807 Chuvash 1,839,228 Latvian 1,459,156 Bashkir 1,449,462 Jewish 1,376,910 Mordvin 1,153,516

Polish 1,126,137 Estonian 1,027,255 Chechen 958,309

Udmurt 746,562 Mari 670,277 Avar 604,202

Ossetian 597,802 Lezgin 466,833 Korean 437,335 Karakalpak 423,436 Buryat 421,682 Kabardin 394,651 Yakut 382,255

Bulgarian 378,790

Dargin 365,797 Greek 357,975 Komi 345,007 Kumyk 282,178 Uygur 262,199 Gypsy 261,956 Ingush 237,577 Turkish 207,369 Tuvinian 206,924

Gagauz 197,164 Kalmyk 174,528 Hungarian 171,941 Karachai 156,140 Kurdish 152,952 Komi-Permyak 152,074

99.8 100.0 Orthodox

81.1 56.2 Orthodox, Uniate

98.3 23.8 Muslim

70.9 54.7 Orthodox, Catholic 97.0 60.4 Muslim

97.6 34.4 Muslim

83.2 70.8 Muslim

91.6 47.1 Orthodox

97.7 27.7 Muslim

98.2 33.1 Orthodox

91.6 53.8 Orthodox

97.7 37.9 Catholic 98.5 27.8 Muslim

97.8 35.2 Muslim

48.7 45.0 Lutheran, Catholic

76.5 65.1 Orthodox, Muslim

94.8 64.4 Lutheran

72.3 71.8 Muslim

11.1 10.1 Jewish

67.0 62.5 Orthodox

30.4 43.9 Catholic

95.5 33.8 Lutheran

98.0 74.0 Muslim

69.6 61.3 Orthodox

80.8 68.8 Orthodox

96.9 60.6 Muslim

87.0 68.9 Muslim, Orthodox

91.5 53.4 Muslim

49.4 43.3 Shamanist, Confucian

94.1 20.7 Muslim

86.3 72.0 Orthodox, Shamanist, Buddhist

96.9 77.1 Muslim

93.8 54.9 Orthodox

67.9 60.3 Orthodox

97.5 68.0 Muslim

44.5 39.5 Orthodox

70.4 62.1 Orthodox

97.4 74.5 Muslim

86.5 58.3 Muslim

77.4 63.3 Orthodox, Muslim

96.9 80.0 Muslim

91.0 40.2 Muslim

98.5 59.1 Lamaist

87.4 71.7 Orthodox

89.9 85.1 Buddhist

93.7 43.3 Catholic

96.7 79.1 Muslim

80.5 28.5 Muslim

70.1 61.2 Orthodox

807
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 13. —Continued

National Language Percentage

Nationality and Is Native Fluent in Language Population Language Russian Religion Romanian 145,918

Karelian 131,357 Adygy 124,941 Lak 118,386 Abkhazian 102,938 Tabasaran 98,448

Balkar 88,771 Khakass 81,428 Nogai 75,564

Altai 71,317 Dungan 69,686

Finnish 67,318

Circassian 52,356

Iranian 40,510 Abazinian 33,801 Tat 30,817

Baluchi 29,091 Assyrian 26,289 Rutul 20,672 Tsakhur 20,055 Agul 19,936 Shor 16,572 Czech 16,335 Vep 13,341 Slovak 10,017 Udin 8,849 Mongol 4,336 Karaim 2,803 Izhor 829

Peoples of the North 2. 197,345

Subtotal 285,200,070

Nationalities not listed in 1979 census but listed in 1989 census Crimean Tatar 268,739

Central Asian Jewish . . 36,568 Talysh 21,914 Mountain Jewish 19,516 Vietnamese 16,752 Georgian Jewish 16,123 Arab 11,599 Chinese 11,418 Afghan 8,951 Cuban 5,113 Albanian 4,085 Spanish 3,737 Serbian 3,100

Indian and Pakistani . . 2,614

Italian 1,942 Crimean 1,559

60.9 50.9 Orthodox

47.9 45.5 Orthodox

94.7 81.7 Muslim

93.5 76.4 Muslim

93.3 78.2 Muslim, Orthodox

95.7 62.6 Muslim

92.9 77.2 Muslim

76.1 66.6 Orthodox

89.9 79.3 Muslim

84.4 65.2 Orthodox

94.7 70.5 Muslim

34.7 35.4 Lutheran

90.4 76.3 Muslim

33.4 45.9 Muslim

93.4 78.1 Muslim

71.8 64.0 Muslim

95.7 5.0 Muslim

59.7 43.6 Nestorian

94.5 63.0 Muslim

95.1 23.6 Muslim

94.4 65.8 Muslim

57.7 52.8 Orthodox

36.0 37.3 Catholic 52.6 49.2 Orthodox

42.7 51.8 Catholic

85.3 49.4 Orthodox

90.8 74.5 Buddhist, Shamanist

25.1 18.7 Jewish

36.9 38.0 Orthodox

52.8 49.5 n.a.

92.5 76.0 n.a. 64.6 50.2 n.a. 90.1 6.1 n.a. 73.2 53.1 n.a. 98.5 25.0 n.a. 90.7 46.4 n.a. 72.4 63.5 n.a. 33.0 30.6 n.a. 65.4 35.7 n.a. 73.3 73.1 n.a. 52.0 49.2 n.a. 48.7 43.5 n.a. 40.6 50.2 n.a. 77.1 40.7 n.a. 40.4 28.4 n.a. 38.4 32.9 n.a.

808
Table 13. —Continued

Appendix A

National Language Percentage

Nationality and Is Native Fluent in Language Population Language Russian Religion Croatian 1,100 59.3 47.7 Dutch 964 35.1 32.7 French 798 50.3 44.4 American 746 61.3 39.5 Austrian 731 45.7 30.2 Japanese 691 45.9 38.6

British 637 70.0 50.2 Subtotal 439,397 TOTAL 3 285,639,467

n.a. —not available.

1 The population figures given here do not include Soviet citizens abroad at the time the census was

taken. Including them, the total Soviet population in 1989 was 286.7 million, which is the figure used on Table 6. It should be noted that Soviet statistics sometimes have unexplained discrepancies.

2 In the 1979 census, twenty-three nationalities of the North were listed individually.

3 Preliminary. Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Natsionalnyi sostav

naseleniia, Chast' II, Moscow, 1989, 3-5.

809
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 14. Autonomous Subdivisions, 1989 *

Autonomous Republic Autonomous Oblast Autonomous Okrug

Nakhichevan'

Abkhazian Adzhar

Bashkir Buryat Chechen-Ingush Chuvash

Dagestan

Kabardino-Balkar Kalmyk

Karelian Komi

Mari

Mordvinian

North Ossetian Tatar Tuva Udmurt

Yakut

Azerbaydzhan Republic

Nagorno-Karabakh

Georgian Republic

South Ossetian

Russian Republic

Adyegai

Gorno-Altai Jewish (Yevreyskaya) Karachi-C ircassian Khakass

Agin-Buryat

Chukotskii Evenk

Khanty-Mansiiskii

Komi-Permyak

Koryak

Nenet Taimyr

Ust'-Ordyn Buryat Yamalo-Nenet

Karakalpak

Tadzhik Republic Gorno-Badakhshan Uzbek Republic

* For an explanation of the three kinds of autonomous subdivisions—see Glossary. The Armenian,

Belorussian, Estonian, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Latvian, Lithuanian, Moldavian, Turkmen, and Ukrainian

republics had no autonomous subdivisions. Source: Based on information from Richard Sakwa, Soviet Politics, London, 1989, 298.

810
Appendix A

Table 15. Republic of Residence and Population

of Major Nationalities, 1989 Census

Nationality Population Republic of Residence Number Percentage 1

Russians Russian 119,807,165 82.6 Ukrainian 11,340,250 7.8 Kazakh 6,226,400 4.3 Uzbek 1,652,179 1.1 Belorussian 1,341,055 0.9 Kirgiz 916,543 0.6 Latvian 905,515 0.6 Moldavian 560,423 0.4 Estonian 474,815 0.3 Azerbaydzhan 392,303 0.3 Tadzhik 386,630 0.3 Lithuanian 343,597 0.2 Georgian 338,645 0.2 Turkmen 334,477 0.2 Armenian 51,553 0.04

Total Russians 145,071,550 100.0 Ukrainians Ukrainian 37,370,368 84.7 Russian 4,363,992 9.9 Kazakh 895,964 2.0 Moldavian 599,777 1.4 Belorussian 290,368 0.7 Uzbek 154,105 0.3 Kirgiz 108,027 0.2 Latvian 92,101 0.2 Georgian 51,472 0.1 Estonian 48,273 0.1 Lithuanian 44,397 0.1 Tadzhik 40,646 0.09 Turkmen 35,814 0.08 Azerbaydzhan 32,344 0.07 Armenian 8,341 0.02 Total Ukrainians 44,135,989 100.0 Uzbeks Uzbek 14,123,626 84.6 Tadzhik 1,197,091 7.2 Kirgiz 550,095 3.3 Kazakh 332,016 2.0 Turkmen 317,252 1.9 Russian 127,169 0.8 Ukrainian 27,753 0.2 Belorussian 3,550 0.02 Moldavian 2,018 0.01 Lithuanian 1,452 0.01 Azerbaydzhan 1,379 0.01 Georgian 1,073 0.006 Latvian 925 0.006

Estonian 595 0.004 Armenian 246 0.001 Total Uzbeks 16,686,240 100.0

811
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 15. —Continued

Nationality Republic of ResidencePopulation Number Percentage

Belorussians Belorussian Russian Ukrainian Kazakh

Latvian Lithuanian Uzbek

Estonian Moldavian Turkmen

Kirgiz

Georgian

Azerbaydzhan

Tadzhik Armenian

Total Belorussians . . Kazakhs Kazakh

Uzbek

Russian Turkmen

Kirgiz Ukrainian Tadzhik

Belorussian Georgian Moldavian

Azerbaydzhan

Latvian Lithuanian Armenian

Estonian

Total Kazakhs

Azerbaydzhanis

Azerbaydzhan

Russian Georgian

Kazakh

Armenian

Ukrainian Uzbek

Turkmen

Kirgiz

Belorussian Tadzhik

Latvian Moldavian

Lithuanian

Estonian

Total Azerbaydzhanis

7,897,781 1,205,887 439,858

182,514

119,702 63,076

31,737

27,711

19,431 9,285

9,187 8,338

7,833 7,042

1,059 10,030,441

6,531,921 808,090

636,083

87,595

37,318

12,120

11,371 4,530

2,545

1,933 1,638 1,044 658

424

8,137,878

5,800,994 336,908 307,424

90,082 84,860

59,149

44,393 33,334

15,775 6,634

3,689

2,765 2,554

1,307

1,238 6,791,106

78.7

12.0

4.4

1.8

1.2 0.6

0.3

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.1 0.09

0.08

0.07

0.01 100.0

80.3

9.9

7.8

1.1 0.5

0.1

0.1 0.06

0.03

0.02 0.02

0.01

0.01 0.007

0.005

100.0

85.4

5.0

4.5

1.3

1.2 0.9

0.7 0.5

0.2

0.1 0.05 0.04

0.04

0.02

0.02 100.0

812
Appendix A

Table 15. —Continued

Nationality Republic of Residence Number Percentage

1 stars

=i Q 60=1 A3 1 7 ft 397 871 4 Q Ukrainian 86 789 1.3 72 168 70 068 1 1 39,243 0.6 28,019 0.4 12,352 0.2 5,107 0.1 4,828 0.1 4,058 0.1 3,999 0.1 Moldavian 3,335 0.05 470 0.007 6,645,588 100.0

ill liiviiiaiij A i'i n pniQn 3 0R1 Q90 66.6 Russian 532 675 11.5 436 615 9.4 A 7prnavri 7n s n 390 495 8.4

T TVr'mni an 60 047 1.3

1 .

1

Turkmen 31,838 0.7 Kazakh 19,105 0.4 5,630 0.1 5,251 0.1 3,975 0.1 3,069 0.07 2,774 0.06

1,669 0.04

1,648 0.04 4,627,227 100.0 Tadzhiks

'la ri 7niV 3 168 193 75.1 Uzbek 931 547 22.1 38 327 0.9 33 842 0.8 25 514 0.6

10 476 0.3 Turkmen 3 418 0.08

1,417 0.03 1,133 0.03 720 - .

. 0.02 702 0.02 516 0.01 432 0.01 343 0.008

113 0.003 4,216,693 100.0

813
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 15. —Continued

Nationality Republic of ResidencePopulation Number Percentage Georgians

Georgian

Russian Ukrainian Azerbaydzhan Kazakh Uzbek

Belorussian Latvian Armenian

Kirgiz Moldavian

Tadzhik Turkmen

Lithuanian

Estonian

Total Georgians Moldavians Moldavian

Ukrainian

Russian Kazakh Uzbek

Belorussian Latvian Georgian

Turkmen

Azerbaydzhan ....

Kirgiz Tadzhik

Lithuanian

Estonian Armenian

Total Moldavians

Lithuanians Lithuanian Russian

Latvian Ukrainian Kazakh

Belorussian Estonian Uzbek

Moldavian

Georgian

Azerbaydzhan .... Tadzhik

Kirgiz

Turkmen

Armenian

Total Lithuanians

3,789,385 130,719 23,689

13,986 9,496

4,726

2,968

1,378 1,364

1,143

1,077 971 960

647

606

3,983,115

2,790,769 324,480

172,784 33,096

11,424

5,348

3,223 2,814

2,678

1,915

1,875 1,646

1,448

1,215 525

3,355,240

2,924,048 70,386 34,630

11,385 10,938

7,589 2,568

2,234

1,438 921 533 530

493

372

231 3,068,296

95.1

3.3 0.6

0.4

0.2

0.1 0.07

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.02

0.02

0.02

0.02

100.0

83.2

9.7

5.1 1.0 0.3

0.2

0.1

0.1 0.08 0.06

0.06

0.05 0.04

0.04

0.02

100.0

95.3

2.3

1.1 0.4

0.4

0.3

0.1 0.07

0.05

0.03

0.02

0.02

0.02

0.01 0.008

100.0

814
Appendix A

Table 15. —Continued

Nationality Population Republic of Residence Number Percentage 1 Turkmens

Turkmen 2,524,138 92.9 Uzbek 122,566 4.5 Russian 39,738 1.5 Tadzhik 20,527 0.8 Kazakh

..

4,046 0.1 Ukrainian 3,990 0.1 Kirgiz 899 0.03 Belorussian 755 0.03 Moldavian 399 0.01 Azerbaydzhan 340 0.01 Georgian 305 0.01 Latvian 228 0.008 Lithuanian 193 0.007 Estonian 106 0.004 Armenian 67 0.002

Total Turkmens 2,718,297 100.0 Kirgiz

Kirgiz 2,228,482 88.0 Uzbek 174,899 6.9 Tadzhik 63,831 2.5 Russian 43,083 1.7 Kazakh 14,271 0.6 Ukrainian 3,881 0.2 Turkmen 727 0.03

Belorussian 555 0.02 Armenian 271 0.01 Azerbaydzhan 224 0.01 Moldavian 216 0.01 Latvian 189 0.01 Georgian 170 0.007 Lithuanian 118 0.005 Estonian 81 0.003

Total Kirgiz 2,530,998 100.0 Germans

Kazakh 956,235 47.0 Russian 840,980 41.3

Kirgiz 101,198 5.0 Tadzhik 32,493 1.6 Other 104,901 5.1 Total Germans 2,035,807 100.0 Chuvash

Russian 1,771,047 93.8 Other 68,181 6.2 Total Chuvash 1,839,228 100.0 Latvians Latvian 1,387,646 95.1 Russian 46,818 3.2 Ukrainian 7,169 0.5 Lithuanian 4,228 0.3 Kazakh 3,370 0.2

815
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 15. —Continued

Nationality Population Republic of Residence Number Percentage 1

LatviansContinued Estonian 3,135 0.2 Belorussian 2,655 0.2 Uzbek 1,130 0.1 Turkmen 859 0.06 Georgian 524 0.04 Moldavian 461 0.03 Kirgiz 392 0.03 Azerbaydzhan 324 0.02 Tadzhik 300 0.02 Armenian 145 0.01 Total Latvians 1,459,156 100.0

Bashkirs Russian 1,345,231 92.8 Other 104,231 7.2 Total Bashkirs 1,449,462 100.0 Jews

Russian 536,422 39.0 Ukrainian 485,975 35.3 Belorussian 111,789 8.1 Moldavian 65,668 4.8 Uzbek 65,369 4.7 Azerbaydzhan 25,190 1.8 Latvian 22,897 1.7 Kazakh 18,379 1.3 Lithuanian 12,312 0.9 Georgian 10,302 0.7 Tadzhik 9,576 0.7 Other 13,031 1.0 Total Jews 1,376,910 100.0 Mordvins

Russian 1,072,517 93.0 Other 80,999 7.0 Total Mordvins 1,153,516 100.0

Poles Belorussian 417,648 37.1 Lithuanian 257,988 22.9 Ukrainian 218,891 19.4 Latvian 60,388 5.4 Other 171,222 15.2 Total Poles 1,126,137 100.0 Estonians Estonian 963,269 93.8 Russian 46,358 4.5 Ukrainian 4,208 0.4 Kazakh 3,397 0.3 Latvian 3,312 0.3 Georgian 2,312 0.1 Uzbek 948 0.1 Belorussian 797 0.1 Lithuanian 598 0.06

816
Appendix A

Table 15. —Continued

Nationality Population Republic of Residence Number Percentage 1

EstoniansContinued 560 0.05 430 0.04 324 0.03 295 0.03 276 0.03

171 0.02 1,027,255 100.0 Other 12,173,338 TOTAL 285,639,467 *

1 Figures may not add to total because of rounding.

2 Soviet citizens outside the country are not included. Also, Soviet statistics sometimes have unexplained

discrepancies. Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Natsionalnyi sos- tav naseleniia, Chast' II, Moscow, 1989, 97-113.

817
Soviet Union: A Country Study

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Appendix A

Table 17. Social Groups, 1913, 1959, and 1986

(in percentages)

Social Group 1913 1959 1986

Peasants 66.7 31.7 12.1 Workers 14.6 50.2 61.7

Intelligentsia 1 2.4 18.1 26.2 Bourgeoisie 2 16.3 n.a. n.a. TOTAL 100.0 100.0 100.0

n.a. —not applicable.

1 Although officially not considered a separate class, the intelligentsia made up a considerable part of

the population.

2 After the Bolshevik Revolution, the designation bourgeoisie was abolished as a social class by the regime. Source: Based on information from Tsentral'noe statisticheskoe upravlenie, SSSR v tsifrakh

v 1986 godu, Moscow, 1987, 6.

Table 18. Average Monthly Wage by Occupation, 1986

(in rubles) 1

Occupation Wage 2

Blue-collar workers

Industrial workers 216.4 Railroad workers 220.9 Construction workers 253.2 Water transport workers 272.4

White-collar workers Teachers 155.7 Computer scientists 158.0 Communications workers 164.0 Government workers 176.6

Scientists 208.2 Engineers and technicians 239.0

1 For value of the ruble—see Glossary.

2 Nationwide average was 195.6 rubles. Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, Moscow, 1987, 431.

819
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 19. Selected Low-Paid Occupations, Early 1980s

(in rubles) 1

Occupation Wage 2

Librarians 100-115

Translators 95-130

Cultural administrators 90-110

Musicians 90-110

Secretaries (senior) 80-85

Cashiers 80-85 Draftsmen 80-85 Warehouse personnel 80-85

Stove keepers 80-85 Truck and bus drivers 75-90 Grounds keepers 75-85

Street cleaners 75-80 Guards 75-80

Clerks (junior) 75-80

1 For value of the ruble—see Glossary.

2 Average wage increased nearly 16 percent from 1980 to 1988. Source: Based on information from Mervyn Matthews, "Aspects of Poverty in the Soviet Union," in Horst Herlemann (ed.), Quality of Life in the Soviet Union, Boulder, Colorado, 1987, 48, 51.

Table 20. Urban-Rural Breakdown, Selected Years, 1917-87

(in percentages)

Year Urban Rural Total

1917 1940

1959

1970

1987

17.9 32.5 47.9

56.3 66.0

82.1 67.5

52.1 43.7 34.0

100.0

100.0

100.0 100.0

100.0

Source: Based on information from Tsentral'noe statisticheskoe upravlenie, SSSR v tsifrakh v 1986 godu, Moscow, 1987, 5.

820
Appendix A

Table 21. Average Family Size by Nationality

Group, 1979 Census *

Nationality Group Urban Rural Average

Slavs Russians 3.2 3.2 3.2 Ukrainians 3.2 3.3 3.2 Belorussians 3.2 3.2 3.2

Baltic peoples Lithuanians 3.3 3.3 3.3 Latvians 3.0 3.1 3.0 Estonians 3.0 3.1 3.0 Peoples of the Caucasus Armenians 4.3 4.8 4.5 Georgians 3.9 4.1 4.0 Azerbaydzhanis 4.3 4.8 4.5 Central Asians Uzbeks 5.8 6.3 6.2 Kazakhs 5.1 5.7 5.5 Kirgiz 4.9 5.8 5.7 Tadzhiks 6.0 6.7 6.5 Turkmens 5.9 6.5 6.3 Other

Moldavians 3.3 3.6 3.5 SOVIET UNION 3.3 3.8 3.5

* Includes only families in which all members belong to one nationality. Source: Based on information from Tsentral'noe statisticheskoe upravlenie, Chislennost' i sostav naseleniia SSSR, Moscow, 1984, 284-37.

821
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 22. Network of Primary Party Organizations,

1977 and 1987

Location of Primary Party 1977 2 1987 2 Organization 1 Number Percentage Number Percentage

Industry, transportation, communica102,720 26.1 112,866 25.5

Schools, cultural organizations, and

health organizations 96,051 24.4 104,988 23.8 Rural territorial, housing sectors, 0/,oOJ 1 1 .1 ol,ooo 1 O K lo. J

Institutions, organizations, and eco- nomic organs (from the central to 65,458 16.6 76,684 17.4 27,893 7.1 26,888 6.1 19,400 4.9 22,854 5.2 Trade and supply 14,639 3.7 15,933 3.6 TOTAL 3 394,014 100.0 441,851 100.0

1 Table does not include a formal designation for location of primary party organizations i n the Soviet

military.

2 Figures are for January 1 of each year.

3 Figures may not add to total because of rounding. Source: Based on information from "KPSS v tsifrakh," Partiinaia zhizn ' [Moscow], No. 21

,

November 1987, 15.

Table 23. Membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,

Selected Years, 1971-87

Candidate Year Full Members Members Total

1971 (Twenty-Fourth Party Congress) . . . . 13,810,089 645,232 14,455,321 1976 (Twenty-Fifth Party Congress) .... 15,058,017 636,170 15,694,187

1981 (Twenty-Sixth Party Congress) .... . . 16,763,009 717,759 17,480,768 1986 (Twenty-Seventh Party Congress) . . 18,309,693 728,253 19,037,946

1987 (As of July 1) 18,707,341 704,812 19,412,153

Source: Based on information from "KPSS v tsifrakh," Partiinaia zhizn' [Moscow], No.

14, July 1986, 19; and "KPSS v tsifrakh," Partiinaia zhizn' [Moscow], No. 21, November 1987, 6.

822
Appendix A

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823
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 25. Education Level of Members of the Communist Party

of the Soviet Union, 1967, 1977, and 1987

Education 1967 * 1977 * 1987 * Level Number Percentage Number Percentage Number Percentage Higher

education .. 2,097,055 16.5 4,008,986 25.1 6,284,588 32.6 Incomplete

higher education . . 325,985 2.6 380,349 2.4 395,581 2.0 Secondary

education .. 3,993,119 31.5 6,268,336 39.2 8,633,322 44.8 Incomplete

secondary

education .. 3,417,251 26.9 3,154,362 19.7 2,520,697 13.1 Primary

education 2,850,723 22.5 2,182,443 13.6 1,433,527 7.5 TOTAL 12,684,133 100.0 15,994,476 100.0 19,267,715 100.0

* Figures are for January 1 of each year. Source: Based on information from "KPSS v tsifrakh," Partiinaia zhizn' [Moscow], No. 21, November 1987, 10.

824
Appendix A

Table 26. Distribution of Major Nationalities in the Communist

Party of the Soviet Union and in the Soviet Population, 1981

Party 1 Population 2 Nationality Number Percentage Number Percentage

10,457,771 60.0 137,397,000 52.0 2,794,592 16.0 42,347,000 16.0 651,486 3.7 9,463,000 3.0 393,770 2.3 12,456,000 4.7 332,821 1.9 6,556,000 2.5 ono 00*7

l . / 5,0/ 1,UUU 1 .3 280,498 1.6 5,477,000 2.0 261,572 1.5 4,151,000 1.5 126,704 0.7 2,851,000 1.0 89,680 0.5 2,968,000 1.1 74,987 0.4 2,898,000 1.1 Latvians 71,911 0.4 1,439,000 0.5 62,694 0.4 1,906,000 0.7 61,430 0.4 2,028,000 0.7 55,957 0.3 1,020,000 0.4 Other 1,424,313 8.2 32,760,000 11.5 TOTAL 17,430,413 100.0 269,288,000 100.0

'1981 figures.

2 1979 estimated figures. Source: Based on information from "KPSS v tsifrakh," Partiinaia zhizn' [Moscow], No. 14, July 1981, 18; and Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1985 g., Moscow, 1986, 24-26.

Table 27. Distribution of Members of the Communist Party

of the Soviet Union by Sex, Selected Years, 1971-87

Male Female Total Year * Number Percentage Number Percentage Number Percentage

1971 11,177,007 77.8 3,195,566 22.2 14,372,563 100.0 1976 11,845,032 75.7 3,793,859 24.3 15,638,891 100.0

1981 12,814,837 73.5 4,615,576 26.5 17,430,413 100.0 1986 13,529,233 71.2 5,475,145 28.8 19,004,378 100.0 1987 . . . 13,631,686 70.7 5,636,029 29.3 19,267,715 100.0

* Figures are for January 1 of each year. Source: Based on information from "KPSS v tsifrakh,

'

' Partiinaia zhizn ' [Moscow] , No. 14, July 1986, 24; and "KPSS v tsifrakh," Partiinaia zhizn' [Moscow], No. 21, November

1987, 11.

825
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 28. Organs and Functions of the Soviet Regime, 1988

Organ Function Leading Official

Politburo Makes key decisions on

national policy and

leadership

Secretariat Reviews and certifies government plans and policies Defense Council Formulates defense policy and oversees defense establishment

General secretary of the Central Committee 1

-do-

-doCongress of People's Deputies Perform ceremonial and Chairman of the and the Supreme Soviet . . state functions Supreme Soviet 1

Council of Ministers Coordinates economic Chairman of the Counadministration cil of Ministers Gosplan, Ministry of Finance, Perform economic and Ministers and chairmen and Goskomstat 2 budgetary planning of state committees More than twenty ministries Administer economic -do- and committees plans and public

services Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Establish foreign policy -do- 4 Ministry of Defense, and KGB 3

1 Function is somewhat comparable to that of United States president.

2 Gosplan—Gosudarstvennyi planovyi komitet (State Planning Committee); Goskomstat—Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike (State Committee for Statistics).

3 KGB—Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security).

4 Function is comparable to that of United States agency heads.

826
Appendix A

Table 29. Treaties of Friendship and Cooperation with

Third World Countries, 1989 *

Country Date Mongolia March 12, 1936, in Moscow

(renewed February 27, 1946; another treaty was

signed January 15, 1966, in Ulaanbaatar and

renewed March 15, 1986) North Korea July 6, 1961, in Moscow

Egypt May 27, 1971, in Cairo

(abrogated March 15, 1976)

India August 9, 1971, in New Delhi

Iraq April 9, 1972, in Baghdad

(renewed April 9, 1987) Somalia July 11, 1974, in Mogadishu

(abrogated November 13, 1977) Angola October 8, 1976, in Moscow

Mozambique March 31, 1977, in Maputo

Vietnam November 3, 1978, in Moscow

Ethiopia November 20, 1978, in Moscow

Afghanistan December 5, 1978, in Moscow

(previous treaties signed 1921 and 1931) South Yemen October 25, 1979, in Moscow

Syria October 8, 1980, in Moscow

Congo May 13, 1981, in Moscow

North Yemen October 9, 1984, in Moscow Cuba April 4, 1989, in Havana

* In addition to these formal treaties, there have been "agreements in principle" or "declarations"

of friendship and cooperation between the Soviet Union and Libya, Mali, and Benin. The Libya decla- ration was announced in a joint communique March 18, 1983, in Moscow following a visit to the Soviet Union by Abd as-Salan Jallud, member of the Revolutionary Council of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah. The Mali declaration was signed July 18, 1986, in Moscow by Andrei Gromyko and Moussa Traore, president of Mali. The Benin declaration was signed November 25, 1986, in Moscow by Andrei Gromyko and Mathaeu Kerekou, president of Benin. Besides the Soviet Union, other Warsaw Pact countries have concluded friendship treaties with Third World countries.

827
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 30. Five- Year Plans, 1928-95

Date Plan Date Plan

1928--32 . . . First Five-Year Plan 1 1966--70 . . . Eighth Five-Year Plan

1933--37 . . Second Five-Year Plan 1971--75 . . Ninth Five-Year Plan

1938--41 . . . Third Five-Year Plan 2 1976-80 .. Tenth Five-Year Plan

1945--50 . . Fourth Five-Year Plan 1981--85 . . Eleventh Five-Year Plan

1951--55 . . . Fifth Five-Year Plan 1986--90 . . . Twelfth Five-Year Plan

1956--60 . . Sixth Five-Year Plan 1991-95 . . Thirteenth Five-Year Plan 4 1959--65 . . Seventh Five-Year Plan 3

1 Implemented October 1928, although not officially approved by Sixteenth Party Conference until April 1929.

2 Interrupted by World War II.

3 A seven-year plan that included last two years of Sixth Five-Year Plan.

4 Under discussion in 1989.

Table 31. Estimated Gross National Product by Sector, Selected Years, 1970-88

(in billions of 1982 rubles at factor cost) 1

Sector 1970 1975 1980 1985 1986 1987 1988

Agriculture 139.6 124.7 125.6 132.9 147.5 141.8 141.0 Industry 137.9 181.3 204.2 225.1 230.7 237.8 244.7

Services 93.3 109.8 124.9 139.4 142.5 147.0 151.4 Construction 42.0 51.6 51.4 54.3 56.4 57.7 59.2 Transportation 35.9 49.3 58.8 65.5 67.5 68.2 70.0 Trade 28.5 36.1 40.9 44.6 44.5 45.2 46.7 Communications 3.1 4.2 5.3 6.4 6.8 7.2 7.6 Other 2 11.4 12.6 13.6 14.3 14.5 14.5 14.5 TOTAL 3 491.8 569.5 624.8 682.6 710.3 719.5 735.2

1 For value of the ruble—see Glossary. Factor cost refers to a combination of government-administered

prices of land, labor, and capital.

2 Includes military personnel.

3 Figures do not add to total because of rounding. Source: Based on information from United States, Central Intelligence Agency and Defense

Intelligence Agency, "The Soviet Economy Stumbles Badly in 1989," Washington, April 20, 1990, Table C-l.

828
Appendix A

Table 32. Industrial Production, Estimated Value

Added, Selected Years, 1970-88 1 (in billions of 1982 rubles) 2

Industry 1970 1975 1980 1985 1986 1987 1988 Machinery 44 1 62.3 72.6 80.2 82.3 85.4 88.4

. 13.1 16.8 19.4 20.2 20.9 21.3 21.6

. 12.0 14.7 15.7 17.2 16.4 17.0 17.7

11.1 12.6 12.3 13.5 14.1 14.5 14.9 Light industry . 11.0 12.5 14.1 15.2 15.4 15.7 16.0

9.8 11.9 12.6 13.1 13.6 13.8 14.0 Construction materials 9.1 11.8 12.3 13.5 14.0 14.5 14.9

8.5 12.6 14.6 17.7 18.5 19.0 19.4

8.1 11.4 14.2 16.5 17.1 17.8 18.2 Nonferrous metals . . . 5.8 7.6 8.2 9.0 9.3 9.5 9.8 Other 5.5 7.2 8.1 8.9 9.2 9.4 9.7 TOTAL 3 137.9 181.3 204.2 225.1 230.7 237.8 244.7

1 Government-administered price of goods, less the cost of materials.

2 For value of the ruble—see Glossary.

3 Figures do not add to total because of rounding. Source: Based on information from United States, Central Intelligence Agency and Defense

Intelligence Agency, "The Soviet Economy Stumbles Badly in 1989," Washington, April 20, 1990, Table C-2.

829
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 33. Selected Ministries Producing Military

Weapons and Components, 1989 *

Ministry Military Production Specialization

Aircraft, helicopters, and missiles Communications Equipment

Electronic warfare equipment and radar

Artillery, infantry weapons, mobile ballistic missiles, and tanks Radar and military electronics General Machine Building .... Missiles and space equipment

Machine Tool and Tool-Building Munitions and solid propellants Medium Machine Building .... Nuclear weapons and lasers Radar, radios, and guidance and control systems

Ships

* Includes ministries having the largest percentage of output composed of military weapons or their components. Other ministries also produced military equipment or components, but to a lesser extent of their total output. The ministries listed here are among the eighteen ministries in the machinebuilding and metal-working complex (MBMW).

Source: Based on information from United States, Department of Defense, Soviet Military Power, 1987, Washington, March 1987, 10; and William F. Scott, "Moscow's

Military-Industrial Complex," Air Force Magazine, 70, No. 3, March 1987, 50.

Table 34. Production of Major Farm Commodities, 1956-87

(in millions of tons)

Commodity 1956-60 1961-65 1966-70 1971-75 1976-80 1981-85 1986 1987 Grain 121.5 130.3 167.6 181.6 205.0 180.3 210.1 211.3

Potatoes 88.3 81.6 94.8 89.8 82.6 78.4 87.4 75.9 Sugar beets 45.6 59.2 81.1 76.0 88.7 76.4 79.3 90.0 Vegetables 15.1 16.9 19.5 23.0 26.3 29.2 29.7 29.1

Fruits 4.5 6.5 9.7 12.4 15.2 17.8 18.3 n.a. Raw cotton 4.4 5.0 6.1 7.7 8.6 8.3 8.2 8.1 Sunflowers 3.7 5.1 6.4 6.0 5.3 5.0 5.3 6.1

n.a. —not available. Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khozi- aistvoSSSR za 70 let, Moscow, 1987, 209, 239; and "Zakrepit' dostignutoe, uskorit' tempy," Izvestiia [Moscow], No. 24, January 24, 1988, 2.

830
Appendix A

Table 35. Farm Machinery Pool, Selected Years, 1960-86

(in thousands)

Machinery 1960 1970 1980 1985 1986

1,122 1,977 2,562 2,775 2,776 813 1,053 1,103 1,167 1,148 760 1,136 1,596 1,851 1,917 754 1,144 1,117 1,265 1,295 497 623 722 828 827 Tractor-drawn mowers

546 686 702 672 270 335 471 521 506

121 139 269 256 254

88 230 224 224

Milking machines ..... 48 169 361 401 408

35 34 52 32 30 34 57 62 53 52

11 39 55 63 63

Potato harvesters 10 36 70 63 60

n.a. —not available. Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, Moscow, 1987, 207, 283.

Table 36. Sown Area for Major Crops, Selected Years, 1940-86

(in millions of hectares)

Crop 1940 1960 1970 1980 1985 1986 Grain 110.7 115.6 119.3 126.6 117.9 116.5 Bare fallow 28.9 17.4 18.4 13.8 21.3 32.7 Forage crops 18.1 63.1 62.8 66.9 69.8 71.4 Technical crops 11.8 13.1 14.5 14.6 13.9 13.7 Vegetables 10.0 11.2 10.1 9.2 8.7 8.7 TOTAL 179.5 220.4 225.1 231.1 231.6 243.0

Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, Moscow, 1987, 224-25.

831
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 37. Agricultural Chemicals Delivered,

Selected Years, 1970-87

(in thousands of tons)

Chemical 1970 1980 1985 1986 1987 Mineral fertilizers 1 Nitrogenous 4,605 8,262 10,950 11,475 n.a. Potash 2,574 4,904 6,822 6,677 n.a. Phosphatic 2,160 4,760 6,839 7,567 n.a. Ground rock phosphate 973 830 776 787 n.a. Total mineral fertilizers 10,312 18,756 25,387 26,506 27,400

Plant protective chemicals 2 Herbicides 50 127 160 172 n.a. Other 120 152 202 174 n.a. Total plant protective chemicals 170 279 362 346 n.a. Chemical feed additives 1 Nitrogenous n.a. 86 223 204 n.a. Phosphatic 51 432 765 823 n.a. Total chemical feed additives .. 51 518 988 1,027 1,100 TOTAL 10,533 19,553 26,737 27,879 28,500

n.a. —not available.

1 Calculated at 100 percent nutritive content.

2 Calculated at 100 percent active-ingredient content. Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, Moscow, 1987, 284; and "Zakrepit' dostignutoe, uskorit' tempy," Izvestiia [Moscow], No. 24, January 24, 1988, 3.

Table 38. Selected Animal Products, Selected Years, 1940-87

Product 1940 1960 1970 1980 1985 1986 1987 Eggs 1 12.2 27.4 40.7 67.9 77.3 80.7 82.1 Meat 2 4.7 8.7 12.3 15.1 17.1 18.0 18.6 Milk 3 33.6 61.7 83.0 90.9 98.6 102.2 103.4 Wool 4 161.0 339.0 402.0 443.0 447.0 469.0 455.0

1 In billions.

2 In million of tons of slaughtered weight.

3 In millions of tons.

4 In thousands of tons. Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, Moscow, 1987, 258; and "Zakrepit' dostignutoe, uskorit' tempy," Izvestiia [Moscow], No. 24, January 24, 1988, 2.

832
Appendix A

Table 39. Freight Traffic by Mode of Transport,

Selected Years, 1940-86 1 (in billions of ton-kilometers)

Mode of Transport 1940 1 ocn iy /u lyyu i oq<; 1 OQ£

. . 420.7 1,504.3 2,494.7 3,439.9 3,718.4 3,834.5 Inland waterway . . 36.1 99.6 174.0 244.9 261.5 255.6 Merchant marine 24.9 131.5 656.1 848.2 905.0 969.7

8.9 98.5 220.8 432.1 476.4 488.5

Pipelines Petroleum and

. . 3.8 51.2 281.7 1,216.0 1,312.5 1,401.3 Natural gas n.a 12.6 131.4 596.9 1,130.5 1,240.0 Total pipelines . . . . 3.8 63.8 413.1 1,812.9 2,443.0 2,641.3

.. 0.0 2 0.6 1.9 3.1 3.4 3.4 TOTAL , , 494.4 1,898.3 3,960.6 6,781.1 7,807.7 8,193.0

n.a. —not applicable.

1 Freight traffic is measured in ton-kilometers, i.e., the movement of one ton of cargo a distance of one kilometer. Ton-kilometers are computed by multiplying the weight (in tons) of each shipment

transported by the distance hauled (in kilometers).

2 Figure for 1940 is 20 million. Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, Moscow, 1987, 341.

833
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 40. Major Rail Lines, 1988

Union Republic English Railroad * Equivalent Headquarters Russian Republic

Tynda

Khabarovsk

Gor'kiy Kemerovo

Krasnoyarskaya Krasnoyarsk Krasnoyarsk

Kuybyshev Moscow

Oktiabr'skaya October Leningrad

Saratov

Yaroslavl' Rostov-na-Donu

Sverdlovsk

Irkutsk Yugo-Vostochnaya Southeastern Voronezh

Chelyabinsk

Chita

Novosibirsk Ukrainian Republic Donetsk

L'vov Odessa

Dnepropetrovsk Kiev Khar'kov

Other republics Alma-Ata

Azerbaydzhanskaya Azerbaydzhan Baku Minsk

Kishinev

Baltic Riga

Sredneaziatskaya Central Asian Tashkent

Tselinograd

Tbilisi Aktyubinsk

* In Russian, each railroad's name is followed by "zheleznaya doroga" (railroad), except the Baykalo- Amurskaya, which is followed by "magistral"' (main line). NOTE—The Trans-Siberian Railway (see Glossary) is an informal term for portions of

several railroads listed above that link the western part of the Soviet Union and

the Soviet Far East. Source: Based on information from "Reference Aid: Directory of the USSR Ministry of Railways," Joint Publications Research Service, Soviet Union: Economic Affairs, June 29, 1988, B-74.

834
Appendix A

Table 41. Principal Electrified Rail Lines, 1987

Principal Cities Approximate Length

Rail Line on Line (in kilometers) Moscow to Kuyenga Moscow 7,000 Kuybyshev

Omsk

Tayshet

Karymskaya

Kuyenga

Leningrad to Norashen Leningrad 3,600 Moscow

Khar'kov Rostov-na-Donu

Tbilisi Leninaken Norashen Moscow to Kurgan Moscow 2,200 Gor'kiy

Sverdlovsk Kurgan Moscow to Omsk Moscow 2,100 Kirov

Sverdlovsk Tyumen'

Omsk

Novosibirsk to Korshunikha Novosibirsk 2,000 Novoleuznetsk Abakan

Korshunikha

Magnitogorsk to Zharyk Magnitogorsk 1,300 Moscow

Karanga

Zharyk Moscow to Chop . . Moscow 1,300 Kiev

L'vov Chop Moscow to Rostov-na-Donu Moscow 1,200 Kochetovka Rostov-na-Donu

835
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 42. Passengers Boarded by Mode of

Transport, Selected Years, 1940-86

(in millions of passengers boarded)

Mode of Transport 1940 1960 1970 1980 1985 1986 Railroad 1,377.0 2,231.0 3,354.0 4,072.0 4,166.0 4,345.0 Bus 590.0 11,315.0 27,343.0 42,175.0 47,006.0 48,800.0 Inland waterway 73.4 119.0 145.0 138.0 132.0 136.0 Merchant marine 9.7 26.7 38.5 51.7 50.3 50.8

Civil aviation 0.4 16.3 71.4 103.8 112.6 116.1 TOTAL 2,050.5 13,708.0 30,951.9 46,540.5 51,466.9 53,447.9

Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, Moscow 1987, 344-68.

Table 43. Metropolitan Rail Systems (Metros), 1987 1

Number Length 3 City 2 of Stations (in kilometers) Moscow 132 222 Leningrad 48 90 Kiev 27 36

Tbilisi 19 26 Baku 16 25 Khar'kov 21 30 Tashkent 17 22 Yerevan 8 11 Minsk 9 11 Gor'kiy 6 8 Novosibirsk 5 9

1 In 1987 the following cities had systems under construction: Dnepropetrovsk, Kuybyshev, and Sverdlovsk; the following cities had systems planned: Alma-Ata, Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Riga, Rostov- na-Donu, Odessa, and Omsk.

2 Cities listed in order of entry into service.

3 Approximate length of double-track line. Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, Moscow, 1987, 367.

836
Appendix

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837
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 45. Passenger Traffic by Mode of

Transport, Selected Years, 1940-86

(in billions of passenger-kilometers)

Mode of Transport 1940 1960 1970 1980 1985 1986

Railroad 100.4 176.0 273.5 342.2 374.0 390.2 Inland waterway 3.8 4.3 5.4 6.1 5.9 6.0 Bus 3.4 61.0 202.5 389.8 446.6 462.8 Merchant marine 0.9 1.3 1.6 2.5 2.6 2.5

Civil aviation 0.2 12.1 78.2 160.6 188.4 195.8 TOTAL 108.7 254.7 561.2 901.2 1,017.5 1,057.3

* Passenger traffic is measured in passenger-kilometers, i.e., the movement of one person a distance of one kilometer. Passenger-kilometers are computed by multiplying the number of persons trans- ported by the distance traveled (in kilometers). Source: Based on information from Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statistike, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, Moscow, 1987, 342.

838
Appendix A

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

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842
Appendix A

Table 47. Hard- Currency Trading Partners, 1970-85 *

Western Industrialized Countries European Economic Community Other European Countries Other Countries Belgium

Britain Denmark

France Greece

Ireland

Italy Luxembourg

Netherlands West Germany

Austria (since 1971)

Iceland (since 1977)

Liechtenstein Malta Norway

Portugal

Spain Sweden

Switzerland Turkey (since 1983)

Australia Canada

Japan

New Zealand South Africa United States

Africa Algeria (since 1980) Angola

Benin

Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon

Cape Verde

Central African Republic

Congo

Cote d'lvoire Equatorial Guinea

Ethiopia

Gabon

Latin America

Argentina

Bolivia

Brazil Chile Colombia

Costa Rica Dominican Republic Ecuador

Asia and the Middle East Burma

Cyprus

Hong Kong

Indonesia

Iraq

Israel Jordan Kuwait

Third World Countries

Gambia

Ghana (since 1976) Guinea (since 1980) Guinea-Bissau Kenya

Liberia Libya

Madagascar

Malawi

Mali (since 1978) Mauritania

Mauritius Morocco (since 1982)

El Salvador Guatemala Guyana

Honduras

Jamaica Mexico

Nicaragua

Lebanon Macao

Malaysia

Nepal North Yemen

Philippines Singapore

Mozambique

Niger

Nigeria

Rwanda

Senegal

Sierra Leone Sudan

Tanzania Togo

Tunisia (since 1974) Uganda

Zaire Zambia Panama

Paraguay

Peru

Trinidad and Tobago

Uruguay

Venezuela

South Yemen

Sri Lanka (since 1977) Saudi Arabia

Thailand United Arab

Emirates

* As reported to the International Monetary Fund by partner countries. Some of the trade the Soviet Union conducts with Third World partners is on a barter basis. Likewise, those Third World countries that are considered bartering partners may conduct some trade on a hard-currency basis. Source: Based on information from United States Congress, 100th, 1st Session, Joint Economic Committee, Gorbachev's Economic Plans, 2, Washington, 1987, 486-87.

843
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 48. Soviet Actions Prompting United States Trade Restrictions, 1974-82

Date Soviet Action United States Trade Restriction 1974 Placement of obstacles to emigration of Jews

Jackson-Vanik Amendment to Trade Reform Act of 1974 linked granting of most-favored-nation

status to rights of Soviet Jews to emigrate from Soviet Union.

Stevenson Amendment to Export- Import Bank Act lowered ceiling on United States credits to Soviet Union. July-August

1978 . . . Soviet-Cuban intervention Controls placed on United States

in African affairs and

internal human rights violations, specifically

trials of Anatolii Sharanskii and Alex- ander Ginsburg

oil and gas equipment exports to Soviet Union. Sale of a Sperry- Univac computer to TASS was

denied.

Early 1980 Invasion of Afghanistan

by Soviet armed forces

in December 1979

United States grain exports and

phosphates used in fertilizer production embargoed; controls increased on high-technology exports, including oil and gas equipment.

December 1981 Imposition of martial law

in Poland in December

1981

Restrictions placed on granting

credit to Soviet Union; more se- vere export-licensing procedures

imposed. June 1982 No change in situation in Poland

Foreign subsidiaries and licensees of United States firms forbidden to

sell energy-related technology of United States origin to Soviet Union.

Source: Based on information from United States Congress, 100th, 1st Session, Joint Economic Committee, Gorbachev's Economic Plans, 2, Washington, 1987, 434, 450; Perry L. Patterson, "Foreign Trade," in James Cracraft (ed.), The Soviet Union

Today, Chicago, 1988, 216; and Gordon B. Smith (ed.), The Politics of East-West

Trade, Boulder, Colorado, 1984, 26-27, 176-78.

844
Appendix A

Table 49. Major Noncommunist Trading Partners, 1980, 1985, and 1986 1 (value in millions of rubles) 2

1980 1985 1986

Percentage Percentage Percentage Country Value of Trade Value ot Tra.de Value of Trade West Germany 5,780.0 6.

1

7 094.6 5.0 5,577.9 4.3

3 752 7 4.0 3,778.7 2.7 2,670.5 2.0

Italv 3 034 3 3.2 3,796.7 2.7 3,054.3 2.3 Tanan 2 722 8 2.9 3,216.0 2.3 3,185.3 2.4

Britain 1 811 8 1.9 1,903.0 1.3 1,788.6 1.4 United States 1,502.5 1.6 2,703.

1

1.9 1,458.5 1.1 Netherlands .... 1,387.5 1.5 1,300.3 0.9 821.4 0.6 Belgium 1 225 3 1.3 1,440.0 1.0 1,049.2 0.8

•\rgentina 1 192 5 1.3 1,292.9 0.9 Canada 1 001 6 1.1 966.9 0.7 633.6 0.5 Austria 976.2 1.0 1,669.2 1.2 1,392.5 0.1 Switzerland .... 847.6 0.9 950.9 0.7 742.6 0.6

Australia 781 4 0.8 545.8 0.4 517.3 0.4 Iraq 731.7 0.8 824.2 0.6 638.6 0.5 676.9 0.7 798.7 0.6 543.1 0.4 Greece 501.3 0.5 728.4 0.5 284.0 0.2 Libya 450.9 0.5 961.2 0.7 730.6 0.6 Spain 402.7 0.4 588.5 0.4 296.9 0.2 341.3 0.4 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Malaysia 207.5 0.2 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Algeria n.a. n.a. 405.2 0.3 327.8 0.3

Brazil n.a. n.a. 450.3 0.3 266.8 0.2 Nicaragua n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 284.8 0.2 Other 64,768.8 68.9 106,678.1 74.9 104,669.7 80.9 TOTAL . 94,097.3 100.0 142,092.7 100.0 130,934.0 100.0

n.a. —not available.

1 Hard-currency trading partners only.

2 For value of the ruble—see Glossary. Source: Based on information from Ministerstvo vneshnei torgovli, Vneshniaia torgovlia SSSR v 1980 g., Moscow, 1981, 9-15; and Ministerstvo vneshnei torgovli, Vneshniaia torgovlia SSSR v 1986 g. ; Moscow, 1987, 9-15.

845
Soviet Union: A Country Study

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846
Appendix A

Table 51. Trade with Countries of Socialist Orientation,

Selected Years, 1970-85

(in percentages of trade with Third World countries) 1

First Category 2 Second Category 3 Year Exports Imports Balance 4 Exports Imports Balance 4

1970 3.7 2.8 11.3 16.1 7.4 107.9 1975 14.1 4.7 25.5 26.4 18.5 - 15.4 1980 13.6 6.1 316.9 20.6 11.1 344.4

1981 14.1 4.6 495.2 26.6 5.9 1,229.7 1982 14.1 4.7 638.6 25.6 6.3 1,366.6 1983 17.9 4.3 875.9 15.3 10.9 72.8 1984 22.4 4.5 1,857.7 16.0 14.8 -307.2

1985 21.6 4.9 -937.3 19.2 14.5 -90.2

1 Percentage shares of exports and imports are computed on the basis of Soviet foreign trade yearbook

statistics. Thus, arms sales are not taken into account.

2 Countries having observer status in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon): Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Laos, and South Yemen.

3 Countries not having observer status in Comecon but having privileged affiliations with it: Algeria, Benin, Burma, Congo, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, Seychelles, Syria, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

4 In millions of United States dollars. Source: Based on information from United States Congress, 100th, 1st Session, Joint Eco- nomic Committee, Gorbachev's Economic Plans, 2, Washington, 1987, 511.

Table 52. Trade with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting

Countries, Selected Years, 1970-85 1 (in percentages of trade with Third World countries) 2

Year Exports Imports Balance 3

1970 29.9 15.1 184.4 1975 37.4 27.0 - 104.8 1980 30.0 15.0 584.5

1981 36.6 13.2 1,163.9 1982 40.9 21.6 1,126.0 1983 32.0 29.4 -471.4

1984 18.9 34.7 1,945.5 1985 16.2 31.4 1,809.4

1 Members included Algeria, Ecuador, Gabon, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

2 Percentage shares of exports and imports are computed on the basis of Soviet foreign trade yearbook

statistics. Thus, arms sales are not taken into account.

3 In millions of United States dollars. Source: Based on information from United States Congress, 100th, 1st Session, Joint Eco- nomic Committee, Gorbachev's Economic Plans, 2, Washington, 1987, 511.

847
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 53. Military Capabilities, 1989

Type and Description In Inventory

Strategic offensive nuclear forces

Intercontinental ballistic missiles SS-11 380 SS-17 110 SS-18 308 SS-19 320 SS-24 (MOD 1) 18 1 SS-24 (MOD 2) 40 1 SS-25 170 1

Sea-launched ballistic missiles SS-N-5 36 SS-N-6 256 SS-N-8 286 SS-N-17 12 SS-N-18 224 SS-N-20 120 SS-N-23 96 Bombers 2 3 Tu-16 265 Tu-22 75 Tu-26 350 Tu-95 and Tu- 142 160 Tu-160 10

Strategic defensive forces

Antiballistic missile radar 1 Interceptors 3 2,200

Antisatellite interceptor 1 Surface-to-air missile launchers 4 8,000

Antiballistic missile launchers 100 Intermediate- and shorter-range nuclear forces Intermediate-range ballistic missiles 5 SS-20 262 Medium-range ballistic missiles 5 SS-4 30

Short-range ballistic missile launchers SS-12 135 SS-23 102 SS-21 1,000 Scud 630

Tactical aviation

Tactical aircraft 3 5,170 Ground Forces Motorized rifle divisions 152 Tank divisions 53 Airborne divisions 7 Static defense divisions 2 Main battle tanks 53,000

Artillery pieces 49,000

848
Appendix A

Table 53. —Continued

Type and Description In Inventory Ground Forces

Continued Armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles 61,000

Helicopters 4,300 Naval Forces

Aircraft carriers , 4 Large principal surface combatants 116 Other combatants 445

Ballistic missile submarines 69 Attack submarines 256 Other submarines 34 Naval aircraft 1,300

1 Estimated.

2 Includes 160 Tu-26 (Backfire) bombers in Naval Aviation but excludes 175 Tu-16 (Badger) bombers

in Naval Aviation.

3 Excludes over 5,000 combat-capable trainers.

4 In Soviet Union only; excludes Soviet strategic surface-to-air missiles in Mongolia or with groups

of forces abroad.

5 Deployed missiles as of May 1989. Source: Based on information from United States, Department of Defense, Soviet Military Power, 1989, Washington, 1989, 14-15.

849
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 54. Insignia Colors of the Armed

Forces, 1989 1

Color Armed Forces Red Motorized Rifle Troops

Black Air Defense Forces (nonaviation personnel) Engineer Troops

Rocket Troops and Artillery Strategic Rocket Forces Tank Troops

Light blue Airborne Troops

Air Defense Forces (aviation personnel) Air Forces Naval Aviation Magenta Administration Troops

Medical Troops

Military Procuracy Quartermaster Troops

Veterinary Troops

Navy blue Naval Forces 2 Deep crimson Internal Troops (MVD) 3 Green Border Troops (KGB) 4

Royal blue Security Troops (KGB)

1 The Ground Forces, as an entity, has no insignia color because it consists of the Motorized Rifle Troops, Tank Troops, Rocket Troops and Artillery, and other components, which have specific insignia colors.

2 Support and staff components of the Naval Forces have insignia of colors other than navy blue.

3 MVD—Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del (Ministry of Internal Affairs).

4 KGB—Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security).

850
Appendix A

Table 55. Higher Military Schools and Military

Academies, 1988

Armed Service Higher Military Schools Military Component Command Engineering Political Academies

4

1 1 1 Ground Forces Motorized Rifle Troops 9 2 3

2 6 2 1

3

1 Rocket Troops and Artillery 7 3 1 Air Defense of Ground Forces . . 3 2 1

13 1 2

10 3 1 2

7 3 1 2

1

Special troops

2 1 1 2 1 1 4

1 7 3 1 13 4 2 1 Border Troops (KGB) 5 2 1 Internal Troops (MVD) 6 4 1 TOTAL 92 35 12 17

1 Joint school for command and engineering.

2 Includes Voroshilov General Staff Academy and Lenin Military-Political Academy.

3 Joint school for Tank Troops and Rocket Troops and Artillery.

4 Joint school for Engineer Troops and Signal Troops.

5 KGB—Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security).

6 MVD—Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del (Ministry of Internal Affairs).

851
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Table 56. Organizational History of the Police, 1989

Period Organization Name

Security police 1917-22 Ail-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating

Counterrevolution and Sabotage (Vserossiiskaia chrezvychainaia komissiia po bor'be s kontrrevoliutsiei i sabotazhem—Vecheka; also known as VChK

or Cheka)

1922-23 State Political Directorate (Gosudarstvennoe

politicheskoe upravlenie—GPU)

1923-34 Unified State Political Directorate (Ob"edinennoe

gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie—OGPU)

1934-41 Main Directorate for State Security (Glavnoe upravlenie gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—GUGB)

1941 People's Commissariat of State Security (Narodnyi

komissariat gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—NKGB)

1941-43 GUGB

1943-46 NKGB

1946-53 Ministry of State Security (Ministerstvo gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—MGB)

1953-54 GUGB *

1954- Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti—KGB)

Regular police 1917-46 People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (Narodnyi

komissariat vnutrennykh del—NKVD)

1946-62 Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministerstvo vnutrennykh

del—MVD)

1962-68 Ministry for the Preservation of Public Order

(Ministerstvo okhrany obshchestvennogo

poriadka—MOOP)

1968- MVD

* Subordinate to MVD during this period.

852
Appendix B

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

THE FOUNDING of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

(Comecon, also referred to as CMEA or CEMA) dates from a 1949

communique agreed upon by Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,

Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. The reasons for the cre- ation of Comecon in the aftermath of World War II are complicated, given the political and economic turmoil of that time. The

primary factor in Comecon's formation, however, was Joseph V.

Stalin's desire to enforce Soviet domination of the small countries

of Eastern Europe and to deter some states that had expressed in- terest in the Marshall Plan (see Glossary). The stated purpose of

the organization was to enable member states ' 'to exchange eco- nomic experiences, extend technical aid to one another, and to render mutual assistance with respect to raw materials, foodstuffs,

machines, equipment, etc." Although in the late 1960s ' 'cooperation" was the official term used to describe its activities, improved

economic integration was always Comecon's goal.

Soviet domination of Comecon was a function of its economic,

political, and military power. The Soviet Union possessed 90 per- cent of total Comecon land and energy resources, 70 percent of

its population, 65 percent of its total national income, and industrial and military capacities second in the world only to those of

the United States. The location of many Comecon committee headquarters in Moscow and the large number of Soviet citizens in positions of authority also testified to the power of the Soviet Union

within the organization.

Soviet efforts to exercise political power over its Comecon part- ners sometimes were met with determined opposition, however.

The "sovereign equality" of members prescribed in the Comecon

Charter assured members that they could abstain from a given

project if they did not wish to participate. East European members frequently invoked this principle when they feared that

economic interdependence would further reduce their political

sovereignty. Thus, neither Comecon nor the Soviet Union as a major force within Comecon had supranational authority. Although

this arrangement provided the lesser members some degree of free- dom from Soviet economic domination, it also deprived Comecon

of the necessary power to achieve maximum economic efficiency.

853
Soviet Union: A Country Study

In 1989 the full members in Comecon consisted of Bulgaria, Cuba,

Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany),

Hungary, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Viet- nam. (For the purposes of this appendix, the phrases the "six

European members" or the "European members of Comecon" are used interchangeably to signify Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East

Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.) The primary documents governing the objectives, organization, and functions of

Comecon were the Charter (first adopted in 1959 and subsequendy

amended; all references herein are to the amended 1974 text); the

Comprehensive Programfor the Further Extension and Improvement of Cooperation and the Further Development of Socialist Economic Integration by the Comecon Member Countries, adopted in 1971; and the Comprehensive

Programfor Scientific and Technical Cooperation to the Year 2000, adopted

in December 1985. Adoption of the 1985 Comprehensive Program and

the rise to power of Soviet general secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev

increased Soviet influence in Comecon operations and led to at- tempts to give Comecon some degree of supranational authority.

The 1985 Comprehensive Program sought to improve economic cooperation through the development of a more efficient and interconnected scientific and technical base.

Membership, Structure, Nature, and Scope

Membership

In a January 1949 meeting in Moscow, representatives of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet

Union reached the formal decision to establish the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. The communique announcing the

event cited the refusal of these countries to "subordinate themselves to the dictates of the Marshall Plan" and their intention to

resist the trade boycott imposed by "the United States, Britain,

and certain other countries of Western Europe" as the major fac- tors contributing to the decision "to organize a more broadly based

economic cooperation among the countries of the people's democracy and the USSR."

Albania joined the six original members in February 1949, and

East Germany entered Comecon in 1950. (Although it did not

formally revoke its membership until 1987, Albania stopped participating in Comecon activities in 1961.) Mongolia acceded to membership in 1962, and in the 1970s Comecon expanded its membership to include Cuba (1972) and Vietnam (1978). As of 1987,

the ten full members consisted of the Soviet Union, the six East

European countries, and the three extraregional members (see

table A, this Appendix).

854
Appendix B

Table A. National Participation in the Council for Mutual

Economic Assistance (Comecon), 1989

Member Countries Bulgaria (1949) Czechoslovakia (1949) Hungary (1949) Poland (1949) Romania (1949)

Soviet Union (1949)

East Germany (1950) Mongolia (1962) Cuba (1972) Vietnam (1978)

Nonmember Countries with Close Ties to Comecon Countries that have concluded

formal agreements of co- operation with Comecon:

Countries that have attended Comecon sessions as observers:

Yugoslavia (1964) Finland (1973) Iraq (1975) Mexico (1975) Nicaragua (1983) Mozambique (1985)

Afghanistan

Angola

Ethiopia Laos

South Yemen

Countries that have had, at various

times, other affiliations with Comecon:

Algeria Benin Burma

Congo

Guinea

Guinea-Bissau Madagascar

Mali

Nigeria

Seychelles Syria Tanzania Zimbabwe

Dates of accession are in parentheses. Albania joined Comecon in February 1949, one month after the organization was formed by the original six members. Albania stopped participating in Comecon

activities in 1961 and formally revoked its membership in 1987.

There were four kinds of relationships a country could have had

with Comecon: full membership, associate membership, nonsocialist

"cooperant" status, and ''observer country" status. Yugoslavia was the only country considered to have associate member status. Finland, Iraq, Mexico, Mozambique, and Nicaragua, had a nonsocialist cooperant status with Comecon and, together with Yugoslavia, had concluded formal agreements of cooperation with

Comecon. Since 1957 Comecon has allowed certain countries with

communist or pro- Soviet governments to attend sessions as observers. Delegations from Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Laos, and

the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) have

attended Comecon sessions as observers.

855
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Structure

Although not formally part of the organization's hierarchy, the

Conference of First Secretaries of Communist and Workers' Parties and of the Heads of Government of the Comecon Member

Countries was, in fact, Comecon' s most important organ. These

party and government leaders met regularly to discuss topics of

mutual interest. Decisions made in these meetings had considerable influence on the actions taken by Comecon and its organs.

The official hierarchy of Comecon consisted of the Council

Session, the Executive Committee, the Secretariat, four council

committees, twenty-four standing commissions, six interstate conferences, two scientific institutes, and several associated organizations.

The Council Session, officially the highest Comecon organ, ex- amined fundamental problems of socialist economic integration and

directed the activities of the Secretariat and other subordinate or- ganizations. Delegations from each Comecon member country,

usually headed by prime ministers, met in the second quarter of

each year in a member country's capital. Each country appointed one permanent representative to maintain relations between members and Comecon between annual meetings. Extraordinary ses- sions were held with the consent of at least one-third of the members.

Such meetings usually took place in Moscow.

The highest executive organ in Comecon, the Executive Committee, elaborated policy recommendations and supervised policy

implementation between sessions. It also supervised plan coor- dination and scientific-technical cooperation. Composed of one

representative from each member country, usually a deputy chairman of the country's Council of Ministers, the Executive Committee met quarterly, usually in Moscow. In 1971 and 1974, the

Executive Committee acquired economic departments that ranked

above the standing commissions. These economic departments considerably strengthened the authority and importance of the Executive Committee.

Four council committees were operational in 1987: the Council

Committee for Cooperation in Planning, the Council Committee

for Cooperation in Science and Technology, the Council Committee

for Cooperation in Material and Technical Supply, and the Council

Committee for Cooperation in Machine Building. Their mission was "to ensure the comprehensive examination and a multilateral

settlement of the major problems of cooperation among member countries in the economy, science, and technology." All four

committees were headquartered in Moscow and usually met there.

856
Appendix B

These committees advised the standing commissions, the Secretariat, the interstate conferences, and the scientific institutes in their areas of specialization. Their jurisdiction was generally wider than

that of the standing commissions because they were empowered

to make policy recommendations to other Comecon organizations.

The Council Committee for Cooperation in Planning was the

most important of the four because it coordinated the national eco- nomic plans of Comecon members. As such, it ranked in importance only below the Council Session and the Executive Committee.

Made up of the chairmen of the Comecon members' national central planning offices, the Council Committee for Cooperation in

Planning drew up draft agreements for joint projects, adopted reso- lutions approving these projects, and recommended approval to the concerned parties.

The Secretariat, Comecon's only permanent body, was the

primary economic research and administrative organ. The secretary, who was always a Soviet official, was the official Comecon

representative to Comecon member states, other states, and inter- national organizations. Subordinate to the secretary were his deputy

and the various departments of the Secretariat, which generally

corresponded to the standing commissions. The Secretariat's

responsibilities included preparation and organization of Comecon sessions and other meetings conducted under the auspices of

Comecon; compilation of digests on Comecon activities; economic

and other research for Comecon members; and preparation of

recommendations on various issues concerning Comecon operations.

In 1987 there were twenty-four standing commissions, set up

to help Comecon make recommendations pertaining to specific eco- nomic sectors. The Secretariat supervised the actual operations of

the commissions, which had authority only to make recommendations, subject to the approval by the Executive Committee and ratifi- cation by the member countries involved. Commissions usually

met twice a year in Moscow.

The six interstate conferences (on water management, internal

trade, legal matters, inventions and patents, pricing, and labor affairs) served as forums for discussing shared issues and experiences.

They were purely consultative and generally acted in an advisory

capacity to the Executive Committee or its specialized committees.

The scientific institutes on standardization and on economic

problems of the world socialist system (see Glossary) concerned

themselves with theoretical problems of international cooperation.

Both were headquartered in Moscow and were staffed by experts

from various member countries.

857
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Several affiliated agencies functioned outside the official Comecon hierarchy and served to develop "direct links between appropriate bodies and organizations of Comecon member countries."

These affiliated agencies were divided into two categories: intergovernmental economic organizations (which worked on a higher

level in the member countries and generally dealt with a wider range

of managerial and coordinative activities) and international eco- nomic organizations (which worked closer to the operational level of research, production, or trade).

Nature of Operation

Comecon was an interstate organization through which members attempted to coordinate economic activities of mutual interest

and to develop multilateral economic, scientific, and technical

cooperation. The Charter stated that "the sovereign equality of

all members" was fundamental to the organization and procedures

of Comecon. The 1971 Comprehensive Program emphasized that the

processes of integration of members' economies were "completely

voluntary and [did] not involve the creation of supranational bodies. " Hence, under the Charter each country had the right to equal

representation and one vote in all organs of Comecon, regardless

of the country's economic stature or its contribution to Comecon'

s

budget.

The "interestedness" provisions of the Charter reinforced the

principle of "sovereign equality." Comecon's recommendations

and decisions could be adopted only upon agreement among the

interested members, each of which had the right to declare its "interest" in any matter under consideration. Furthermore, in the

words of the Charter, "recommendations and decisions shall not

apply to countries that have declared that they have no interest

in a particular matter."

Although Comecon recognized the principle of unanimity, dis- interested parties did not have a veto but rather the right to abstain from participation. A declaration of disinterest could not block a project unless the disinterested party's participation was vital. Otherwise, the Charter implied that the interested parties could

proceed without the abstaining member, and the abstaining country could "subsequently adhere to the recommendations and decision adopted by the remaining members of the Council."

Evolution

Early Years

During Comecon's early years (through 1955), its sessions were convened on an ad hoc basis. The organization lacked clear

858
Comecon headquarters,

Moscow

structure and operated without a charter until a decade after its founding. From 1949 to 1953, Comecon' s function consisted primarily of redirecting trade of member countries toward each other

and introducing import-replacement industries, thus making members economically more self-sufficient. Little was done to solve eco- nomic problems through a regional policy. Because of Stalin's distrust of multilateral bodies, bilateral ties with the Soviet Union dominated

the East European members' external relations. Each country dealt with the Soviet Union on a one-to-one basis. Although reparations

transfers (extracted by the Soviet Union in the immediate postwar

years from those East European states it regarded as former World

War II enemies) had been replaced by more normal trade relations,

outstanding reparations obligations were not halted until 1956. In

these circumstances, there was scarcely the need nor the scope for multilateral policies or institutions. Rediscovery of Comecon after Stalin's Death

After Stalin's death in 1953, the more industrialized and more

trade dependent East European countries (Czechoslovakia, East

Germany, and Poland) sought relief from their economic isolation

in new forms of regional cooperation. For countries with small,

centrally planned economies, this meant the need to develop a mechanism through which to coordinate investment and trade

policies.

859
Soviet Union: A Country Study

In the 1950s, instability in Eastern Europe and integration in

Western Europe increased the desirability of regularizing relations

among the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in a more elaborate

institutional framework. The 1955 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, which established the Warsaw Pact,

and its implementing machinery reinforced political-military links

(see Appendix C). On the economic front, Comecon was rediscovered.

Rapid Growth in Comecon Activity, 1956-63

The years 1956 to 1963 witnessed the rapid growth of Comecon

institutions and activities. Comecon, for example, launched a program to unify the electrical power systems of its member states and

in 1962 created the Central Dispatching Board to manage the unified system. The organization took similar steps to coordinate rail- road and river transport. In 1963 a special bank, the International

Bank for Economic Cooperation, was created to facilitate financial settlements among members. In this period, Comecon also undertook a number of bilateral and multilateral investment

projects. The most notable project led to the coordinated construction of the Friendship (Druzhba) oil pipeline for the transport and

distribution of crude oil from the Soviet Union to Eastern Europe.

The joint Institute for Nuclear Research, established in 1956, in- itiated cooperation in another area of long-term importance.

Parallel to these developments, the Soviet Union led efforts to coordinate the investment strategies of the members in the interest

of a more rational pattern of regional specialization, increased

productivity, and a more rapid overtaking of the capitalist economies. These efforts culminated in 1962 with the adoption at the

Fifteenth Council Session of the Basic Principles of the International

Socialist Division ofLabor, which called for increased economic inter- dependence. Furthermore, Soviet party leader Nikita S. Khrushchev proposed a central Comecon planning organ to implement

the Basic Principles and to pave the way for a

'

' socialist commonwealth" based on a unified regional economy.

These proposals provoked strong objection from Romania, which

charged that they violated the principle of the "sovereign equality" of members. Romania's opposition (combined with the more

passive resistance of some other members) deterred supranational

planning and reinforced the interested-party provisions of the

Charter. The institutional compromise was the creation of the

Bureau for Integrated Planning, which was attached to the Executive Committee and limited to an advisory role on the coordination

860
Appendix B

of members' development plans. The Basic Principles were superseded several years later by the 1971 Comprehensive Program.

Inactivity and Subsequent Revitalization in the Late 1960s

After the fall of Khrushchev in 1964, a comparative lull in Comecon activities ensued, which lasted until well after the 1968 Sovietled intervention in Czechoslovakia. By the end of the 1960s, Eastern Europe, shaken by the 1968 events, recognized the need to revitalize programs that would strengthen regional cohesion. Disillusioned

by traditional methods and concerned with the need to decentralize planning and management in their domestic economies, reformers argued for strengthening market relations among Comecon

states. Conservatives, however, continued to advocate planned ap- proaches that would involve supranational planning of major aspects

of members' economies and the inevitable loss of national control over domestic investment policy.

The 1971 Comprehensive Program

The controversy over supranational planning led to a compromise

in the form of the 1971 Comprehensive Program, which laid the guidelines for Comecon activity through 1990. The program incorporated elements of both market and planned approaches. From the

former, the program advocated a stronger role for money, prices,

and exchange rates in intra-Comecon relations and incentives for direct contacts among lower level economic entities. From the lat- ter, the program called for more joint planning on a sectoral basis

through interstate coordinating bodies for activities in a given sector. In addition, international associations would engage in actual

operations in a designated sector on behalf of the participating countries. Finally, the program emphasized the need for multilateral

projects to develop new regional sources of fuels, energy, and raw

materials. Such projects were to be jointly planned, financed, and

executed.

The 1971 Comprehensive Program introduced a new concept in rela- tions among members: ' ' socialist economic integration," whose

aim was "to intensify and improve" cooperation among members.

The program avoided, however, the suggestion of ultimate fusion

of members' economies that had been contained in the 1962 Basic

Principles. It set limits on the integrative process in the following

terms: "Socialist economic integration is completely voluntary and

does not involve the creation of supranational bodies."

Comecon members adopted the 1971 Comprehensive Program at a time when they were actively developing economic relations with

the rest of the world, especially with the industrialized Western

861
Soviet Union: A Country Study

economies. The program viewed the two sets of policies as complementary and affirmed that "because the international socialist division of labor is effected with due account taken of the world

division of labor, the Comecon member countries shall continue

to develop economic, scientific, and technological ties with other

countries, irrespective of their social and political system."

In the years following the adoption of the 1971 Comprehensive Pro- gram, Comecon made some progress toward strengthening market relations among its members. The objectives of the program

proved somewhat inconsistent with the predominant trends within

members' economies in the 1970s, which was a period of recentralization—rather than decentralization—of domestic systems of

planning and management. The major exception to this lack of

progress lay in the area of intra-Comecon pricing and payment,

where the expansion of relations with the West contributed to the

adoption of prices and extra-plan settlements closer to international norms. A number of projects formulated in the years immediately fol- lowing the adoption of the 1971 Comprehensive Program were assembled in a document signed at the Twenty-Ninth Council Session

in 1975. Entitled the Concerted Plan for Multilateral Integration Measures, the document covered the 1976-80 five-year-plan period and was proclaimed as the first general plan for the Comecon economies. The joint projects included in the plan were largely completed

in the course of the plan period.

By the end of the 1970s, with the exception of Poland's agricultural sector, the economic sectors of all Comecon countries had

converted to the socialist system. Member states had restructured

their economies to emphasize industry, transportation, communications, material, and technical supply, and they had decreased

the share of resources devoted to agricultural development. Within

industry, member states devoted additional funds to machine building and the production of chemicals. Socialist economic integration resulted in the production of goods capable of competing on

the world market.

The 1980s

Most Comecon countries ended their 1981-85 five-year plans

with decreased extensive economic development (see Glossary), in- creased expenses for fuel and raw materials, and decreased dependency on the West for both credit and hard-currency (see Glossary)

imports. The sharp rise in interest rates in the West resulted in a liquidity shortage (see Glossary) in all Comecon countries in the

early 1980s and forced them to reduce hard-currency imports. High

862
Appendix B

interest rates and the increased value of the United States dollar on international markets made debt servicing more expensive.

Thus, reducing indebtedness to the West also became a top priority within Comecon. From 1981 to 1985, the European members of Comecon attempted to promote the faster growth of exports over imports and sought to strengthen intraregional trade, build

up an increased trade surplus, and decrease indebtedness to Western

countries.

In the 1980s, Comecon sessions were held on their regular an- nual schedule. The two most notable meetings were the special

sessions called in June 1984 and December 1985. The first summitlevel meeting of Comecon member states in fifteen years was held

with much fanfare June 12-14, 1984, in Moscow. The two fundamental objectives of the meeting were to strengthen unity among

members and to establish a closer connection between the production base, scientific and technological progress, and capital construction. Despite the introduction of proposals for improving

efficiency and cooperation in six key areas, analysts from East and

West considered the meeting a failure. The ideas and results of the June 14 session were elaborated at a special session held December 17-18, 1985, in Moscow. This special session featured the culmination of several years of work on

the new Comprehensive Program for Scientific and Technical Cooperation

to the Year 2000. It aimed to create "a firm base for working out an agreed and, in some areas, unified scientific and technical policy and the practical implementation, in the common interest, of

higher achievements in science and technology."

The 1985 Comprehensive Program laid out sizable tasks in five key

areas: electronics, automation systems, nuclear energy, development of new materials, and biotechnology. It sought to restruc- ture and modernize the member states' economies to counteract

constraints on labor and material supplies. The need to move to intensive production techniques within Comecon was evident from

the fact that from 1961 to 1984 the overall material intensiveness

of production did not improve substantially.

Cooperation under the 1971 Comprehensive Program

The distinction between "market" relations and "planned" re- lations made in the discussions within Comecon prior to the adoption of the 1971 Comprehensive Program remained important in

subsequent Comecon activities. Comecon was in fact a mixed sys- tem, combining elements of both planned and market economies.

Although official rhetoric emphasized regional planning, intraComecon relations were conducted among national entities not

863
Soviet Union: A Country Study

governed by any supranational authority. They thus interacted on

a decentralized basis according to terms negotiated in bilateral and

multilateral agreements on trade and cooperation.

Market Relations and Instruments

The size of the Soviet economy determined that intra-Comecon

trade was dominated by exchanges between the Soviet Union and

the other members. Exchanges of Soviet fuels and raw materials

for capital goods and consumer manufactures characterized trade,

particularly among the original members. The liquidity shortage

in the early 1980s forced the European members of Comecon to work to strengthen intraregional trade. In the early 1980s, intraregional trade rose to 60 percent of foreign trade of Comecon countries as a whole; for individual members it ranged from 45 to 50

percent in the case of Hungary, Romania, and the Soviet Union,

to 83 percent for Cuba, and to 96 percent for Mongolia.

Trade among the members was negotiated on an annual basis

and in considerable detail at the governmental level and was then

followed up by contracts between enterprises (see Glossary). Early

Comecon efforts to facilitate trade among members concentrated on the development of uniform technical, legal, and statistical stan- dards and on the encouragement of long-term trade agreements.

The 1971 Comprehensive Program sought to liberalize the system some- what by recommending broad limits on "fixed-quota" trade among

members (trade subject to quantitative or value targets set by bi- lateral trade agreements). There is no evidence, however, to indi- cate that quota-free trade grew in importance under the program.

Prices

The 1971 Comprehensive Program also called for improvement in

the Comecon system of foreign trade prices. Administratively set prices, such as those used in intra-Comecon trade, did not reflect costs or relative scarcities of inputs and outputs. For this reason, intra-Comecon trade was based on world market prices. By 1971

a price system governing exchanges among members had developed, under which prices agreed on through negotiation were fixed

for five-year periods. These contract prices were based on adjusted

world market prices averaged over the immediately preceding five years. Under this system, therefore, intra-Comecon prices could

and did depart substantially from relative prices on world markets.

Although the possibility of breaking this tenuous link with world

prices and developing an indigenous system of prices for the Comecon market had been discussed in the 1960s, Comecon prices

evolved in the opposite direction after 1971. Far from a technical

864
Appendix B

or academic matter, the question of prices underlay vital issues of

the terms and gains of intra-Comecon trade. In particular, relative to actual world prices, intra-Comecon prices in the early 1970s

penalized exporters of raw materials and benefited exporters of

manufactures. After the oil price explosion of 1973, Comecon for- eign trade prices swung further away from world prices to the dis- advantage of Comecon suppliers of raw materials, in particular the

Soviet Union. In view of the extraregional opportunities opened

up by the expansion of East-West trade, this yawning gap between

Comecon and world prices could no longer be ignored. Hence in

1975, at Soviet instigation, the system of intra-Comecon pricing was reformed.

The reform involved a substantial modification of existing procedures (known as the "Bucharest formula"), but not their abandonment. Under the modified Bucharest formula, prices were fixed

every year and were based on a moving average of world prices

for the preceding five years. The world-price base of the Bucharest

formula was thus retained and still represented an average of adjusted world prices for the preceding five years. For 1975 alone,

however, the average was for the preceding three years. Under these

arrangements, intra-Comecon prices were more closely linked with

world prices than before, and throughout the remainder of the 1970s

they rose with world prices, although lagging behind them. Until

the early 1980s, this new system benefited both the Soviet Union

and the other Comecon countries since Soviet oil, priced with the

lagged formula, was considerably cheaper than oil from the

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which

charged drastically higher prices in the 1970s. By 1983-84 this sys- tem turned to the Soviet Union's advantage because world market oil prices began to fall, whereas the lagged Soviet oil prices

continued to rise. Exchange Rates and Currencies

Basic features of the state trading systems of the Comecon countries were multiple exchange rates and comprehensive exchange

controls that severely restricted the convertibility of members' currencies. These features were rooted in the planned character of the

members' economies and their systems of administered prices. Currency inconvertibility in turn dictated bilateral balancing of ac- counts, one of the basic objectives of intergovernmental trade

agreements among members. As of mid- 1989, the transferable ruble

remained an artificial currency functioning as an accounting unit

and was not a common instrument for multilateral settlement. For

865
Soviet Union: A Country Study

this reason, this currency continued to be termed "transferable"

and not "convertible."

The member countries recognized that the multiplicity and in- consistency of their administered exchange rates, the separation

of their domestic prices from foreign prices, and the inconvertibility of their currencies were significant obstacles to multilateral trade

and cooperation. In 1989 Comecon lacked not only a flexible means

of payment but also a meaningful, standard unit of account. Both

problems vastly complicated the already complex multilateral

projects and programs envisaged by the 1971 Comprehensive Program.

The creation in 1971 of the International Investment Bank provided

a mechanism for joint investment financing, but, like the International Bank for Economic Cooperation, this institution could not

by itself resolve these fundamental monetary problems.

Recognizing that money and credit should play a more active

role in the Comecon system, the 1971 Comprehensive Program established a timetable for the improvement of monetary relations. According to the timetable, measures would be taken "to strengthen

and extend" the functions of the "collective currency" (the trans- ferable ruble) and "to make the transferable ruble convertible into

national currencies and to make national currencies mutually convertible." To this end, steps would be taken to introduce "economically well-founded and mutually coordinated" rates of

exchange between members' currencies and between 1976 and 1979

to prepare the groundwork for the introduction by 1 980 of a " sin- gle rate of exchange for the national currency of every country."

This timetable was not met. Only in Hungary were the conditions

for convertibility gradually being introduced by reforms intended

to link domestic prices more directly to world prices.

Cooperation in Planning

Since the early 1960s, official Comecon documents have stressed

the need for a more cost-effective pattern of specialization in production. Especially in the manufacturing sector, this "international

socialist division of labor" would involve specialization within major

branches of industry. In the absence of significant, decentralized

allocation of resources within these economies, however, production specialization could be achieved only through the mechanism

of the national plan and the investment decisions incorporated in

it. In the absence at the regional level of supranational planning

bodies, a rational pattern of production specialization among members' economies required coordination of national economic plans, a process that posed inescapable political problems.

866
Appendix B

The coordination of national five-year economic plans was the

most traditional form of cooperation among the members in the area of planning. Although the process of consultation underlying

plan coordination remained essentially bilateral, Comecon organs were indirectly involved. The standing commissions drew up

proposals for consideration by competent, national planning bodies; the Secretariat assembled information on the results of bilateral consultations; and the Council Committee for Cooperation in Planning (created by Comecon in 1971 at the same session at which

the Comprehensive Program was adopted) reviewed the progress of

plan coordination by members.

In principle, plan coordination covered all economic sectors. Effective and comprehensive plan coordination was significantly

impeded, however, by the continued momentum of earlier parallel

development strategies and the desire of members to minimize the

risks of mutual dependence (especially given the uncertainties of

supply that were characteristic of the members' economies). Plan

coordination in practice, therefore, remained for the most part limited to mutual adjustment, through bilateral consultation, of the

foreign trade sectors of national five-year plans. Under the 1971

Comprehensive Program, there were renewed efforts to extend plan

coordination beyond foreign trade to the spheres of production,

investment, science, and technology.

Plan Coordination

According to the 1971 Comprehensive Program, joint planning

multilateral or bilateral—was to be limited to "interested countries' ' and was "not to interfere with the autonomy of internal planning." Participating countries were to retain, moreover, national

ownership of the productive capacities and resources jointly

planned.

The Comprehensive Program did not clearly assign responsibility

for joint planning to any single agency. On the one hand, "coordination of work concerned with joint planning [was to] be car- ried out by the central planning bodies of Comecon member

countries or their authorized representatives. " On the other hand,

"decisions on joint, multilateral planning of chosen branches and

lines of production by interested countries [were to] be based on

proposals by countries or Comecon agencies and [were to] be made

by the Comecon Executive Committee, which also [was to determine] the Comecon agencies responsible for the organization of

such work." Finally, mutual commitments resulting from joint

planning and other aspects of cooperation were to be incorporated

in agreements signed by the interested parties.

867
Soviet Union: A Country Study

It is extremely difficult to gauge the implementation of plan coor- dination or joint planning under the 1971 Comprehensive Program or

to assess the activities of the diverse international economic organizations. There is no single, adequate measure of such cooperation.

The results were inconclusive, at best. Joint Projects

The clearest area of achievement under the 1971 Comprehensive

Program was the joint exploitation and development of natural resources for the economies of the member countries. Particular

attention was given to energy and fuels, forest industries, and iron

and steel and various other metals and minerals. Most of this activity was carried out in the Soviet Union, the great storehouse

of natural resources within Comecon.

Joint development projects were usually organized on a "compensation" basis, a form of investment "in kind." Participating

members advanced materials, equipment, and manpower and were

repaid through scheduled deliveries of the output resulting from,

or distributed through, the new facility. Repayment included a modest "fraternal" rate of interest, but the real financial return

to the participating countries depended on the value of the output

at the time of delivery. Deliveries at contract prices below world

prices provided an important extra return. No doubt the most important advantage from participation in joint projects, however, was the guarantee of long-term access to basic fuels and raw materials in a world of increasing uncertainty about the supply of such

products.

The Concerted Plan

The multilateral development projects concluded under the 1971

Comprehensive Program formed the backbone of Comecon's Concerted Plan for the 1976-80 period. The program allotted 9 billion rubles

(nearly US$12 billion at the official 1975 exchange rate of US$1.30

per ruble) for joint investments. The Orenburg project was the largest project under the Comprehensive Program. It was undertaken by

all East European Comecon countries and the Soviet Union at an

estimated cost ranging from the equivalent of US$5 billion to US$6

billion, or about half the cost of all Comecon projects under the

Concerted Plan. It consisted of a natural gas production facility at Orenburg in western Siberia and the 2,677-kilometer Union (Soiuz)

natural gas pipeline, completed in 1978, linking the Orenburg facility to the western border of the Soviet Union. Construction of a pulp mill in Ust' Ilimsk (in eastern Siberia) was the other major

project under this program.

868
Appendix B

These two projects differed from other joint Comecon investment projects in that they were jointly planned and jointly built

in the host country (the Soviet Union in both cases). Although the

other projects were jointly planned, each country was responsible

only for construction within its own borders. Western technology,

equipment, and financing played a considerable role. The early 1980s were characterized by more bilateral investment

specialization but on a much smaller scale than required for the

Orenburg and Ust' Ilimsk projects. In these latter projects, Eastern

Europe provided machinery and equipment for Soviet multilateral resource development.

Cooperation in Science and Technology

To supplement national efforts to upgrade indigenous technology, the 1971 Comprehensive Program emphasized cooperation in

science and technology. The development of new technology was

envisioned as a major object of cooperation; collaboration in resource development and specialization in production were to be

facilitated by transfers of technology between members. The 1971

Comecon session, which adopted the Comprehensive Program, decided

to establish the Council Committee for Cooperation in Science and

Technology to ensure the organization and fulfillment of the provisions of the program in this area. Jointly planned and coordinated research programs extended to the creation ofjoint research

institutes and centers. In terms of the number of patents, documents, and other scientific and technical information exchanges,

the available data indicate that the Soviet Union has been the

dominant source of technology within Comecon. On the whole,

it provided more technology to its East European partners than

it received from them. Soviet science also formed the base for several high-technology programs for regional specialization and cooperation, such as nuclear power and computers.

The 1985 Comprehensive Program, adopted in December, was in- tended to boost cooperation in science and technology. Under this program, enterprises and research institutes were established

throughout the East European member countries and assigned particular research and development tasks. Each project was headed,

however, by a Soviet organization, which awarded contracts to other

Comecon member organizations. The Soviet project heads, who

were not responsible to domestic planners, were given extensive

executive powers of their own and closely supervised all activities. The program represented a fundamentally new approach to multilateral collaboration and a first step toward investing Comecon with some supranational authority. Genuine economic benefits of this

869
Soviet Union: A Country Study

program were marginal, however, since prices and exchange rates were artificially set and currencies remained mutually inconvertible. Labor Resources

Just as the 1971 Comprehensive Program stimulated investment flows

and technology transfers among members, it also increased intraComecon flows of another important factor of production: labor.

Most of the transfers occurred in connection with joint resource development projects, such as Bulgarian workers aiding in the exploitation of Siberian forest resources or Vietnamese workers helping on the Friendship pipeline in the Soviet Union. Labor was also transferred in response to labor imbalances in member countries.

Hungarian workers, for example, were sent to work in East Germany under a bilateral agreement between the two countries. Such

transfers, however, were restricted by the universal scarcity of labor

that emerged with the industrialization of the less developed Comecon countries. Moreover, the presence of foreign workers raised

practical and ideological issues in socialist planned economies.

Power Configurations Within Comecon

The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

Between Comecon's creation in 1949 and the anticommunist

revolutions in 1989, the relationship between the Soviet Union and

the six East European countries generally remained stable. The

Soviet Union provided fuel, nonfood raw materials, and semifinished (hard) goods to Eastern Europe, which in turn supplied

the Soviet Union with finished machinery and industrial consumer

(soft) goods.

This kind of economic relationship stemmed from a genuine need

by the Comecon members in the 1950s. Eastern Europe has poor

energy and mineral resources, a problem exacerbated by the low

energy efficiency of East European industry. As of mid- 1985, fac- tories in Eastern Europe still used 40 percent more fuel than those

in the West. As a result of these factors, East European countries

have always relied heavily on the Soviet Union for oil. For its part,

in the 1950s Eastern Europe supplied the Soviet Union with goods

otherwise unavailable because of Western embargoes. Thus, from

the early 1950s to the early 1970s, during the time when there was

no world shortage of energy and raw materials, the Soviet Union

inexpensively supplied its East European clients with hard goods

in exchange for finished machinery and equipment. In addition,

Soviet economic policies bought political and military support. During these years, the Soviet Union could be assured of relative

870
Appendix B

political tranquillity within Eastern Europe, obedience in international strategy as laid down by the Soviet Union, and military support of Soviet aims. By the 1980s, the members of Comecon were

accustomed to this arrangement. The Soviet Union was particularly happy with the arrangement because it still could expand its energy and raw materials sector quickly and relatively cheaply.

Mongolia, Cuba, and Vietnam

Soviet-initiated Comecon support for Comecon's three least- developed members—Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam—clearly

benefited them, but the burden on the six East European Comecon members was most unwelcome. Comecon was structured in

such a way that the more economically developed members provided

support for the less developed members in their major economic

sectors. Initially, the addition of Mongolia in 1962 brought no great

added burden. The population of Mongolia was relatively small

(1 million), and the country's subsidies came primarily from the

Soviet Union. The addition of Cuba (9 million people) in 1972

and Vietnam (40 million people) in 1978, however, quickly escalated the burden. In 1987 three-fourths of Comecon's overseas eco- nomic aid went to Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam.

Comecon had invested heavily in Mongolia, Cuba, and Vietnam; and the three countries benefited substantially from these

resources. In 1984 increases in capital investments within Comecon were highest for Vietnam and Cuba (26.9 percent for Vietnam and 14 percent for Cuba, compared with 3.3 percent and less for the others, except Poland and Romania). Increased investments

in Mongolia lagged behind those in Poland and Romania but were

nevertheless substantial (5.8 percent). In 1984 the economies of

the three developing countries registered the fastest industrial growth

of all the Comecon members.

Given their locations, Comecon membership for Mongolia,

Cuba, and Vietnam served principally to advance Soviet foreign

policy interests. Among the Comecon members, the Soviet Union

contributed the most to the development of the three poorer Comecon members, and it also reaped most of the benefits. The Soviet

Union imported most of Cuba's sugar and nickel and all of Mongolia's copper and molybdenum (widely used in the construction

of aircraft, automobiles, machine tools, gas turbines, and in the

field of electronics). In return, Cuba provided bases for the Soviet

Naval Forces and military support to Soviet allies in Africa. Vietnam made its naval and air bases, as well as some 100,000 guest

workers, available to the Soviet Union.

871
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Support for Developing Countries

Comecon provided economic and technical support to 34

developing countries in 1960, 62 developing countries in 1970, and

over 100 developing countries in 1985. As of 1987, Comecon had

assisted in the construction or preparation of over 4,000 projects

(mostly industrial) in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. A monetary figure for this assistance is difficult to estimate, although a June

1986 Czechoslovak source valued the exchange between Comecon

and developing countries at 34 billion rubles per year (US$48.3

billion at the official June 1986 exchange rate of US$1 .42 per ruble).

The precise nature of this aid was unclear, and Western observers

believe the data to be inflated.

From the 1960s to the mid-1980s, Comecon sought to encourage

the development of industry, energy, transportation, mineral re- sources, and agriculture of Third World countries. Comecon countries also provided technical and economic training for personnel

in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. When Comecon initially lent

support to developing countries, it generally concentrated on developing those products that would support the domestic econo- mies of the Third World, including replacements for imports. In

the 1970s and 1980s, assistance from Comecon was directed toward

export-oriented industries. Third World countries paid for this sup- port with products made by the project for which Comecon ren- dered help. This policy gave Comecon a stable source of necessary

deliveries in addition to political influence in these strategically important areas. Trends and Prospects

Comecon served for more than three decades as a framework

for cooperation among the planned economies of the Soviet Union,

its allies in Eastern Europe, and Soviet allies in the Third World.

Over the years, the Comecon system grew steadily in scope and

experience.

This institutional evolution reflected changing and expanding

goals. Initial, modest objectives of "exchanging experience" and

providing ' 'technical assistance" and other forms of "mutual aid'

were extended to the development of an integrated set of econo- mies based on a coordinated international pattern of production

and investment. These ambitious goals were pursued through a broad spectrum of cooperative measures extending from monetary

to technological relations.

At the same time, the extraregional goals of the organization also expanded; other countries, both geographically distant and sys- temically different, were encouraged to participate in Comecon

872
Appendix B

activities. Parallel efforts sought to develop Comecon as a mechanism through which to coordinate the foreign economic policies

of the members as well as their actual relations with nonmember

countries and with such organizations as the European Economic

Community (EEC) and the United Nations.

Asymmetries of size and differences in levels of development

among Comecon members deeply affected the institutional character

and evolution of the organization. The overwhelming dominance

of the Soviet economy necessarily meant that the bulk of intraComecon relations took the form of bilateral relations between the

Soviet Union and the smaller members of Comecon.

The planned nature of the members' economies and the lack of

effective market-price mechanisms to facilitate integration hindered

progress toward Comecon goals. Without the automatic workings

of market forces, progress depended upon conscious acts of policy. This fact tended to politicize the processes of integration to a greater degree than was the case in countries with market

economies.

By 1987 Comecon's 1971 Comprehensive Program had undergone

considerable change. Multilateral planning faded into traditional

bilateral cooperation, and the Bucharest formula for prices assumed

a revised form. The 1985 Comprehensive Program or, as some Western

analysts call it, the "Gorbachev Charter," became Comecon's new

blueprint for taking a firm grip on its future. The purpose of the

1985 program was to offset centrifugal forces and reduce Comecon's vulnerability to "technological blackmail" through broadened

mutual cooperation, increased efficiency of cooperation, and improved quality of output.

Additional progress in this direction was made at the Forty-Third

Council Session held in Moscow in October 1987 and the FortyFourth Council Session held in Prague in July 1988. As a result of these sessions, all Comecon members, with the exception of

Romania, reached an agreement on the necessity within Comecon of a "unified market," which would lead to the "free move- ment of goods, services, and other production factors." They also agreed to work toward a genuine multilateral convertibility of their

currencies, recognizing, nevertheless, that achievement of such a

goal was some ten to fifteen years in the future.

Members attending the Forty-Third Council Session also agreed

to changes in Comecon's organizational structure. Some Comecon bodies were abolished, others were reorganized or merged, and

new bodies were created. The aim of these changes was to streamline and improve their performance. At the same time, however,

as meaningful changes were being made within Comecon, the

873
Soviet Union: A Country Study

rapidly changing political climate of Eastern Europe and the pres- sure for economic reforms within each of the Comecon member

states were not only threatening the unity of Comecon but also rais- ing serious doubts about any further need for its existence.

* * * Although the selection is still rather sparse, several Englishlanguage works on Comecon appeared in the early 1980s. Socialist Economic Integration by Jozef M. van Brabant discusses in great detail the mechanisms and operations of socialist economic integration in general and Comecon in particular. It is perhaps the most

comprehensive English-language work on the subject. Analysis of

Comecon's operations and development in the modern economic

and political arena is provided in Paul Marer's "The Political Economy of Soviet Relations with Eastern Europe." The best sources

for up-to-date political and economic analysis are the Radio Free

Europe background reports. Articles by Vladimir Sobell, in particular, provide useful information about the 1985 Comprehensive

Program.

Russian-language sources provide useful information on Comecon procedures and structure in addition to insight into the Soviet

and East European view of Comecon's goals and shortcomings.

Articles in this vein can be found in Voprosy ekonomiki and in Ekonomika. Translations of selected articles from these publications can be found in the Joint Publications Research Service's USSR Report

on Economic Affairs. The Comecon Secretariat publishes a bimonthly

bulletin {Ekonomicheskoe sotrudnichestvo stran-chlenov SEV), which has

a table of contents and a summary in English; the annual Statisticheskii ezhegodnik stran-chlenov SEV; and various handbooks. (For

further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

874
Appendix C

The Warsaw Pact

THE POLITICAL AND MILITARY ALLIANCE of the Soviet

Union and East European socialist states, known as the Warsaw

Pact, was formed in 1955 as a counterweight to the North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO), created in 1949. During much of

its early existence, the Warsaw Pact essentially functioned as part

of the Soviet Ministry of Defense. In fact, in the early years of its existence the Warsaw Pact served as one of the Soviet Union's

primary mechanisms for keeping its East European allies under

its political and military control. The Soviet Union used the Warsaw Pact to erect a facade of collective decisions and actions around

the reality of its political domination and military intervention in

the internal affairs of its allies. At the same time, the Soviet Union

also used the Warsaw Pact to develop East European socialist armies

and harness them to its military strategy and security policy.

Since its inception, the Warsaw Pact reflected the changing pat- tern of Soviet-East European relations and manifested problems

that affect all alliances. The Warsaw Pact evolved into something

other than the mechanism of control the Soviet Union originally

intended it (to be and, since the 1960s, became less dominated by

the Soviet Union. Thus, in 1962 Albania stopped participating in

Warsaw Pact activities and formally withdrew from the alliance

in 1968. The organizational structure of the Warsaw Pact also provided a forum for greater intra-alliance debate, bargaining, and

conflict between the Soviet Union and its allies over the issues of

national independence, policy autonomy, and East European participation in alliance decision making. At the same time that the

Warsaw Pact retained its internal function in Soviet-East European relations, its non-Soviet members developed sufficient mili- tary capabilities to become useful adjuncts of Soviet power against

NATO in Europe (see fig. A, this Appendix).

The Soviet Alliance System, 1943-55

Long before the establishment of the Warsaw Pact in 1955, the

Soviet Union had molded the East European states into an alli- ance serving its security interests. While liberating Eastern Europe

from Nazi Germany in World War II, the Red Army (see Glossary) established political and military control over that region. The

Soviet Union intended to use Eastern Europe as a buffer zone for

875
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Figure A. The Warsaw Pact Member States, 1989

876
Appendix C

the forward defense of its western borders and to keep threatening

ideological influences at bay. Continued control of Eastern Europe

became second only to defense of the homeland in the hierarchy

of Soviet security priorities.

The Red Army began to form, train, and arm Polish and

Czechoslovak national units on Soviet territory in 1943. These units

fought with the Red Army as it carried its offensive westward into

German-occupied Poland and Czechoslovakia and then into Germany itself. By 1943 the Red Army had destroyed the Bulgarian,

Hungarian, and Romanian forces fighting alongside the German

armed forces. Shortly thereafter it began the process of transforming the remnants of their armies into allied units that could re-enter the war on the side of the Soviet Union. Red Army political officers (zampoliti—see Glossary) organized extensive indoctrination programs in the allied units under Soviet control and purged any politically suspect personnel. In all, the Soviet Union formed and

armed more than twenty-nine divisions and thirty-seven brigades

and regiments, which included more than 500,000 East European

troops.

The allied national formations were directly subordinate to the

headquarters of the Soviet Union's Supreme High Command and

its executive body, the General Staff of the Armed Forces. Although

the Soviet Union directly commanded all allied units, the Supreme

High Command included one representative from each of the East European forces. Lacking authority, these representatives simply

relayed directives from the Supreme High Command and General Staff to the commanders of East European units. While all national units had so-called Soviet advisers, some Red Army officers openly discharged command and staff responsibilities in the East

European armies. Even when commanded by East European

officers, non-Soviet contingents participated in operations against

the German armed forces only as part of Soviet fronts. By the end of World War IT , the Red Army (renamed the Soviet

army after the war) occupied Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland,

significant portions of Czechoslovakia, and eastern Germany, and

Soviet front commanders headed the Allied Control Commission

in each of these occupied countries. The Soviet Union gave its most

important occupation forces a garrison status when it established

the Northern Group of Forces in 1947 and the Group of Soviet

Forces in Germany in 1949. By 1949 the Soviet Union had con- cluded twenty-year bilateral treaties of friendship, cooperation, and

mutual assistance with Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland,

and Romania, which granted the Soviet Union rights to a continued

military presence on their territory. The continued presence of

877
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Soviet armed forces guaranteed Soviet control of these countries.

The East European satellite regimes depended entirely on Soviet

military power—and the continued deployment of 1 million Soviet

soldiers—to stay in power. In return, the new East European political and military elites were obliged to respect Soviet political

and security interests in the region. By contrast, the Soviet Union

did not occupy either Albania or Yugoslavia during or after the

war, and both countries remained outside direct Soviet control.

In the late 1940s and the 1950s, the Soviet Union was more con- cerned about cultivating and monitoring political loyalty in its East European military allies than increasing their utility as combat

forces. The Soviet Union assigned trusted communist party leaders of the East European nations to the most important military

command positions despite their lack of military qualifications. It forced its East European allies to emulate Soviet military ranks and

uniforms and abandon all distinctive national military customs and

practices; these allied armies used all Soviet-made weapons and

equipment. The Soviet Union accepted many of the most promising and eager East European officers into Soviet mid-career military institutions and academies for the advanced study essential

to their promotion within the national armed forces command struc- tures. Furthermore, the East European ministries of defense es- tablished political departments on the model of the Soviet Union's

Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy.

The Formation of the Warsaw Pact, 1955-70

On May 14, 1955, the Soviet Union institutionalized its East

European alliance system, henceforth known as the Warsaw Pact,

when it met with representatives from Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania in Warsaw to sign the

multilateral Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, which was identical to their existing bilateral treaties with

the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union claimed that the creation of

the Warsaw Pact was in direct response to the inclusion of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) in NATO in 1955.

At the same time, the formation of a legally defined, multilateral

alliance reinforced the Soviet Union's claim to be leader of the world

socialist system (see Glossary), enhanced its prestige, and legitimized

its presence and influence in Eastern Europe. The new alliance sys- tem also gave the Soviet Union a structure for dealing with its East European allies more efficiently when it superimposed the multilateral Warsaw Pact on their existing bilateral treaty ties. Finally,

as a formal organization the Warsaw Pact provided the Soviet Union

an official counterweight to NATO in East-West diplomacy.

878
Appendix C

The 1955 treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact stated that rela- tions among the signatories were based on total equality, mutual

noninterference in internal affairs, and respect for national

sovereignty and independence. It declared that the Warsaw Pact's function was collective self-defense of the member states against

external aggression, as provided for in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. The terms of the alliance specified the Political Consultative Committee (PCC) as the highest alliance organ. The

founding document formed the Joint Command to organize the

actual defense of the Warsaw Pact member states, declared that

the national deputy ministers of defense would act as the deputies

of the Warsaw Pact commander in chief, and established the Joint

Staff, which included the representatives of the general (main) staffs of all its member states. The treaty set the Warsaw Pact's duration at twenty years with an automatic ten-year extension, provided

that none of the member states renounced it before its expiration.

The treaty also included a standing offer to disband simultaneously with other military alliances, i.e., NATO, contingent on East- West agreement about a general treaty on collective security in

Europe. This provision indicated that the Soviet Union either did

not expect that such an accord could be negotiated or did not consider its new multilateral alliance structure very important.

Until the early 1960s, the Soviet Union used the Warsaw Pact more as a tool in East-West diplomacy than as a functioning

political-military alliance. Under the leadership of Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Soviet Union sought to project a more flexible and less threatening image abroad and, toward this end, used the alliance's

PCC to publicize its foreign policy initiatives and peace offensives,

including frequent calls for the formation of an all-European col- lective security system to replace the continent's existing military

alliances. In 1956 the Warsaw Pact member states admitted East

Germany to the Joint Command and sanctioned the transformation of East Germany's Garrisoned People's Police into a full- fledged army. But the Soviet Union took no steps to integrate the

allied armies into a multinational force. In his 1956 "secret speech" at the Twentieth Party Congress

of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Khrushchev

denounced the arbitrariness, excesses, and terror of the Joseph V.

Stalin era. Khrushchev sought to achieve greater legitimacy for his

authoritarian rule on the basis of the party's ability to meet the

material needs of the Soviet population. His de-Stalinization

campaign quickly influenced developments in Eastern Europe.

Responding to East European demands for greater political au- tonomy, Khrushchev accepted the replacement of Stalinist Polish

879
Soviet Union: A Country Study

and Hungarian leaders with newly rehabilitated (see Glossary) communist party figures, who were able to generate genuine popular

support for their regimes. He sought to turn Soviet-controlled East

European satellites into at least semiautonomous countries and to make Soviet domination of the Warsaw Pact less obvious. He al- lowed the East European armies to restore their distinctive national

practices and to reemphasize professional military opinions over

political considerations in most areas. Military training supplanted

political indoctrination as the primary task of the East European

military establishments. Most important, the Soviet Ministry of

Defense recalled many Soviet army officers and advisers from their

positions within the East European armies.

In October 1956, the Polish and Hungarian communist parties

lost control of the de-Stalinization process in their countries. The

ensuing crises threatened the integrity of the entire Soviet alliance

system in Eastern Europe and led to a significant change in the

role of the Warsaw Pact as an element of Soviet security.

The Polish October

The Polish government's handling of the workers' riots in Poland

in October 1956 defined the boundaries of national communism

acceptable to the Soviet Union. The Polish United Workers' Party

found that the grievances that inspired the riots could be ameliorated without presenting a challenge to its monopoly on political

power or its strict adherence to Soviet foreign policy and security

interests. Poland's new communist party leader, Wladyslaw Gomulka, and the Polish People's Army's top commanders indicated

to Khrushchev and the other Soviet leaders that any Soviet intervention in the internal affairs of Poland would meet united, massive resistance. While insisting on Poland's right to exercise greater

autonomy in domestic matters, Gomulka also pointed out that the

Polish United Workers' Party remained in firm control of the country and expressed his intention to continue to accept Soviet direction in external affairs. Gomulka's position permitted the Soviet

Union to redefine the minimum requirements for its East European allies: upholding the leading role of the communist party in

society and remaining a member of the Warsaw Pact. These two

conditions ensured that the Soviet Union's most vital interests would

be protected and that Eastern Europe would remain a buffer zone

for the Soviet Union.

The Hungarian Revolution

By contrast, the full-scale revolution in Hungary, which began

in late October with public demonstrations in support of the rioting

880
Appendix C

Polish workers, openly flouted these Soviet stipulations. Initial domestic liberalization acceptable to the Soviet Union quickly es- calated to nonnegotiable issues like challenging the communist

party's exclusive hold on political power and establishing genuine

national independence. Imre Nagy, the new communist party

leader, withdrew Hungary from the Warsaw Pact and ended Hungary's alliance with the Soviet Union. The Soviet army invaded

with 200,000 troops, crushed the Hungarian Revolution, and

brought Hungary back within limits tolerable to the Soviet Union.

The five days of pitched battles left 25,000 Hungarians dead.

After 1956 the Soviet Union practically disbanded the Hungarian

People's Army and reinstituted a program of political indoctrination in the units that remained. In May 1957, unable to rely on Hungarian forces to maintain order, the Soviet Union increased

its troop level in Hungary from two to four divisions and forced

Hungary to sign a status-of-forces agreement, placing the Soviet

military presence on a solid and permanent legal basis. The Soviet

forces stationed in Hungary officially became the Southern Group

of Forces. The events of 1956 in Poland and Hungary forced a Soviet

reevaluation of the reliability and roles of the Non-Soviet Warsaw

Pact (NSWP) countries in its alliance system. Before 1956 the Soviet

leadership believed that the Stalinist policy of heavy political in- doctrination and enforced Sovietization had transformed the national armies into reliable instruments of the Soviet Union. After

1956 the Soviet Union increasingly suspected that the East European armies were likely to remain loyal to national causes. A Shift Toward Greater Cohesion

After the very foundation of the Soviet alliance system in Eastern

Europe was shaken in 1956, Khrushchev sought to shore up the

Soviet Union's position. Although Khrushchev had invoked the

terms of the Warsaw Pact as a justification for the Soviet invasion

of Hungary, the action was in no sense a cooperative allied effort. In the early 1960s, however, the Soviet Union took steps to turn

the alliance's armed forces into a multinational intervention force. In the future, an appeal to the Warsaw Pact's collective self-defense provisions and the participation of allied forces would put a multilateral cover over unilateral Soviet interventions to keep errant member states in the alliance and their communist parties in power.

By presenting future policing actions as the product ofjoint Warsaw Pact decisions, the Soviet Union hoped to deflect the kind of

direct international criticism the Soviet Union was subjected to after the invasion of Hungary. Such internal deployments, however, were

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

clearly contrary to the Warsaw Pact's rule of mutual noninterfer- ence in domestic affairs and conflicted with the alliance's declared

purpose of collective self-defense against external aggression. To

circumvent this semantic difficulty, the Soviet Union merely redefined external aggression to include any spontaneous anti-Soviet,

anticommunist uprising in an allied state. In the late 1950s, the Soviet Union began to take a series of steps to transform the Warsaw Pact into its intra-alliance intervention

force. Although it had previously worked with the East European

military establishments on a bilateral basis, the Soviet Union started

to integrate the national armies under the Warsaw Pact framework.

Military exercises with Soviet forces and the allied national armies

became the primary focus of Warsaw Pact military activities. The Soviet Union planned these joint exercises to prevent any

NSWP member state from fully controlling its national army and

to reduce the possibility that an East European regime could successfully resist Soviet domination and pursue independent policies.

A series ofjoint Warsaw Pact exercises, organized and controlled

by the Soviet Union, was intended to prevent other East Europe- an national command authorities from following the example of

Yugoslavia and Albania and adopting a territorial defense strategy.

The Prague Spring

In 1968 an acute crisis in the Soviet alliance system suddenly

occurred. The domestic liberalization program of the Czechoslovak

communist regime led by Alexander Dubcek threatened to generate popular demands for similar changes in the other East European countries and even parts of the Soviet Union. Domestic change

in Czechoslovakia also began to affect defense and foreign policy,

just as it had in Hungary in 1956, despite Dubcek' s declared in- tention to keep Czechoslovakia within the Warsaw Pact. Once

again, the Soviet Union felt it necessary to forestall the spread of

liberalization and to assert its right to enforce the boundaries of

ideological permissibility in Eastern Europe. This concern was the

major factor in the Soviet Union's decision to invade Czechoslovakia

in 1968. The Soviet decision in favor of intervention focused, in

large measure, on ensuring its ability to maintain physical control

of its wayward ally in the future.

In contrast to its rapid, bloody suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the Soviet Union engaged in a lengthy campaign of military coercion against Czechoslovakia. In 1968 the

Soviet Union conducted more joint Warsaw Pact exercises than

in any other year since the maneuvers began in the early 1960s.

The Soviet Union used these exercises to mask preparations for,

882
Appendix C

and threaten, a Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia that would

occur unless Dubcek complied with Soviet demands and abandoned

his political liberalization program. Massive Warsaw Pact rear ser- vices and communications exercises in July and August enabled

the Soviet Union's General Staff to execute its plan for the invasion without alerting Western governments. Under the pretext of

conducting exercises, Soviet and NSWP divisions were brought

up to full strength, reservists were called up, and civilian trans- portation resources were requisitioned. The cover that these exercises provided allowed the Soviet Union to deploy forces along

Czechoslovakia's borders with Poland and East Germany and to demonstrate to the Czechoslovak leadership its readiness to in- tervene. On August 20, a force consisting of twenty-three Soviet divi- sions invaded Czechoslovakia. Token NSWP contingents, including one Hungarian, two East German, and two Polish divisions, along

with one Bulgarian brigade, also took part in the invasion. In the

wake of the invasion, the Soviet Union installed a more compliant

communist party leadership and concluded a status-of-forces agree- ment with Czechoslovakia, which established a permanent Soviet

presence in that country for the first time. Five Soviet divisions

remained in Czechoslovakia to protect the country from future "imperialist threats." These troops became the Central Group of Forces and added to Soviet strength directly bordering NATO member

states. The Czechoslovak People's Army, having failed to oppose

the Soviet intervention and defend the country's sovereignty,

suffered a tremendous loss of prestige after 1968. At Soviet direction, reliable Czechoslovak authorities conducted a purge and political reeducation campaign in the Czechoslovak People's Army

and cut its size. With its one-time closest partner now proven unreliable, the Soviet Union turned to Poland as its principal East

European ally.

The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia showed the hollowness of the Soviet alliance system in Eastern Europe in both

its political and its military aspects. The Soviet Union did not con- vene the PCC to invoke Warsaw Pact action during the 1968 crisis because a formal session would have revealed a deep rift in the

Warsaw Pact alliance and given Czechoslovakia an international

platform from which it could have defended its reform program.

While the participation of four NSWP armies in the Soviet-led

invasion of Czechoslovakia ostensibly demonstrated considerable

Warsaw Pact cohesion, the invasion also served to erode it. The

invasion of Czechoslovakia proved that the Warsaw Pact's mission of keeping orthodox East European communist party regimes

883
Soviet Union: A Country Study

in power—and less orthodox ones in line—was more important

than the mission of defending its member states against external

aggression. The Soviet Union was unable to conceal the fact that

the alliance served as the ultimate mechanism for its control of

Eastern Europe. Formulated in response to the crisis in Czechoslovakia, the Brezhnev Doctrine (see Glossary) declared that the

East European countries had "limited" sovereignty, to be exercised only as long as it did not damage the interests of the "socialist commonwealth" as a whole.

The Romanian leader, Nicolae Ceau§escu, after refusing to contribute troops to the Soviet intervention force as the other East

European countries had done, denounced the invasion of Czechoslovakia as a violation of international law and the Warsaw Pact's cardinal principle of mutual noninterference in internal affairs. Ceau§escu insisted that collective self-defense against external ag- gression was the only valid mission of the Warsaw Pact. Albania

also objected to the Soviet invasion and indicated its disapproval

by withdrawing formally from the Warsaw Pact after six years of

inactive membership.

In 1968, following the Warsaw Pact's invasion of Czechoslovakia,

Romania demanded the withdrawal from its territory of all Soviet

troops, advisers, and the Soviet resident representative. Reducing its participation in Warsaw Pact activities considerably, Romania also refused to allow Soviet or NSWP forces, which could serve

as Warsaw Pact intervention forces, to cross or conduct exercises on its territory. Following the lead of Yugoslavia and Albania,

Romania reasserted full national control over its armed forces and

military policies by adopting a territorial defense strategy called

"War of the Entire People," whose aim was to end Soviet domination and to guard against Soviet encroachments.

Organization and Strategy of the Warsaw Pact

The Warsaw Pact administered both the political and the military activities of the Soviet alliance system in Eastern Europe. A

series of changes that began in 1969 gave the Warsaw Pact the struc- ture it retained through the late 1980s.

Political Organization

The general (or first) secretaries of the communist and workers'

parties and heads of state of the Warsaw Pact member states met

in the PCC. The PCC provided a formal point of contact for the

Soviet and East European leaders in addition to less formal bilateral meetings and visits. As the highest decision-making body of the

Warsaw Pact, the PCC was charged with assessing international

884
Appendix C

developments that affected the security of the allied states and warranted the execution of the Warsaw Pact's collective self-defense

provisions. In practice, however, the Soviet Union was unwilling

to rely on the PCC to perform this function, fearing that Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania would use PCC meetings to oppose Soviet plans and policies. The PCC was also the main center

for coordinating the foreign policy activities of the Warsaw Pact

countries. After the late 1960s, when several member states began

to use the alliance structure to confront Soviet domination and assert more independent foreign policies, the Soviet Union had to negotiate to gain support for its foreign policy within Warsaw Pact

councils.

In 1976 the PCC established the permanent Committee of

Ministers of Foreign Affairs (CMFA) to regularize the previously

ad hoc meetings of Soviet and East European representatives to the Warsaw Pact. Given the official task of preparing recommendations for and executing the decisions of the PCC, the CMFA

and its permanent Joint Secretariat provided the Soviet Union an

additional point of contact to establish a consensus among its al- lies on contentious issues. Less formal meetings of the deputy

ministers of foreign affairs of the Warsaw Pact member states represented another layer of alliance coordination. The ministers were tasked with resolving alliance problems at these working levels so that they would not erupt into embarrassing disputes between

the Soviet and East European leaders at PCC meetings.

Military Organization

The Warsaw Pact's military organization was larger and more

active than the alliance's political bodies. Several different organizations were responsible for implementing PCC directives on

defense matters and developing the capabilities of the national

armies that constituted the Warsaw Pact's armed forces. The principal task, however, of the military organizations was to link the

East European armies to the Soviet armed forces. The alliance's

military agencies coordinated the training and mobilization of the East European national forces assigned to the Warsaw Pact. In turn,

these forces could be deployed in accordance with Soviet military

strategy against an NSWP country or NATO.

Soviet control of the Warsaw Pact as a military alliance was

scarcely veiled. The Warsaw Pact's armed forces had no command

structure, logistics network, air defense system, or operations direc- torate separate from the Soviet Ministry of Defense. The 1968 in- vasion of Czechoslovakia demonstrated how easily control of the

Warsaw Pact's armed forces could be transferred in wartime to

885
Soviet Union: A Country Study

the Soviet General Staff and to Soviet field commanders. The dual

roles of the Warsaw Pact commander in chief, who was a first deputy Soviet minister of defense, and the Warsaw Pact chief of

staff, who was a first deputy chief of the Soviet General Staff, facili- tated the transfer of Warsaw Pact forces to Soviet control. The

subordination of the Warsaw Pact to the Soviet General Staff was

also shown clearly in the Soviet military hierarchy. In the Soviet

order of precedence, the chief of the Soviet General Staff was listed above the Warsaw Pact commander in chief even though both

positions also were designated first deputy ministers of defense.

Ironically, the first innovations in the Warsaw Pact's structure

after 1955 came after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, which had

clearly underlined Soviet control of the alliance. At the 1969 PCC

session in Budapest, the Soviet Union agreed to cosmetic altera- tions in the Warsaw Pact designed to address East European complaints that the Soviet Union dominated the alliance. These changes

included the establishment of the formal Committee of Ministers

of Defense (CMD) and the Military Council, as well as the addition of more non-Soviet officers to the Joint Command and the

Joint Staff. Headed by the Warsaw Pact's commander in chief, the Joint

Command was divided into distinct Soviet and East European tiers. The deputy commanders in chief included Soviet and East European officers. The Soviet officers serving as deputy commanders

in chief were specifically responsible for coordinating the East European navies and air forces with the corresponding Soviet service

branches. The East European deputy commanders in chief were

the deputy ministers of defense of the NSWP countries. While

providing formal NSWP representation in the Joint Command,

the East European deputies also assisted in the coordination of

Soviet and non-Soviet forces. The commander in chief, deputy com- manders in chief, and chief of staff of the Warsaw Pact's armed

forces gathered in the Military Council on a semiannual basis to plan and evaluate operational and combat training. With the Warsaw Pact's commander in chief acting as chairman, the sessions

of the Military Council rotated among the capitals of the Warsaw

Pact countries.

The Joint Staff was the only standing Warsaw Pact military body

and the official executive organ of the CMD, commander in chief,

and Military Council. As such, it performed the bulk of the Warsaw Pact's work in the military realm. Like the Joint Command,

the Joint Staff had both Soviet and East European officers. The

non-Soviet officers also served as the principal link between the

Soviet and East European armed forces. The Joint Staff organized

886
Appendix C

all joint exercises and arranged multilateral meetings and contacts of Warsaw Pact military personnel at all levels. The 1969 PCC meeting also approved the formation of two more Warsaw Pact military bodies, the Military Scientific-Technical

Council and the Technical Committee. These innovations in the

Warsaw Pact structure represented a Soviet attempt to harness

NSWP weapons and military equipment production, which had

greatly increased during the 1960s. After 1969 the Soviet Union

insisted on tighter Warsaw Pact military integration as the price

for greater NSWP participation in alliance decision making.

Soviet Military Strategy and the Warsaw Pact

The Soviet armed forces constituted the bulk of the Warsaw

Pact's military manpower. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union provided

73 of the 126 Warsaw Pact tank and motorized rifle divisions. Located in the groups of Soviet forces and the four westernmost military districts of the Soviet Union, these divisions comprised the

majority of the Warsaw Pact's combat-ready, full-strength units.

Looking at the numbers of Soviet troops stationed in or near Eastern Europe, and the historical record, one could conclude that the Warsaw Pact was only a Soviet mechanism for organizing intra-alliance

interventions or maintaining control of Eastern Europe and did

not significantly augment Soviet offensive power vis-a-vis NATO.

Essentially a peacetime structure for NSWP training and mobilization, the Warsaw Pact had no independent role in wartime nor

a military strategy distinct from Soviet military strategy. The in- dividual NSWP armies, however, played important roles in the

Soviet strategy for war outside the formal context of the Warsaw

Pact. The goal of Soviet military strategy in Europe was a quick vic- tory over NATO in a nonnuclear war. Soviet miliary strategists

planned to defeat NATO decisively before its political and military command structure could consult and decide how to respond

to an attack. Under this strategy, success would hinge on inflict- ing a rapid succession of defeats on NATO to break its will to fight,

knock some of its member states out of the war, and cause the col- lapse of the Western alliance. In this plan, the Warsaw Pact countries would provide forward bases, staging areas, and interior lines of communication for the Soviet Union against NATO. A quick

victory would be needed to keep the United States from escalating

the conflict to the nuclear level by making retaliation against the

Soviet Union futile. A rapid defeat of NATO would preempt the

mobilization of the West's superior industrial and economic

resources, as well as reinforcement from the United States, which

887
Soviet Union: A Country Study

would enable NATO to prevail in a longer war. Most significant,

in a strictly conventional war the Soviet Union could have conceivably captured its objective, the economic potential of Western

Europe, relatively intact. This plan for winning a conventional war

quickly to preclude the possibility of a nuclear response by NATO

and the United States was based on the deep offensive operation

concept that Soviet military theoreticians first proposed in the 1930s.

Continuing Soviet concern over the combat reliability of its East

European allies influenced, to a great extent, the deployment of

NSWP forces under the Soviet military strategy. Soviet leaders believed that the Warsaw Pact allies would be most likely to remain

loyal if the Soviet armed forces engaged in a short, successful offensive operation against NATO while deploying NSWP forces defensively. Soviet concern over the reliability of its Warsaw Pact allies was reflected in the alliance's military-technical policy, which was

under Soviet control. The Soviet Union gave the East European

allies less modern, though still effective, weapons and equipment

to keep their armies less capable than the Soviet armed forces. Thus

the Soviet Union could keep the East European armies somewhat

modernized while not substantially increasing their capability to

resist Soviet intervention.

The Weakening of the Alliance's Cohesion; 1970-85

Beginning in the early 1970s, the East European allies formed

intra-alliance coalitions in Warsaw Pact meetings to oppose the

Soviet Union, defuse its pressure on any one NSWP member state, and delay or obstruct Soviet policies. The Soviet Union could no

longer use the alliance to transmit its positions to, and receive auto- matic endorsements from, the subordinate NSWP countries. While

still far from genuine consultation, Warsaw Pact policy coordination between the Soviet Union and the East European countries

in the 1970s was a step away from the blatant Soviet control of

the alliance that had characterized the 1950s. East European opposition forced the Soviet Union to treat the Warsaw Pact as a forum

for managing relations with its allies and bidding for their support on issues like detente, the Third World, the Solidarity movement

in Poland, alliance burden-sharing, and relations with NATO.

Detente

In the late 1960s, the Soviet Union abandoned its earlier efforts to achieve the simultaneous dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw Pact and concentrated instead on legitimating the territorial status quo in Europe. The Soviet Union asserted that the official East-West agreements reached during the detente era "legally

888
Appendix C

secured the most important political-territorial results of World War

II. " Under these arrangements, the Soviet Union allowed its East

European allies to recognize West Germany's existence as a separate

state. In return the West, and West Germany in particular, explicitly accepted the inviolability of postwar borders in Eastern Europe and tacitly recognized Soviet control of the eastern portion

of both Germany and Europe. The Soviet Union claimed the 1975

Helsinki Accords (see Glossary), which ratified the existing politi- cal division of Europe, as a major victory for Soviet diplomacy and

the realization of long-standing Soviet calls, issued through the

PCC, for a general European conference on collective security.

The consequences of detente, however, also posed a significant

challenge to Soviet control of Eastern Europe. First, detente caused

a crisis in Soviet-East German relations. East Germany's leader,

Walter Ulbricht, opposed improved relations with West Germany

and, following Ceau§escu's tactics, used Warsaw Pact councils to attack the Soviet detente policy openly. In the end, the Soviet Union

removed Ulbricht from power and subsequently proceeded unhindered into detente with the West. Second, detente blurred the strict bipolarity of the Cold War era, opened Eastern Europe to greater

Western influence, and loosened Soviet control over its allies. The

relaxation of East-West tensions in the 1970s reduced the level of

threat perceived by the NSWP countries, along with their perceived

need for Soviet protection, and eroded Warsaw Pact alliance co- hesion. After the West formally accepted the territorial status quo

in Europe, the Soviet Union was unable to point to the danger of

"imperialist" attempts to overturn East European communist party

regimes to justify its demand for strict Warsaw Pact unity behind

its leadership, as it had in earlier years. The Soviet Union resorted

to occasional propaganda offensives, accusing West Germany of

revanchism and aggressive intentions in Eastern Europe, to remind

its allies of their ultimate dependence on Soviet protection and to reinforce the Warsaw Pact's cohesion against the attraction of good

relations with the West.

Despite these problems, the detente period witnessed relatively

stable Soviet-East European relations within the Warsaw Pact. In

the early 1970s, the Soviet Union greatly expanded military cooperation with the NSWP countries. Joint Warsaw Pact exercises con- ducted in the 1970s gave the Soviet allies their first real capability

for offensive operations other than policing actions within the alli- ance. The East European countries also began to take an active

part in Soviet strategy in the Third World.

With Eastern Europe in a relatively quiescent phase, the Soviet

Union began to build an informal alliance system in the Third

889
Soviet Union: A Country Study

World during the 1970s. It employed its Warsaw Pact allies as sur- rogates primarily because their activities minimized the need for direct Soviet involvement and obviated possible international criti- cism of Soviet actions in the Third World. East European allies followed the lead of Soviet diplomacy and signed treaties of friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance with most of the important Soviet Third World allies. These treaties established a "socialist division of labor" among the East European countries in which

each specialized in the provision of certain aspects of military or economic assistance to different Soviet Third World allies. In the 1970s and 1980s, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany were the principal Soviet proxies for arms transfers to the Third

World. These NSWP countries supplied Soviet-manufactured

equipment, spare parts, and training personnel to various Third

World armies. During this period, the Soviet Union also relied on

its East European allies to provide the bulk of the economic aid

and credits given by the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to the

countries of the Third World. Beginning in the late 1970s, mounting

economic problems sharply curtailed the contribution of the East

European allies to the Soviet Union's Third World activities. In

the early 1980s, when turmoil in Poland reminded the Soviet Union

that Eastern Europe remained its most valuable asset, the Third

World became a somewhat less important object of Soviet attention.

The rise of the independent trade union movement Solidarity

shook the foundation of communist party rule in Poland and, consequentiy, Soviet control of a country the Soviet Union considered

critical to its security and alliance system. Given Poland's central

geographic position, this unrest threatened to isolate East Germany,

sever vital lines of communication to Soviet forces deployed against

NATO, and disrupt Soviet control in the rest of Eastern Europe.

As it did in Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Soviet Union used the

Warsaw Pact to carry out a campaign of military coercion against

the Polish leadership. In 1980 and 1981, the Soviet Union con- ducted joint Warsaw Pact exercises with a higher frequency than

at any time since 1968 to exert pressure on the Polish regime to solve the Solidarity problem. Under the cover that the exercises

afforded, the Soviet Union mobilized and deployed its reserve and

regular troops in the Belorussian Military District as a potential

invasion force (see fig. 30). Faced with the threat of Soviet military intervention, the Polish government instituted martial law and

suppressed Solidarity. From the Soviet perspective, the imposition

of martial law by Polish internal security forces was the best possible outcome. Martial law made the suppression of Solidarity a

890
Appendix C

strictly domestic affair and spared the Soviet Union the international

criticism that an invasion would have generated.

Although the Polish People's Army had previously played an

important role in Soviet strategy for a coalition war against NATO,

the Soviet Union had to revise its plans and estimates of Poland's

reliability after 1981, and it turned to East Germany as its most

reliable ally. In the early 1980s, because of its eager promotion

of Soviet interests in the Third World and its importance in Soviet

military strategy, East Germany completed its transformation from

defeated enemy and dependent ally into the principal junior part- ner of the Soviet Union.

The End of Detente

In the late 1970s, the West grew disenchanted with detente, which

had failed to prevent Soviet advances in the Third World, the

deployment of SS-20 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs)

aimed at West European targets, the invasion of Afghanistan, or

the suppression of Solidarity. The Soviet Union used the renewal

of East-West tension as a justification for forcing its allies to close ranks within the Warsaw Pact. But restoring the alliance's cohesion and renewing its confrontation with Western Europe proved

difficult after several years of good East-West relations. In the early

1980s, internal Warsaw Pact disputes centered on relations with

the West after detente, NSWP contributions to alliance defense

spending, and the alliance's reaction to IRBM deployments in

NATO. The resolution of these disputes produced significant

changes in the Warsaw Pact as, for the first time, two or more NSWP countries simultaneously challenged Soviet military and for- eign policy preferences within the alliance.

In the PCC meetings of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Soviet

and East European leaders of the Warsaw Pact debated the threat

that they perceived emanated from NATO. Discussions of the

"NATO threat" also played a large part in Warsaw Pact debates

about an appropriate level of NSWP military expenditure. The

issue of an appropriate Warsaw Pact response to NATO's 1983

deployment of American Pershing II and cruise missiles, matching the Soviet SS-20s, proved to be the most divisive one for the

Soviet Union and its East European allies in the early and

mid-1980s. After joining in a vociferous Soviet propaganda campaign against the deployment, the East European countries split

with the Soviet Union over how to react when their "peace offensive" failed to forestall it. The refusal of the NSWP countries to meet their Warsaw Pact financial obligations in the 1980s further

indicated diminished alliance cohesion.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

The Renewal of the Alliance, 1985-89

After becoming general secretary of the CPSU in March 1985,

Mikhail S. Gorbachev organized a meeting of the East European

leaders to renew the Warsaw Pact, which was due to expire that

May. Few people doubted that the Warsaw Pact member states would renew the alliance. Some Western analysts speculated,

however, that the Soviet Union might unilaterally dismantle its formal alliance structure to improve the Soviet image and to put

pressure on the West to disband NATO. The Soviet Union could

still have relied on the network of bilateral treaties in Eastern Europe, which predated the formation of the Warsaw Pact and had

been renewed regularly. Combined with later status-of-forces agree- ments, these treaties assured the Soviet Union that the essence of

its alliance system and buffer zone in Eastern Europe would re- main intact, regardless of the Warsaw Pact's status. But despite

their utility, the bilateral treaties could not fully substitute for the

Warsaw Pact. Without a formal alliance, the Soviet Union would

have to coordinate foreign policy and military integration with its East European allies through cumbersome bilateral arrangements.

Although the Soviet and East European leaders debated the terms

of the Warsaw Pact's renewal at their April 1985 meeting, they

did not change the original 1955 treaty, nor the alliance's struc- ture, in any way.

In the mid- to late 1980s, the future of the Warsaw Pact hinged on Gorbachev's developing policy toward Eastern Europe. At the

Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in 1986, Gorbachev acknowledged

that differences existed among the Soviet allies and that it would

be unrealistic to expect them to have identical views on all issues. He demonstrated a greater sensitivity to East European concerns than previous Soviet leaders by briefing the NSWP leaders in their

own capitals after the 1985 Geneva and 1986 Reykjavik superpower

summit meetings. In 1987 the Warsaw Pact, under Soviet tutelage,

adopted a defense-oriented military doctrine. And, following Gorbachev's announced unilateral reduction in the Soviet armed forces,

the NSWP countries also announced unilateral military reductions

during 1988 and 1989. In the late 1980s, however, mounting eco- nomic difficulties and the advanced age of trusted, long-time communist party leaders, like Gustav Husak in Czechoslovakia, Todor

Zhivkov in Bulgaria, and Janos Kadar in Hungary, intensified the

danger of domestic turmoil and internal power struggles in the

NSWP countries and threatened the alliance's cohesion.

* * *

892
Appendix C

The 1980s have witnessed a dramatic increase in the amount

of secondary source material published about the Warsaw Pact. The works of Alex Alexiev, Andrzej Korbonski, and Condoleezza

Rice, as well as those of various Soviet writers, provide a complete

picture of the Soviet alliance system and the East European military establishments before the formation of the Warsaw Pact. William J. Lewis's The Warsaw Pact is a very useful reference work

with considerable information on the establishment of the Warsaw Pact and the armies of its member states. The works of Malcolm

Mackintosh, a long-time observer of the Warsaw Pact, cover the

changes in the Warsaw Pact's organizational structure and functions through the years. Christopher D. Jones's Soviet Influence in Eastern Europe and subsequent articles provide a coherent interpretation of the Soviet Union's use of the Warsaw Pact to control

its East European allies. In "The Warsaw Pact at 25," Dale R.

Herspring examines intra- alliance politics in the PCC and East European attempts to reduce Soviet domination of the Warsaw Pact. Soviet military journals are the best source for insights into the East

European role in Soviet military strategy. Daniel N. Nelson and

Ivan Volgyes analyze East European reliability in the Warsaw Pact. Nelson takes a quantitative approach to this perennial topic. By

contrast, Volgyes uses a historical and political framework to draw

his conclusions on the reliability issue. The works of Richard C.

Martin and Daniel S. Papp present thorough discussions of Soviet

policies on arming and equipping the NSWP allies. (For further

information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

893

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977

Glossary

Academy of Sciences (Akademiia nauk)—The Soviet Union's most

prestigious scholarly institute, which conducted basic research

in the physical, natural, mathematical, and social sciences. Established in 1725 by Peter the Great, it carried out long-range

research and developed new technology. Union republics (q.v.) also had academies of sciences. The Academy of Sciences was

under the direction of the Council of Ministers.

active measures (aktivnye meropriiatiia) —Covert or deceptive operations (including the creation and dissemination of disinformation) conducted in support of Soviet foreign policy and

designed to influence the opinions or actions of the general public, particular individuals, or foreign governments.

Agitprop (Otdel agitatsii i propagandy)—Agitation and Propaganda

Department, established by the Central Committee of the party

in 1920. Absorbed by the Ideological Department in 1988. The

term agitprop means the use of mass media to mobilize the public

to accomplish the regime's demands.

AirLand Batde doctrine—A United States Army doctrine, adopted

in the early 1980s, for generating combat power by using air and land assets on an extended and integrated battlefield. all-union—National, with purview throughout the entire territory

of the Soviet Union.

all-union ministries—Ministries of the Soviet central government

that did not have counterpart ministries at the republic level. Other ministries were termed union-republic ministries (q.v.).

apparatchik—Russian colloquial expression for a person of the party

apparatus, i.e., an individual who has been engaged full time

in the work of the CPSU (q.v.). Sometimes used in a derogatory sense. army—In general usage, the armed forces of the Soviet Union ex- cept the navy. In military usage, an army in the Ground Forces

usually consisted of two to five divisions.

autocephalous—Independent or self-governing; an Orthodox

church that was headed by its own patriarch (q.v.).

autonomous oblast—A territorial and administrative subdivision

of a union republic (q.v.), or of a krai (q.v.) in the Russian

Republic, created to grant a degree of autonomy to a national

minority within that krai or union republic. In 1989 the Soviet

Union had eight autonomous oblasts, five of which were in the

Russian Republic.

979
Soviet Union: A Country Study

autonomous okrug—A territorial and administrative subdivision of a krai (q. v. ) or oblast (q. v. ) in the Russian Republic that granted

a degree of administrative autonomy to a nationality; usually

found in large, remote areas of sparse population. In 1989 the

Soviet Union had ten autonomous okruga, all of which were

in the Russian Republic.

autonomous republic (autonomous soviet socialist republic

ASSR)—A territorial and administrative subdivision of some

union republics (q.v.), created to grant a degree of administrative autonomy to some major minority groups. Directly

subordinate to its union republic. In 1989 the Soviet Union

had twenty autonomous republics, sixteen of which were in the

Russian Republic.

babushka—Literally, grandmother. Generally, any old woman.

balance of payments—The international transactions of a country, including commodity and service transactions, capital trans- actions, and gold movements.

balance of trade—The relationship between a country's exports and

imports.

BAM (Baykalo-Amurskaya Magistral' —Baykal-Amur Main

Line)—A second trans-Siberian railroad, running 100 to 500

kilometers north of the original Trans-Siberian Railway (q.v.)

and extending 3,145 kilometers from the western terminus at Ust'-Kut to the eastern terminus at Komsomol'sk-na-Amure.

Opened in 1989, the BAM was designed and built to relieve

traffic on the Trans-Siberian Railway, lessen rail traffic's vulnerability to Chinese military incursion, and facilitate trans- port of natural resources from huge, unexploited deposits in eastern Siberia.

Basmachi Rebellion—A sporadic and protracted revolt by Muslims of Central Asia against Soviet rule beginning in 1918 and

continuing in some parts of Central Asia until 1931.

bilateral clearing agreements—The basis of the Soviet Union's trade

with most socialist countries and some market economies (Finland and India). Trade imbalances were not normally cleared

by convertible currency payments. Instead, the value of ex- ports equaled the value of imports (for each country) over a

specified period of time.

blat—Profitable connections, influence, pull, or illegal dealings,

usually for personal gain.

Bolshevik—A member of the radical group within the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (q.v.), which, under Vladimir I. Lenin's leadership, staged the Bolshevik Revolution (q.v.). The

term boVshevik means a member of the majority (boUshenstvo)

980
Glossary

and was applied to the radical members of the Russian Social

Democratic Labor Party after they won a majority of votes cast

at a party congress (q.v.) in 1903. In March 1918, the Bolsheviks

formed the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) and began

calling themselves Communists. That party was the precursor

of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSUq.v.).

Bolshevik Revolution—The coup organized by Lenin and carried

out by the Bolsheviks (q.v.) that overthrew the Provisional

Government in November 1917 (October 1917, according to the Julian calendar

q.v.). Also known as the October Revolution.

boyar—A hereditary nobleman in Muscovy (q.v.) and the early

Russian Empire (q.v.).

Brezhnev Doctrine—The Soviet Union's declared right to inter- vene militarily to prevent other states from eliminating the lead- ing role of the communist party and returning to capitalism once they have achieved socialism. First expressed after Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring in 1968 and used as justification for the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. In the late 1980s, Mikhail S. Gorbachev made

statements interpreted by some in the West as repudiating the

Brezhnev Doctrine.

cadre—Organized group of party activists. A party member who

holds a responsible position (usually administrative) in either

the party or the government apparatus. In a more restricted sense, a person who has been fully indoctrinated in party ideol- ogy and methods and uses this training in his or her work.

capitalist encirclement—A term coined by Joseph V. Stalin to in- dicate that the Soviet Union was surrounded by capitalist states pursuing political, military, and economic policies aimed at weakening and destroying the Soviet regime.

Carpatho-Ukraine (before October 1938 known as Subcarpathian

Ruthenia)—An area historically belonging to Hungary but at- tached to Czechoslovakia from 1918 to October 1938. In October 1938, Carpatho-Ukraine became autonomous, and in

March 1939, it became independent. But Hungary occupied

it nine days later and, after World War II, ceded the area to the Soviet Union. Populated mostly by Ukrainians, who, prior

to World War II, were sometimes referred to as Ruthenians.

Charter to the Nobility—An edict, granted by Catherine the Great,

that increased and confirmed the personal and class privileges

of the nobility.

Cheka

See Vecheka.

981
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Chernobyl' —A town in the Ukrainian Republic, site of the world's

most catastropic nuclear accident. On April 26, 1986, a reactor

at the Chernobyl' nuclear power plant exploded and irradiated areas as far away as Sweden. Most radioactivity contaminated

large sections of rich farmland in the Ukrainian, Russian, and

Belorussian republics and affected millions of their inhabitants.

Soviet and Western experts believe that damage to the people's health, to the economy, and to the environment will be

felt for decades. As of 1989, the accident had cost hundreds

of lives and billions of rubles, caused a major slowdown in what

had been an ambitious nuclear energy program, and provided an impetus to the fledgling environmental movement in the

Soviet Union. Although the accident was caused by a combination of human error and faulty reactor design, the remaining three reactors at the Chernobyl' power plant and reactors of this type remained operational elsewhere in the Soviet Union

in 1989.

chernozem—Literally, black earth. The zone of rich, black soil that

extends across the southwestern Soviet Union.

class struggle—In Marxist terms, every nonsocialist society has been

characterized by conflict between the classes of which it has

been composed. The struggle has pitted the workers against

the privileged, oppressive, and property-owning ruling class. CoCom (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls) —Formed by Western governments in 1949 to prevent

the transfer of military-related technology from the West to the

Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In 1989 members of CoCom

included Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, the Federal

Republic of Germany (West Germany), France, Greece, Italy,

Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,

Spain, Turkey, and the United States. With no formal rela- tionship to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),

CoCom operated on informal agreements on items having mili- tary applications and those with nuclear uses.

collective farm (kollektivnoe khoziaistvo—kolkhoz)—An agricultural

"cooperative" where peasants, under the direction of partyapproved plans and leaders, are paid wages based, in part, on

the success of their harvest.

collectivization—Stalin's policy of confiscating privately owned

agricultural lands and facilities and consolidating them, the

farmers, and their families into large collective farms (q.v.) and

state farms (q.v.). Forced collectivization took place from 1929

to 1937.

982
Glossary

combat readiness—The availability of equipment and qualified per- sonnel in military organizations capable of conducting combat operations. Motorized rifle and tank divisions of the Soviet

Ground Forces were maintained in three general categories of

combat readiness: those divisions with sufficient personnel and

equipment to begin combat operations after brief preparation;

those with the necessary equipment but with less than 50 per- cent of wartime manpower; and those that were inactive and

essentially unmanned equipment sets. combine (kombinat)—An economic entity of an industrial or ser- vice nature that consists of several specialized, technologically

related enterprises (q.v.).

Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance)—A multilateral economic alliance headquartered in Moscow. Members

in 1989 were Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the German

Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, Mongolia,

Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. Comecon

was created in January 1949, ostensibly to promote economic

development of member states through cooperation and specialization, but actually to enforce Soviet economic domination of

Eastern Europe and to provide a counterweight to the Marshall

Plan (q.v.). Also referred to as CEMA or CMEA.

Cominform (Communist Information Bureau)—An international

organization of communist parties, founded and controlled by

the Soviet Union in 1947 and dissolved in 1956. The Cominform published propaganda touting international communist

solidarity but was primarily a tool of Soviet foreign policy.

Comintern (Communist International)—An international organization of communist parties founded by Lenin in 1919. Initially, it attempted to control the international socialist (q.v.)

movement and to foment world revolution; later, it also be- came an instrument of Soviet foreign policy. Dissolved by Stalin

in 1943 as a conciliatory measure toward his Western allies. communism/communist—A doctrine, based on revolutionary

Marxian socialism (q.v.) and Marxism-Leninism (q.v.), and

the official ideology of the Soviet Union. The doctrine provided

for a system of authoritarian government in which the communist party alone controlled state-owned means of production. It sought to establish a society in which the state withers

away and goods and services are distributed equitably. A communist is an adherent or advocate of communism.

complex (kompleks)—An aggregate of entities constituting a whole.

Sometimes applied to groupings of industries.

983
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Congress of People's Deputies—The highest organ of legislative

and executive authority, according to the Soviet Constitution.

Existed in the early Soviet period as the Congress of Soviets

(q. v. ) and was resurrected in 1988 by constitutional amendment.

Congress of Soviets—First met in June 1917 and elected the All- Russian Central Committee of over 250 members dominated

by the leaders of the Petrograd Soviet. The Second Congress

of Soviets met on October 25, 1917, one day after the start of the Bolshevik Revolution (q.v.). Dominated by Bolshevik

delegates, the Second Congress of Soviets approved the Bolshevik coup d'etat and the decrees on peace and land issued

by Lenin. It also confirmed the Council of People's Commissars, drawn exclusively from Bolshevik ranks, as the new

government and elected the All-Russian Central Executive

Committee. It adjourned on October 27 and was not recon- vened.

correlation of forces and resources (sootnosheniie sil i sredstv)—A Soviet

term meaning the aggregate of indexes permitting evaluation

of the relative strength of friendly and hostile troops, by comparative analysis of the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of troop organization, performance data on armament and

combat materiel, and other indexes that define combat readi- ness (q.v.) and combat capability.

cossacks—Originally peasants, primarily Ukrainian and Russian,

who fled from bondage to the lower Dnepr and Don river

regions to settle in the frontier areas separating fifteenth-century

Muscovy (q.v.), Poland, and the lands occupied by Tatars. The

cossacks, engaged in hunting, fishing, and cattle raising, es- tablished permanent settlements and later organized themselves

into military formations to resist Tatar raids. Renowned as horsemen, they were absorbed into the Russian army as light

cavalry or irregular troops by the late eighteenth century.

Council of Ministers—The highest executive and administrative

body of the Soviet Union, according to the Constitution. In

practice, its members directed most day-to-day state activities. CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union)—The official name

of the communist party in the Soviet Union since 1952. Originally the Bolshevik (q. v. ) faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (q.v.), the party was named the Russian

Communist Party (Bolshevik) from March 1918 to December

1925, the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) from December 1925 to October 1952, and the CPSU thereafter.

cult of personality—A term coined by Nikita S. Khrushchev at the

Twentieth Party Congress of the CPSU in 1956 to describe

984
Glossary

the rule of Stalin, in which the Soviet people were compelled

to deify the dictator. Leonid I. Brezhnev also established a cult of personality around himself, although to a lesser extent than

Stalin. Similar cults of saints, heroes, and the just tsar formed

a historical basis for the cult of personality.

Cyrillic—An alphabet based on Greek characters that was created

in the ninth century to serve as a medium for translating Eastern Orthodox texts into Old Church Slavonic (q.v.). Named for Cyril, the leader of the first religious mission from Byzantium

to the Slavic people, Cyrillic is used in modern Russian and

several other Slavic languages.

Defense Council—The chief decision-making organ of the Soviet

national security apparatus, composed of selected members of

the Politburo (q. v. ) and headed by the general secretary (q. v.

)

of the CPSU (q.v.) and the chairman of the Presidium (q.v.)

of the CPSU Central Committee.

democratic centralism—A Leninist doctrine requiring discussion

of issues until a decision is reached by the party. After a decision is made, discussion concerns only planning and execution.

This method of decision making directed lower bodies unconditionally to implement the decisions of higher bodies.

demokratizatsiia (democratization)—Campaign initiated by Gorbachev to enable different interest groups to participate in political processes to a greater extent than previously allowed.

dialectical materialism—A Marxist (q.v.) tenet describing the

process by which the class struggle between bourgeois capitalist

society and the exploited workers produces the dictatorship of

the proletariat (q.v.) and evolves into socialism (q.v.) and, fi- nally, communism (q.v.).

dictatorship of the proletariat—According to Marxism-Leninism

(q.v.), the early stage of societal organization under socialism

(q.v.) after the overthrow of capitalism. It involves workers'

dominance in suppressing the counterrevolutionary resistance

of the bourgeois "exploiting classes."

Donbass (Donetskiy basseyn)—Donets Basin. A major coal-mining

and industrial area located in the southeastern Ukrainian

Republic and the adjacent Russian Republic.

DOSAAF (Dobrovol'noe obshchestvo sodeistviia armii, aviatsii i flotu) —Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Army, Air

Force, and Navy. Responsible for premilitary training of Soviet

youth.

duma—An advisory council to the princes of Kievan Rus' (q.v.)

and the tsars of the Russian Empire (q.v.).

985
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Duma—Lower chamber of the legislature, established by Nicholas II after the Revolution of 1905. East Slavs—A subdivision of Slavic peoples, who evolved into Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians and speak languages belonging to the East Slavic branch of the Indo-European family

of languages.

enterprise—A production establishment, such as a plant or a fac- tory; not to be confused with a privately owned, Western- style

business.

extensive economic development—Expansion of production by adding resources rather than by improving the efficiency of resource

use, as in intensive economic development.

False Dmitrii—Name applied to three pretenders to the Muscovite throne during the Time of Troubles (q. v.). These pretenders

claimed to be Dmitrii (who died as a child), the son of Tsar

Ivan IV.

February Revolution—The popular uprising that overthrew the

government of the Russian Empire (q. v. ) under Tsar Nicholas

II in February 1917 (according to the Julian calendar

q. v.), thus ending 300 years of rule by the Romanov Dynasty.

first secretary—The title of the head of the CPSU (q. v. ) Secretariat

that was adopted after Stalin's death in 1953; used by Khrushchev, and by Brezhnev until 1966, before the title was changed

back to general secretary (q.v.). fiscal year—A one-year period for financial accounting purposes,

which can coincide with the calendar year (as it did in the Soviet

Union).

five-year plan—A comprehensive plan that sets the economic goals

for a five-year period. Once the Soviet regime stipulated the

plan figures, all levels of the economy, from individual enterprises to the national level, were obligated to meet those goals.

FOFA (Follow-on-Forces-Attack)—A North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military concept emphasizing deep offensive operations against the enemy's second-echelon (follow-on)

forces. free trade zones—Areas where autonomy is allowed in conducting direct trade with foreigners.

front—In military usage, a front consists of two or more armies

(q.v.). Two or more fronts constitute a theater of military operations (TVD

q.v.). In political usage, an organization controlled by the Soviet regime (through funding links and Soviet

officials in leading positions) to support Soviet policies through

lobbying and propaganda.

986
Glossary

GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)—An integrated

set of bilateral trade agreements among more than 100 contracting nations. Originally drawn up in 1947, GATT aimed

at abolishing quotas and reducing tariffs among members. The

Soviet Union eschewed joining GATT until 1987, when it applied for membership. As of May 1989, its application had not

been approved.

GDP (gross domestic product)—A measure of the total value of

goods and services produced by the domestic economy during

a given period, usually one year. Obtained by adding the value

contributed by each sector of the economy in the form of profits,

compensation to employees, and depreciation (consumption of

capital). Only domestic production is included, not income aris- ing from investments and possessions owned abroad, hence the use of the word domestic to distinguish GDP from gross national

product (GNP—q.v.). Real GDP is the value of GDP when

inflation has been taken into account.

general secretary—The title of the head of the CPSU (q.v.)

Secretariat, who presides over the Politburo (q. v. ) and has been

the Soviet Union's de facto supreme leader. Stalin became

general secretary of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)

in 1922 and employed the position to amass personal power.

After Stalin's death in 1953, the title was changed to first secre- tary (q.v.), which was used by Khrushchev and by Brezhnev

until 1966, when the title of general secretary was reinstituted.

Brezhnev's successors—Iurii Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko, and Mikhail S. Gorbachev—were all general secretaries. glasnosV—Public discussion of issues; accessibility of information

so that the public can become familiar with it and discuss it. Gorbachev's policy of using the media to make information

available on some controversial issues, in order to provoke public discussion, challenge government and party bureaucrats,

and mobilize greater support for his policy of perestroika (q.v.).

Glavlit—The official censorship organ, established in 1922 as the

Main Administration for Literary and Publishing Affairs (Glav- noe upravlenie po delam literatury i izdatv—Glavlit). Although

the formal name of that organization has since been changed

to the Main Administration for Safeguarding State Secrets in

the Press (Glavnoe upravlenie po okhrane gosudarstvennykh

tain v pechati), the acronym Glavlit continued to be used in the late 1980s.

Glavrepertkom (Glavnyi komitet po kontroliu za zrelishchami i repertuarom)—Main Committee for Control of Entertainment

and Repertory. The governmental organization that directed

987
Soviet Union: A Country Study

theatrical, film, and other cultural productions and sanctioned

their release for public viewing. The acronym, Glavrepertkom,

continued in use although the organization was changed from

a committee (komitet) to an administration (upravelenie) under

the Ministry of Culture.

GNP (gross national product)—The total market value of final goods and services produced by an economy during a year. Obtained by adding the gross domestic product (GDP

q. v. ) and the income received from abroad by residents and subtracting payments remitted abroad to nonresidents. Real GNP

is the value of GNP when inflation has been taken into account. Golden Horde—A federative Mongol state that extended from

western Siberia to the Carpathian Mountains, encompassing

much of eastern Europe. It ravaged Kievan Rus' (q.v.), subjugated Muscovy (q.v.) to the Mongol "yoke" (q.v.), and was

a major political force from the mid-thirteenth century to the

end of the fifteenth century. Generally, it exacted tribute and

controlled external relations but allowed local authorities to decide internal affairs. The term is derived from the Mongol altan ordo or the Tatar altun ordu, literally meaning golden palace or camp, apparently based on the color of the tent used by Batu

Khan (died 1255), the leader or ruler, during the Golden Horde's

conquest of the region. Also known as the khanate of Kipchak.

Gosbank (Gosudarstvennyi bank)—State Bank. The main bank

in the Soviet Union, which acted as a combination central bank,

commercial bank, and settlement bank. It issued and regulated

currency and credit and handled payments between enterprises

(q.v.) and organizations. It received all taxes and payments to the state and paid out budgetary appropriations.

Goskino (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po kinematografii)—State Committee for Cinematography. Absorbed by the Ministry of Culture in 1953, it became an independent organization again in

1963.

Goskomizdat (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po delam izdatel'stv,

poligrafii i knizhoy torgovli)—State Committee for Publishing Houses, Printing Plants, and the Book Trade. Supervises

the publishing and printing industry and exercises all-union

(q.v.) control over the thematic trend and content of literature. Goskompriroda (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po okhrane prirody)

State Committee for the Protection of Nature. Formed in 1988,

the government agency charged with responsibility for over- seeing environmental protection in the Soviet Union.

Goskomtsen (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po tsenam)—State Committee on Prices. The government body that established, under

988
Glossary

party guidance, the official prices of virtually everything

produced in the Soviet Union, including agricultural produce,

natural resources, manufactured products, and consumer goods

and services.

Gosplan (Gosudarstvennyi planovyi komitet)—State Planning

Committee. Under party guidance, it was primarily responsible for creating and monitoring five-year plans (q. v.) and an- nual plans. The name was changed from State Planning

Commission in 1948, but the acronym was retained.

Gostelradio (Gosudarstvennyi komitet po televideniyu i radioveshchaniyu)—State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting. Established in 1957 as the Committee for Radio

Broadcasting and Television. Upgraded to a state committee

in 1970.

GPU (Gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie)—State Political Directorate. The security police successor to the Vecheka (q.v.)

from 1922 to 1923.

Great Patriotic War—The Soviet name for the part of World War

II in which the Soviet people fought against fascism from June

1941 to May 1945. Considered one of the just wars (q.v.) by

the CPSU (q.v.).

Great Terror—A period, from about 1934 to 1939, of intense fear

among Soviet citizens, millions of whom were arrested, interrogated, tortured, imprisoned, deported from their native lands,

and executed by Stalin's secret police for political or economic

crimes that were spurious. The Great Terror encompassed the

general population and peaked in 1937 and 1938, when it in- cluded extensive purges of party members, many of whom held

high positions in the government, economy, armed forces,

party, and secret police itself. GRU

See Main Intelligence Directorate.

GUGB (Glavnoe upravlenie gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti)—Main

Directorate for State Security. The security police, successor

to the OGPU (q.v.), subordinate to the NKVD (q.v.). Existed

from 1934 to 1941, 1941 to 1943, and 1953 to 1954.

Gulag (Glavnoe upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh lagerei)—Main

Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps. The penal system of

the Soviet Union, consisting of a network of harsh labor camps

where criminals and political prisoners were forced to serve sen- tences. hard currency—Currency that was freely convertible and traded on international currency markets.

Helsinki Accords—Signed in August by all the countries of Europe (except Albania) plus Canada and the United States at

989
Soviet Union: A Country Study

the conclusion of the Conference on Security and Cooperation

in Europe, the Helsinki Accords endorsed general principles

of international behavior and measures to enhance security and

addressed selected economic, environmental, and humnitarian issues. In essence, the Helsinki Accords confirmed exist- ing, post-World War II national boundaries and obligated

signatories to respect basic principles of human rights. Helsinki

watch groups (q.v.) were formed in 1976 to monitor compliance. The term Helsinki Accords is the short form for the Final

Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe

and is also known as the Final Act. Helsinki watch groups—Informal, unofficial organizations of

citizens monitoring their regimes' adherence to the human

rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords (q.v.).

horde—A Mongol military force of about 30,000 to 40,000 troops

mounted on horseback that was roughly equivalent in size to a modern army corps. A territory conquered by a horde (ordo

in Mongol) was organized into a khanate (q.v.). Troops of the

horde were accompanied by their families, and their descendants were gradually assimilated into the peoples that they con- quered.

IMF (International Monetary Fund)—Established along with the

World Bank (q.v.) in 1945, the IMF is a specialized agency

affiliated with the United Nations and responsible for stabiliz- ing international exchange rates and payments. Its main function is to provide loans to its members (including industrialized

and developing countries) when they experience balance of payments (q.v.) difficulties. These loans frequently have conditions

that require substantial internal economic adjustments by the

recipients, most of which are developing countries.

intelligentsia—Intellectuals constituting the cultural, academic, social, and political elite. internal passport —Government-issued document, presented to offi- cials on demand, identifying citizens, their nationality, and their authorized residence. Used in both the Russian Empire (q.v.)

and the Soviet Union to restrict the movement of people.

Izvestiia (News)—Daily, nationwide newspaper published by the

Presidium (q.v.) of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.

Julian calendar—A calendar, named for Gaius Julius Caesar and

introduced in Rome in 46 B.C., that established the twelvemonth year of 365 days. It was adopted throughout much of

the Western world, including Kievan Rus' (q.v.) and Muscovy

(q.v.). The Julian calendar's year, however, was over eleven

minutes too long compared with the solar year, i.e., the time

990
Glossary

the earth requires to make one revolution around the sun. Because of this discrepancy, Pope Gregory XIII introduced a re- vised calendar in 1582 that had a shortened year and then

omitted the ten excess days that had accumulated since A.D.

325, the year of the Council of Nicea, which was chosen as the base year. Although most of the Western world adopted

the Gregorian calendar, Russian regimes retained the Julian

calendar (termed old style or O.S.) until after the Bolshevik

Revolution (q.v.). On February 1, 1918 O.S. , the Bolsheviks

introduced the Gregorian calendar and omitted the thirteen excess days that had accumulated since A.D. 325, thus making that day February 14, 1918 (new style or N.S.). The Russian Orthodox Church and other Eastern Christian churches

continue to use the Julian calendar.

just wars—According to Marxism-Leninism (q.v.), just wars are those waged to protect the interests of the working class and

the toiling masses, to liquidate social and national oppression,

and to protect national sovereignty against imperialist aggression. The most just wars are those waged in defense of the socialist fatherland. In contrast, unjust wars are reactionary or predatory wars waged by imperialist countries.

Karakum Canal—An irrigation and water supply canal, which is navigable, in the Turkmen Republic. Under construction since

1954, the 1,100 kilometers completed by 1988 diverted a significant amount of the Amu Darya's waters west through and

into the Kara Desert and Ashkhabad, the republic's capital,

and beyond. The canal opened up expansive new tracts of land

to agriculture, while contributing to a major environmental dis- aster, the drying up of the Aral Sea. The primitive construction of the canal allows almost 50 percent of the water to escape en route. Kazakhstan—Literally, land of the Kazakhs. A vast region in Central Asia settled by the Golden Horde (q. v. ) in the thirteenth

century that the Russian Empire (q.v.) acquired during the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1924 the Soviet regime

began dividing Kazakhstan into its major nationality groups,

the Kazakhs and the Kirgiz. Subsequently, both of these groups were given union republic (q.v.) status in the Soviet Union.

KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti)—Committee for State Security. The predominant security police organization

since its establishment in 1954.

khanate—Dominion or territorial jurisdiction of a Mongol khan

(ruler).

991
Soviet Union: A Country Study

khozraschet—A system of "self-supporting operations," applied to such individual enterprises (q. v.) as factories, encompassing a wide range of activities, including samofinansirovanie (q.v.), and

a management process involving a large number of individuals.

Kievan Rus' —An East Slavic state, centered on Kiev, established

by Oleg ca. 880. Disintegrated by the thirteenth century.

kolkhoz (pi., kolkhozy)See collective farm.

Komsomol (Vsesoiuznyi Leninskii kommunisticheskii soiuz molodezhi)—Ail-Union Lenin Communist Youth League. An or- ganization administered by the CPSU (q. v. ) for youth between

ages fourteen and twenty-eight. Since its establishment in 1918,

the Komsomol has helped the party prepare new generations

for an elite role in Soviet society. It has instilled in young people the principles of Marxism-Leninism (q. v. ) and involved

them in large-scale industrial projects, such as factory construction and the virgin land campaign (q.v.). Members were ex- pected to be politically conscious, vigilant, and loyal to the

communist cause. Membership privileges included better opportunities for higher education and preferential consideration

for career advancement. In 1982 the Komsomol had 41.7 million members.

krai (pi., kraia) —A large territorial and administrative subdivision

found only in the Russian Republic, where there are six, all of which are thinly populated. The boundaries of a krai are laid

out primarily for ease of administration but may also contain

lesser political subdivisions based on nationality groups

autonomous oblast (q. v.), or autonomous okrug (q. v.), or both.

Directly subordinate to its union republic (q.v.).

kremlin (kreml*)—Central citadel in many medieval Russian towns,

usually located at a strategic spot along a river. Moscow's

Kremlin is now the seat of the CPSU (q. v. ) and the government of the Soviet Union.

kulak—A successful, independent farmer of the period of Soviet

history before collectivization (q.v.). According to the Bolsheviks

(q.v.), any peasant who hired labor. The term eventually was

applied to any peasant who opposed collectivization.

Kuzbass (Kuznetskiy basseyn)—Kuznetsk Basin. A major coal- mining and industrial area located in southern Siberia, east and southeast of Novosibirsk.

League of Nations—An organization for international cooperation,

established by the victorious Allied Powers at the end of World

War I. The Soviet Union joined in 1934 but was expelled in

1939.

992
Glossary

Lend-Lease Law—A foreign aid program initiated by the United

States in March 1941 that authorized the transfer of substantial quantities of war materiel, such as tanks, munitions,

locomotives, and ships, to countries opposing the military ag- gression of the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) while

the United States mobilized for war. In November 1941, the

Soviet Union was added to the list of recipients and, during

the course of World War II, received supplies and equipment

worth billions of dollars. liquidity shortage—A lack of assets that can be readily converted

to cash.

local war—Armed conflict short of general war, usually waged with

limited forces and in a limited area. In Soviet usage, local war

usually referred to a war waged by capitalist countries against

"wars of national liberation."

Main Intelligence Directorate (Glavnoe razvedyvatel'noe

upravlenie—GRU)—A military organization, subordinate to the General Staff of the armed forces, that collected and

processed strategic, technical, and tactical information of value

to the armed forces. It may also have included special units

for engaging in active measures (q.v.), guerrilla warfare, and

sabotage.

Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy—The

organ the CPSU (q. v.) used to control the armed forces of the

Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact (q. v.) countries. An organ

of the CPSU in the Ministry of Defense, it was responsible for conducting ideological indoctrination and propaganda activities to prepare the armed forces for their role in national security.

Marshall Plan—A plan announced in June 1947 by United States secretary of state George C. Marshall for the reconstruction

of Europe after World War II. The plan involved a considerable amount of United States aid to Western Europe, but the

Soviet Union refused the offer of aid and forbade the East European countries it dominated from taking part in the Marshall Plan. As a counterweight, the Soviet Union created the

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon

q.v.).

Marxism/Marxist—The economic, political, and social theories of

Karl Marx, a nineteenth-century German philosopher and socialist, especially his concept of socialism (q. v.), which includes

the labor theory of value, dialectical materialism (q.v.), class struggle (q. v.), and the dictatorship of the proletariat (q. v. ) until a classless society can be established. Another German socialist,

Friederich Engels, collaborated with Marx and was a major

contributor to the development of Marxism.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Marxism-Leninism/Marxist-Leninist—The ideology of communism (q.v.), developed by Karl Marx and refined and adapted

to social and economic conditions in Russia by Lenin, that has

guided the party and the Soviet Union. Marx talked of the es- tablishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat (q.v.), after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, as a transitional socialist (q.v.)

phase before the achievement of communism. Lenin added the

idea of a communist party as the vanguard or leading force

in promoting the proletarian revolution and building com- munism. Stalin and subsequent leaders contributed their own

interpretations of the ideology.

Menshevik—A member of a wing of the Russian Social Democratic

Labor Party (q.v.) before and during the Russian revolutions

of 1905 and 1917. Unlike the Bolsheviks (q.v.), the Mensheviks believed in the gradual achievement of socialism (q. v. ) by

parliamentary methods. The term Menshevik is derived from

the word menshenstvo (minority).

metropolitan—The primate of an ecclesiastical province of the Orthodox Church.

MGB (Ministerstvo gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti)—Ministry of

State Security. The paramount security police organization

from 1946 to 1953.

military commissariat (voennyi komissariat—voenkomaf)—A local mili- tary administrative agency that prepares and executes plans

for military mobilization, maintains records on military manpower and economic resources available to the armed forces,

provides premilitary training, drafts men for military service,

organizes reserves for training, and performs other military

functions at the local level. mir—A peasant commune established at the village level in tsarist Russia. It controlled the redistribution of farmland and was

held responsible for collecting taxes and levying recruits for mili- tary service. In Russian, mir also means "world" and "peace."

Mongol "yoke" —Period of Mongol domination of much of eastern Europe by the Golden Horde (q.v.) from the mid-thirteenth

century to the end of the fifteenth century.

MOOP (Ministerstvo okhrany obshchestvennogo poriadka)

Ministry for the Preservation of Public Order. Functioned between 1962 and 1968.

moral-political capabilities—The ability of the people and the armed

forces to assume a positive attitude toward a war fought by the

Soviet Union and to support the political goals of the war under

trying circumstances.

994
Glossary

most-favored-nation status—Under the provisions of the General

Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT

q. v.), when one

country accords another most-favored-nation status it agrees

to extend that country the same trade concessions, e.g., lower

tariffs or reduced nontariff barriers, that it grants to any other

recipients having most-favored-nation status. As of May 1989,

the Soviet Union had not been a member of GATT and had

not received most-favored-nation status from the United States. mujahidin (sing., mujahid)—Derived from the wordjihad, the term means holy warriors and is used by and applied to the Afghan

resistance or freedom fighters.

mullah—Muslim man trained in Islamic law and doctrine.

Muscovy—The state that emerged around Moscow after the decline

of Kievan Rus' (q.v.) in the thirteenth century. Predecessor

to the Russian Empire (q.v.), which was proclaimed in 1721

by Peter the Great.

MVD (Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del)—Ministry of Internal Affairs. Existed from 1946 to 1962 and since 1968 began to exercise regular police functions.

nationality—A people linked by a common language, culture, his- tory, and territory who may have developed a common eco- nomic and political life; an individual's ethnic background. Not

to be confused with an individual's country of citizenship.

Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact—Agreement signed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on August 23, 1939, immediately

preceding the German invasion of Poland, which began World

War II. A secret protocol divided Poland between the two

powers and gave Bessarabia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and

the eastern part of Poland to the Soviet Union. The pact also delayed the Soviet Union's entry into World War II. Also

known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. NEP (Novaia ekonomicheskaia politika)—New Economic Policy.

Instituted in 1921 , it let peasants sell produce on an open market

and permitted small enterprises (q.v.) to be privately owned

and operated. Cultural restrictions were also relaxed during

this period. NEP declined with the forced collectivization (q.v.)

of farms and was officially ended by Stalin in December 1929.

net material product—The official measure of the value of goods

and services produced in the Soviet Union, and in other countries having a planned economy, during a given period, usually a year. It approximates the term gross national product (GNP

q. v. ) used by economists in the United States and in other countries having a market economy. The Soviet measure has been

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

based on constant prices, which do not fully account for infla- tion, and has excluded depreciation.

"new Soviet man"—A theoretical goal of several Soviet regimes

to transform the culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse

peoples of the Soviet Union into a single Soviet people, behaving according to the ideology of Marxism-Leninism (q. v.). "new thinking" —Gorbachev's view that international politics

should be based on common moral and ethical norms rather

than military force, including nuclear war; an integral part of

perestroika (q.v.).

NKGB (Narodnyi komissariat gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti)

People's Commissariat of State Security. Functioned in 1941

and again from 1943 to 1946.

NKVD (Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennykh del)—People's Commissariat of Internal' Affairs. The commissariat that administered regular police organizations from 1917 to 1946.

When the OGPU (q.v.) was abolished in 1934, the NKVD in- corporated the security police organization until 1946.

nomenklatura—The CPSU's (q.v.) system of appointing key personnel

in the government and other important organizations, based on lists of critical positions and people in political favor. Also

refers to the individuals included on these lists. nonchernozem (nechernozem V)—A large agricultural and industrial

region in the European part of the Soviet Union, extending

approximately 2,300 kilometers from Kaliningrad in the northwest to Sverdlovsk in the east with a north- south expanse of more than 1,000 kilometers in places. The region does not have

the black earth of the chernozem (q.v.) zone. Novosti (Agentstvo pechati novosti)—News Press Agency. The

news agency responsible for disseminating Soviet information

abroad. (The word novosV means news or something new.)

nuclear war-fighting—The capability to use nuclear weapons to

fight a war.

oblast (pi., oblasts)—A territorial and administrative subdivision

in ten of the fifteen union republics (q.v.). Directly subordinate

to its union republic. See also autonomous oblast. OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)—Founded by Western nations in 1961 to stimulate eco- nomic progress and world trade. It also coordinated economic

aid to less developed countries. In 1989 members included Australia, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland,

France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg,

the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain,

996
Glossary

Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States, and West

Germany.

OGPU (Ob"edinennoe gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie) —Unified State Political Directorate. The security police

from 1923 to 1934; successor to the GPU.

Okhrana—The security police under Alexander III (1881-94).

Covert operations (using nonuniformed agents and informers) were used to uncover and collect evidence against revolutionary groups.

okrug (pi., okruga) —See autonomous okrug.

Old Believers—A sect of the Russian Orthodox Church that re- jected the changes made by Patriarch Nikon in the midseventeenth century.

Old Church Slavonic (also known as Church Slavonic)—The first Slavic literary language. Influenced development of modern

Slavic languages, especially literary Russian. Used in liturgies

of the Russian Orthodox Church and other Slavic churches.

opportunity cost—The value of goods or services in terms of what

had to be sacrificed to obtain them.

oprichnina—The era in the 1550s during which Ivan IV (the Terrible) brutally punished and decimated the boyar (q.v.) class. Pale of Settlement—A district created by Catherine II in 1792 for the Jewish population of the Russian Empire. By the nineteenth

century, it encompassed all of Russian Poland, the Baltic

provinces, Belorussia, most of Ukraine, Crimea, and Bessarabia. Jews were prohibited from living or traveling beyond the

Pale of Settlement. Although eventually some Jews were al- lowed to settle in other parts of the empire, the Russian census of 1897 indicated that nearly 5 million Jews remained in

the Pale of Settlement and only about 200,000 lived outside

its boundaries.

party congress—In theory, the ruling body of the communist party.

Party congresses, which usually met every five years, were

largely ceremonial and legitimizing events at which several thousand ' 'elected' ' delegates convened to approve new party programs (q.v.) and Party Rules (q.v.).

party program—A comprehensive statement adopted by a party

congress (q. v. ) that states the goals and principles of the party.

The 1986 party program, the fourth since 1918, was adopted

by the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress. It was notable in that

it did not set definite dates for the attainment of goals, unlike

its predecessor, the 1961 party program.

Party Rules (Ustav kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza)—CPSU

document containing regulations for admission of individuals

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

into the CPSU (q. v.); the organizational structure of the party;

the principles of democratic centralism (q.v.); the role of the

primary party organization (q. v. ); the party's relations with the

Komsomol (q. v.); party organizations in the armed forces; and

membership dues. It can be altered by the party congress (q.v.).

Also called Party Statute. passenger-kilometer—The movement of one person a distance of one kilometer.

patriarch—Head of an independent Orthodox Church, such as the

Russian Orthodox Church, or one of the Eastern Rite Catholic churches.

peaceful coexistence—According to Marxism-Leninism (q.v.), the

doctrine of maintaining proper state-to- state relations between

socialist (q.v.) and capitalist states, while simultaneously en- couraging friction and strife within and among capitalist countries by every means, short of all-out war, and pursuing

expansionist aims in the Third World.

people's court—An official tribunal having jurisdiction in most civil and criminal cases originating in a (raion) (q. v.). The court was

presided over by a professional judge, assisted by two people's

assessors (narodnye zasedateli), or lay judges. Cases were decided

by a majority vote. Professional judges were elected for five- year terms and were members of the CPSU (q.v.); most had some legal training. People's assessors, who had no legal training, were elected for two and one-half years but sat only for a few weeks; they corresponded somewhat to jurors in United

States courts.

perestroika (restructuring)—Gorbachev's campaign to revitalize the

economy, party, and society by adjusting economic, political,

and social mechanisms. Announced at Twenty-Seventh Party

Congress in August 1986.

permafrost—Ground permanendy frozen except for the surface soils that thaw when temperatures rise above freezing. Thawing and

refreezing cause instability of the soil, which greatly complicates the construction and maintenance of roads, railroads, and

buildings. Permafrost covers roughly the northern one-third

of the Soviet landmass.

permanent revolution—A theory, developed by Leon Trotsky, that

in a backward society, such as that of Russia in the early 1900s, a bourgeois revolution would evolve into a proletarian, socialist

(q. v. ) revolution and would inspire the continuous or permanent outbreak of socialist revolutions internationally. Continuing world revolution remained a doctrine of the CPSU (q. v.

)

in the late 1980s.

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Glossary

Pioneer (Pioner)—A member of the Ail-Union Pioneer Organization named for Lenin. Founded in 1922, and open to chil- dren ages ten to fifteen, the main purpose of the organization

has been the rudimentary political indoctrination of Soviet

youth. At age fourteen, a Pioneer can enter the Komsomol

(q.v.). In 1980 about 20 million children were members of the

Pioneer organization.

Politburo—Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU

(q.v.); the foremost policy-making body of the Soviet Union.

In February 1989, the Politburo had twelve members and eight

candidate members. From 1952 to 1966, the Politburo was

called the Presidium.

popular front—A device of Soviet foreign policy, implemented with

the assistance of the Comintern (q.v.), that attempted to gain

allies, principally the Western democracies, against the fascists in Spain, Germany, and elsewhere, from 1939 through World

War II. Pravda (Truth)—Daily, nationwide newspaper published by the

Central Committee of the CPSU (q.v.).

Presidium (of the Central Committee of the CPSU)—The CPSU

Politburo (q.v.) was called the Presidium between 1952 and

1966.

Presidium (of the Council of Ministers)—The executive committee of the national executive branch of the government.

Presidium (of the Supreme Soviet)—The executive committee of

the national legislative branch of the government.

primary party organization—The basic unit of the party, known

as a party cell until 1934; comprised of three or more party

members. Each party member is a member of a primary party

organization.

procurator—A member of the Procuracy whose responsibilities can

include conducting investigations, supervising investigations

carried out by the MVD (q.v.) and the KGB (q.v.), prosecuting criminal and civil offenders, referring judicial decisions to higher courts for review, supervising prisons, administering

parole and release of prisoners, and overseeing the legality of

operations of all government bodies. Procurators, who were

appointed by the procurator general and served throughout the

Soviet Union, were generally members of the CPSU (q. v. ) and

subject to party discipline. During the tsarist period, Peter the

Great appointed a chief procurator as head of the Holy Synod.

proletarian internationalism—The Marxist belief that workers

around the world are linked together by a bond that transcends

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

nationalism; the commitment of communists to do all they can

to convert the world to communism (q.v.). raion (pi., raiony) —A low-level territorial and administrative subdivision for rural and municipal administration. A rural raion was a county-sized district in a krai (q. v.), oblast (q. v.), autonomous republic (q. v.), autonomous okrug (q. v.), or union republic

(q.v.). A city raion was similar to a borough in some large ci- ties in the United States. readiness—The ability of military units to deploy to achieve a wartime objective without delay. According to Western authorities,

divisions of the Soviet Ground Forces varied greatly in their readiness and could be placed in three states of readiness. About

40 percent of the divisions were in a high state of readiness with

trained manpower at more than 50 percent of wartime authorization and with late-model weapons and equipment. About 50

percent of the divisions were in a lower state of readiness with

trained personnel at less than 50 percent authorization and with

older weapons and equipment. (These divisions would require

mobilization and training of reservists before being committed

to combat.) About 10 percent of the divisions were essentially

unmanned, inactive equipment sets that would require extensive time for mobilization and training before deployment.

Red Army—The name for the Soviet army from 1918 until 1945.

Red Terror—Initiated by the Bolsheviks (q. v.) after an August 1918

attempt on Lenin's life. The bloody reign of the Vecheka (q. v.), during which the nation was ruthlessly subjugated to the Bolshevik will. The Red Terror continued until 1920.

rehabilitation/rehabilitated—Official restoration of a person or group of people sentenced and imprisoned or exiled for politi- cal crimes.

repressed inflation—An economic situation in which government

price controls restrict increases in prices but do not substantially decrease underlying causes of inflation.

RSFSR (Rossiiskaia Sovetskaia Federativnaia Sotsialisticheskaia

Respublika)—Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic; the

Russian Republic. The largest of the fifteen union republics

(q.v.), inhabited predominantly by Russians. It comprised ap- proximately 75 percent of the area of the Soviet Union, about

62 percent of its population, and over 60. percent of its eco- nomic output.

ruble—The monetary unit of the Soviet Union; divided into 100

kopeks. The official Soviet exchange rate was 0.61 ruble per

US$1 (1988 average). The black market rate varied from 4 to

1000
Glossary

6 rubles per US$1 in 1988. The ruble has historically not been

considered hard currency (q.v.).

Rus'

See Kievan Rus'.

Russian Empire—Successor state to Muscovy (q.v.). Formally

proclaimed by Tsar Peter the Great in 1721 and significantly

expanded during the reign of Catherine II, becoming a major

multinational state. It collapsed during the revolutions of 1917.

Russianization—The policy of several Soviet regimes promoting

Russian as the national language of the Soviet Union. Russian was given equal and official status with local languages

in all non-Russian republics; it was made the official language

of state and diplomatic affairs, in the armed forces, and on

postage stamps, currency, and military and civilian decorations.

A prerequisite for Russification (q.v.).

Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Rossiiskaia sotsial-demokraticheskaia rabochaia partiia)—A Marxist party founded in 1898

that split into Bolshevik (majority) and Menshevik (minority)

factions in 1903. The Bolsheviks changed the name of the party

in March 1918 to the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)

and began calling themselves Communists. See also CPSU.

Russification—A process of changing the national identity of nonRussians to an identity culturally similar to that of the Russians. Although not the official policy of any Soviet regime,

such assimilation often resulted from the policy of Russianization (q.v.), particularly in the case of Ukrainians, Belorussians, and non-Russian educated elites. SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks)—A series of negotiations

between the Soviet Union and the United States that attempted

to place limits and restraints on some of their central and most

important armaments. The first series began in November 1969

and culminated on May 26, 1972, when General Secretary

Leonid Brezhnev and President Richard M. Nixon signed a

treaty on the limitation of anti-ballistic missile systems (the

ABM Treaty) and an interim agreement limiting strategic offen- sive arms. The second series began in November 1972 and

resulted in a completed agreement, signed by General Secretary Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter on June 18, 1979.

Neither country, however, ratified the agreement.

samizdat—Literally, self-publication. Russian word for the printing and circulating of literary, political, and other written

manuscripts without passing them through the official censor, thus making them unauthorized and illegal. If published

abroad, such publications are called tamizdat (q.v.).

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

samofinansirovanie—Literally, self-financing. A practice of some

ministries enabling selected enterprises (q. v. ) to recover production costs and sufficient profits for investment. Without such

financial autonomy, enterprises had to rely on funds allocated

by central economic planners.

sblizhenie—Literally, drawing together. A Soviet policy of bringing the diverse nationalities into a close socialist community

by gradually reducing ethnic differences of individual nationalities. The policy was included in the 1961 party program

(q.v.). serf—A peasant legally bound to the land. Serfs were emancipated

by Tsar Alexander II in 1861.

Shia (or Shiite)—A member of the smaller of the two great divisions of Islam. The Shias supported the claims of Ali and his

line to presumptive right to the caliphate and leadership of the

world Muslim community, and on this issue they divided from

the Sunnis (q. v. ) in the first great schism of Islam. Later schisms

have produced further divisions among the Shias. In 1989 about

10 percent of the Soviet Lfnion's Muslims were Shias.

Slavophiles—Members of the Russian intelligentsia (q.v.) in the

mid-nineteenth century who advocated Slavic, and specifically

Russian, culture over western European culture, as opposed

to Westernizers (q.v.).

sliianie—Literally, blending, merging. A theory that all Soviet nationalities could be merged into one by eliminating ethnic identity and national consciousness. Adopted by Stalin and included

in the 1930 party program (q.v.), its intent was to achieve a

single Russian-speaking, Soviet nationality.

socialism/socialist—According to Marxism-Leninism (q.v.), the first phase of communism (q.v.). A transition from capitalism in

which the means of production are state owned and whose guiding principle was "from each according to his abilities, to each

according to his work. '

' Soviet socialism bore scant resemblance

to the democratic socialism of, for example, some West European countries.

socialist countries—As defined by the CPSU (q.v.), those countries governed by a Marxist ideology. In May 1989, these in- cluded Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the

Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), East

Germany, Hungary, Laos, Madagascar, Mongolia, Nicaragua,

Poland, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam.

socialist internationalism—The linking of all socialist (q. v. ) countries. See Brezhnev Doctrine; proletarian internationalism.

socialist legality—A legal doctrine that ensured that the law and

1002
Glossary

the legal system served the interests of the state and the re- gime rather than protecting individuals' rights vis-a-vis the state. Under Stalin, the doctrine was interpreted narrowly, with emphasis on facilitating fulfillment of the economic five-year plans

(q.v.). Under Khrushchev, and particularly under Gorbachev,

emphasis was placed on codifying criminal and civil laws, es- tablishing and strengthening legal institutions, and adhering

to laws and legal procedures.

socialist property—According to a basic precept of socialism (q. v.), the state owns all land, resources, and the means of production in industry, construction, and agriculture, as well as the

transportation and communication systems, banks, and trade

enterprises (q.v.). In the Soviet Union, the CPSU (q. v.) controlled socialist property.

socialist realism—An aesthetic doctrine that measured artistic and

literary merit by the degree to which a work contributed to the

building of socialism (q. v.) among the masses.

soft-currency goods—Items that could be bought without the ex- penditure of hard currency (q.v.).

soviet (sovet) —Literally, advice, counsel, or council. The basic

governmental organ at all levels of the Soviet Union.

sovkhoz (pi., sovkhozy)

See state farm.

Spetsnaz (Voiska spetsial'nogo naznacheniia)—Special Purpose

Forces of the Soviet armed forces or KGB (q. v. ), trained to at- tack important command, communications, and weapons

centers behind enemy lines. sputnik—Literally, fellow traveler. A man-made spacecraft that or- bited the earth. In the West, the term Sputnik (capitalized) was

used to refer to the first man-made earth satellite, which was

launched by the Soviet Union in 1957 to the surprise of the

Western scientific and defense communities.

SSR (sovetskaia sotsialisticheskaia respublika)— Soviet socialist republic. A soviet union republic (q.v.).

Stakhanovite—A worker whose output was said to be well beyond

production norms. Named for Aleksandr Stakhanov, an out- standing worker. The Stakhanovite movement began in August 1935.

state farm (sovetskoe khoziaistvo—sovkhoz)—A government-owned

and government-managed agricultural enterprise (q. v. ) where

workers are paid salaries. steppe—The vast, semiarid, grass-covered plain in the southeastern

portion of the European part of the Soviet Union. One of the

five primary natural zones of the Soviet Union.

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

Sufism—An Islamic movement that emphasizes a personal and

mystical approach in the search for "divine truth." Sufism consists of semisecret Sufi brotherhoods, each pursuing a differ- ent school or "path" of mystic discipline but having a common

goal.

Sunni—A member of the larger of the two great divisions of Islam.

The Sunnis, who rejected the claim of Ali's line, believe that

they are the true followers of the sunna, the guide to proper

behavior composed of the Quran and hadith, the precedent of

Muhammad's words that serves as one of the sources of Islamic

law. In 1989 about 90 percent of the Soviet Union's Muslims

were Sunnis.

Table of Ranks—A system of ranks for nobles based on service

to the tsar rather than on birth or seniority. Created by Peter

the Great in 1722.

taiga—The extensive, sub-Arctic evergreen forest of the Soviet

Union. The taiga, the largest of the five primary natural zones,

lies south of the tundra (q.v.).

tamizdat—Literally, published there (abroad). Russian word for samizdat (q. v. ) manuscripts surreptitiously sent abroad for publication.

TASS (Telegrafnoe agentstvo Sovetskogo Soiuza)—Telegraph

Agency of the Soviet Union. The news agency that had a monopoly on collecting and distributing news within the Soviet

Union.

territorial production complex (territorial'no proizvodstvennyi kompleks) —An economic entity consisting of various economically

related industrial and agricultural enterprises (q. y.) in a particular geographic area. Time of Troubles—Period of civil war in Muscovy between boyar

(q.v.) factions from 1598 to 1613, with heavy Polish involvement.

ton-kilometer—The movement of one ton of cargo a distance of one kilometer. Ton-kilometers are computed by multiplying

the weight (in tons) of each shipment transported by the dis- tance hauled (in kilometers). tons originated—The weight of freight (in tons) at its original point

of shipment.

transmission belt—An organization, not formally part of the CPSU

(q. v. ) apparatus, used by the party to convey its party program

(q.v.) and propaganda to the population at large, for example,

Soviet trade unions.

Trans-Siberian Railway—The 7,000-kilometer railroad line,

stretching from its western terminus at Chelyabinsk on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains to Vladivostok on the

1004
Glossary

Pacific Ocean, was built between 1891 and 1916 to link the

European part of Russia with Siberia and the Far East. In the

late 1980s, the Trans-Siberian Railway informally consisted

of several Soviet railroads that remained the only rail link between the western part of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Far

East until the BAM (q.v.) was opened in 1989.

trust (trest) —An economic entity that consists of several industrial

enterprises (q.v.) of the same type, e.g., construction trust, as- sembly trust. tundra—The treeless plain within the Arctic Circle that has lowgrowing vegetation and permanently frozen subsoil

(permafrostq.v.). The northernmost of the five primary natural zones of the Soviet Union.

Turkestan—Literally, the land of the Turks. An immense, ancient

territory in Central Asia stretching from the Caspian Sea in

the west and extending into China's present-day Xinjiang

Autonomous Region and northern Afghanistan in the east. In- cludes a large part of Kazakhstan (q.v.).

turnover tax—A sales tax levied primarily on consumer goods.

TVD (teatr voennykh deistvii) —Theater of military operations. A

Soviet term meaning part of a continent or ocean within which

are deployed strategic groupings of armed forces and within

which military operations are conducted.

Uniate Church—A branch of the Catholic Church that preserved

the Eastern Rite and discipline but submitted to papal authority.

Established in 1596 at the Union of Brest. In the Soviet Union,

the Uniate Church is found primarily in the western Ukrainian Republic, where it has been referred to as the Ukrainian

Catholic Church. Also known as the Greek Catholic Church

or the Byzantine Rite Church. It is one of the Eastern Rite

Catholic churches.

Unified Electrical Power System (Ob"edinennaia elektroenergeticheskaia sistema)—The national electric power generating

and transmission network of the Soviet Union. The system in- cludes over 90 percent of the country's generating capacity and

is divided into regional power networks, each serving a single

administrative or industrial area. It is linked to systems in Bulgaria, Finland, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Turkey.

union republic—One of the fifteen primary administrative subdivisions of the Soviet Union. Except for some of the smaller

ones, the union republics were divided into oblasts (q.v.), au- tonomous oblasts (q.v.), kraia (q.v.), and autonomous republics (q.v.) as major subdivisions. Also known as Soviet socialist republic (SSR

q.v.).

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Soviet Union: A Country Study

union-republic ministries—Ministries that had counterpart ministries in each of the republics. Other ministries of the central

government were termed all-union ministries (q.v.).

united front—A Leninist tactic used by the Soviet regime to authorize communist parties in other countries to collaborate

temporarily with noncommunist parties. The purpose was the- oretically to promote democratic institutions and workers'

rights, but in reality it provided opportunities for communists

to secure political gains and to seize power without resorting

to revolution.

uskorenie (acceleration)—Under Gorbachev, an on-going effort to speed up the rate of growth and modernization of the economy.

USSR—Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Soviet Union.

Varangians—A group of Norsemen who assumed control over communities of East Slavs (q.v.) ca. A.D. 860 and who founded

the Rurikid Dynasty, which ruled for over 700 years. Vecheka (Vserossiiskaia chrezvychainaia komissiia po bor'be s kontrrevoliutsiei i sabotazhem—VChK)—All-Russian Extra- ordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and

Sabotage. The political police created by the Bolsheviks (q.v.)

in 1917; supposed to be dissolved when the new regime, under

Lenin, had defeated its enemies and secured its power. But

the Vecheka, also known as the Cheka, continued until 1922,

becoming the leading instrument of terror and oppression as well as the predecessor of other secret police organizations.

Members of successor security organizations continued to be

referred to as "Chekisty" in the late 1980s.

virgin land campaign—An intensive but ultimately unsuccessful

agricultural project directed by Nikita S. Khrushchev to raise

crops in the vast grasslands of the Kazakh Republic and some

neighboring areas of the Russian Republic that had never been

farmed before.

voenkomat—See military commissariat.

Volga Germans—Ethnic Germans who had lived in the Volga River

area for several centuries and who were moved eastward, mostly

to the Kazakh Republic, en masse by Stalin on the suspicion

of collaborating with the Germans during World War II. Rehabilitated (q.v.) in August 1965. war communism—Policy of the Bolshevik (q. v. ) regime during the

Civil War (1918-21), in which the country's economy was

almost totally directed toward equipping and maintaining the

Red Army (q.v.).

Warsaw Pact—Political-military alliance founded by the Soviet

Union in 1955 as a counterweight to NATO. Members in 1989

1006
Glossary

included Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary,

Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. Served as the Soviet

Union's primary mechanism for keeping political and military

control over Eastern Europe.

Westernizers—Russian intellectuals in the mid-nineteenth century

who emphasized Russia's cultural ties with the West, as opposed to the Slavophiles (q.v.).

White armies—Various military forces that attempted to overthrow

the Bolshevik (q.v.) regime during the Civil War (1918-21).

The principal leaders of the White armies were former tsarist officers, including generals Anton Denikin, Nikolai Yudenich,

Petr Wrangel, and Evgenii Miller and former tsarist admiral

Aleksandr Kolchak. They operated with no unified command,

no clear political goal, and no supplies from the Russian heartland and thus were defeated piecemeal by the Red Army (q. v.). World Bank—Informal name used to designate a group of three

affiliated international institutions—the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International

Development Association (IDA), and the International Finance

Corporation (IFC). The IBRD, established in 1945, has the

primary purpose of providing loans to developing countries for productive projects. The IDA, a legally separate loan fund but

administered by the staff of the IBRD, was set up in 1960 to furnish credits to the poorest developing countries on much easier terms than those of conventional IBRD loans. The IFC,

founded in 1956, supplements the activities of the IBRD

through loans and assistance designed specifically to encourage

the growth of productive private enterprises in the less developed countries. The president and certain senior officers of the

IBRD hold the same positions in the IFC. The three institu- tions are owned by the governments of the countries that subscribe their capital. To participate in the World Bank group,

member states must first belong to the International Monetary Fund (IMF—q.v.).

world socialist system—In the Soviet view, a commonwealth of advanced socialist states that accept the Soviet model of government and interpretation of Marxism-Leninism (q.v.).

Yalta Conference—Meeting of Stalin, Winston Churchill, and

Franklin D. Roosevelt in February 1945 that redrew post-World

War II national borders and established spheres of influence

in Europe.

Young Octobrists (Oktiabriata)—Literally, "Children of October."

An organization that has prepared Soviet schoolchildren ages

six to nine for membership in the Pioneer (q.v.) organization.

1007
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Established in 1923, the first Young Octobrists were contemporaries of the October Revolution of 1917 (Bolshevik

Revolution

q. v.), hence the name ''Children of October."

zampolit (zamestiteV komandira po politicheskoi chasti)—Deputy com- mander for political affairs. Found in each unit of the armed

forces; responsible for overseeing the political reliability in the

armed forces. zemskii sobor—A national assembly consisting of members of the

duma (q.v.) of the boyars (q.v.), high church dignitaries, elected

representatives of the nobility, the townspeople, and sometimes

the peasants. Originally a consultative body in the mid-sixteenth

century, this organization shared some minor governing functions with the tsars by the mid-seventeenth century but was

not convened in the eighteenth century or subsequently.

zemstvo—A rural, self-governing institution with jurisdiction over

schools, public health, food supply, roads, insurance, relief for the poor, maintenance of prisons, and other local concerns. Existed from about 1864 until the Bolshevik Revolution (q.v.)

in 1917.

Zhdanovshchina—Literally, era of Zhdanov. A period from 1946

to 1948 when Andrei Zhdanov, with Stalin's permission, led

attacks on writers, musicians, and scientists for deviance from

concepts approved by the CPSU (q.v.). Many attacks were made against persons of Jewish nationality (q.v.), who were termed "rootless cosmopolitans." Zhdanov died in 1948, but

the purge continued.

1008
Index

Abkhazian Autonomous Republic, 156

abortion, lxvi; abolition of, 71; attitudes of non- Russian nationalities toward, 231; availability of, 266; as chief form of contraception, 234; cost of, 234, 266; death from, 271; fac- tors contributing to rate of, 212; legality of, 234, 235; in NEP era, 68; rates, 125, 234 Abu Bakr, 194 Abuladze, Tengiz, 392 Academy of Fine Arts, 23 Academy of Medical Sciences, 636 Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, 253; facilities of, 248; mission of, 248-49; research and

development in education by, 248 Academy of Sciences, 645; absence of appropriate testing facilities, 639-40; achievements of, 625; advice of, on policy, 335, 629; under

Brezhnev, 627; censorship in, 376; charters of, 624-65, 626; Engineering Sciences Division

of, 626; financial decision by, 632; founded by Peter the Great, 22, 624; meetings of, 637; membership of, 636; military research and de- velopment under, 646-47; monitored by

Science and Education Institutions Depart- ment, 628-29; in NEP era, 625; personnel

policies, 636; purge of, 626; research of, 625, 630, 635; research institutes under, 503, 636, 639; research vessels of, 575-76; role of, 248, 345, 461, 637; sections of, 636; under Stalin, 625-26; Western scientists in, 625 Academy of Social Sciences, 321 Acheson-Lilienthal-Baruch Plan, 442

acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

See AIDS

active measures: defined, 779; international front groups, 779; support for terrorists, 779 Aden, Gulf of, 439 Aden: Soviet military base in, 685

Adler, 557

Administration of Affairs Department (CPSU),

300, 301 Administrative Organs Department (CPSU),

785 Adzhar Autonomous Republic, 156

Aeroflot. See civil aviation Afghanistan, 37, 38, 48, 101, 108, 160, 170, 171, 414, 433-35, 446; bi-tarafi (balanced

relationship) principle, 434; emigration of Kazakhs to, 164; emigration of Kirgiz to, 167; history of Soviet involvement in, 433-34; land of, appropriated by Soviet Union, 434; military advisers in, 684; mili- tary agreement of, with Czechoslovakia, 434;

Soviet arms bought by, 614; Soviet forces stationed in, 728; Soviet occupation of, 434-35; Soviet support for, lx; Soviet trade

with, 612; ties to Comecon, 616, 855; treaty

of, with Pakistan; treaties of, with Soviet Union; withdrawal of Soviet troops from,

lxxvi, 430, 435, 604, 682, 684, 700

Afghanistan, Soviet invasion of (1979), 56, 92, 682-84, 700, 772, 781, 891; Airborne Troops

in, 719; arguments for, 682; background of, 434; condemned by Iraq, 431; decision for, 408, 434; international response to, 91, 416,

422, 427, 434, 443, 609, 683, 689; military

airlifts into, 712, 721; as training for tactical conventional combat, 675, 683-84; United

Nations condemnation of, 434, 445, 683

Afghanistan, war in, 384; Afghan deaths from,

435; Afghan refugees from, 435; helicopters

in, 683; Muslims in, 747; Soviet weapons

used in, 711 Afghan-Soviet neutrality treaty (1931), 434

Africa, 410; food imported from, 614; military advisers in, 684, 700; Soviet influence in, 291, 872; Soviet trade with, 571, 615-16

Africa, North, 569, 615

Africa, sub-Saharan, 438-40, 684; economic

assistance to, under Brezhnev, 438; Khrushchev's efforts in, 438; military assistance

to, 438; Soviet trade with, 615

Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization, 407

After the Storm (Zalygin), 388-89

Aganbegian, Abel, 480 Age of Realism (literature), 38-40; "thick jour- nal" as outlet for literary opinion in, 39

agitation and propaganda departments, 311

agitprop, 377

Agoniia (Klimov), 392 Agrarian Policy Commission, 300, 522

agricultural administration: bureaucracy of, dismantling of, 524; Gorbachev's approach

to, 524; motivations of, 520; objectives of, 520-21; under Stalin, 520

Agricultural Construction, Ministry of, 524

agricultural enterprises, 720

Agricultural Plenum, 522, 524, 525

agricultural policy: under Khrushchev, 522;

results of, 521; under Stalin, 520

agricultural production, 529-42; economic per- formance, 529-30; food production goals, 524; growth of, 519, 530; improvement in, under Gorbachev, 530; problems with, under Gorbachev, lxii 1009
Soviet Union: A Country Study

agricultural products: causes of shortages of, 519; cotton, 532; flax, 532; forage crops, 533;

fruit, 534; grain harvests, 520; hemp, 532; import of, 602, 606, 608, 614; potatoes and

vegetables, 533-34; shortages of, 519, 541; sugar beets, 532-33; sunflowers, 532; tea, 534-36; technical crops, 532-33; tobacco, 536; transportation of, hampered by poor

roads, 545, 565; vegetables, 534, 541; wheats 531

agricultural sector, 452; collective farms in, 453, 466-67; collectivization as dominant cause

of poor performance of, 519-20; factors in poor performance of, 474-75; materials imported for, 615; planning in, 462; output of, 453, 476; as source of capital accumulation,

473; state farms in, 453, 466-67

agricultural workers, 211; categories of, 217,

226; children of, in higher education, 258;

educational level of, 217; living standards of, 520; income of, 217, 220, 520; increased participation of, in decision making, 524, 530;

position of children of, 211; women as, 217

agriculture, 457; agricultural land, 526; arable

land, 526, 529; decrease in output during World War II, 77-78; forced collectivization

of, lviii, 473, 520, 593, 758; grain as foun- dation of, 530-31; industrialization of, 226-

27, 472; innovations in, 87-88; investments

in, under Twelfth Five-Year Plan, 481 ; Khrushchev's reforms in, 56, 87-88; as a net drain on the economy, 519; party influence in, lxix; problems in, under Brezhnev, 93, 477; prob- lems in, under Khrushchev, 93; problems in, under Stalin, 70; production in, 473, 476, 478, 481; reform of, 524; reform of, resis- tance to, 520; underinvestment in, under

Stalin, 529

Agriculture, Ministry of, 524

agro-industrial complex (APK), 524, 529-30

Aguls, 159 AIDS (SPID): accidental infection with, 272;

advice regarding, 271; anti-AIDS Law, 272; compulsory testing for, 272; glasnost' regarding, 271; laws regarding, 272; number of

cases, 272; public education about, 272; test- ing centers, 271-72; threat of the spread of, 272 Aigun, Treaty of (1858), 37 Airborne Troops, lxxvi, 711, 712, 719-20; conscripts in, 743; control of, 719; missions of, 719-20; number of, 719; uniforms and rank

insignia of, 738-39

aircraft plants, 493; locations of, 493

Air Defense Aviation, 711, 714; aircraft of, 714; mission of, 714

Air Defense Forces (see also under name of branch), lxxvi, 676, 697, 712-16, 725; Air Defense Aviation, 714; Antiaircraft Rocket

Troops, 712-14; background of, 712; general organization of, 703; missile and space

defenses of, 714-16; mission of, 680-81; uni- forms and rank insignia of, 737-39

Air Defense of Ground Forces, 708, 712; back- ground of, 708; equipment of, 708

air fleet (Aeroflot), lxiii; civilian, 546; missions

of, 546

Air Forces (see also under name of branch),

lxxvi, 672, 676, 677, 697, 725; Aeroflot work

for, 580; in Afghan war, 711; aircraft of, 678; Frontal Aviation, 711; general organization

of, 703; Military Transport Aviation, 711-12; mission of, 678; as part of strategic nuclear forces, 678; role of, 678; Strategic Air Armies, 710-11; uniforms and rank in- signia of, 737-39; weapons of, 678 AirLand Battle doctrine (United States), 680

airports, 574

Aitmatov, Chingiz, 388 Akhmadulina, Bella, 389 Akhmatova, Anna, 382 Akhromeev, Sergei F., 663

Aksionov, Vasilii, lxxii, 381

Alaska, 29; Russian acquisition of, 27

Albania, 86, 414; as member of Comecon, 601, 854; as member of Warsaw Pact, 875, 884

alcohol, availability of, 93, 121 alcoholism (see also antialcohol campaign), lxvi; as contributor to death rate, 93, 100, 269;

effect of, on divorce, 130, 270; incidence of, 269; among Slavs, 269; treatment for, 270

Aleksandra, 50, 57; execution of, 63 Aleksandrov, Anatolii P., 637, 645 Aleksandrov Gay, 561 Alexander I, 27; acquisition of territory by, 28; alliance of, with Napoleon, 28; ascension to throne, 28; changes in government structure under, 28; defeat of Napoleon by, 29; focus

of, on foreign affairs, 28; as monarch of Finland, 29; as monarch of Poland, 29; revolu- tionary movements under, 29-30

Alexander II, 33-36, 179, 757; assassination

of, 34, 36, 41; cultural reform under, 35; educational reform under, 35; emancipation

of serfs by, 34; expansion of empire under, 36-37; financial reform under, 35; foreign

affairs of, after the Crimean War, 36-38; for- eign policy goals in East under, 38; foreign

policy goals in Europe under, 37-38; judicial reform under, 34-35; military reform

under, 35; Ottoman war under, 37-38; re- form of local government system by, 34; rise of Marxism under, 40-41; rise of revolution- ary populism under, 40-41 Alexander HI, 34; attempted assassination of, 41; industrialization under, 486; political reaction under, 36 Alexander the Great, 160 1010
Index

Alexiev, Alex, 685

Alexis, 22

Algeria, 582; privileged affiliation of, with Comecon, 616; Soviet trade with, 613, 614, 616

Ali, 194

Allende Gossens, Salvador, 440, 441

Allied Control Commission, 877

Allied Powers (World War I), 60; involvement

of, in Russian Civil War, 61, 63

Allied Powers (World War II), 80

All-Russian Congress of Soviets, 332 All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 636

All-Union Association for the Export and Import of Technical Equipment, 597 All-Union Capital Investment Bank, 457 All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions,

228, 247, 276

All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) (see also Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik), Communist Party of the Soviet Union), 66, 81 All-Union Council of Evangelical Christian

Baptists, 200

All-Union Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, 633 Alma-Ata, 108, 166

Alsace-Lorraine, 50

Altai region, 497

Alvarado, Juan Velasco, 441 Amann, Ronald, 640 Amanullah, 434 Amin, Hafizullah, 434, 720 Amu Darya, 527, 529 Amur River, 37, 109, 426, 558 Amur River Valley, 18, 37, 107, 529 Andropov, Iurii V., lix, 304, 352, 417, 628;

career of, 762; detente defined by, 419-20; economic reform under, lix, 467; as KGB

chief, 95, 762, 777, 781, 782; KGB under,

762-63; and letters to the editor, 379; loosen- ing of party strictures on media and the arts, lxxii, 372-73, 378, 383-84, 388 Andrusovo, Treaty of (1667), 18 Angola, 414, 430, 438-39, 446, 712; military

advisers in, 684; Soviet arms bought by, 614; Soviet military aid to, 438-39, 684; Soviet

military base in, 685; Soviet support for Cuban troops in, 684, 700; Soviet trade with, 612; ties to Comecon, 616, 855; withdrawal by Soviet Union of support for Cuban mili- tary operation in, lx Anikiev, Anatolii, 785 animal husbandry, 536-38; consumption of food from, 538; dairy farming, 536; distri- bution of, 536; food output per animal, 538; kinds of livestock, 536-38; reindeer herding, 536 Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 40

Antarctica, 442

Anthem of the Soviet Union, 340

Antiaircraft Rocket Troops, 712-14; organization of, 712; weapons of, 712

antialcohol campaign, 272, 304, 479; reaction

to, 270; reasons for, 121, 263, 270; results

of, 270

antiballistic missiles, 689

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty), 416, 442-43, 686

anti-Catholic campaign, 199-200 Anti-Comintern Pact (1936), 73

anticorruption campaign, 763

anti-imperialism, 413

anti-Jewish regulations, 179

"anti-party group," 84

antisatellite weapons (ASAT), 688-89

anti-Semitism, 178, 180, 201; tolerated under

Brezhnev, 90 antismoking campaign, 270, 272

antisubmarine warfare (ASW), 718

apparatchiks, 297, 763 "April Days," 58

April Theses (Lenin), 58; popular response to, 58, 59 Arab Empire, 169 Arabian Peninsula, 192

Arabic, 166, 172

Arab-Israeli conference, 432

Arab-Israeli conflict, 91 Arabs, 155, 160

Aral region: as ecological disaster area, 115, 117 Aral Sea, lxxiii, 113; diversion project, 113-15, 529

Archangel, 540

Arctic Circle, 102, 506, 558

Arctic Ocean, 101, 102, 104, 108, 109, 546,

566, 569, 570, 572, 719

Arctic region, 566

Argentina, 441, 608; Soviet trade with, 612, 615-16

arid zone, 104, 110; agriculture in, 527; as center for space exploration, 107; described,

107; irrigation in, 527 Armaments, 702 Armavir, 561 armed forces, Soviet {see also under name of branch): combat experience of, 697-700; CPSU members in, 733; design bureaus of, 735; external function of, 681, 682; Komsomol members in, 733; lack of preparation

of, for World War II, 74; life in, 745-46;

limited effectiveness of, 697; loyalty of, to party lxxv; military districts, 725-27; minorities in, lxxvi, 746-47; missions of, troops in, lxxv, 697; number of, 697; occupation of Eastern Europe by, 79; organizational de- velopment of, 697-700; organization of, ter- ritorial, 723-28; organization of, typical 1011
Soviet Union: A Country Study

armed service, 706; overall mission of, 676; and the party, 728-33; party apparatus in, 732; party control of, lxxv, 35-36; party in- fluence in, lxix, lxxiv, 24, 35; political direc- torates in, 731; political indoctrination in lxxv; political sections in, lxxv, 731; politi- cal training in, 731; problems in, 731-32;

reaction of, to coup of 1991, lxxix; reorganization of, 677; reserves, 750; role of, in coup

of 1991, lxxx; special departments in, 775-76; stationed abroad, 728; strategic leadership in, 700-703; strategic missions of, 675-81; unilateral reductions in, 692; theoretical basis for, lxxvi; victory requirement, 685-86; women in, 747-48 armed forces, uniforms and rank insignia, 737-39; categories of, 737; coats, 737; colors

of, 737, 738; components of, 737-38; shoul- der boards, 738-39 Armenia, 50, 61 Armenian Apostolic Church, 189 Armenian Republic, lxx, 102, 115, 308; area

of, 153; earthquake in, 384; establishment

of, 61, 154, 362; legal age for marriage in, 232; life expectancy in, 116; major cities in, 154; nationalist demonstrations in, 202, 793;

nationalities in, 154; population density, 124;

territory of, 153; tree farms in, 475 Armenians, lxvi, 27, 124, 153-55, 156, 158; alphabet of, 154; distribution of, 154; in higher education, 154; history of, 153; as members of CPSU, 155, 324; language of, 154; national assertiveness by, 153, 154, 201-2; persecution of, 153; population of, 154; as scientific workers, 154; early socialist parties among, 42-43, 45; urbanization of, 154 arms control {see also nuclear disarmament),

401, 608, 654; conventional, 691-93; for Lenin, 442; in foreign policy, 685; intermediate-range nuclear forces, 689-91; and mili- tary objectives, 685-93; in military policy, 685; nuclear, 442-45; objectives in, 685-86;

proposals for, by Gorbachev, 444; threat re- duction, 690-91 arms control, strategic, 676, 686-88; to avert world war, 686-87; defined, 686; motive for, 687; to retain victory capability, 687-88

art, 396-97; avant-garde, 397; censorship of, 774; during NEP era, 67-68; under Nicholas I, 31; schools of, 247, 257; socialist real- ism and, 397; survivalist, 397

Artillery. See Rocket Troops and Artillery

arts, the {see also under individual arts), 93-94, 385-97; administration of, 373-77; under

Brezhnev, 94; control of, 385, 388; control

of, hindered by technological revolution, 369;

critical realism in, 370; films, 370; history of party control of, 369; Leninist principles

for, 371-72; literature, 370, 385; music, 370, 394-96; party control of, 71-72, 370, 373-74; politicization of, lxxii, 370-73; protest in, 369, 370, 397; revolution in, lxxii; role of, in influencing the population, 385;

theater, 370; themes of, 370, 373

asbestos, 112 Ashkhabad, 172

Asia, 410, 430, 433-37, 569, 700; destruction of targets in, 677; imperialism in, 44-45; Russian influence in, 44; Soviet goals in Southeast, 436-37; Soviet influence in, 291, 872; Soviet objectives in, 433; Soviet trade

with, 571, 615-16

Asian collective security system, 426, 436

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 410, 437; Soviet ties with, 437; condemnation by, of Soviet invasion of Af- ghanistan, 434

Astrakhan', 506

Astrakhan' horde, 175 Astrakhan' Khanate, 14, 175

atheism, 184; in Marxism-Leninism, 198; number of Soviets professing, 184

Atlantic Ocean, 102, 540, 546, 566, 570

atomic bomb, 627

Austerlitz: Russian defeat by Napoleon at, 28

Australia, 437, 571 ; Soviet trade with, 605, 606, 608

Austria {see also Austria-Hungary), 24, 32, 36;

as importer of Soviet gas, 508, 581, 609; as member of Quadruple Alliance, 29; permanent neutrality for, 85; Russian alliance with,

23; Russian alliance with, against Napoleon, 28 Austria-Hungary, 37, 42, 47, 142; ambitions

of, in Balkans, 37, 38, 48; annexation of Bos- nia and Hercegovina by, 48-49; territory gained from, by Russia, 50; western Ukraine

incorporated into, 141, 190; in World War I, 49

"autocracy, Orthodoxy, and nationality" principle, 30

autocracy, Russian, 15, 27; defined, 3; efforts

at restricting, 15; and inability to develop

constitutional government, 47; legacy of, lvii; Marxism adapted to, 282, 283, 284; under

Nicholas I, 30; origins of, 3; Radishchev's

attack on, 26; subordination of people to, 17

autocrat, defined, 13 automation, 455; importance of, in industry, 485, 499; in metallurgy industry, 496-97;

self-sufficiency in, for Comecon, 603; workers' ability to deal with, 490

automobiles, 545, 561; importance of, to local transportation systems, 561; number of, lxiii, 566 Automotive and Agricultural Machine Building, Ministry of, 493, 646, 735 1012
Index

automotive industry, 497-98; facilities in, 497-98; goals of, 498; growth of, 498; pro- duction ratio of automobiles to trucks, 497; technology transfer to, 644; truck planning

in, 498

automotive transportation {see also roads and

under individual means of transport), 545, 561-66; automobiles, 545, 561; buses, 545,

561; development of, 561-65; origins of, 561; problems in, 561-62; trucks, 545, 561 Automotive Troops, 721 autonomous oblasts, 102, 137, 139, 153, 156,

184, 195, 311, 353, 364, 374; defined, 361-

62 autonomous okruga, 102, 137, 139, 153, 184,

195, 353, 364, 374; defined, 361-62 autonomous republics, 102, 137, 139, 153, 156, 184, 293, 353, 364, 374; defined, 361-62;

food program in, 524; planning in, 464

Avars, 5, 159, 194

Aviation Industry, Ministry of the, 496, 646 Awakum, 19 Azerbaydzhan, 61, 157; influx of Slavs into, 157 Azerbaydzhanis, lxvi, 153, 156-59; alphabet

of, 158; characteristics of, 158; distribution

of, 158; in higher education, 159; history of, 156-58; Iranian, 158; Islamic faction, 157-

58, 194; language of, 158-59; and literacy, 158; Marxist faction, 157; as members of CPSU, 159; national resurgence of, 157-58; population of, 158; repression of, 158; as

scientific workers, 159; urbanization of, 159 Azerbaydzhan Republic, 61, 102, 154, 362;

agriculture in, 534-36; cities in, 159; cotton grown in, 532; mosques in, 200-201; nationalist demonstrations in, 793; rate of premarital pregnancy in, 234; tree farms in, 475 Azov, Port of, 20, 21, 23 Azov, Sea of, 20, 113, 567, 572

Bab al Mandab, Strait of, 439

backwardness, 3-4, 27, 41; innovation as reac- tion to, 640; manifested in Crimean War,

34; of military, 34, 35-36; Peter the Great's

efforts to reverse, 22; technology acquisition

to overcome, 642 Baghdad Pact {see also CENTO), 431

Bahrain, 432

Bakatin, Vadim V., lxxx, 783-85

Baku, 157, 158, 159, 201, 503, 547; oil pipelines in, 580, 581; Russian acquisition of, 29, 157 Bakunin, Mikhail, 40

balance of payments, 595, 645 Balkan policy, 48-49

Balkans, 74; crisis in, 36, 49; international al- liances regarding, 49; nuclear-free zone, 691;

revolutionary movements in, 42; rivalry be- tween Austria-Hungary and Russia in, 48; Russian ambitions in, 37, 45; Russian in- fluence over, 24, 32; after Treaty of San

Stefano, 38

ballet: under Nicholas 1,31; schools of, 247, 257

Baltic Fleet, 697, 727

Baltic nationalities, 138, 146-52, 156; characteristics and experiences of, 146-47; German

and Polish influences on, 147; national as- sertiveness by, 201-2

Baltic Sea, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 21, 50, 139, 150, 423, 525, 566, 566, 570, 571, 580, 719; auto- mobile ferry on, 575; oil reserves in, 506

Baltic states, 25, 61, 178; climate of, 110; estab- lishment of independence, 61; industrializa- tion of agriculture in, 227; nationalist demonstrations in, 201-2; Soviet occupation

of, 699

Baltic tribes, 145

Baltic-White Sea canal, 566

Baluchi, 194 Bamovskaya, 558

Bangladesh, 436

banking, 469; checking accounts, 458; industry, 452; nationalization of, 472; personal

savings accounts, 458

Baptists, 184, 191 Barannikov, Viktor, lxxx

barges, 545

Barghorn, Frederick C, 322

Bashkir Autonomous Republic, 176, 181, 182

Bashkirs, 152, 176, 182-83; alphabet of, 182;

history of, 182; language of, 182; nationalist movement, 182; population of, 182; urbanization of, 182-83

Basic Directionsfor the Economic and Social Develop- ment ofthe USSRfor 1986-1990 andfor the Peri- od to the Year 2000, 451, 478, 525, 540

Basic Principles of Operational Art and Tactics (Savkin), 658

Basic Principles of the International Socialist Division of Labor, 860, 861

Basic Provisions for Fundamentally Reorganizing Eco- nomic Management, 468; described, 468; re- form of price structure in, 470

Basmachi, 170, 434 Basmachi Rebellion, 162, 168, 170, 171, 172 Basov, Nikolai, 623

Batista, Fulgencio, 440

Battle of Stalingrad, 56

Baykal, Lake, 107, 109, 113, 489, 557 Baykal-Amur Main Line (BAM), 124, 489,

539, 557-58, 721; area serviced by, 558; construction challenges, 557-58; extension of, 558; freight traffic on, 558; Litde BAM, 558; mean annual temperature along, 558; opening of, 557

Beijing, Treaty of (1860), 37 1013
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Belarus tractors, 606

Belgium, 49, 581

Belianiv, Nikolai, 397

Belinskii, Vissarion, 38, 371

Belorussia, 5, 10, 12, 24, 30, 42, 145, 178; eco- nomic region, 503; Polish influence in, 145; Soviet republic established in, 61 Belorussian Autocephalous Orthodox Church,

199

Belorussian Democratic Republic, 145

Belorussian Military District, 890

Belorussian offensive, 552

Belorussian Republic, 5, 64, 102, 123, 147,

154, 188, 254, 412, 526; agriculture in, 533;

candidates for Congress of People's Deputies,

347; depopulation in, 127; drainage projects

in, 529; establishment of, 145; families in, 236; Jewish community in, 178, 180; major

cities in, 146; nationalities in, 146; party ap- paratus in, 307, 308; Roman Catholic com- munity in, 190

Belorussians, 3, 5, 8, 24, 27, 138, 144-46; al- phabet of, 145; higher education of, 146; his- tory of, 144-45; independence movement,

145; language of, 145-46; as members of Central Committee, 146; as members of CPSU, 146, 323, 324; nationalist movement

among, 205; persecution of, 145; Polonization of, 145; population, 145; as scientific workers, 146; urbanization of, 146

benefits, 222-23, 471; allocation of housing, 222-23; maternity, 234, 243, 276; perquisites, 222; of social position, 219-24

Benin: priviliged affiliation of, with Comecon,

616

Berbera, 684

Berezovka, 511

Beria, Lavrenty, 81, 156, 392, 761; coup plot- ted by, 82; execution of, 82, 760; expansion

of police authority under, 759; power of, 760 Bering Strait, 101, 102, 104

Berkakit, 558

Berlin, 88; airlift, 80; blockade, 80; building

of Wall in, 87; division of, 80; East, 663;

Soviet invasion of, 75, 699

Bertsch, Gary K., 643

Bessarabia, 179; annexation of, lviii, 74, 474; ceded to Russia, 174; seized by Russia, 28,

36, 363; Russification of, 174

Bialer, Seweryn, 289, 305, 775 Big Diomede Island (Ratmanova Island), 101

bilateral trade agreements: described, 611; with Finland, 605, 611; with the Third World,

613

Biriukova, Aleksandra P., 346 Birmingham, University of, 640

birthrates, 122, 123, 125, 127; and population problems, 125 Bismarck, Otto von, 32, 38; dismissal of, 38

Bisti, Dmitrii, 397

Black Repartition, 41 Black Sea, 5, 7, 12, 24, 26, 36, 50, 100, 107, 139, 178, 525, 527, 534, 567, 570, 719; oil reserves in, 506; remilitarization of, 37 Black Sea Fleet, 727

Mat (influence), lvi, 222 "Bloody Sunday," 45

Bogoliubskii, Prince Andrei, 8-9

Bolshevik Central Committee, 59, 60, 371 Bolshevik Revolution (1917), 55, 59-61, 147, 392, 554, 737; economic change following, 213; impact of, on diplomatic affairs, 409; impact of, on population, 118; initial phase

of, 59; social change following, 213; solidifi- cation of power after, 60; taught for politi- cal indoctrination, 253; women in, 747

Bolsheviks (see also Communists), 43, 44, 55, 58, 63, 135, 139, 162, 176, 179, 182, 188, 189, 369, 624, 661; Belorussian, 145; criti- cal realism used by, 370, 371; as constitutional rulers of Russia, 332; coup by, in Georgia, 155; increase in power of, 59; nationalization of industry under, 487; out- lawed by Provisional Government, 59; overthrow of Provisional Government by,

lvii; popular uprisings in support of, 58, 59, 60; and World War I, 60

Bolshoi Theater, 393

Bolvanskiy Nos, 558 Border Troops, lxxvi, 697, 722, 733, 756, 791-93; administration of, 769; conscription

of, 791; Dzerzhinskii Higher Border Com- mand School, 792; equipment of, 723; Higher Border School, 792; Maritime, 723; mission of, 723, 791-92; number of, 723, 791; organization of, 725; Political Directorate of, 793; political training and indoctrination, 793; schools, 792; training, 792-

93; uniforms and rank insignia of, 739; Voroshilov Higher Border Military-Political Academy, 792; in World War II, 723 Border Troops Directorate, 769, 791; intelli- gence administration, 791; organization of, 792 border zone, 792

Boris Godunov (Liubimov), 394

Bosnia, 37 Bosporus, 28, 32, 48, 50

botanical gardens, 636 Botswana, 438

bourgeoisie: increase in, 42 Boxer Rebellion, 44

boyars, 13, 14 Brandenburg, 20

Brandt, Willy, 421

Bratsk, 511

Brazil, 441, 614

Brecht, Berthold, 394 1014
Index

Breslauer, George, 303, 304

Brest, 581

Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of, 61, 150; repudiated,

61 Brezhnev, Leonid I., 56, 88, 91, 299, 305, 315, 352, 372, 394, 407, 436, 440, 476, 531, 756;

agriculture under, 93, 524, 529, 533; as- sistance to Africa under, 438; attempt by,

to improve Sino-Soviet relations, 426, 427; background of, 89; as chairman of Presid- ium, 89-90; conservative policies under, 89, 371; consolidation of power by, 89, 425, 762;

cult of, 94, 291 ; death of, 56, 94-95; detente under, lix; economy under, lix, 466, 467; as

first secretary, 89; Food Program of, 524;

ill health of, 94-95; KGB under, 762-63,

772; and letters to the editor, 379; literature under, 388; military-political relations under,

729; nationalities under, 197; nuclear war

viewed by, 656-57; patronage systems under, 219, 315-16; police under, 782; religion under, 200; SALT II signed by, 687; science and technology under, 627-28; standard of

living under, 93; status of KGB under, 762;

treaties signed by, 92 Brezhnev Doctrine, 423-24, 682, 683, 884; defined, 90; repudiated by Gorbachev, 424

Britain, 20, 44, 50, 56, 73, 78, 87, 172, 593; acquiescence of, to Hider's demands, 73; as- sistance of, to Soviet Union in World War

II, 75; concerns of, regarding Russian ex- pansionism, 38, 44, 49; contributions of, to Soviet chemical industry, 503; after Crimean War, 36; in Crimean War, 32; declaration of war on Germany, 73; diplomatic recognition by, of Soviet Union, 67, 412, 421; diplomatic support of, for Iran, 79; establishing relations with Japan, 37; Gorbachev's 1984 visit to, 357, 42; influence of, in Middle East, 430, 434; involvement of, in Russian Civil War, 61, 63; Limited Test Ban

Treaty signed, 688; as member of Quadruple

Alliance, 29; as member of United Nations,

445; nuclear forces of, 417, 421, 444, 690; percentage of GNP spent on health care in, 273; relations of, with Soviet Union, 421-22; Russian alliance against, with Napoleon, 28; Russian dealings with, 48; ships acquired

from, 575; Soviet alliance with, in World War II, 76-77; trade boycott of Soviet Union

by, 601

British Broadcasting Corporation, 382

British Communist Party, 422

Brodsky, Joseph, lxxii Brothers Karamazov, The (Dostoevskii), 40

Bucharest formula, 865 Buddhism, 184

budget: for influencing the economy, 469; kinds

of, 469; method of distributing funds from,

469; for 1985, primary expenditures in, 469 Bug River, 5 Bukhara, 160, 161, 169, 170, 434

Bukharin, Nikolai I., 44, 65, 66, 70; demotion

of, by Stalin, 68; in show trials, 70; support

of, for Stalin, 66

Bukovina, Soviet invasion of, 74 Bulgakov, Mikhail, 394

Bulganin, Nikolai A., 82, 84

Bulgaria, 38, 49, 407, 414, 423, 425, 474, 552,

575, 877, 883, 890; intelligence gathering by, 780; labor transfers from, 870; as member

of Comecon, 601 , 854; military advisers in, 684; occupation of, by Red Army, 877; satellite communications hookup to, 582; Soviet

treaty with, 877

Bulgarians, 138, 146

Bulgars, 175, 181 Bund (Jewish socialist party), 42

burany (blizzards), 110

Bure, R., 253 Bureya River Valley, 529

burghers: legal status of, 17 Burma, 616

Buryats, 184

buses, 545, 561, 565-66; average distance

traveled, 566; importance of, to local trans- portation systems, 561, 565; passengers on,

561, 566

Bush, George H.W., lx Byzantine culture, 3, 4, 7, 10 Byzantine Empire, 3, 5, 186; influence of, 13

Cabinet of Ministers, lxxii cadres, 89, 260, 296, 307, 629; specialist, 308-9 Cadres Abroad Department (CPSU), 404, 407 Cambodia, 407, 426, 427, 446; satellite communications hookup to, 582; Soviet eco- nomic relations with, 601, 605, 612; Soviet

military aid to, 684; Vietnamese occupation

of, 437, 445-46; withdrawal of Vietnamese

troops from, 604 Campbell, Robert, 779 Cam Ranh Bay, 437; Soviet military base in, 685, 727-28 Canada, 526, 548, 606; Soviet trade with, 605, 606, 608

canals: amount of freight carried on, 566; construction of, using prisoners, 566, 567; kilometers of, 566

capitalist-oriented states, 428

cardiovascular disease, 269, 271 Carpathian Mountains, 5, 107, 108, 581

Carter, Jimmy, 92, 687 Caspian Flotilla, 727 Caspian Sea, 10, 99, 107, 109, 113, 160, 502, 527, 567, 572, 719; ferry line on, 575; oil reserves in, 506 1015
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Castro, Fidel, 440

Catherine I, 23 Catherine II (the Great), 24-27, 28; Charter

of Nobility issued by, 26; Charter to the Towns issued by, 26; death of, 27; expansion of Russian Empire under, 24-25; gov- ernment reforms under, 25; "Greek project"

of, 24; legacy of, 26; organization of society into estates by, 26, 27; overthrow of Peter

III by, 23; Poland partitioned by, 24, 141; reorganization of provincial administration

by, 26; Ukrainians enserfed by, 141 Catholic Church, Soviet policies toward, 199- 200

Catholicism, 145, 147, 178, 184

Catholics, 149, 189-90; Lithuanian, 199-200,

202; Roman, 190; persecution of, 148; Ukrainian, 190, 199-200

cattle, 536 Caucasus Mountain Pass Railroad, 561 Caucasus Mountains, 99, 107-8, 153, 159, 561 Caucasus Railroad, 547 Caucasus region, 5, 12, 29, 61, 102, 108, 110, 124, 534; agriculture in, 532, 536; climate

of, 112; family in, 230, 236, 238; famine in, 196; gender relations in, 230; increase of in- fectious diseases in, 270; industrialization of

agriculture in, 227; introduction of Islam

into, 192; metal industry in, 502; mother- hood medals in, 236; nationalities in, 138, 152-59; oil pipelines in, 581; patronage sys- tems in, 219; railroad construction in, 558,

561; unofficial income in, 221-22

Ceausescu, Nicolae, 884, 889

censorship, 369, 370, 372, 373, 382, 397;

abolished, lxxiv; of art, 397; by Glavlit, 373,

774; by Glavrepertkom, 391; government in- stitutions involved in, 373; government role

in, 374-76; hierarchy, 375; by KGB, 376,

774; loosening of, 390; of military and scientific information, 376; of music, 396; of peri- odicals, 381; policies, 375; topics of, 376

Censor's Index: contents of, 374-75; KGB work

on, 774; size of, 374

census, 115-16; 1940, 119; 1959, 119; 1979,

127; 1989, 116 CENTO. See Central Treaty Organization

Central Asia, 14, 121, 124, 171, 172; Muslims

in, 194; nationalities in, 138, 159-60; patron- age systems in, 219

Central Asian Military District, 725

Central Asian Power System, 511 Central Auditing Commission, 292, 298, 730

Central Committee (CPSU), 65, 84, 88, 95, 276, 281, 296, 299, 301, 303, 309, 315, 340,

346, 348, 392, 404, 479, 522, 597, 600, 640; apparatchiks in, 297; armed forces under,

700; authority of, delegated, 296; censorship under, 774; criticism in, 319; departments

of, responsible for foreign policy, 404-7;

described, 292; duties of, 296; election of members of, 295; functions of, 298; history

of, 296-98; KGB under, 770; meetings of, 296; members of, 297, 634, 730, 785; membership of, 298; membership of, selection process for, 297; military representation in, 297; Ministry of Defense and, 702; planning

function of, 460-61; as policy maker, 628-

29; role of, in education, 247; stability in, under Brezhnev, 89; turnover in, 297, 303; turnover in, under Gorbachev, 297-98;

uchraspredy of, 314; worker and peasant rep- resentation in, 297

Central Europe, 664, 691

Central Executive Committee, 332; presidium

of, 333; Soviets of, 333

Central Group of Forces, 883

centralized planning {see also under types of planning), lix: advantages of, 462-64; committees involved in, 461; defined, 451, 458-60; in metallurgy, 500; problems in, 491; reasons for, 472-73; reassessment of, 487; for science and technology, 630

Central Kazakhstan Railroad, 547

Central Siberian Plain, 104

Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) (see also Baghdad Pact), 431 Chad, 420 Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 597, 600 Chardzhou, 172 Charles XII, 20 Charter of Nobility, 26 Charter to the Towns, 26 Chazov, Evgenii, 269, 273 Cheboksary, 181 Chebrikov, Viktor M., 346, 762, 764, 781; ac- knowledgment of KGB abuses, 764, 765; ouster of, from KGB, 765 Chechen-Ingush, 184 Chekhov, Anton, 40

Chelyabinsk, 124, 497, 501 chemical industry, 476, 502-3; long-term goals

of, 502, 503; major divisions of, 502; petro- chemicals, 502-3; planning goals of, 503;

plastics, 502; role of, in technological ad- vancement, 503; technology transfer to, 644 Chemical Industry, Ministry of the, 646 Chemical Troops, 708-10; equipment of, 709-

10; mission of, 709; number of, 709; organi- zation of, 708-9

Cherepovets, 124 Chernavin, Vladimir, 678 Chernenko, Konstantin U., lix, 94-95, 290,

305, 417, 467, 627; literature under, 388-89; loosening of party strictures on media and

the arts, 372-73, 379 1016
Index

Chernichenko, Iurii, 389

Chernobyl' nuclear accident, lxxiii, 115, 262,

384, 481, 512, 710 chernozem soil, 107, 526, 527, 533

Chernyshevskii, Nikolai, 40, 371

Cherry Orchard, The (Chekhov), 40 Chiang Kai-shek, 67

Chicherin, Georgii, 67

children: care of, 251; custody of, 235; deaths

of, due to medical negligence, 271; health

care of, 265, 266; illegitimate, 235

Children of the Arbat (Rybakov), 390

Chile, 413, 440, 441; Soviet assistance to, 440 China (see also Sino-Soviet relations), 50, 56, 88, 99, 101, 108, 109, 116, 160, 164, 167, 176, 194, 413, 414, 428, 433, 436, 705; Boxer Rebellion in, 44; Communist victory over Nationalists in, 80-81; discontent of, with Soviet leadership, 86; exports of, 604;

foreign currency reserves of, 604; foreign trade deficits of, 604; French arms sold to, 420; incursion into Vietnam, 426; involve- ment of, in Korean War, 81; Japanese vic- tory over, 44; as member of United Nations, 445; Soviet attempt to undermine influence

of, 90, 436; Soviet foreign policy toward, under Khrushchev, 56; Soviet foreign policy toward, under Lenin, 67; Soviet trade

with, 591, 54, 601, 604-5, 608; Soviet troops on border with, 604, 725; summit of, pro- posed with Soviet Union, 427; withdrawal

of, from Comecon, 604

Chinese Communist Party, 67, 86, 426

Chinese Empire, 18, 41 Chinggis Khan, 155

Christianity, 3, 149, 151, 179; introduction of, to Kievan Rus', 7, 138, 205

Christians, 153, 159

Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, 190 Chu River, 527 Churbanov, Iurii, 782

Churchill, Winston, 77 Church Slavonic. See Old Church Slavonic Chuvash, 152, 181, 182; alphabet of, 181; his- tory of, 181; language of, 181; population

of, 181; religion of, 181; urbanization of, 181 Chuvash Autonomous Oblast, 181 Chuvash Autonomous Republic, 181

citizenship, 339; duties of, 339

civil aviation (Aeroflot), 576-80; adaptation of

aircraft in, 578-579; cargo transportation, 576; domestic flights, 578-80; evolution of, 579; fuel shortage, 578-80; helicopters in, 578; jets in, 579; kinds of aircraft operated

by, 579; number of passengers served, 578; operations of, 579-80; passenger transportation, 576-79; rapid growth of, 579; tech- nology in, 579; unusual services performed

by, 578-579; work of, for Soviet armed

forces, 580, 712; in World War II, 579

Civil Aviation, Ministry of, 580, 712

civil defense, 676, 702, 721-22; mission of, 681; number of personnel, 722; origin of, 721; purpose of, 721-22

Civil War, lvii, 55, 61-64, 100, 139, 147, 164, 179, 182, 290, 472, 487, 661, 758; Allied Powers' involvement in, 61, 63; armed forces

in, 698; Communist triumph in, 62; effect

of, on family, 235; foreign trade during, 593; non-Russian nationalities during, 64; origins

of, 61; party controls over science during,

633; relations with Japan during, 428;

repression of opponents in, 63; role of rail- roads in, 547; women in, 747

Civil War in France, 1848-1850, The (Marx), 332

class conflict, 214-15

class struggle, 402

Clausewitz, Carl von, lxxvi, 655

clergy: persecution of, under Stalin, 72

climate, 109-12, 122; cold weather, effects of, 109-12; diversity of, 112; dominance of

winter, 1 10; influence of, on agriculture, 526; monsoonal, 112; precipitation levels, 112, 526; of Soviet Asia, 489; temperate zone,

110; temperatures, 110, 489; in Transbaykal

area, 558; weather patterns, 110

clinics (see also health care, hospitals, polyclinic complexes), 263

coal, lxxvii, 112, 476, 486, 489, 508-9, 510;

export of, 508; location of, 508; mining, 509, 611; obstacles to access to, 488; production

growth, 509; quality, 50; reserves of, 509; source of, 508; transportation of, 509; uses

of, 505, 508; yield, 509

Coastal Defense Forces, 719; focus of, 719

Coastal Rocket and Artillery Troops, 719, 727 Cold War, 56, 78-81, 382; declaration of, lvii; defined, 79; end of, Ix; establishment of diplomatic relations during, 412; as reaction

to Stalin, 79; Soviet contribution to end of, lx collective enterprises, 71

collective farms (kolkhozy), lxii, 76, 118, 473,

538, 565; changes to, 521-22; control of, by

state agencies, 521; conversion of, to state farms, 522; defined, 521; DOSAAF clubs in, 742; KGB lectures to, 772-74; income in, 521; labor productivity of, 521; markets,

456; number of, 522; output of, 521; plan- ning reform in, 466-67; preschools in, 251; quota for deputies to Congress of People's Deputies, 348; resistance to, 69

collective ownership: defined, 452; kinds of, 452

collectivization, forced, lviii, 295; of agriculture, 473, 519-20, 529, 593; described, 520;

effect of, 529; of peasantry, 69, 148, 154; regimentation and, 71; resistance to, 69, 520;

results of, 473, 520 combined arms operational offensive, 679 1017
Soviet Union: A Country Study

combined arms strategic operation, 676, 678-79

combines, 453, 492 Come and See (Klimov), 392 Comecon. See Council for Mutual Economic

Assistance Comecon Council Session, 856; function of, 856 Comecon Executive Committee, 856-57; Bureau

for Integrated Planning and, 860; council committees of, 856-57; economic depart- ments in, 856; function of, 856 Comecon planning, 866-70; coordination of national plans under, 867-68; political prob- lems in, 866 Comecon Secretariat, 856, 857; function of, 857 Commission on Research and Exploitation of Cosmic Space, 376

commissions, party, 292, 301-2, 351, 355-57;

assignments to, 355; deputies on, 355; draft- ing legislation, 356; economic planning in, 357, 358; formation of, factors in, 301; functions of, 355-56; influence of CPSU over, 356; membership of, 355, 356; oversight of government by, 356; as party bureaucracy

administrators, 292; as policy implementers,

292; purpose of, 301; role of, 350-51; sig- nificance of, 301-2 Committee for State Security (KGB) (see also intelligence; see also under names of directorates), 95, 301, 307, 346, 700, 756, 761,

783; acknowledgment of abuses by, 764; in armed forces, 728; authority of, lxxx; auton- omy, 765; Border Troops, 791-93; branches

of, 765-66; cadres demoralized by "secret speech," 761; cadre selection, 766; campaigns against dissidents, 772; campaigns

against political crime, 772; career patterns, 770; censorship by, 373,774; centralization

of, 766; Collegium, 766; control by, of scientists, 634; control in, 766; creation of, 755,

782; directed, 766; dissidents monitored by, 774; and domestic security, 771-76; eco- nomic crimes investigated by, 771; efforts to improve image of, 761; Eighth Chief Directorate, 767; electronic espionage, 779; Fifth Chief Directorate, 767; First Chief Directorate, 767; foreign intelligence role of, 776-81; foreign policy responsibilities of, 409; functions of, 766-69, 771; Glavlit controlled by, 374; under Gorbachev, 763-64;

influence of, on foreign policy, 780-81; in- formers recruited by, 766; interference of, in legal system, 789; investigations by, 787;

local administration of, 766; manpower, 767; mission of, 755; nationalities in, 770; nuclear weapons charged to, 776; organization of, 766-69, 768; party control of, lxxiv, 769-70;

party influence in, lxix; as party members,

769; personnel, 770-71; political crimes in- vestigated by, 771; political police powers of, restricted, 760-71; political vigilance lectures, 772-74; predecessors of, 756-60; preventive

tasks, 767, 772; in purges by Gorbachev,

763-64; purges of, 770; recruitment sources, 770; restrictions on, 761, 762, 771; role of, in coup of 1991 , lxxx; role of, in making for- eign policy, 403; role of, in leadership succession, 756; rules governing, 771; Russians

as bureau chiefs of, 140; Second Chief Directorate, 767; security troops of, 793, 794; Seventh Directorate, 767; signal troops of, 723; special departments of, 733, 775, 766;

statute of, 766; structure of, 765-66; supervision of, 360; support of, for terrorism, 779-80; tasks of, 766-67; technological espi- onage by, 737; Third Chief Directorate, 733; turnover rate, 770 Committee of People's Control, 335, 344, 351, 360 Committee of Soviet Women: quota for deputies to Congress of People's Deputies, 348

committees, party, 351, 355-57; assignments

to, 355; deputies on, 355; drafting legisla- tion, 356; economic planning in, 358; functions of, 355-56; influence of CPSU over, 356; membership of, 355, 356; oversight of government by, 356 communications industry (see also mass media

and under form of communication), 452, 582-86; density of, 545; government control

of, 582; government use of, 582; growth in, 582; influences on development of, 545; out- put of, as percentage of net material product, 453; party influence in, lxix; products of, 499; radio, 546, 582; satellite system of, 582; telephone, 546, 582; television, 546, 582 Communications, Ministry of, 582, 586; re- sponsibilities of, 582, 585 Communications Equipment Industry, Ministry of the, 646 communism, 655; full, 290; Marx's definition

of, 281 Communism, Mount, 108 communist ethics, 249 Communist Information Bureau (Cominform),

80; conflict over, with Yugoslavia, 414, 424;

dissolved, 414; members of, 414 Communist International (Comintern), 80, 407; contacts by, in sub-Saharan Africa, 438;

dissolution of, by Stalin, 414; founded by

Lenin, 62, 414; as means of controlling for- eign communists, 62; support of, for Nazi

Party, 72; Yugoslavia expelled from, 424

Communist Manifesto, The (Marx and Engels), 339 communist parties abroad, 410, 414-15; activities of, 415; ideological maturity of, 414; 1018
Index

nonruling, 407, 414; recognition of, 414;

Soviet influence on, 415 Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, 90, 423 Communist Party of Spain, 422 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)

(see also party control, party membership), 81, 90, 137, 228, 311, 330, 331, 344, 347, 493,

522, 553, 594, 731, 750, 764, 783; agitprop

of, 377; appointments, criteria for, 314; and armed forces, 697, 728-33, 732; arts and media used by, to support communism, 371, 377; atheists in, 184; banned, lxxx; bifurcation of apparatus, 88, 89; bureaucracy of, 281;

central institutions in, 292-306; control by, of security police, lxxiv; controls, 358; criti- cism of, lxxii, lxxiv, 30, 33; demographics of, 289; demographics of, as source of legitimacy, 289; discipline, 319; economic planning by, 452-53, 632; effect of membership in, 211;

as elite body, 289; endorsement for university admission, 258; enforcement of authority, 281, 282; ethnic composition of, 323-24; exchange of party documents, 319; factions proscribed by, 286-88; foreign policy of, 409; functions of government, as performed by, 329; general secretary of, 302-6; Georgians

as members of, 140, 323; goals of, 281; and

government, distinctions between, 292, 329; guarded by Ninth Directorate, 769; hierar- chy of, 306; importance of, lxxvii; importance

to, of growth in heavy industry, 485; industrial policy statements by, 492; influence of, on military-industrial complex, lxxv; influence

of, over commissions and committees, 356;

influence of, over science, 633; interference

of, in legal system, 789; intermediate-level or- ganizations in, 306-13; Jews as members of, 140; journalists as members of, 378; judges

screened by, 788; KGB created by, 755; KGB

as members, 769; KGB under, 769; as lead- er of world communist movement, 290-91,

320; legitimacy of, 282, 288-91, 329; membership of, lxviii-lxix, 313, 346, 348, 733;

military doctrine of, 653, 659-66; military

policy of, 659-66; military representation in, 729-30; nomenklatura authority of, 313; organi- zation of, 294; origins of, 282; pensions for administrative elite, 275; people's dissatisfac- tion with, lxxv; planning function of, 462; as policy maker, 292, 329, 628; power of, lxix; power of, under Stalin, 71 ; primary party or- ganizations (PPOs), 281, 292, 312-13; purges, 319; purpose of rule of, 290; quota for deputies to Congress of People's Deputies, 348; reasons for joining, 319-20; recruitment for KGB from, 770; reform in, 309; resignation of prominent members of, lxviii; role of, lxvii-lxviii; role of, in Constitution of 1977, 334; role of, in education, 244-45, 247-48;

in rural society, 225; Russian tradition incor- porated into, 289, 291; Russians as members

of, 140; salaries in, 220; social composition

of, 322-25; as sole interpreter of Marxist ideol- ogy, 281, 282, 284, 289; training, 282, 320-

22; as vehicle for upward mobility, 289-90; youth organizations used by, 229-30 Communists (see also Bolshevik government,

Bolsheviks, Communist Party of the Soviet Union), 55; central Soviet government ad- ministered by, 64; execution of imperial family by, 63; policies of left-wing, 66; policies of right-wing, 66

Comprehensive Program for Scientific and Technical

Cooperation to the Year 2000 (1985) (Comecon),

603, 854, 873; areas of self-sufficiency under,

603; benefits of, 869-70; economic restruc- turing under, 863; purposes of, 854, 863, 869

Comprehensive Programfor the Further Extension and

Improvement of Cooperation and the Further Development ofSocialist Economic Integration by the Comecon Member Countries (1971), 854, 858, 861, 867, 873; described, 861; function of, 861-62; joint projects under, 868; joint plan- ning under, 867-68; market relations under,

862; monetary problems under, 866; prices under, 864-65; socialist economic integration in, 861 Comprehensive System of International Peace and Security, 446 computer centers, 636

computers, 384-85, 479, 499, 623, 869; devel- oped by Soviet Union, 385; lack of, 649;

literacy requirement, 385; planned production of, 481

Concerted Plan for Multilateral Integration Measures (Comecon), 862, 867-68; projects under, 868 Conference of First Secretaries of Communist

and Workers' Parties and of the Heads of Government of the Comecon Member Countries, 856 Congo, 414, 438; priviliged affiliation of, with Comecon, 616 Congress of Berlin, 38 Congress of People's Deputies, lxviii, lxxiv, 296, 304, 329, 335, 341, 342, 346-50, 352, 353, 355, 358, 408; activities of, 340; ante- cedent of, 334; candidates for, 347; categories of deputies, 348; demographics of deputies,

3; dissolution of, lxxxi; elections to, 347, 348-50; eligibility for election to, 348; for- eign policy responsibilities of, 408; origin of, 346-47; quotas for deputies, 348; responsibilities of, 347; role of, 330; voters in elec- tions to, 347, 348 Congress of Soviets, 332, 334; Central Executive Committee of, 332; eliminated, 333; power of, 332; Second, 60, 401 Congress of Vienna, 29 1019
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Constantine Alexandrovich, 30

Constantinople, 3, 5, 7, 8, 19, 186; fall of, 13 Constituent Assembly, 60

Constitutional Democratic Party, 46

Constitutional Oversight Committee, 330, 334, 335, 342, 347, 353; powers of, 334-35

constitutional rights, 335-38; lack of protection

for, 338; limits on, 338

constitution of 1905, 4

constitution of 1918, 332-33; party as ruler of Russia under, 332; power granted under,

332; provisions of, 332; rights in, 332; Sov- narkom in, 332-33

constitution of 1924, 333

constitution of 1936, 71, 333

Constitution of 1977, lxi, 89, 284, 304, 329,

331, 333-40, 343, 346, 355; amendments to, 334-35, 340, 347, 352; changes in, lxxi; content of, 329-30; councils of elder members

in, 354; Defense Council in, 700; duties in, 331, 339; equal rights for women under, 212, 230-31; federal system in, 361; foreign policy under, 407-8, 408-9; free education guaranteed in, 243; free medical care guaranteed

in, 243; judiciary under, 787; KGB under,

765; military service under, 739, 747; ministries under, 345; ownership of means of production under, 452; political theory underlying, 331; Presidium's authority in, 352; Presidium's chairman in, 352; principles es- tablished in, 334; Procuracy under, 787; provisions of, 331; rights in, 331, 335-38; Supreme Court in, 359; Supreme Soviet in, 354; system of Soviets in, 332

constitutions: Marx's understanding of role of, 332

constitutions, Soviet, 331-32; amendment process, 335; political theory underlying, 331;

provisions of, 331-32; rights under, 335-38;

role of, 332

Construction and Troop Billeting, 702, 721, 747

Consultative Committee (Warsaw Pact), 663 consumer goods, 475, 476, 495; availability of, 513-14; commitment to improving production of, 486; defined, 512; electronic, availability of, 513-14; import of, 602, 611, 615;

lack of priority in producing, 513; poor quality of, 513; produced by the chemical in- dustry, 502; and private enterprise, 480;

rationing of, 513; role of electronics industry in producing, 499; shortages in, 513; waiting periods for, 513 consumer industry, 512-25; production goals

of, 514

consumption, per capita, 457, 478

contraception (see also abortion): abortion as chief form of, 234; to control family size in Central Asia, 236; lack of artificial methods,

234; method, by social category, 234; number of unwanted pregnancies resulting from

lack of, 234

contract brigades, agricultural: autonomy of, 525; bonuses under, 525; described, 525;

family, 525; and improvement in agricultural performance, 530; number of, 525

control: agencies for, 453; defined, 358-59; eco- nomic, 472; figures, 461, 462; figures, nonbinding, 468; justification for, 284; of soci- ety by party, 281, 282

control organs, 358-61

conventional forces: modernization of, 699; reduced by Khrushchev, 691 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE), 692

cooperative ownership, defined, 452

cooperatives, 456

Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom), 608, 610 Corps of Gendarmes, 757

corruption, campaign against, 304

cossacks, 14, 107, 141 Cossacks, Ukrainian, 141; defined, 18; role of, in Ukrainian uprising (1648), 18 Council Committee for Cooperation in Planning, 856, 867; function of, 857, 867

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), 344, 437, 497, 853-74; agencies affiliated with, 858; Charter of, 854, 858; China's

withdrawal from, 604; Comprehensive Program

(1971), 861-62, 863-64; concern of, with world socialist system, 857; Concerted Plan of, 868-69; coordinated activities of, 860; council committees of, 856-57, 867; Council Ses- sion of, 856; dissolution of, lx; economic

cooperation in, 854, 856, 870-71; economic

restructuring under, 862, 863; and the EEC,

610, 873; evolution of, 858-64, 872-73; exchange rates in, 865-66; Executive Committee of, 856-57, 860, 867; formal cooperation of Yugoslavia with, 603; founding of, 853, 854; frequency of meetings of, 858, 863;

function of, 859; goals of, 853; interstate conferences in, 857; joint projects in, 868; under Khrushchev, 859-61; kinds of relationships with, 855; labor resources of, 870; liquidity shortages in, 862, 864; market relations and

investments of, 864-66; meetings of, 863, 873; members of, 423, 601, 854; membership, 854-55; military support in, 870-71; mixed economic system of, 863; national participation in, 855; in the 1980s, 862-63; observer countires in, 616, 855; operation of, 858; planning and, 866- 70, 872; power configurations within, 870; pricing system of, 602, 864-65; problems in, 873; purpose of, 594, 601, 853, 854; resistance to Soviet domination of, 853; right to refrain from parti- cipation in, 858; science and technology 1020
Index

cooperation among, 856, 869-70; scientific institutes in, 857; Secretariat of, 856, 857;

Soviet domination of, 853, 854; Soviet eco- nomic aid to, 591, 871; Soviet trade with, 591, 601-3, 605; standing commissions in, 873-74; 857; structure of, 856-58; support

of, for developing countries, 872; trade,

intraregional, in, 864, 865-66; trade, multilateral, in, 866; and the United Nations, 873 Council of Chalcedon, 189 Council of Ministers, lxxii, 82, 247, 276, 292,

295, 316, 330, 332, 333, 335, 340, 341'-42, 353, 354, 356, 436, 493, 594, 595, 597, 600, 640, 734, 735, 760; activities of, 340; advice

of, on policy, 629; armed forces under, 700; authority of, 330, 341; diplomatic recognition by, 409; duties of, 341; economic plan- ning by, 357-58, 453, 632; elected, 333;

foreign policy role of, 408-9; Glavlit's role under, 374; industrial complexes under, 467, 491-92; KGB under, 760, 765, 769; Law on,

335; meetings of, 342; members of, 342, 346; membership in, 341-42; Ministry of Defense

and, 701; planning function of, 461, 462,

492; policies of, 628; as policy implementer,

629; powers of, 342; Presidium of, 341, 408-9; responsibilities of, 332-33; role of, 330; structure of, 341 Council of Ministers chairman, 342-43; ap- pointed by Supreme Soviet, 350; as head of government, 329, 342; as head of party, 342; Khrushchev as, 342; Lenin as, 342; as member of Politburo, 330; power of, 343; role of, in economic administration, 342-43; Stalin

as, 342

Council of Ministers Presidium, 343-44; as eco- nomic bureau, 344; members of, 343-44; power of, 343

Council of Nationalities, 195 Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom)

{see also Council of Ministers), 60, 82, 760 Council of the Federation, lxxii; formed, lxxi Counterrevolution (1905-07), 45-46

counterrevolution, combating, 684 coup d'etat of August 1991, lxxviii-lxxxi; civil reaction to, lxxix; civilian casualties in resist- ing, lxxix; collapse of, lxxx; decrees under,

lxxix; international reaction to, lxxix; plotters, lxxviii-lxxix; support for, lxxix Courland, Duchy of, 150

court system, 359, 360-61; appeals under, 361;

role of judge, 360-61; structure of court

cases, 360 CPSU. See Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Credentials Commission, 350 Crimea, lxxviii, lxxx, 75, 88, 100, 110, 557; annexed by Catherine II, 24; climate of, 112; European attack on, 27; nationalist demonstrations in, 793; Tatar population in, 176 Crimean Autonomous Republic, 176

crime and punishment: amnesty, 790; in armed

forces, 749; death penalty, 790; economic,

763, 790; under Gorbachev, 790; labor camps, 790; nonpolitical, 790; parole, 790;

penalties for, 790; violent, 790

Crime and Punishment (Dostoevskii), 40, 394 Crimean Khanate, 175 Crimean Mountains, 108 Crimean War, 32; backwardness manifested in, 34; foreign affairs after, 36-38

critical realism: defined, 370; as artistic protest, 370, 371; used by Bolsheviks to control

culture, 370

criticism, 318-19

Croatians, 138

crusades, 8 Cuba, 86, 407, 414, 416, 423, 439, 441, 716;

as burden on Comecon, 871; Comecon aid

to, 871; communist revolution in, 440; Gorbachev's visit to, 441 ; as member of Comecon, 601, 603, 854, 871; military advisers

in, 684; military forces of, airlifted to Angola, 438-39; power of, in Comecon, 871;

role of, in Latin American terrorism, 779-80;

satellite communications hookup to, 582;

Soviet economic aid to, 591, 592, 605; Soviet military bases in, 603, 871; Soviet support

for, lx; Soviet trade with, 612; Soviet treaty with, 441; troops of, in Third World, 684; withdrawal of, from Angola, 439 Cuban missile crisis, lix, 87, 88, 571, 716

cult of personality, 291; Brezhnev's, 94, 291;

history of, 291; Khrushchev's, 291; Lenin's, 291; Stalin's, 84, 88, 291

cult of the just tsar, 291

cultural exchanges, 416, 418-19

cultural purges, 78

cultural revolution, 281, 283

cultural thaw, 84, 385, 392

culture {see also arts, literature, music), 93-94;

restrictions on, under Brezhnev, 89

Culture, Ministry of, 247, 257, 391, 582

currency of Comecon members, 865-66

Cyprus, 431

Cyrillic: Eastern Orthodox liturgy written in, 7 Czechoslovakia, 101, 414, 423, 425, 467, 581,

885, 890; army of, under Soviet control;

Hitler's demands for, 73; intelligence gather- ing by, 780; liberalization in, 882; as member of Comecon, 601, 854, 859; military agreement of, with Afghanistan, 434; nuclearfree zone proposed by, 691; occupation of, by Red Army, 877; revolution of 1989, lix; satellite communications hookup to, 582; Soviet

forces stationed in, 728; Soviet military alli- ance with, 73; Soviet relations with, 407; 1021
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Soviet treaty with, 877; Soviet withdrawal

of forces from, 444; Warsaw Pact invasion

of (1968), 90, 419, 420, 423, 425, 442, 682, 699, 719, 781, 861, 882-83, 885

Czechoslovak People's Army, 883; purge of, 883

Czechs, 138, 146

Dagestan Autonomous Republic, 159 Dahlak, Soviet military base in, 685

dairy farming, 536

Dalmatia, 50 Danes, 151 Daniel, Iulii, 381

Daniil (Prince), 9 Daniil Aleksandrovich, 12 Danish Straits, 680 Danube River, 36 Danzig, Gulf of, 101 Daoud Khan, Mohammad, 434

Dardanelles, 28, 32, 48, 50 Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years, The (Ait- matov), 388

death: causes of, 269, 271; rates, 269

Decembrists: origins of, 30; revolt of, 291 Decembrists' revolt, 30

decentralization, 608

Decree Number 358: 593, 594

Decree of the Press, 371 Decree on Peace, 401-2

Defense, Ministry of, lxxvi, 582, 700, 701-2,

723, 725, 731, 745, 746, 749, 756, 791, 793, 880, 885; foreign policy responsibilities of, 409; KGB control by, 769; in Main Mili- tary Council, 701; members of, 702, 730;

military research and development under,

646, 647; minister of, 702; organization of, 704; Premilitary Training Directorate of, 742; responsibilities of, 702; salaries in, 220;

as strong consumer, 465; supervision of, 701-2

Defense Council, 303, 350, 665, 700-701, 702, 703, 781; decisions of, 701, 734; chairman

of, 353, 403, 408, 700; membership of, 700;

military research and development under,

493, 646

Defense Industry, Ministry of the, 646

Defense Industry Department (CPSU Central Committee), 734

defense spending, 469-70, 733-34; budget

items, 733-34; glasnost' in, 734; on research and development, 734; as percentage of GNP, 734; total for 1988, 733 de Gaulle, Charles, 420

Delianov, Ivan, 36

democratic centralism, lxxv, 65, 228, 284-88,

309, 312, 313, 329, 340, 346; accountability in, 286; contradictions in principles of,

286; decision making in, 286; defined, 281, 282-83; in Presidium, 358; principles of, 284-86; Western view of, 286 Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North

Korea), 81, 101, 413, 414, 433; military advisers in, 684; satellite communications hookup to, 582; Soviet economic relations with, 601, 605 demographic literacy, 130 demography. See population

demokratizatsiia (democratization), lvii, 262; defined, lxvii; effects of, lix; problems with, lvii Denmark, 14, 423

deserts, 107, 112, 527

design organizations, 635; design bureaus, 635, 636, 665; organizational separation and, 638-39, 640; planning by, 635; responsibilities of, 635; technological institutions in, 635

de-Stalinization, 88, 255, 762, 879-80; effect

of, on Eastern Europe, 86; effect of, on security police, 761; halted under Brezhnev, 89;

initiated by "secret speech," 84, 761

detente, 92, 416, 418, 421, 772; under Brezhnev, lix; consequences of, for Warsaw Pact, 889; end of, 891; meaning of, 416, 420; mili- tary strategy during, 676; new, 419; science under, 627-28; Warsaw Pact under, 888-91 Deutsche Welle, 382

development, 624; expansion of, 627; organizational separation and, 638-39, 640; organizations, 634-37 Dewey, John, 249

dialectical materialism, 626

Dictatorship of Conscience (Shatrov), 394

dictatorship of the proletariat, 60, 65, 284, 332, 655; fulfilled, 334

diet, 519; fish in, 539; Khrushchev's concern

for, 522; per capita consumption of meat and

dairy products, 538

diplomacy, 345, 357, 408, 409, 410-13; bourgeois, 410; communist, 410-13; described, 412

diplomatic recognition: establishment of, 412; pursuit of, 412

disease: causes of, 270; increases in, 269, 270; kinds of, 269

disinformation: defined, 779; United States as prime target for, 779

dissidents: confinement of, in psychiatric hospitals, 772; KGB attacks on, 771; party policy toward, 774-75; repression of, by Brezhnev,

90; scientists as, 634

distribution system, 456-57, 460; agricultural, 460; collective farm markets, 456; cooperatives, 456; decentralization of, 457, 468-69;

output of, as percentage of net material product, 453; percentage of labor force in, 456; rationing in, 469; retail outlets, 456;

sales by individuals, 453; wholesale, 457 1022
Index

divorce, lxvi, 100, 125-27, 233; attitudes of non-Russian nationalities toward, 231; child custody after, 233; cost of, 233; effect of al- coholism on, 130, 270; factors contributing

to rate of, 212; housing shortage as cause of, 233; in NEP era, 68; obtaining, 233; rates

of, 233; rates of, and population problems,

125; reasons for, 233; restriction of, 71 Dmitrii, First False, 15

Dmitrii, Second False, 15 Dnepropetrovsk, 315-16

Dnepropetrovskaya Oblast, 316 Dnepropetrovsk College of Metallurgy, 316 Dnepr Railroad, 557 Dnepr River, 7, 18, 24, 25, 33, 101, 138, 568, 581; hydroelectric system on, 108; Ukraine

split along, 141 Dnepr River Valley, 3, 5, 8, 12, 527, 532 Dnestr River, 5, 24; hydroelectric system on, 108 Dnestr River Valley, 125 Dobroliubov, Nikolai, 371 Dobrynin, Anatolii, 407

doctor of science degree, 260

"doctors' plot," 81

Doctor Zhivago (Pasternak), 382, 398 Donbass industrial area: coal industry in, 508-9; coal reserves in, 508; reduction of resources in, 488 Donetsk metallurgical plant, 501 Donetsk Railroad, 557 Donets River basin, 12, 527, 532 Don River, 18, 33, 568, 581; hydroelectric sys- tem on, 108 DOSAAF. See Voluntary Society for Assistance

to the Army, Air Force, and Navy

Dostoevskii, Fedor, 39-40, 394 drug abuse, 99; increase in, 271 Druzhba (Friendship) oil pipeline, 860

dual subordination, 346 Dubcek, Alexander, 882, 883 Dubna, 585 Duma, lvii, 47, 50; defined, 46; dissolution of, 46; elections in, 46; Executive Committee

formed, 57; First, 46, 176; Fourth, 47; Sec- ond, 46-47, 176; Third, 47 dumas, 7, 34, 36, 283 Dushanbe, 170

dvorianstvo (nobility), 17 Dzerzhinskii, Feliks E., 547; expansion of rail- road system under, 547; Vecheka under, 758

Eastern Europe, 56; consumption levels of, 478;

as defensive buffer, 682, 875-77, 892; energy

pipeline to, 546; military advisers in, 684;

reaction of, to changes in Soviet leadership, 424; revolutions of 1989, lix-lx; Soviet armed

forces withdrawn from, 692; Soviet control

of, 877; Soviet demands for supplies from,

78; Soviet economic activity with, 591, 594; Soviet forces stationed in, 728; Soviet hege- mony in, lviii; Soviet hegemony in, as for- eign policy, 401, 419; Soviet influence over, 419, 424; Soviet military intervention in, 682; Soviet occupation of, lviii, 77, 79, 699;

Soviet trade with, lxiii, 594; Soviet troops sta- tioned in, 883, 884-87; and Soviet Union, power of, in Comecon, 870; terrorist aid chan- neled through, 780, withdrawal of Soviet troops from, lx Eastern Front (World War I), 50

Eastern Orthodox Church {see also Belorussian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Georgian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox

Church, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox

Church), 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 145, 181, 183, 184-89; administration of, 185-86; beliefs, 184-85; clergy, 185; denominations in, 185;

in Kievan Rus', 9; reasons for dominance

of, 7; teachings, 184-85; worship, 185 "Eastern Question," 31-32

East European Plain, 4, 104

East Germany. See German Democratic Republic East Siberian Economic Region, 511

East Slavic region, 5 East Slavs (see also Belorussians, Russians, Ukrainians, Kievan Rus', Muscovy, Russian Empire), 3, 4, 7, 10, 141, 144; dominance of, lvii, 138; isolation of, 7; major

pre-Soviet political formations of, 3; as members of CPSU, 324; origins of, 5 economic aid, 601; amount of, 592; to Comecon members, 591; expansion of, 592; under GKES, 594; reassessment of, 592; to Third World, 605 economic control, 458-71; figures, 461, 462;

pricing policy as, 470 economic councils, 466, 627 economic development, 451, 488, 624; for Siberia, 479; of the Soviet Far East, 479 economic laws of socialism, 458 economic measurements: net output, 467;

Soviet-style, 452, 467, 470 economic plan, 315, 357; distribution of funds

to reflect goals of, 469; elaboration of successive, 462 economic planning, 458-71; advantages of, 462-64; basis of, 458; centralized, defined, 458-60; Marxist-Leninist definition of, 458;

ratchet system of, 464; socialist laws for, 458 economic policies, 471-82; and Comecon, 603; Marxist blueprint for, 472; past priorities of, 472-78; problems caused by, 472 economic production, 458 economic reform: under Andropov, 467;

description of, 458; effect of, on wages, 1023
Soviet Union: A Country Study

470-71; under Gorbachev, 314, 456-57,

458, 467, 618-19; under Khrushchev, 84, 92, 310, 466, 467; under Kosygin, 92, 466, 467 economic regions, 504 economic structure, 452-58; centralization of, under Stalin, 458 economy, centrally planned (CPE): advantages

of, 462-64; under Brezhnev, 466, 467; prob- lems in, 464-65, 472; production storming

in, 464-65; science and technology plans under, 630; as taut economy, 464 economy, official, 92-93, 452-54, 456; before World War II, 55; centralized under Kosygin, 92-93; centralized under Stalin, 69; debt, 592, 606; expansion of, after World War II, 56; growth of, 467, 476, 477, 478, 480-81, 493; health care in, 456; impact of low population growth on, 119; impact of

surplus of women on, 119; industrialized under Stalin, lviii, 69-70; management of, by Council of Ministers, 341, 343, 345; opening of, 592; priorities for, 452-53; pri- vate sector in, 457, 480; problems in, under

Khrushchev, 88; problems in, under Gorbachev, lx-lxi, lxiv; reform efforts in, 453;

role of Ministry of Finance in, 457-58; size

of, 477; socialist ownership of means of production in, 452; supply and demand in, 456; "taut," 456, 464 economy, unofficial: defined, 211; description

of, 453-54; illegal activities in, 480; legiti- mized, 480

education, 244-62; access to, in Russian Empire, 243; access to, in Soviet Union, 218, 223; under Alexander II, 35; for artistically gifted students, 257; under Brezhnev, 93-94;

characteristics of, 244-45; creation of "new

school," 245, 250; engineering training in, 649; exchanges, 410; free, guaranteed by

Constitution, 243; for handicapped students, 257; for intellectually gifted students, 257; under Khrushchev, 243-44; level of, 93-94,

250; literacy rate, 243; under Lunacharskii,

68; Marxist-Leninist philosophical underpin- nings of, 244; medical, of women, 35; military, 257; obrazovanie (formal), 245; obstacles

to reform of, 262; and occupation, 217-18;

orthodox Marxist interpretation of, 72; over- bureaucratization in, 248; party influence in, lxix; party's role in, 247-48; of peasants, 35; perpetuation of elite in, 94, 218, 223; under

Peter the Great, 22; political indoctrination

in, 243, 244, 248, 249, 253; polytechnical, 244; providing workers, 248-49; purpose of, lxv; reforms in, under perestroika, 245, 649; research and development in, 248; responsibility of, for socialization, 245; rote learn- ing in, 243; science training in, 649; under

Stalin, 243-44; and vospitanie (upbringing), 245

education, higher, lxix-lxv; access to, restricted, 214; backgrounds of students in, 258; en- gineering training in, 649; graduate train- ing in, 260; jobs assigned to graduates of, 260; kinds of, 257-58; length of study, 259;

locations of, 258; management of, 247-48;

nationalities represented in, 140; programs

of, 259; reform of, 262, 649; science train- ing in, 636, 649; tuition and fees, 259-60;

universities, 258; women in, 258

Education, Ministry of, 35, 247, 248

Education, Ministry of Higher and Specialized, 247

education, secondary, 253-56; class time, 254; computer training in, 254, 256; enrollment,

253; entry of six-year-olds into, 254; final ex- aminations in, 255; foreign language study

in, 254; grades in, 255; intermediate and

upper curriculum, 254-55; kinds of, 253; length of compulsory, 253; number of facilities, 253; phases in, 254; primary curricu- lum in, 254; reform of (1984), 254; rural and

urban, 254; school year, 254; "socially beneficial" labor in, 255; specialized (tech- nicums), 256, 262; study of Russian lan- guage in, 254; vocational counseling in, 254;

vocational-technical, 256

education system, structure of, 252

egalitarianism, repudiated by Stalin, 214

Egypt, 43, 86, 614, 712; abrogation of treaty with Soviet Union, 684; expulsion of Soviet

advisers from, 91, 413, 684; improvement

in Soviet relations with, 432, 433; Soviet trade with, 612

Egyptian army, 91 Eighth Chief Directorate: responsibility of, 767; Security Troops under, 793 Eighth Five-Year Plan (1966-70), 476

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 85, 86, 87, 688

Eisenstein, Sergei, 68, 390

Ekibastuz, 509, 510

Ekran, 513-14 Ekran satellite system, 585; uses of, 585

El'brus, Mount, 108

elections, 365-66; campaigning, 365; effect of, lxix; efforts to democratize, 365-66; as forum

for requesting services, 365; multicandidate, 365; party control over, 365; right to campaign for, 350; right to stand for, 348; selec- tion of candidates for, 365

electricity: generation and distribution of, 510;

in rural areas, 520; sources of, 510

electrification, 472; Lenin's program for, 547; of railroads, 547

electronics industry, 499; chronic problems in, 499; consumer goods produced by, 499; cooperation of, with machine building, 499; 1024
Index

critical branches in, 499; joint ventures in, 611; most important role of, 499; self- sufficiency of Comecon in, 603; technology

transfer to, 499

Electronics Industry, Ministry of the, 646

Eleventh Five-Year Plan (1981-85), 478, 481,

496, 532, 540

elite, lxv-lxvi; allocation of housing to, 223; defined, 216; health care of, 268-69; income and benefits of, 216, 220, 471; intelligentsia as, 216; KGB as, 216; Muslim, 176; party membership of, 298; pensions of, 275; per- petuated by education system, 218; position of children of, 211; Soviet, 211

Elizabeth I, 23

El Salvador, 440

emigration, lxxiv, 124 employment: full, 477; growth in, 477

energy (see also coal, electricity, fuel, gas, nuclear power, oil), 487; acceleration in production of, 481; cogeneration, 512; effi- ciency in use of, 481; generators of, 510; growth of, 510; heat generation, 512; net- work, integration of, 510; obstacles to supply of, 512; policy goals, 510; renewable, 510-11; requirements, 488; resources, 488

Engels, Friedrich, 44, 339, 472, 654

engineering: curriculum for, 649; problems in training, 649; training in, 648-50

Engineer Troops, 708-10; equipment of, 709-

10; mission of, 709; organization of, 708-9; uniforms and rank insignia of, 738-39

enterprise, individual, 453, 492; production

plans for, 462

enterprise, industrial: transfer of, to Asian

areas, 474

enterprise, private, 454, 480; activities in, 480;

regulations for, 480

enterprise, state: election of management per- sonnel in, 468, 480; election of labor councils in, 468-69; fulfillment of contracts by, 468; government power to disband unprofitable, 600; responsibility of, for foreign

trade, 600; self-financing requirement, 468

environment, 113-15, 121, 397; air pollution, 115, 122; Aral region as ecological disaster area, 115; degradation of, lxxiii, 100; green movement, lxxiii, 113, 130; and opposition

to construction of electrical plants, 512; protection of neglected, 113 Ermak, 14

Estonia, 21, 73, 147, 363; annexation of, lviii, 397, 473, 682; ceded to Russia, 151; controlled by Sweden, 151 ; establishment of in- dependence, 61; German control of, 151; independence of, lxxxi; Russification in, 151; Soviet invasion of, in 1939, 74, 550

Estonian Republic, lxx-lxxi, lxxix, 102, 123,

127, 151, 188, 308, 526; agriculture in, 533;

autonomy sought by, 362; candidates for Congress of People's Deputies, 347; drainage

projects in, 529; families in, 236; legal age

for marriage in, 232; minorities in, 152; nationalist movement suppressed in, 759; population of, 152; rate of premarital preg- nancy in, 234; religion in, 191; roads in, 562

Estonians, lxvi, 27, 150, 151-52; distribution

of, 152; divorce of, 233; education of, 152; Germanization of, 151; history of, 151; in- dependence movement, 151; language of, 152; as members of CPSU, 152; oppression

of, 151-52; population of, 152; as scientific workers, 152; secession by, lxxix; urbanization of, 152

Ethiopia, 90, 431, 438, 439 , 684, 712; Eritrean

insurgency, 431; military access to, 727; mili- tary advisers in, 684; Soviet arms bought by, 614; Soviet military base in, 685; Soviet sup- port for Cuban troops in, 684, 700; ties to Comecon, 616, 855

ethnic diversity (see also minorities, nationalities), 99

ethnic groups. See nationalities Etorofu Island, 428 Eurocommunism, 90, 415

Europe, 44, 410, 430, 561, 569; arms buildup

in, 692; denuclearization of, 690, 691; destruction of targets in, 677; nuclear-free zone, 691 European Community, lxxxi European Economic Community (EEC), 592, 610; normalization agreement with, 619

Evtushenko, Evgenii, 388, 389, 390, 392

Executive Committee of the Duma, 57

exploiting classes; description of, 214; official discrimination against, 214

Export pipeline, 581

exports: of arms, 614; attempt to increase, 610, 618; of chemicals, 606, 608; of fuel, 592, 603, 605, 606, 608, 609, 610, 611-12, 615; of manufactured goods, 605-6; of metals, 610;

as source of hard currency, 592, 605; of timber, 606, 610; of tractors, 606; unidentified, 616

Ezhov, Nikolai, 70 Ezhovshchina, 70

factories: DOSAAF units in, 742; KGB lectures

to, 772-74; preschools in, 251

factory workers: in nineteenth-century Russia, 33

Falin, Valentin A., 300, 407

family, 125-27, 234-38; decline of, 100, 235; evolution of, 235-36; extended, 238; function of, 238; government as surrogate, 238; law on, 234, 235; Muslim, 232-33; in NEP

era, 68; number of children in, 235; role of, 1025
Soviet Union: A Country Study

in child-rearing, 246; size of, 127, 212, 236; strengthening of, under Stalin, 235; struc- tures, 238; subsidies for poor, 235-36, 243;

typical, 127, 236

farming. See agriculture

Fathers and Sons (Turgenev), 39

Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany),

87, 419, 420, 457, 714; as importer of Soviet

gas, 508, 581, 609, 610; percentage of GNP

spent on health care in, 273; relations of, with

Soviet Union, 420-21; ships acquired from,

575; trade with, 607 Fedor I, reign of, 14-15 Fedor II, 15 Fedor III, 20 Fedorchuk, Vitalii, 763, 782, 783

Fel'tsman, Vladimir, 395 Fergana Valley, 527

ferry lines: Crimea-Caucasus, 575; KlaipedaMukran, 575; Leningrad-Stockholm, 575; Vanino-Kholmsk, 575

fertile triangle, 525

fertility, 121, 130

Fifth Chief Directorate (KGB), 767

Fifth Five-Year Plan (1951-55), 475, 552; in- vestment in heavy industry under, 475

film, 390-92; industry, liberalizing trends in, 390-91; as propaganda, 384; under Stalin, 385-88; themes in, dictated by the party, 390

Final Act of the Conference on Security and

Cooperation in Europe. See Helsinki Accords

Finance, Ministry of, 35, 345, 357; functions

of, 595, 632; role of, in economic system, 457-58

financial system, 457-58

Finland, 47, 61, 79, 101; army of, 699; Bank

of, 611; bilateral clearing agreements with, 611; independence of, 61; land concessions

of, to Soviet Union, 77, 362; reexport by, of Soviet oil, 612; resistance of, to Soviet in- vasion, 74; Russian acquisition of, 28; Soviet invasion of, 550, 699; Soviet relations with, 422; Soviet trade with, 591, 605, 611-12; ties to Comecon, 855

Finland, Gulf of, 22

Finnish Civil War, 61 Finnish Russians, 27, 36, 42, 45

Finnish-Soviet war. See Soviet-Finnish war

Finno-Ugric tribes, 8, 138, 149, 151, 181, 182, 183

Finns, 151

First Chief Directorate (KGB), 781; composed

of, 776-77; Directorate K, 777; Directorate

S, 776; Directorate T, 776; recruitment for, 778; responsibility of, 767; rezidenty, 777;

Service A, 777; Service I, 777; Service R,

777

First Five-Year Plan (1928-32), 68-69, 295, 487; agriculture under, 55, 473; centralization under, 491 ; collectivization of peasantry under, 69, 473; failure of, 69; focus of, 473; industry under, 55; political controls over cultural activity under, 372; problems

under, 69, 492; railroads under, 547; rapid

industrialization under, 69; starvation under, 55

First Party Congress, 293, 296

first secretary (see also general secretary), 342

fish: sources of, 539-40; in Soviet diet, 539;

Soviet Union as producer of, 540

fishing, 539-40; factory ships used in, 540; fleet, 540, 575; production, 540; source of catch, 539-40

Fishing Industry, Ministry of the, 575, 595

five-year plans (see also under individual plans), 492; for science and technology, 632

flexible response: adopted by NATO, 662; defined, 662; Soviet response to, 671 Follow-on-Forces-Attack (FOFA) (United

States), 680 Food Industry, Ministry of the, 524

food policy, 522-25

food production: problems with, under Gorbachev, lxii Food Program of Brezhnev, 524, 533; objective of, 524

food subsidies, 519, 525

food supply: output from animal husbandry,

536-38; problems with, 93, 529; pre-World War II, 529

Foreign Affairs, Ministry of, 345, 407, 409,

410, 438; diplomatic service in, 409; organi- zation of, 410; responsibilities of, 409-10

Foreign Affairs Commission, 356, 357, 408

Foreign Affairs Committee, 356, 357

foreign aid, 410; economic, 410, 415, 431, 438, 601; military, 410, 438; propaganda, 415

foreign economic activity: administration of, 594-95; amount of, 591; borrowing of hard

currency, 591; centralization of, 594-95;

with communist countries, 591 ; economic aid programs, 591, 605; with Third World, 591; with Western industrialized countries, 591 Foreign Economic Activity Bank, 457, 600; ex- pansion of activities of, 600

Foreign Economic Relations, Ministry of, 409, 594, 600

foreign policy: assistance to national liberation movements, 402; basic character of, 401-2; under Brezhnev, 90-92; Central Committee

departments responsible for, 404-7; change

in priorities in, 402; and Comecon, 603; Congress of People's Deputies responsibilities for, 408; Council of Ministers Presidium responsibilities for, 408-9; diplomatic isolation under

Stalin, 72; in Eastern Europe, 84, 402; en- vironment for innovation in, 404; ideology

of, 401-3; under Khrushchev, 84, 85-87; in 1026
Index

Latin America, 440-41; national security as goal of, 402; in the 1920s, 66-67; in the 1930s, 72-73; objectives of, 401-2; organizations responsible for, 408; Politburo as maker of, 403-4; Presidium responsibilities

for, 408; priorities in, 402; in sub-Saharan

Africa, 438-40; Supreme Soviet responsibilities for, 408; toward non-Western world, 67; toward Western world, 66-67, 91-92

foreign relations: 406; with bordering states, 403; after the Crimean War, 36-38; with Eastern Europe, 403; East-West, 412; state

visits for, 413; with Third World, 403; with United States, 403; with Western Europe, 403

foreign trade, 410, 452, 469, 472, 570; amount

of exports and imports, 591, 607; balance

of, 612-13, 618; bureaucracy, 594-600; bureaucracy, decentralization of, 599, 600; bureaucracy, problems caused by, 597; with Cambodia, 605; changes in, 594; with China,

604-5; with Comecon, 601-3; commodity

composition of, 592; composition of, 613-15;

conduct of, 593, 601; deficit in, 606, 607, 610; with Eastern Europe, lxiii; expansion of, 571, 608; exports, 595, 601-2, 603, 605-6; with

Finland, 611; fluctuation of trade patterns, 606; free trade zones, 604; imports, 595, 601-

2, 603, 606; with Japan, 610-11; with Laos,

605; manner of transactions, 591; methods of, 591; nationalization of, 472; under NEP, 593; with North Korea, 605; operation of, 595-97;

organizations (FTOs), 594, 595, 596; origins

of, 593; perestroika in, 597, 608; restrictions on, by Western nations, 593-94; role of, 591, 619; and self-sufficiency policy, 591, 607; with socialist countries, 601-5; state monopoly on, 593-94; with Third World, lxiii, 592, 612-18;

turnover, 599; with United States, lxiii, 607-

9; unnecessary delays in, 597; with West, lxiii; with Western industrialized countries, 592, 601, 605-12; with Yugoslavia, 603-4

Foreign Trade, Ministry of, 594, 597, 608; abolition of, 600; FTOs under, 596, 599; functions of, 595; organization of, 598

Foreign Trade Bank, 595, 600

forestry, 538-39; accomplishments of, 539; animal resources in, 539; employment in, 539; industry, 526; product of, 538-39; pro- duction, 538, 539; region, 538

forest-steppe zone, 526-27; agriculture in, 527; chernozem soil in, 527; climate of, 527

Fourth Five-Year Plan (1945-50), 474, 552, 566

fractional orbital bombardment system, 689

France, 44, 47, 49, 50, 73, 457; acquiescence

of, to Hider's demands, 73; contributions of, to Soviet chemical industry, 503; in Crimean War, 32; declaration of war on Germany,

73; establishing relations with Japan, 37; as

importer of Soviet gas, 508, 581, 609; in- volvement of, in Russian Civil War, 61 , 63; as member of Cominform, 414; as member

of United Nations, 445; nuclear forces of, 417, 420, 444, 690; Russian relations with,

36, 37; Russian wars with, 27, 28; Soviet

military alliance with, 73; Soviet relations with, 420, 421-22; state visit by Gorbachev

to, 420

Franco-Prussian War, 35

Frank, Peter, 297

Frederick the Great, 23 French Revolution, 26, 27

Friedland, Russian defeat by Napoleon at, 28

Frontal Aviation, 711, 714, 725; aircraft of, 711; helicopters of, 711; mission of, 711; or- ganization of, 711 Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Fre- limo), 439

Fruit and Vegetable Industry, Ministry of the, 524

fruit cultivation, 534-36; harvest, 541; kinds

of, 534; volume of, 534

Frunze, 169, 497

Frunze, Mikhail V., 661, 663

fuel, 505-10; availability of, 505; coal, 505; domestic uses of, 505; economy, 490, 503; exports of, 505, 605, 613-14; exchanges, in Comecon, 864; fossil, 112, 510; gas, 505; oil, 505-6; and planning, 505; problems with, 505; reserves of, 505; resource base of, 505;

as source of hard-currency income, 505 Fundamental Principles of Criminal Procedure, 761

fur industry, 526, 539

Further . . . Further, and Further/ (Shatrov), 394

Galicia, 49, 50, 141, 174

Galicia-Volhynia, 141; as a successor to Kievan

Rus', 9 Gandhi, Indira, 436 Gandhi, Rajiv, 436 Gapon, Georgii (Fr.), 45 Gareev, Makhmut A., 663, 671

Garthoff, Raymond L., 664

gas, liquefied, 498

gas, natural, lxxvii, 485, 498, 505, 507-8, 510;

deposits of, 489; development of, 605; ex- ports of, lxiv, 508, 592, 605, 606, 609, 618; exports of, amount, 609; obstacles to access

to, 488; pipeline, 508, 581; problems with, 507-8; production of, 507; as replacement

for oil, 507, 508; reserves of, 507; uses of, 505 gender roles (see also women), 230-34

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 592; observer status requested, 618 General Machine Building, Ministry of, 646, 735 1027
Soviet Union: A Country Study

general practitioner, 264

general secretary, 293, 302-6, 342, 344, 348,

409; base of authority and power of, 303; as chairman of Defense Council, 700; client turnover under, 303, 305; cult of leader of, 304; description of, 293; high government

offices acquired by, 304; importance of, 302-3; increase of authority by, 303-4; as maker of foreign policy, 403; potential suc- cessors to, 305; powers of, 303, 304-5, 343;

rights and duties of, 304-5, 702; transfer of

authority to, 305

General Staff, lxxvi, 700, 701, 702-3, 705, 712, 719, 743, 749, 877, 883, 885-86; domination of Ground Forces in, 702; and Ministry of Defense, 702; and military production, 665, 734; making war plans, 675

genetics research, 626 Geneva Summit (1985), 418-19, 892

Georgia, 61 ; early commitment to Marxism in, 155 Georgian language, 180 Georgian Orthodox Church, 188, 199 Georgian Republic, lxx, 61, 102, 154, 254, 362;

citrus fruit grown in, 534; drug abuse in, 271; Helsinki watch group established in, 197; major cities of, 156; nationalities in, 156; party apparatus in, 308; Russian lan- guage in, 198; sexually transmitted diseases

in, 271; tea grown in, 534; tree farms in, 475

Georgians, lxvi, 27, 42, 45, 139, 153, 155-56,

158; distribution of, 155; in higher education, 156; history of, 155; language of, 156;

as members of CPSU, 156, 323; national resurgence of, 155, 205; population of, 155; prominent, 156; as scientific workers, 156; urbanization of, 156 German, Aleksei, 392 German army, 74, 75, 145, 148, 150, 877 German Democratic Republic (East Germany),

414, 424, 425, 496, 572, 575, 883, 890; contributions of, to Soviet chemical industry, 503; formation of, 80; Garrisoned People's

Police of, 879; intelligence gathering by, 780; labor transfers from, 870; as member of Comecon, 601, 859; military advisers in, 684; nuclear-free zone proposed by, 691;

revolution of 1989, lix; satellite communications hookup to, 582; Soviet forces sta- tioned in, 728; Soviet influence over, 423;

Soviet relations with, 407; Soviet withdrawal

of forces from, 444 Germanic Order of the Brethren of the Sword,

149 German Russians, 27, 124 Germans (Soviet), 149, 151, 152, 164, 166, 168; language of, 183; population of, 183 Germany, 37, 42, 44, 44, 48, 56, 60, 474, 552,

756; Anti-Comintern Pact signed by, 73; in

Balkans, 38; contributions of, to Soviet chemical industry, 503; control of Eastern Europe by, 682; declaration of war by, on

Soviet Union, 74; division of, 80; influence

of, on Baltic nationalities, 147; interests of, in Ottoman Empire, 48; invasion of Soviet Union by, in World War II, lviii, 55-56,

142, 180, 474, 488, 550, 723; occupation of, by Red Army, 877; occupation of Soviet Union by, in World War II, 75-76, 189,

759; as power under Bismarck, 32; as source of Cold War conflict, 80; Soviet military operations against, in World War II, 76; Soviet relations with, 67; trade with, 474;

in World War I, 49 Germany (united), lx; emigration to, lxxiv Gladyshev, Viktor, 785

glasnost' (public discussion), 100, 113, 296, 356,

745, 765, 774; discussion of nationality questions under, 201; East European reaction to, 425; effects of, lix, lxxii-lxxiv; exposure of inadequacies of social services, 244; under

Gorbachev, lix, lxxii; in health care, 269; in- ternal security under, 755; journalism under,

379; literature under, 389; loss of control of, lxxiii; opposition to, 389-90; political free- dom under, 338; poverty under, 277

Glinka, Mikhail, 31

global zero option, 690 Gbdunov, Boris, 14; proclaimed tsar, 15 Gogol, Nikolai, 31, 39 Golden Horde, 9, 160, 175, 182, 192; defeated by Russian army, 10 Golodnaya Steppe, 527

Golytsn, 792 Gomulka, Wladyslaw, 880 Goncharov, Ivan, 39

Gonzalez, Felipe, 422 Good Woman of Szechuan, The (Brecht), 394

Gorbachev, Mikhail S., lx, 125, 205, 255, 209, 301, 304, 305, 311, 348, 366, 417, 446, 693, 735; agriculture under, 520, 524, 529; anti- alcohol campaign of, 270; arms control ef- forts, 692, 693; arms reductions proposal, 444; assessment of nationalities question,

135; attempt by, to retain power, lxxii; Brezhnev Doctrine repudiated by, 424; call of, for promotion of women and minorities

in party, 325; "common European home"

speech of, 421; concessions to nationalities by, 202-4; conservative backlash against, 764; crime and punishment under, 790; cul- tural thaw under, 369, 370, 372-73, 383-84,

389, 392, 394, 397; cuts by, in military budget, 445, 734; demokratizatsiia under, lvii, lix, 262, 303, 370; dissidents under, 634; disso- lution of Soviet Union under, lxxxi; eco- nomic reform under, 314, 467, 479-80, 607, 618-19; economy under, lxiv; efforts to 1028
Index

reduce mortality rate under, 121; environ- mental concerns under, 113; foreign policy under, 401, 402, 433; formation of commissions by, 301; glasnost' under, lix, lxxii, 100, 113, 201, 244, 295, 303, 370, 745, 755; as head of State Council, lxxxi; and indepen- dence of republics, lxx-lxxi; individual rights under, 786-87; internal security under, 760; KGB under, 763, 770, 772; lack of support

for, lxxviii; and letters to the editor, 379; loosening of party strictures on media and

the arts, lxxii; loss of power of, after coup,

lxxx; military cuts announced by, 728;

military-political relations under, 729; mili- tary research and development under, 648, 671; moratorium declared by, on nuclear

testing, 418; "new thinking" of, be, 373, 429, 654; in Nineteenth Party Conference, 296; Nobel Prize for Peace awarded to, lx; nuclear disarmament proposal of, 443-44; overthrow

of, lxxviii-lxxix; patronage systems under,

219; perestroika under, lvii, lix, lxxviii, 244, 295, 303, 360, 370, 451, 525, 592, 755; and

polytechnical education, 246; popularity of, lxviii; post-coup personnel changes by,

lxxviii; as president, lxxi; as Presidium chair- man, 352, 354; as Presidium member-atlarge, 351; purge of old guard by, 763; reduction of armed forces by, lxxvi; reform

efforts of, 360, 764; reinstatement of, lxxx;

relations with Japanese under, 428; relations with Latin America under, 441; relations with Middle East under, 432; religion under,

lxvii, 20-21; restrictions on KGB, 764; sal- ary of, 220; science and technology under,

640, 649-50; Sino-Soviet relations under,

427; socialist legality under, 786; state visits of, 420, 421, 436, 441; summits of, with Reagan, 418-19; technology transfer under,

644, 649-50; Third World policy of, 437; ties with ASEAN under, 437; trade with Comecon under, 603; turnover by, in Central Committee, 297-98; welfare under, 277; and

Yeltsin, lxviii Gorizont satellite system, 585; uses of, 585

Gor'kiy, lxxiv, 108, 497-98, 634, 637 Gor'kiy Railroad, 557

gorkom (city committee): bureau of, 310; composition of, 310-11; economic administration in, 311-12; first secretary of, 311; meetings of, 311; members of, 310; secretariat of, 311; structure of, 310 Gorky, Maksim, 67, 389, 394 Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, 170

gorodskie raiony (urban districts), 361 Gorshkov, Sergei, 678 Gosbank: described, 457; functions of, 595, 632; monopoly of, ended, 458

Goskino, 375, 390-91, 597

Goskomizdat, 375, 597 Goskomizobretenie, 632-33 Goskompriroda, 115 Goskomstat, 461; planning function of, 461 Goskomtrud, 632

Gosplan, 260, 344, 357, 595, 600; control

figures established by, 462; described, 461;

First Five-Year Plan of, 68; functions of, 595; health care programs of, 263; manpower

problems caused by, 250; military research and development under, 647, 734; output

quotas of, 69; planning methods of, 461-62,

492; responsibilities of, 461, 630; role of, curtailed, 468; role of, in World War II, 474;

training and distribution of specialists by, 250 Gossnab, 595, 600; functions of, 595, 632

Gosstandart, 632

Gostelradio, 375, 582

Goths, 5 government, Bolshevik, lvii, 414; armed forces organized under, 697-98; arts and media controlled by, 372; arts and media used by, to support communism, 371, 377; economy

under, 63; effect of, on marriage, 235; newspapers closed by, 371; opposition of, to external economic control, 593; press controlled by, 371; refusal of, to pay World War

I debts, 593; repression by, of opponents, 63; revolutionary decrees of, 60; role of railroads under, 547; science setbacks under, 625; socialist society imposed on tsarist Russia by, 472; Vecheka under, 755, 757-58; war com- munism under, 63; and World War I, 60 government, Soviet: agencies, 345; branches

of, 329; constitutional authority of, 331-

40; criticism of, lxxii; disengagement from World War I by, 60; functions of, performed

by party, 329; head of, 329; hierarchy of, 329; as implementer of policy, 292, 329;

leaders of, 340; legislative authority in, 340; party control over, 340-41; and party, dis- tinction between, 292; planning apparatus

of, 460-61; as source of party legitimacy, 329; structure of, 340 government, transitional, lxxxi Grachev, Pavel, lxxix

grain, 530-32; decrease in area allotted to, 531; embargo, 92, 416, 614; feed, 531; as foun- dation of agriculture, 530-31; harvest, 541; importing of, Ixii, Ixiv, 532, 592, 606, 615-16;

kinds of, 530-31; output, 530; slaughter of

livestock to conserve, 531; yields, 531

graphic arts, 397 Great Depression, 473 Great Northern War, 21 Great Patriotic War. See World War II Great Terror, lviii, 71, 139, 392, 397, 759; end

of, 755; effect of, on non-Russian nationalities, 164, 172, 196; and technology, 626 1029
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Grebenshchikov, Boris, 396

Greece, 49, 80; as importer of Soviet gas, 508 Greek philosophy, 7 Greek Russians, 27 Grenada, 418, 440

Gribachev, Nikolai, 389

Grishin, Viktor V., 305 Gromyko, Andrei, 410 Grossman, Vasilii, 390

gross national product (GNP), 47, 273, 477,

481, 609; military share of, 493 Ground Forces (see also under name of service), lxxvi, 661, 672, 676, 677, 697, 705-10, 702, 714, 718, 719, 725, 731, 750; Air Defense

of Ground Forces, 708; Chemical Troops,

708-10; combined arms army, 705-6; conscripts in, 743; deployment of, 727; Engineer

Troops, 708-9; Frontal Aviation under, 711; general organization of, 703; in General

Staff, 705; in Ministry of Defense, 702, 705; mission of, 678-79; motorized rifle division, 706; Motorized Rifle Troops, 706-7; political influence of, 705; Rocket Troops and

Artillery, 707-8; Signal Troops, 708-9; sta- tioned in Eastern Europe, 728; tank army,

706; Tank Troops, 707; uniforms and rank

insignia of, 737-39 Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, 728, 730, 877 Groznyy, 503 GRU. See Main Intelligence Directorate "Guidelines for the Stabilization of the Econ- omy and Transition to a Market Economy":

description of, lxi-lxii; phases of, lxi; reform

under, lxi Guinea, 438, 614; priviliged affiliation of, with Comecon, 616

Guinea-Bissau, 616

Gulag. See Main Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps

Gulf Stream, 102 Gumilev, Nikolai S., 381 Guyana, 614

Habomai Island, 428

Habsburgs, 31

hajj, 193 Hanseatic League, 8 Harbin, 44

hard currency, 501, 546, 591, 613; acquisition

of, lxiii-lxiv; balance of trade, 613, 614; Comecon dependence on, 862; debt, lxiv; debt, at- tempt to reduce, 592, 604, 607; denned, 591;

earnings, of exporting enterprises, 599; fuel ex- ports to earn, 605, 606-7, 609, 615, 618; loans

for, 592; methods of acquisition, 591, 592; need

for, 592, 606; responsibility of heads of ministries and enterprises for. 599

Health, Ministry of, 263; emergency first-aid

facilities operated by, 266; "fourth depart- ment" of, 268; psychiatric hospitals operated

by, 268, 782; quotas and standards devel- oped by, 263

health care, 121, 262-73; access to, in Russian

Empire, 243; access to, in Soviet Union, 243; alcoholism treatment in, 270; annual budget for, 264; bribes for, 269, 271; of cancer

patients, 271; centralization of, 263; of chil- dren, 266; death, causes of, 269; death rates, 269; of elite, 268-69; emergency, 266-67; expansion of fee-for-service, 273; facilities, 263, 264; and family size, 125; free, guaranteed by Constitution, 243; hospitalization, 265-66; influence of party on, 263; inpatient, 265-66; under Khrushchev, 243-44; negative trends in, causes of, 270-71; negligence

in, 271; in the 1970s and 1980s, 269-73;

overbureaucratization, 263-64, 271; pay- ment for routine, 269, 271; percentage of GNP spent on, 273; polyclinics, 263, 264;

provision of, 263-69; psychiatric, 263; quality of, lxv; quantitative expansion of, 262, 263, 273; quotas and standards for treat- ment, 263; of railroad workers' union, 264; reform of, 263, 272-73; in rural areas, 269,

273, 520; as service in unofficial economy,

456; sick leave, 264-65, 276; and social position, 223; socialized, in practice, 268; so- cialized, principles of, 262-63, 268; staff, 264, 273; statistics on, 268, 269; in urban

areas, 269; under Stalin, 243-44, 262; of women, 266; workplace clinic, 264

health care professionals: training of, lxv Heavy Machine Building, Ministry of, 496 Hebrew, 201, 205

Helsinki Accords, 90, 92, 338, 421; as source

of Warsaw Pact erosion, 889

Helsinki watch groups, 197 Hercegovina, 37 Hermitage Museum, 396 Heroine Mother medal, 236 Higher and Specialized Secondary Education, Ministry of, 636 Higher Intelligence School, 778; curriculum, 778 Higher Party School, 321

Hill, Ronald J., 297 Himalaya Mountains, 108 Hindu Kush, 161

Hitler, Adolf, 55, 392, 699; Comintern support for, 72 Holiday of Learning, 254

Holland, 20 Holy Alliance, 29 Holy Roman Empire, 20 Holy Synod, 22, 36, 186 Horn of Africa, 439 1030
Index

Horowitz, Vladimir, 395

hospitals (see also clinics, health care, polyclinic complexes), 263; inefficiency of, 266; inpatient care, 265-66; lack of emergency facilities in, 266-67; number of, 265; official specifications for length of stay in, 265-66;

psychiatric, 267, 268, 782; shortage of modern medical equipment in, 271; urban complexes, 265 "hot line," 87 Hough, Jerry F., 343

housing supply: allocation of, 222-23; effect of, on family size, 125; planned increase in, 481; problems with, 93; rationing of, 456; in rural areas, 223, 520; shared, 223; shortage, 122;

in urban areas, 223 Hua Guofeng, 426 Hungarian People's Army, 881 Hungarian Revolution, 86, 880-81

Hungarians, 8 Hungary, 9, 31, 101, 414, 425, 474, 552, 581,

762, 877, 882, 885; anti-Soviet uprising of 1956, 86, 424-25, 682; contributions of, to Soviet chemical industry, 503; convertibility of currency of, 866; de-Stalinization in, 879-80; labor transfers from, 870; as member of Comecon, 601, 854; Mongol invasion

of, 9; occupation of, by Red Army, 877;

revolution of 1956-57, 880-81, 882; revolution of 1989, lix; satellite communications hookup to, 582; Soviet forces stationed in, 728; Soviet influence over, 423; Soviet in- vasion of, 419, 682, 699; Soviet relations with, 407; Soviet treaty with, 877; Soviet withdrawal of forces from, 444 Huns, 5, 160

Hunter's Sketches (Turgenev), 39 Husak, Gustav, 892

hydroelectric generation, 510; location of plants

for, 510, 511

hydrofoils, 545, 570, 572

Iakovlev, Aleksandr N., 299, 300; resignation

by, from CPSU, lxviii Iakovlev, Ivan, 794

Ianaev, Gennadii I., lxxi, lxxix

Iankilevskii, Vladimir, 397

Iaroslav the Wise (Prince); accomplishments of, 7 Iazov, Dmitrii T., lxxix, 663, 729 Ibero-Caucasian language, 156

Iceland, 423

Ideological Department (CPSU), 247, 300, 374; censorship regulated by, 374; function of, 373-74; role of Glavlit under, 374

ideology, 307, 731; role of, 281-82; and science, 633-34; as source of legitimacy, 288

Il'ichevsk, 575

Imperial Army, 698; backwardness of, 35-36

imperialism, 655

imports: of agricultural products, 609; attempts

to reduce, 592, 607; of chemicals, 608, 610;

of consumer goods, 611, 615; of food, 614; of grain, 608; of high technology, 609, 615;

of industrial equipment, 608, 609, 611; of machinery, 615; of metals, 608, 610; of

minerals, 614; restrictions on, 593; of ships, 611; from socialist countries, 592; of textiles, 610, 611, 615; of Western technology, 467,

592, 606; from Yugoslavia, 603-4

incentive system, 466

income, 220-21, 471; hierarchy, 220; highest

salaries, 220; lowest salaries, 220-21; and

prestige, 224; salary ratio, 220; and social position, 219-22; unofficial, 221-22; wage

differentiation, 213

India, 37, 86, 99, 116, 435-36, 441; Soviet arms bought by, 614; Soviet economic and

military assistance to, 435; Soviet relations with, 429, 433, 435; Soviet technology transfer to, 435-46; Soviet trade with, 612, 614, 615; state visit by Gorbachev to, 436

Indian Ocean squadron, 727

Indian-Pakistani war, 432, 436

individual enterprises, 92; khozraschet under,

466, 468

Indochina, 81 Indonesia, 437, 614

industrial centers, 485, 488-90; Donbass, 485; geographic expansion of, 488-90; Kursk,

485; locating, 485; Magnitogorsk, 485; Moscow, 485

industrial complexes, 467, 488-90, 491-92;

agro-industrial, 491; chemical and timber, 491; construction, 491; description of, 489, 491; fuel and energy, 491; light industry, 491; location of, 488-89; machine building, 491; metallurgy, 491

industrial cooperation agreements, 605

industrial development, lxxvii, 42

industrial enterprises, 641

industrialization, 125, 127, 397; under Alex- ander III, 486; of animal husbandry, 538; and gender roles, 230; regimentation and, 71

industrial ministries: abolished by Khrushchev's economic reform, 466; reinstituted by Brezhnev, 466, 627

industrial planning, 492; for metallurgy, 499

industrial production, 472; examples of, 487-88;

gross, under Second Five-Year Plan, 473; growth of, 481; problems with, under Gorbachev, lxii; Soviet share of world, 451, 487

industrial research and design system: concentrations of, 635-36; design bureaus in, 494; improvement of, problems with, 495; insti- tutes in, 494; problems with, 494; research

facilities in, 494 1031
Soviet Union: A Country Study

industry: under Catherine the Great, 486; centralized plans in, 93, 485, 486; decrease in output during World War II, 77-78; develop- ment of, 486-87; defense, 457; equipment and

machinery for, 495, 602, 606, 608; expansion

of, 488; growth in, 475, 481; heavy, 478, 486, 487, 501-2, 627; history of, 486, 488; impact

of emancipation of serfs on, 486; importance

of, 485; Khrushchev's reforms in, 88, 486; kinds of, 452; location of, 488-89; modernization in, 485; nationalization of, 472, 487; number of enterprises and production associations, 453; output of, 453; party policy state- ments on, 492; under Peter the Great, 486;

priority of, for allocation of materials, 457; raw materials for, 487-88; reform of, 492-93;

resources for, 487-91

industry, heavy, lviii, lxxvii infant mortality, 93, 99, 116-18; distribution

of, 116-18; increases in, 244, 269, 270; rea- sons for, 118

information transfer, 642-45

Ingria, 21 inheritance of property, 235

inland waterways, 545, 566-70; amount of cargo

carried on, 566; canals, 545, 566; categories

of, by depth, 567-68; development of, 566-67;

lakes, 545, 566; length of, in operation, 566; major, 568; passenger transportation on, 566,

570; planning for, 566; reconstruction of, after World War II, 567; reservoirs, 566; river ports and facilities, 569-70; rivers, 545, 566; system of, 567-69

innovation, 637-42; defined, 637; funding for, 640; in a market economy, 637-38; organizational separation and, 638-39, 640; pricing

policies and, 638; problems in, 637-40; as reaction to backwardness, 640; response to problems with, 640; in the Soviet economy,

638

In Search of Melancholy Baby (Aksionov), 381

Institute for Nuclear Research, 860

Instrument Making, Ministry of, 496

intelligence gathering, 778-81; active measures, 779-80; under detente, 778; by Eastern European countries, 780; electronic espionage,

779; influence of, on foreign policy, 780-81;

rezidenty engaged in, 778; on Western tech- nology, 778

intelligentsia, lxv, 39, 21 1 , 216, 370; and the

arts, 397; Bolshevik, 213; description of, 212; income of, 214, 220; as nonmanual laborers, 215; perpetuated by education system, 218;

position of children of, 211 interbranch scientific-technical complex

(MNTK), 499; components of, 641; defined, 641-42; Mikrokhirurgiia glaza, 642; mission

of, 642; number of, 641; problems with, 642; Rotor, 642

Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, 92, 416, 442, 687

Interior, Ministry of the (tsarist), 35; State Police Department under, 757

intermediate-range nuclear forces: control of, 689-91; defined, 689-90; reductions, 690

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF)

talks, 417, 444 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), 418, 419, 427, 690; contents

of, 444, 705, 707; signing of, 444; stipula- tions of, 691

Internal Affairs, Ministry of (MVD), 267, 268, 301, 760, 761, 766, 781-94; Administrative Organs Department, 785; under Andropov,

782; censorship by, 373; Criminal Investi- gation Directorate, 783; criticism of, 756; Directorate for Combating the Embezzle- ment of Socialist Property and Speculation,

783; directorates, 783; functions of, 782-83;

history of, 781-82; internal passport, 782; Internal Troops of, 722, 793; judicial sys- tem and, 786-90; KGB in, 782; labor camps

under, 755, 790; leadership of, 783-85; local branches of, 783; Maintenance of Public Order Directorate, 783; mission of, 755, 771; Office of Recruitment and Training, 783;

Office of Visas and Registration, 783; or- ganization of, 783, 784; party control of, lxxiv-lxxv, 785; party influence in, lxix; Political Directorate, 785; predecessors of, 756-

60; psychiatric hospitals under, 782; purge

of, 763, 785; recruitment for, 785; role of, in coup of 1991, lxxx; role of, in leadership

succession, 756; successor to NKVD, 782

internal passport, 782

internal security police {see also Committee for State Security) 284; under Andropov, 762-

63; under Brezhnev, 762-63, 786; components of, 755; under Gorbachev, 763-65; under Khrushchev, 760-62

internal security troops, 790-93

Internal Troops, lxxvi, 697, 722-23, 794, 747, 756, 793; composition of units, 794; conscripts in, 794; established, 793; mission of, 722, 794; number of, 722; training, 794; uni- forms and rank insignia of, 739; wartime

missions of, 722-23, 794

International Bank for Economic Cooperation, 869

International Department (CPSU), 35, 403,

404, 404, 414, 779; active measures by, 780; focus of, 407; responsibilities of, 407; sup- port of, for nonruling Communist parties abroad, 407

international front groups, 407, 410, 779

International Information Department (CPSU),

374, 404; functions of, 407 1032
Index

International Investment Bank, 866

International Monetary Fund (IMF), 619

international strategic concerns, 681-85; mili- tary, 684-85

Interrepublican Economic Committee, lxxxi Intersputnik, 582-85

Inturist. See State Committee for Foreign Tourism

Iran, 29, 37, 38, 48, 50, 101, 153, 155, 157,

171, 176, 431-32, 569, 593; American and

British diplomatic support for, 79-80; inva- sion of, by Iraq, 431; role of, as military power, 430; Soviet arms agreements with, 431; Soviet relations with, 431-32; Soviet trade with, 612, 613, 618

Iranians, 5, 155, 156, 171 Iran-Iraq War, 432; Soviet goals in, 432

Iraq, 171, 431-32, 582, 603; invasion of Iran

by, 431; invasion of Kuwait by, lx; Soviet arms transfers to, 431, 614, 616; Soviet trade with, 612, 616; ties to Comecon, 616, 855; withdrawal of, from Baghdad Pact, 431

Irkutsk, 493, 578, 585

iron ore, 112, 489

irrigation projects, 529; effects of, 529

Irtysh River, 14, 109, 567

Iskra (Spark), 43

Islam: beliefs, 193-94; conversion of Central Asians to, 192; defined, 193; duties in, 193; mullahs, 193-94, 195; number of believers, 184, 191; official recognition of, in Russia,

175; origins of, 192; Quran, 192; shahada, 193; Shia, 157, 159, 194; Soviet policy toward, 200-201; "spiritual directorates," 192; Sufi, 195; Sunni, 157, 159, 181, 182,

184, 194

ispolkom (executive committee); defined, 364;

size of, 364-65

Israel, 413, 433; emigration to, lxxiv Istanbul, 186

Italy, 50; contributions of, to Soviet chemical

industry, 503; as importer of Soviet gas, 508, 581, 609; as member of Cominform, 414; Russian military campaign in, 28 Ivan I: cooperation of, with Mongols, 12 Ivan III, 13, 139; expansion of Russia by, 12; use of title tsar by, 12 Ivan IV ("the Terrible"), 13-14; break with

boyars, 14; division of Muscovy by, 14; psy- chological profile of, 13; series of reforms begun by, 13 Ivan V, 20, 23 Ivan VI, 23

Izvestiia (News), 585, 597, 600; circulation of, 380; focus of, 380

Izvol'skii, Aleksandr P., 48

Jackson-Vanik Amendment, 608

Jamaica, 614

Janata Party, 436 Japan, 41, 50, 433, 457, 477, 509, 539, 569, 623; Anti-Comintern Pact signed by, 73; contributions of, to Soviet chemical industry, 503; involvement of, in Russian Civil War, 61, 63; Northern Territories (Kuril Is- lands) ceded to Soviet Union by, 77, 428;

as power under Meiji Restoration, 32; rail service to, 558; role of, in putting down

Boxer Rebellion, 44; Russian dealings with, 48; in Russo-Japanese War, 44-45; Soviet

trade with, 605, 610-11; victory of, over China, 44 Japan, Sea of, 529, 570; ferry on, 575

Jaruzelski, Wojciech, 425

Jassy, Treaty of, 24 Jehovah's Witnesses, 191 Jewish (Yevreyskaya) Autonomous Oblast, 180 Jews, 152, 159, 164, 173, 174, 177-81; as Bolsheviks, 322; Bund founded by, 42; dis- crimination against, 48, 78, 179, 212, 219;

distribution of, 180; effect of German invasion on, 180; emigration of, 124, 608; ex- pulsion of, from Russia, 178; in higher

education, 181; history of, 177-78; killing

of, 179; language of, 180; as members of CPSU, 180, 181, 323-24; migration of, to Poland, 178; national dissent movement of, 197, 205; Nazi genocide of, in Soviet Union,

76; occupations of, 178; opportunities for, in early Soviet state, 179-80; oppression of, 178; Pale of Settlement and, 24, 178-79; po- groms against, 46, 179; population of, 179,

180; in Russian Empire, 24, 36; as scientific workers, 181; social position of, 219; Soviet concessions to, 205; urbanization of, 139, 180-81 Johnson, Lyndon B., 686

joint enterprises, 594; with Japan, 611

joint ventures, 502, 608; with China, 604; law

on, 599, 618; number of, 599; obstacles to, 599; purpose of, 599; Western interest in, 599 Jordan, 432, 433

journalists: number of, 378; party membership

of, 378; training of, 378

journals, 381-82; circulation of, 381; controversial articles in, 381; party control of, 381;

rehabilitation of writers in, 381-82; "thick," 39

Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow (Radishchev), 26 Juan Carlos (King), 422 Judaism (see also Jews), 184; Soviet hostility toward, 201

judicial system: abuses of, 789; party influence

in, lxix judiciary, 330, 359, 787-88; lay assessors, 359, 788; elected judges, 359, 787-88 1033
Soviet Union: A Country Study

"July Days," 58, 59 June 1967 War, 91, 433

Justice, Ministry of, 756, 788

Kabakov, Il'ia, 397

Kabardian-Balkars, 184 Kabul, 430, 720 Kadar, Janos, 892

Kadets, 46 Kaganovich, Lazar M., 84, 180, 315 KAL 007 shoot-down, 384, 418, 714

Kaliningrad, 101, 540

Kalita (Ivan I), 12 Kalmyk Autonomous Republic, 272 Kalmyks, 164, 167, 184 Kama automotive plant, 498 Kama River, 122, 181, 182, 567, 568 Kamchatka Peninsula, 104, 139 Kamenev, Lev B., 65, 66, 180; accused of murdering Kirov, 70; in show trials, 70 Kansko-Achinsk, 509, 510, 511 Kapto, Aleksandr S., 300 Karaganda, 166, 501; coal reserves in, 508 Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast, 162 Karakalpaks, 162, 163 Kara-Kirgiz Autonomous Republic, 167 Karakum Canal, 527

Karelian Autonomous Republic, 362, 363

Karelians, 184

Karelo-Finnish Republic, 362 Karmal, Babrak, 434 Karpov, Vladimir, 389 Kashka Darya, 527 Kashmir, 435, 436

Katushev, Konstantin F., 600 Kazakh Autonomous Republic, 164, 167 Kazakh Republic, 87, 102, 107, 110, 145, 159, 160, 166, 527, 561; agriculture in, 532; coal reserves in, 508; industry in, 497, 501; legal age for marriage in, 232; metal industry in, 502; nationalist movement in, 204; nationalities in, 164-66, 177, 362; party apparatus in, 307, 308; roads in, 562; virgin land campaign in, 475, 522

Kazakhs, lxvi, 137, 160, 162, 163-67; alphabet

of, 166; distribution of, 164-66; emigration of, 164; grievances of, 204; in higher education,

166; history of, 163-64; language of, 166; as members of CPSU, 166-67; as minorities in Kazakh Republic, 197, 362; national resur- gence of, 164; population of, 164; rebellions

of, against Russian rulers, 164; Russian control over, 163-64; as scientific workers, 166; under Soviet rule, 164; urbanization of, 166 Kazakhstan, 161, 164, 362; economic region, 503, 511 Kazakh Upland, 104 Kazan', 108, 497

Kazan' Horde, 181, 183 Kennan, George F., lxxviii Kennedy, John F., 86 Kenya, 438

Kerblay, Basile, 220, 224

Kerch', 540

Kerensky, Aleksandr, 58, 59; countercoup at- tempted by, 60 KGB. See Committee for State Security Khabarovsk, 557, 578, 585 Khar'kov, 497, 557 Khazan' Khanate, 14, 175 Khazars, 5; converted to Judaism, 178; expelled by Oleg, 5 Kherson, 124 Khiva {see also Khorzem), 160, 161, 162 Khmel'nyts'kyi, Bohdan, 18 Kholmsk, 575 Khomeini, Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi (Ayatollah), 432, 682 Khorzem (see also Khiva), 162

khozraschet (self-supporting operating operations), 466, 468 Khrushchev, Nikita S., 56, 89, 306, 315, 342,

379, 392, 760; agricultural problems under,

93, 522; agricultural reform under, lviii, 87-88, 522, 529, 533; antireligions campaign

under, 199, 201; authority of, 84-85; avoidability of war, 661; background of, 82; Comecon under, 860; consolidation of power

by, lviii, 84, 288; cult of, 291; cultural thaw

under, 372; economic agreement signed with

Afghanistan, 434; economic assistance of, to Turkey, 431; economic policies of, 476; eco- nomic reforms under, 84, 92, 310, 312, 466,

729; education programs established under, 243-44; elected first secretary, 82; foreign

policy under, 85-87; health care programs

established under, 243-44; industrial reform

under, 476, 486; internal security under,

755, 762; involvement of, in Africa, 438; KGB under, 772; meeting of, with Eisen- hower, 86; meeting of, with Kennedy, 86;

merger-of-nationalities policy, 196, 197; mili- tary force reductions by, 691; militarypolitical relations under, 729; nationalities

policies under, 196-97; nuclear war viewed

by, 656, 670; ouster of, 56, 88, 476, 662,

782, 861; and peaceful coexistence, 85, 86, 303; and polytechnical education, 246; Presidium's attempt to remove from office in 1957, 84; railroads under, 553; relations with India under, 435; reorganization of

security police under, 760; rivalry of, with Malenkov, 82; "secret speech" of, 82-84,

295, 305, 627, 765, 879; science reforms

under, 627; virgin land campaign of, 87, 303, 475; visit of, to Yugoslavia, 424; welfare programs established under, 243-44 1034
Index

Kiev, 5, 9, 18, 122, 138, 497, 557; domination of Kievan Rus' by, 6-8; international

airport, 578; invasion by Mongols, 9; Ortho- dox church in, 188-89; Jewish community

in, 178, 180 Kievan Rus', 5, 7, 9, 12, 138, 139, 141, 144-

45, 147, 174; achievements of, 4; anniversary of adoption of Christianity by, 205; Christianized under Vladimir, 7; decline of, 8; destruction of, 3, 4-5, 8-9; domination

of, by Kiev, 6-8; founding of, 5, 6; Jewish community in, 178; legacy of, 5, 10; Mongol invasion of, 9, 10, 12; Muscovy as heir

of, 3; organization of, 7; origins of, 3, 4; principalities of, 6; Russian Orthodox Church in, 186; society of, 7-8; successors to, 8-9; Varangians in, 5 Kipchak tribes, 175

Kirgiz, lxvi, 160, 161, 162, 163, 166, 167-69,

174; alphabet of, 168; collectivization of, 168;

distribution of, 168; emigration of, 167; ety- mology of, 167; grievances of, 204; in higher

education, 169; history of, 167; language of, 168-69; legal age for marriage in, 232; as members of CPSU, 168, 169, 324; as minorities in Kirgiz Republic, 197; national resur- gence of, 168; population of, 168; rebellion

of, against Soviet rule, 168; Russian conquest

of, 167; as scientific workers, 169; under

Soviets, 167; urbanization of, 169

Kirgiz Autonomous Oblast, 167

Kirgiz Autonomous Republic, 162, 164, 167, 168

Kirgizia, 167, 362

Kirgiz Republic, 102, 121, 159, 160, 162, 169, 388; families in, 236; major cities in, 169;

nationalist movement in, 204; nationalities

in, 168, 183; party apparatus in, 308

Kirilenko, Andrei P., 94, 315

Kirishi, 115

Kirov, Sergei, 759; assassination of, 70, 759 Kirovabad, 159 Kirovakan, 108, 154 Kirov Theater, 393

Kishinev, 175 Klaipeda, 540, 575 Klimov, Elem, 390, 392 Kokand, 160, 161 Kokand Khanate, 167 Kokovtsev, Vladimir N., 47 Kola Peninsula, 104, 423; chemical industry

in, 503; metal industry in, 502

Kolbin, Gennadii, 307

kolkhozy. See collective farms Komi, 184, 581 Komsomol, 229-30, 246, 248, 308, 310, 358,

731, 761, 783; endorsement for university admission, 258; KGB lectures to, 772-74; members in armed forces, 733; military

training of, 739; quota for deputies to Congress of People's Deputies, 348; recruitment

for KGB from, 770; schools administered by, 320

Komsomol'skaia pravda (Komsomol Truth), 380 Komsomol'sk-na-Amure, 493, 557 Korea, 41, 42, 44, 48 Korean War, 81, 475

Kornilov, Lavr, 59 Kornilov revolt, 59

Kosygin, Aleksei N., 88, 436; economic reform program of, 92, 466; as prime minister, 88-89

Kozlov, Aleksei, 396

kraia (territorial divisions), 102, 293, 308, 361,

364, 374; Brezhnev's Food Program in, 524; KGB administrations in, 766

Krasnaia zvezda (Red Star), 380 Krasnoyarsk, 525, 527, 567, 585 Krasnoyarskiy Krai, 536 Kremenchug, 498 Kremlin, 15, 769 Kriuchkov, Georgii, 309

Kriuchkov, Vladimir A., lxxv, lxxix, 765, 777, 781 Krivoy Rog, 488, 501; reduction of resources

in, 488

Krokodil (Crocodile), 381 Kronshtadt Rebellion, 63, 286; and war com- munism, 64

Kruglov, Sergei, 761 Kuchuk-Kainarji, Treaty of (1774), 24; nulli- fied by Treaty of Paris, 36

kulaks: deported to Siberia, 69, 520; described, 69; Stalin's attempt to liquidate, 69, 213

Kulikovo, 10 Kunashir Island, 428

Kurds, 194, 431

Kuril Islands (Northern Territories), 77, 428, 610 Kursk campaign of World War II, 550 Kushka, 101

Kutaisi, 156, 498 Kuwait, 430, 431, 432; invasion of, by Iraq, lx Kuybyshev, 108, 124 Kuzbass, 501, 509; coal reserves in, 508 Kuznetsov, Vasilii, 352

labor, 454-56; compulsory, under Stalin, 455; nonmanual strata, 215; resources, in Coraecon, 870; strikes by, lxxiv

laboratories: branch, 636; problem, 636

labor camps (Gulag): administered by MVD,

755, 790; administered by NKVD, 759

labor force. See work force Labor Savings and Consumer Credit Bank, 458

labor unions, 456

Labytnangi, 558 1035
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Ladoga, Lake, 5, 562 Lamaism, 184

land: agricultural, 526; arable, 526, 529; nationalization of, 472; redistribution of, 58;

use, 525-29 Land and Liberty (Zemlia i volia), 41 Lane, David, 232, 233

language: Russian as dominant, 197-98; as tool of nationality policy, 197

Laos, 414, 430; satellite communications hookup

to, 582; Soviet economic relations with, 601, 605, 612; ties to Comecon, 616, 855

laser equipment, 499, 623

' Latin America, 410, 412, 440-41, 571; food im- ported from, 614; KGB activities in, 780; under Khrushchev, 440; low priority of, under Stalin, 440; Soviet activities in, 441;

Soviet influence in, 291, 441, 872; Soviet

policy toward, 441; Soviet support for leftist groups in, 440; Soviet trade with, 613, 615-

16

Latvia, 73, 147, 179, 363; annexation of, Iviii, 397, 473, 682; establishment of independence, 61; incorporation of, into Soviet Union, 150; independence of, lxxxi; Soviet

invasion of, in 1939, 74, 550; uprisings in, 45

Latvian Republic, lxx-lxxi, 102, 121, 123, 127, 145, 188, 308, 526; agriculture in, 533; candidates for Congress of People's Deputies,

347; drainage projects in, 529; families in, 236; legal age for marriage in, 232; migration to cities in, 226; nationalist demonstrations in, 201; nationalities in, 146, 150;

nationalist movement suppressed in, 759; party apparatus in, 307; religion in, 190,

191; Russification of, 150-51

Latvians, lxvi, 27, 36, 42, 149-51; in higher education of, 151; history of, 149-50; in- dependence movement of, 150; language of, 150; major cities of, 150; as members of CPSU, 151; population of, 150; rebellion of, against Soviet rule, 150; as scientific workers,

151; urbanization of, 150 Lavrov, Petr, 41 Law on People's Control, 360 Law on State Enterprises (Associations), 468,

459; described, 468-69, 641; khozraschet under, 468 Law on the State Border, 791 Law on Universal Military Service (1967), 739, 742-43, 749, 791 League of Nations: joined by Soviet Union, 73 League of the Militant Godless, 198 League of the Three Emperors, 37, 38

Lee, William T., 664

"Left Opposition," 66

legal codes, 788-89; civil, 788; criminal, 788-

89; principle of analogy in, 789; of 1649, 17;

Stalinist, 789

legal profession, 788; advocates, 788; fees, 788;

legal advisers (iuriskonsul'ty), 788; organization of, 788

legal system: party control of, 787; party in- fluence in, lxix; party interference in, 789;

pretrial detention, 789; trials under, 788, 789

Legislative Commission, 25

legitimacy, political, 288-91; defined, 288;

diplomatic recognition as source of, 412; elec- tion as source of, 288; ideology as source of, 288; party saturation as source of, 289; party

schools as source of, 322; patriotism as source

of, 289, 290-91; sources of, in communist

party, 288-89; sources of, in democratic

countries, 288; tradition as source of, 288, 289; well-being as source of, 288 Lena River, 18, 109, 567

lend-lease agreement, 562, 577 Lend-Lease Law (United States), 552

Lenin, Vladimir I. (see also Bolsheviks, Communist Party of the Soviet Union), lvii, 71, 303, 320, 623, 624, 648; April Theses of, 58;

arts and media used by, to support com- munism, 371, 377; assassination attempt

against, 63; background of, 58; as Bolshevik leader, 44, 55, 281, 697; call by, for over- throw of Provisional Government, 58; as chairman of Council of People's Commissars, 60; conception by, of communist party, 282-88; constitution, understanding of role

of, 332; control by, of arts and mass media,

369, 370; control justified by, 281; criteria

of, for party appointments, 314; criticism of, under glasnost', lxxii, 370, 382; cult of, 291; death of, 65, 66; Decree on Peace of, 401;

differences of, with Marxism, 283; dislike of

Stalin, 65; and education as political indoctrination, 244, 245; electrification program

of, 547; ethos of political thought of, 284;

factions denounced by, 65; flight of, to Fin- land, 59; founding by, of Comintern, 62, 414; founding by, of Russian Communist

Party (Bolshevik), 281; and inevitability of war, 653; and international relations, 66-67;

interpretation of Marxism, 65; as leader of Bolshevik Revolution, 281; as leader of

Soviet state, 65; legacy of, 65, 394; and let- ters to the editor, 379; merger of nationalities, 196, 197; military theories of, 667; New

Economic Policy (NEP) proposed by, 64, 213, 472, 487; position of, in Bolshevik government, 60; science and technology

under, 625; social system revolutionized by, 213; stories about, used for political indoctrination, 253; succession to, 288, 304; and

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 61; Vecheka under,

755, 758 Leninabad, 170 Leninakan, 108, 154 1036
Index

Leningrad {see also Petrograd, St. Petersburg),

74, 112, 122, 124, 181, 257, 348, 554, 557,

575, 626,767; apartment sharing in, 223, 233; art in, 396; divorce rate in, 233; emergency health care in, 267; German siege of, 75; industry in, 497; international airport, 578; Kirov Theater, 393; music in, 395, 396;

rate of premarital pregnancy in, 234; Russian nationalism in, 205; in World War II, 562 Lenin Mausoleum, 729; ceremonial guard,

723; Stalin's body removed from, 84

Lenin's birthday (holiday), 246 Lermontov, Mikhail, 38

Lesotho, 438

Letters Department (CPSU), 379

letters to the editor, 381; departments for, 380;

as influence on public opinion, 380; purpose

of, 379; responses to, 380

Liaison with Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries Department (CPSU),

356, 404; Andropov as head of, 762; responsibilities of, 407 Liaotung Peninsula, 44

liberal arts: orthodox Marxist interpretation of, 72; party control of, during 1930s, 71-72 Liberman, Evsei, 92, 466

Libya, 420, 430, 440, 582; military access to, 727; Soviet arms bought by, 614, 779; Soviet arms deliveries to, 685

Life and Fate (Grossman), 390

life expectancy, 93, 99, 116; declines in, 244, 269; low, causes of, 271 Ligachev, EgorK., 300, 301, 522, 764

Light Industry, Ministry of, 491 Likhachev automotive plant, 497-98

limited sovereignty. See Brezhnev Doctrine Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963), 87, 688

Lipetsk, 497, 501

literature, 388-90; age of realism in, 38-40; under Andropov, 388; under Brezhnev, 94, 388; censorship of, 774; control of, 388; crit- ical realism in, 370; under Gorbachev,

388-89; literary thaw, 388; as model for

politicization of arts and mass media, 370; during NEP era, 67-68; under Nicholas I, 31; party control of, 71-72, 370; qualities of, 38; socialist realism in, 388; as source of protest, 369; taboo subjects, 389

Literaturnaia gazeta (Literary Gazette), 380

Lithuania, 3, 9, 10, 12, 14, 42, 73, 147, 179, 308, 363; annexation of, lviii, 397, 474, 682; establishment of independence, 61; families

in, 236; incorporation of, into Russian Empire, 147; incorporation of, into Soviet Union,

148; independence of, lxxi; as potential successor to Kievan Rus', 10; Soviet invasion of, in 1939, 74, 550

Lithuania, Grand Duchy of, 141, 145

Lithuania Minor, 147 Lithuanian Republic, lxx-lxxi, lxxix, 102, 121, 123, 127, 254, 526, 575; agriculture in, 533; autonomy sought by, 362; candidates for Congress of People's Deputies, 347; Catholics in, 199-200, 202; drainage projects in, 529; Helsinki watch group established in, 197; infant mortality in, 116; Jewish community in, 178; major cities in, 148; migration to cities in, 226; nationalities in, 146,

148; nationalist movement suppressed in, 759; party apparatus in, 307; Roman Catholic community in, 190; secession by, lxxix Lithuanians, lxvi, 36, 147-49, 150, 151; dis- tribution of, 148; education of, 148; history

of, 147; independence movement, 147-48; language of, 148; as members of Central Committee, 148; as members of CPSU, 148; national dissent movement of, 197; Polonization of, 147; population of, 148; rebellion

of, against Russian rule, 147; rebellion of, against Soviet rule, 148; as scientific workers,

148; urbanization of, 148

Litvonov, Maksim M., 73, 180 Liubimov, Iurii, 394

Living Church, 68

living conditions, lxiv living standards, 451, 478; and availability of consumer goods, 486; effect of economic re- form on, 470; of farm workers, 320; planned improvement in, 481

Livonia, 14, 21 Livonian Confederation, 149 Livonian Order of the Teutonic Knights, 149

local wars, 682, 700 Lomonosov, Mikhail V., 23 London, 592 London Straits Convention (1841), 32 Long-Range Aviation, 710 Luanda, Soviet military base in, 685

Luk'ianov, Anatolii I., lxxix, 770

Lunacharskii, Anatolii, 68, 72 Lutheranism, 151, 191 Luxembourg, 592

L'vov, 581 L'vov University, 258

Lysenko, Trofim D., 78, 626

MccGwire, Michael, 664

machine-building and metal-working complex

(MBMW), 493, 494, 495, 495-502, 496;

contributions of, 496; cooperation of, with

electronics industry, 499; locations of, 497;

military production under, 493, 646; ministries in, 495-96; perestroika in, 496; planning and investment in, 496-97; status of, 495-96;

structure of, 495-96; types of products in, 495 1037
Soviet Union: A Country Study

machinery: export of, 613; import of, 611, 615 Machine Tool and Tool-Building Industry, Ministry of the, 646 Madagascar, 616

magazines, 381-82; circulation of, 381; controversial articles in, 381; party control of, 381; rehabilitation of writers in, 381-82 magnetohydrodynamic power generation, 511 Magnitogorsk, 509; metallurgical combines in, 501; reduction of resources in, 488 Magyars, 5 Maiakovskii, Vladimir, 67 Main Administration for Aviation Work and

Transport Operations, 580 Main Administration for Safeguarding State Secrets in the Press (Glavlit), 373; censorship coordinated for, 375, 774; distribution of representatives, 374; role of, 374; role of, in censorship process, 376 Main Administration for State Insurance, 275 Main Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps

(Gulag), 790 Main Directorate for State Security, 758 Main Inspectorate, 702, 730 Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), 409,

719, 778 Main Military Council, 700, 701; members of, 701; responsibilities of, 701 Main Military Procuracy, 756, 775, 787 Main Organization and Mobilization Directorate, 743 Main Personnel Directorate, 702 Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army

and Navy, 376, 701, 730, 731, 785, 878; and

Ministry of Defense, 702; and party control over the armed forces, 730-31, 733 Main Repertory Administration (Glavrepert- kom), 391 Makarenko, Anton S., 249 Makat, 561 Makeyevka, 501 Malaia Gruzinskaia street, 397 Malaya, 81 Malaysia, 437; Soviet trade with, 612, 615 Malenkov, Georgii M., 81, 82, 84, 85; eco- nomic policies of, 475; as general secretary, 82; as prime minister, 82; resignation of, as prime minister, 82, 475-76; rivalry of, with Khrushchev, 82

Mali, 616 Malta Summit (1989), lx management: academy in Moscow, 599; skills, acquired from Western trading partners, 608-9 Manchuria, 42, 44, 48 Manchus, 167 manganese, 112 manual laborers {see also workers, blue-collar), 217

manufactured goods: exports of, 605-6; imports

of, 615 Mao Zedong, 80, 86, 90, 426 Marchuk, Gurii, 637 Marcos, Ferdinand, 437 marine transportation (see also under individ- ual means of transport): barges, 545; hydrofoils, 545; ships, 545 Maritime Border Troops, 723 Maritime Fleet, Ministry of the, 597 maritime ports, 574 Markov, Georgii, 389

marriage, 125-27, 231-32; attitudes of nonRussian nationalities toward, 231; commonlaw, 235; and housing shortage, 232; legal age for, 231-32; of Muslim families, 232-33; pregnancy as cause of, 232; reasons for, 232;

roles in, 232-33; roles in, of elite, 232; shar- ing of housework in, 232

Marshall Plan, 80; Comecon formed as re- sponse to, 601; Soviet refusal of assistance from, 78, 474 Marx, Karl, 44, 71, 332, 339, 472, 654 Marxism, 44, 472; advocates of, 40; in Georgia, 155; as intellectually demanding theory, 284; Lenin's alterations of, 283-84; Lenin's attempt to apply, to Russia, 282; rise of, 40-

41; summary of, 283 Marxism-Leninism, lxv, lxxv, lxxvi-lxxvii, 86, 90, 291, 304, 423, 693; atheism in, 198; and

constitution, 330, 335; defined, 65; characterized as outdated, by Gorbachev, lxxvii; as educational philosophy, 244, 245, 248; ef- fect of, on foreign policy, 402; history inter- preted by, 72; inculcation of ideals of, 262;

international promotion of, 681; knowledge

of, required for candidate degree, 260; law

under, 786; lectures on, to armed forces, 731; means of production in, 214; military doctrine of, 653, 654; modifications of, 290; ownership of means of production in, 452; party as sole interpreter of, 284, 289; renunciation of, by former CPSU members, lxviii; as social science, 289, 290; socialist realism and, 369, 372; as source of party legitimacy, 290; in teacher education, 261; training in, 312, 320-22; values of, spread by mass

media, 377; war theory of, 654-59, 659-60

Marxism-Leninism on War and the Army: nuclear war as legitimate continuation of politics, 655, 657; nuclear weapons for fighting, 662

Marxist-Leninist Teaching on War and the Army,

657, 663; laws of war in, 658; relationship between weapons and victory, 659

Marxist-Leninist vanguard parties, 414, 429

Masliunikov, Iurii D., 346 mass media (see also under individual media):

administration of, 373-77; computers, 384-

85; contacts by, with West, 419; control of, 1038
Index

hindered by technological revolution, 369,

384, 385; history of party control of, 369;

investigative reports by, lxxii; journals, 370, 381-82; Leninist principles for, 371-72; loss of control of, lxxiii; magazines, 370, 381-82;

necessity of, to socialist system, 369-70;

newspapers, 370, 377-81; party control of, 373-74; party influence in, lxix; politiciza- tion of, lxxii, 370-73; radio, lxxii, 370, 382;

restrictions on, lxxiii; revolution in, lxxii; television, 370, 382-84; themes in, 370, 373; video cassette recorders, 382-84 Massawa, Soviet military base in, 685

Master and Margarita, The (Bulgakov), 394

maternity benefits, 243, 276

maternity leave, 130, 276

mathematics, 623 Matrosov, Viktor, 791 Matthews, Mervyn, 221, 222 May Day, 246 Mazepa, 141 means of production: advantages of public ownership of, 463-64; and social class, 214;

socialist ownership of, lxi, 452 Meat and Dairy Industry, Ministry of the, 524 Mecca, 192 mechanization, 455, 479; workers' ability to deal with, 490

Medical Troops, 739

medicine, Soviet research in, 623 Medina, 192 Medish, Vadim, 260

Mediterranean Sea, 430, 566, 570; nuclear-free zone, 691 Mediterranean squadron, 727 Medium Machine Building, Ministry of, 646, 735 Medvedev, Vadim A., 300 Mendeleev, Dmitrii I., 625 Mennonites, 191 Mensheviks, 43, 58, 60; exile of, 65; in Georgia, 155 merchant fleet (Morflot), 570-76; cruise ships

of, 575; expansion of, 571; ferry lines, 575;

freighters, Arctic, 572; freighters in, 571; growth of, 571; icebreakers, 572; initial de- velopments, 571-72; intelligence-gathering by, 576; operations, 572-76; size of, before

1960, 671; standardization in, 572 Mesopotamia, 153

metallurgical industry, 22, 94, 492, 499-502,

509; applications in, 500; automation in, 496-97; bottlenecks in, 501; equipment in, 500; imports for, 606; inconsistent record of, 500; locations of combines, 501; military equipment produced by, 500; in nineteenthcentury Russia, 33; nonferrous metals in, 501-

2; origins of, 486; plans for, 499, 500-501; problems in, 496-97, 501; products of, 500;

resources for, 489; serious obstacles in, 501;

shortage of hard currency in, 501; support of, for heavy industry, 501-2; in twentieth-cen- tury Russia, 47 Mexico, 441; ties to Comecon, 855 Meyer, Alfred G., 286

Michael, Grand Duke, 57

microprocessors, 479 Middle East, 50, 171; KGB-sponsored ter- rorism in, 779; main Soviet goal in, 430;

military advisers in, 684, 700; Soviet diplo- matic relations in, 413, 432; Soviet influence

in, 90-91; Soviet trade with, 615; strategic importance of, to Soviet Union, 430

midwives, medical training for, 268

migration, 130; and birth rate, 123; control

over, 122; emigration, 124; impediments to, 122; incentives, 123; influence of climate on,

123; of peasants, 213; profile of migrants, 122-23; rate of, 122-23 Mikhalkov, Sergei, 389

militarized police. See Border Troops, Internal Troops

military (see also armed forces, Ministry of Defense): budgets, 493, 733-34; design, 735;

force requirements, 676; profession, 698; protection of, from economic slowdown, 493;

research, 627; role of, downgraded in state ceremonies, 729; schools, 698; share of gross

national product, 493; threat assessments, 676

military, minorities in, 746-47; control over,

747; language and, 747; nationality conflict, 746-47; as potentially unreliable, 747

military, women in, 747-48; number of, 747;

positions in, 747-48; volunteers, 747; in World War II, 747

military academies: admission, 749; diplomas,

749; examinations for, 749; Frunze Military Academy, 792; Lenin Military-Political Acad- emy, 792; necessity of, for promotion, 749; program, 749; research projects, 749

military advisers to Third World: countries in, 684-85; number of, 684

military art, 668-675; combined arms concept, 672, 677; components of, 654, 668-69; deep

offensive operation theory, 672, 673, 888; defined, 666, 668-69; focus of, 666; principles

of, 666, 668; revision of, 693; tactics in, 673-75

military boarding schools, 748; cadets in, 748; enrollments, 257; purpose of, 257

military commissariat. See voenkomat

military conscripts, 742-48; alcoholism among,

745; assignment of, 743; basic training, 745;

bribes for deferment, 743; conscientious objector status, 43-45; conscription period for, 743; daily training of, 745-46; deferment,

743; harvesting by, 746; hazing of, 745; in- duction of, 743, 745; number of, 739; pay,

745; reenlistment rate of, 746; reserve officer 1039
Soviet Union: A Country Study

training program for deferred, 743; turnover, 746

military districts, 724, 725-27; as combined

arms formations, 725; command of, 725; deployment of, 726; duties of, 725; organization of typical, 726; personnel of, 725; as response to perceived threats, 725

military doctrine (see also military science, mili- tary strategy): avoidability of war, 653-54, 661;

basis of, in Frunze, 661; basis of, in Lenin, 660-61; capitalist encirclement, 661; defenseoriented, lxxvii, 660, 675, 676; defined, 653;

effect of, on arms control, 654; evolution of, 660-62; on fighting a future world war, 661,

663, 681; foundation of, in Marxism-Leninism,

653; and inevitability of war between capital- ism and socialism, 653, 661; influence of, 653;

in the late 1980s, 662-64; large forces in, 676; and military policy, difference between, 665;

military-political component, 660, 664; mili- tary-technical component, 660; new concepts

in, 663-64, 693; of nuclear war, 653-54, 662; and nuclear weapons, 643-54; as offensive, 660, 675; offense-oriented, lxxvii; as party line on

military affairs, 660; of reasonable sufficiency, 663, 664, 676; in support of world socialism, 681; two-camps concepts of, 661; victory orien- tation of, 660, 664, 673; war plans and, 675; and weapons programs, 664-65; Western con- sensus on, 664

military equipment, 495; armored personnel

carriers (APCs), 706-7; infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), 707; inventory of, 707; manufacturing goals, 493-94; tanks, 707; weapons

guidance systems, 499

Military Industrial Commission (VPK), 491-

92, 647, 734, 778

military-industrial complex, 303, 493-94; design in, 735; high technology in, 485; in- fluence of military-technical concepts on, 666; keep-it-simple philosophy of, 494, 735-

37; party influence on, lxxv; priority of, for resource allocation, 493; as resource drain, 494; top-priority projects in, 493

military industries, 734-35

military insignia, 737-39; of Air Forces, 741;

of Air Defense Forces, 741 ; of Ground Forces, 740; of Naval Forces, 744; of Strategic Rocket

Forces, 740

military justice, 787

military life: conditions, 745; discipline, 745; hazing in, 745

military oath, 745

military officers, 212, 748-50; assignment, 748; criminal offenses, 749; number of, 739, 748; pay, 749; perquisites, 749; prestige of, 748; promotion, 748-49; retirement, 749-50;

training system, 748

military operational art, 672-73; concepts shaping, 672; deep offensive operation in, 673, 679, 692; defined, 669, 672

military policy: arms control in, 685, 691; continuity and consistency of, 666; defined, 653, 665; large forces in, 676; influence of, 643;

influence of nuclear weapons on, 665; and

military doctrine, difference between, 665;

military-political component, 665; and mili- tary strategy, connection between, 665; mili- tary-technical component, 665; modification

of, 666; as political aim of the Soviet state, 660; war plans and, 675

military-political concepts, 656, 665-66; continuity and consistency of, 666; and direc- tion of military technology, 664; influence of Marxism-Leninism on, 660

military-political relations, 729-730; under

Brezhnev, 729; under Khrushchev, 729; under

Stalin, 729; and resource allocations, 729

Military Procuracy, 739

military production (see also military-industrial complex, Military Industrial Commission),

734-35; management of, 736

military research and development, 646-48; ac- cess of, to development facilities, 647; bu- reaucracy reduced in, 648; civilian facilities involved in, 646-47; coordinating agencies' function in, 647; Ministry of Defense facilities' function in, 646; design bureaus in, 735;

effectiveness of coordination in, 648; effici- ency of, 646; high priority assigned to, 647;

incremental approach to, 735; keep-it-simple philosophy of, 494, 735-37; machine-building and metal-working ministries responsible for, 646; political commitment to, 647;

principal organizations involved in, 646-48; production goals in, 648; productivity of, 647; quality control in, 648; technological es- pionage for, 737

military reserves, 750

military schools, higher (see also military academies): admission, 748; cadets in, 748; cur- riculum, 748; women in, 748

military science, 660, 666-75; defined, 653,

666; and military doctrine, 669; origins of, 667; principal components of, 666; scientific forecasting in, 667; theoretical basis for, lxxvi-lxxvii military service, 339

military spending. See defense spending

military strategic missions, 675; defensive, 676-77, 680-81; defined, 675; formulation

of, 675; interdependence between defensive and offensive, 67; offensive, 676-79; overall, 676-77; Soviet vision of, 677

military strategy, 660; against NATO, 887-88;

ballistic missile defense, 671; based on worst- case scenario, 675, 676; conventional air 1040
Index

operation, 679-80; defense-oriented, 676;

defined, 665, 669; deterrence, 670; influence of nuclear weapons on, 665, 669, 675, 677;

investigations of, 669; and military doctrine, 669; and military policy, connection be- tween, 665; missions under, 676; new options for, 671; nuclear deterrence as, 660,

670; nuclear war-fighting as, 660; preemptive nuclear strikes as, 673; response to flex- ible response, 671; space warfare, 671; under

Stalin, 669; subordinate role of, 667; unified, 677; victory as goal of, lxxvi, 675; and

the Warsaw Pact, 887-88

Military Strategy (Sokolovskii), 662, 665, 670, 680, 689

military tactics, 666, 672, 673-75; basic combat actions, 673; defined, 669, 673; invasion of Afghanistan as test of, 675; nuclear weapons and, 673; orientation of, toward

conventional weapons, 673-74; resurgence

of, 675; Soviet principles of, 673

military-technical concepts: influence of, on

military-industrial complex, 666; prediction

of, 667

military-technical sciences, 666

military technology, 623, 735-37

military theater. See theater of military operations

military training: of conscripts, 742-48; prein- duction, 739-42

Military Transport Aviation, 580, 711-12, 719;

airlift capabilities of, 712; missions of, 711 —

12; organization of, 712

military uniforms, 737-39 Mindaugas (King), 147

ministerial system, 344-46; all-union ministries

in, 344-45, 491; internal structures of, 345; party control of, 346; powers of ministries

in, 345; republic, 491; union-republic ministries in, 344-45, 491

ministries: military, 491, 493; reaction of, to economic reform, 467 Minsk, 497, 578 mir (commune), 34, 213 Mir space station, 689

missile defenses, 714-16; ABM system around Moscow, 715, 725-27; modernization of, 715

missiles, 891 Mitterrand, Francois, 420

modernization: in civilian industry, 485; in de- fense industry, 486; in industry, 485; progress of, 4; under Stalin, 72 Mohamad, Mahathir bin, 437 Mohila (Metropolitan), 19 Moldavian Autonomous Republic, lxx, 174, 363 Moldavian Railroad, 554 Moldavian Republic, lxx, 74, 102, 122, 124,

174, 188, 308, 363, 527; agriculture in, 534, 536; autonomy sought by, 362; families in, 236; legal age for marriage in, 232; major

cities in, 175; nationalities in, 146, 174; party apparatus in, 307; population density, 124; Roman Catholic community in, 190 Moldavians, lxvi, 173-75; alphabet of, 174, 205; distribution of, 174; as ethnic Romanians, 173, 174; in higher education, 175; history of, 173-74; as members of CPSU,

175, 324; language of, 174; national resur- gence of, 174, 205; population of, 174; as

scientific workers, 175; urbanization of, 174-75 Molniia satellite system, 582; as "hot line" backup, 582; as spacecraft transmission sys- tem, 582 Molotov, Viacheslav, 73, 81, 84 Monastery of the Caves, 7 Mongol Empire, 3, 160, 175 Mongolia, 101, 414, 423, 427, 433; as burden

on Comecon, 871; as member of Comecon,

601, 603; power of, in Comecon, 871; satellite communications hookup to, 582; Soviet economic aid to, 591, 592, 605; Soviet forces stationed in, 728 Mongol invasion, 9, 12, 145, 160, 171; and destruction of Galicia-Volhynia, 9; and destruc- tion of Kievan Rus', 9, 10, 138; impact of, 9-10

Mongols, 181; Golden Horde, 9, 10; role of, in development of Muscovy, 10 Montenegro, 49 Moore, Barrington, 290 Mordvinian Autonomous Oblast, 183 Mordvinian Autonomous Republic, 183 Mordvins, 183; alphabet of, 183; language of, 183; population of, 183; religion of, 183 Morocco, 614 Morozov, Boris, 17 mortality rate, 120-21; among males, 120; ef- forts to reduce, 121; impact of alcoholism on, 130; increases in, 120; major determinants

of, 121 Moscow, 9-10, 12, 122, 124, 140, 180, 186, 257, 314, 557, 561, 585, 626, 767, 792; art

in, 396; Bolshevik control of, 60; Bolshevik government moved to, 61; Bolshoi Theater,

393; emergency health care in, 267; as in- dustrial region, 33, 486, 497, 503, 514, 515; management institute established in, 599;

missile site around, 680; music in, 395, 396; Napoleon's occupation of, 29; office space

in, 599; Russian nationalism in, 205; Sher- emetevo Airport, 546; uprisings in, 45 Moscow Air Defense District, 725-27 Moscow Military District, 730 Moscow Navigation Company, 570 Moscow Railroad, 557 1041
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Moscow Soviet, 59 Moscow Summit: of 1972, 92; of 1988, 418, 419 Moscow University, 23, 258-59, 770; School

of Journalism, 378 Moscow-Volga canal, 566 Moscow-Vorkuta road, 558 Mosfilm studios, 392 Moskovskaya Oblast, 124

Moskovskie novosti (Moscow News), 380-81 mosques, 200-201

most-favored-nation status, 608

Mother (Gorky), 394 Motherhood Medal, Second Class, 236

Motorized Rifle Troops, 705-7; equipment of, 706-7; organization of, 706-7; uniforms and

rank insignia of, 738-39 mountain zone, 104; described, 107-8; location, 107-8 Mozambique, 414, 430, 438, 439-40; military advisers in, 684; Soviet military aid to, 439-40, 684; Soviet military base in, 685;

Soviet treaty with, 439; ties to Comecon,

616, 855 Mozambique National Resistance Movement

(Renamo), 439 Mufid-Zade, Dshamil, 397 Muhammad, 192

mujahidin (Afghan resistance), 435, 700, 711 Mukden, 44 Mukran, 575 Munich, 73 municipal government: civil defense in, 722 Murmansk, 102, 122, 540 Murmansk Railroad, 550 Murmansk-Severomorsk, 727 Muscovy, 10-19, 139, 186; development of, 10-19; eastward expansion of, 18; expansion

of, 14, 18-19, 101; as heir of Kievan Rus',

3; historical characteristics that emerged in, 3; influence of, on Russian and Soviet soci- ety, 10; influence of, on Soviet Union, lvii; as origin of Russian Empire, 3, 21; rise of, 12; role of Mongols in developing, 10; Russian lands annexed to, 12; war of, with

Poland, 18, 141; war of with Sweden, 141; Westernization of, 18-19; territorial expansion of, 16; westward expansion of, 18-19

music, 388, 394-96; classical, 395-96; control

of, 395; critical realism in, 370; jazz, 396;

metallisti (heavy-metal fans), 396; punki (punk

rock fans), 396; rock and roll, 396; schools

of, 247, 257 Muslims (see also Islam), 168, 191-95; in Af- ghan war, 747; Azerbaydzhani, 153, 157; Central Asian, 159; Chuvash, 181; congregations of, 195; cultures of, 194; defined,

193; differences between Shia and Sunni,

194; discrimination against, 212; distribu- tion of, 194-95; divorce of, 233; duties of,

193; ethnic differences, 194; execution of

duties in Soviet Union, 193; exemption of, from military service, 162; families of, 212; languages of, 194; marriages of, 232-33; as members of CPSU, 324; mosques, 191-92; number of, 191 ; rate of abortion among, 234; Russian, 43; Shia, 157, 159; Soviet policy toward, 200-201; "spiritual directorates," 192; Sufi, 195; Sunni, 157, 159, 181, 182,

184; Tatars as elite, 176

Mussolini, Benito, 392 Mustafa-Zadek, Vadim, 396 Mutual Balanced Forces Reduction (MBFR)

talks, 692 My Friend Ivan Lapshin (German), 392

Naberezhnyye Chelny, 122, 498 Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, 158, 202 Nagy, Imre, 86, 424, 881

Najibullah, Sayid Mohammad, 434 Nakhichevan' Autonomous Republic, 158 Nakhimov Naval School, 257, 748 Nakhodka, 540 Namibia, 438, 439

Napoleon: defeat of Russians at Austerlitz and

Friedland by, 28; defeat of, by Russians, 29; invasion of Russia by, 28-29; Russian alli- ance with, 28; Russian wars against, 27, 28 Narva, 20

nation, Stalin's definition of, 195 National Air Defense Forces. See Air Defense

Forces

national assertiveness, 201-5; by Armenians,

202; by Baltic nationalities, 201-2; by Central Asian nationalities, 204; by Russians,

205; by Ukrainians, 202-4

National Command Authority, 680

national elan, 304

Nationalist Party (China), 67

nationalities, 102; under Brezhnev, 197; cul- tural concessions granted to, 196; dissent movement of 1970s, 197; factors influenc- ing position of, 137; impact of, on Soviet Union, 137-38; importance of language in,

lxvii, 197; imposition of Russian language

on, lxvii, 196, 197-98; intermarriage among,

219; under Khrushchev, 196-97; major, in Soviet Union, 102; merger-of-nationalities

policy, 196, 197; and nationality groups,

135; patronage systems among, 219; posi- tion of, after coup of 1991, lxxxi; religion

identified with, 198, 199-200; resistance of, to Russian language, 198; resistance of, to Soviet rule, lxvii; rights of, under Constitution, 195; Russification of, 196; self-govern- ment of, 195; and social position, 218-19;

Soviet policy on, 195-98; Stalin's definition 1042
Index

of, 195; under Stalin, 196; struggle of, for independence, lxviii; union republics of, 196

nationalities question: background of, 135; Gorbachev's assessment of, 135; increased animosity under Soviet rule, 135-37

nationality problems, lvii, 3,27; ethnic diversity and, 27; in union republics, lxx

nationalization: by Lenin, 213, 472

national liberation movements, 697

national security: and foreign policy, 401, 402; importance of heavy industry to, 487; political and military aspects of, 663; Soviet

military intervention in Eastern Europe for, 682

National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party): Comintern support for, 72 National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), 439

natural resources (see also raw materials), 112-13; exploration and development of,

1 12; joint exploitation and development of, by Comecon, 868; major mineral deposits, 114; fossil fuels, 112; Soviet imports of, 871 Naval Aviation, 718, 727; aircraft carriers, 718; antisubmarine warfare by, 718; kinds of air- craft, 718; mission of, 718; as support for Naval Infantry, 718

naval fleets (see also under individual fleets): composition of, 727; force of, 727; organization of, 727 Naval Forces (see also under individual branches),

lxxvi, 570, 576, 672, 676, 677, 684, 697, 716-19, 720; Coastal Defense Forces, 719;

fleets, 727-28; flotillas, 727; general organization of, 703; Main Staff of, 727; mission

of, 678; Morflot as component of, 576; Naval

Aviation, 718; Naval Infantry, 718-19; as part of strategic nuclear forces, 678; role of, 678;

squadrons, 727-28; submarine forces, 716-18; uniforms and rank insignia of, 737-39; weapons of, 678 Naval Infantry, 718-19, 727; components of, 718; missions of, 718; ships and equipment

of, 718-19

naval squadrons (see also under individual

squadrons), 727-28; forward deployments of, 727-28

Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (1939), lviii, 55, 73, 74, 77, 142, 148, 474, 550, 699 Nechaev, Sergei, 40

Nedelia (Week), 381 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 435 NEP era: art and literature during, 67-68;

description of, 67-68; elite class developed

in, 213; end of, 66; family under, 68; religion

in, 68; security police under, 758

Nerchinsk, Treaty of, 18 Neryungri, 439, 558

Netherlands, 581

neutralism, 419, 420

neutrality, 423; positive, 423

neutron bomb, 444 Neva River Basin, 5 New Economic Policy (NEP), 65; abandoned,

472; defined, 64; described, 472, 487; for- eign trade under, 593; introduced, 758; NEP

man, 64; proposed by Lenin, 64, 472 New Enterprise Law, 600 New International Economic Order, 446 newly industrialized countries, 430 new Soviet man, 245, 281 ; as goal of party, 290 newspapers (see also under name of individual

paper), 377-81; all-union, 377-78, 379; cir- culation of, 378, 380; closed by Bolshevik government, 371; controlled by Bolshevik government, 371-72; focus of local, 379; let- ters to the editor in, 379-80; new formats and issues in, 378-79; number of, 377; proscribed topics, 379; style of reading, and

party membership, 378; regional, 378, 379 new thinking, 373, 654; and military policy, 663 New Zealand, 605

Nicaragua, 90, 430, 440, 582; Soviet military

aid to, 684; Soviet trade with, 612; ties to Comecon, 616, 855

Nicholas I, 30-32, 33, 179; censorship under,

30; death of, 32; emphasis of, on Russian

nationalism, 30; foreign policy under, 31; suppression of revolutions by, 31; Third Section (secret police) under, 30, 757

Nicholas II, 44, 46, 50, 392; abdication of, lvii, 57; conduct of government handed to Aleksandra, 57; duma formed by, 283; execution

of, 63; involvement of, in World War I, 57

Nigeria, 438; priviliged affiliation of, with Comecon, 616; Soviet trade with, 612, 613, 615

Nikon, 19 Nikonov, Viktor P., 300

Nineteenth Party Congress, 81, 637 Ninth Chief Directorate (KGB): responsibility

of, 767; Security Troops under, 793 Ninth Five-Year Plan (1971-75), 476-77, 532 Nixon, Richard M., 92 Nizhnekamsk, 502 Nizhniy Tagil, 501

Nizovtseva, Alia A., 298 NKVD, 758-59, 782; economic functions of, 759; labor camps administered by, 759; powers of, 759; role of, in Stalin's purges, 70, 759; role of, in Trotsky's murder, 70 Nobel Prize for Literature, lxxii Nobel Prize for Peace, lx, lxxiv

nobility, 212

Nobles' Land Bank, 35

nomenklatura (appointment authority), lxxiv, 301, 307, 311, 313-16, 348; Council of 1043
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Ministers' authority of, 346; Council of Ministers selected by, 341; criteria of, 314;

defined, 218, 313; economic, reduced under

Gorbachev, 314; editorial staff selected under, 374; history of, 314; lists for, 314; of

party, 340; and patron-client relations, 313-14; for procuracy, 359; province-level, 308; as source of party power, 282, 329; for science, 634; supervised by CPSU general

secretary, 303; for Supreme Soviet, 358 Nonaligned Movement, 434 noncommissioned officers, 746; lack of, lxxvi; number of, 739; as percentage of armed

forces, 746; training of, 746 non-Russian nationalities: attitudes of, toward

abortion, divorce, and marriage, 231; dis- crimination against, 212; urbanization of, 219

Noril'sk, 104 North Africa, 430 North America, 571, 680 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),

lx, 420, 421, 422, 423, 430, 431, 444, 693,

710, 750, 781, 891; arms reductions, 692; condemnation by, of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 434; Eastern Europe as buffer

against, 728; flexible response concept adopted by, 662; formation of, 80; military

strategy of, 679, 680; military strategy

against, 679; nuclear weapons of, 680, 690,

691; offensive against, 682; relations of, with Warsaw Pact, 403, 419; as target of war, 679;

threat of, to Warsaw Pact, 891 ; Warsaw Pact

as counterweight to, 875 North Caucasus Military District, 727 Northern Caucasus Railroad, 557 Northern Fleet, 727 Northern Group of Forces, 877 Northern Lights pipeline, 581 Northern Territories (Kuril Islands), 77, 428, 610

North Korea. See Democratic People's Republic

of Korea

North Sea, 423, 566, 680 North Yemen. See Yemen Arab Republic

Norway, 101, 422-23, 575 Novgorod, 5, 8, 12; ascendancy of, 8; character of, 8; and Mongol invasion, 9 Novosibirsk, 265, 493, 557, 567

Novosti, 373; focus of, 375-76

Novyi mir (New World), 381-82, 388, 389, 390

nuclear deterrence: defined, 661; to justify Khrushchev's troop cuts, 661

nuclear disarmament {see also arms control), 419; proposal for, by Gorbachev, 443-44;

proposal for, by Reagan, 444; proposed by

Soviet Union, 442, 691; proposed by United

States, 442; rejected by Soviet Union, 442

nuclear forces: of Britain, 417, 421, 444, 690;

of France, 417, 420, 444, 690; of West Ger- many, Soviet fears of, 421

nuclear-free zones, 413, 419, 691

nuclear parity, 92, 401, 442, 671, 681, 693, 699

nuclear power, 481, 510, 511, 512, 869; export

of technology for, 611; self-sufficiency in, for Comecon, 603

nuclear testing, moratorium on, 418

nuclear war, 86, 392, 413, 418; as beyond politics, 656-57; civil defense after, 721; as continuation of politics, 655-56; deterring, 687; devastation of, 670, 681; effect of preemptive strike in, 673; importance of preemptive strike in, 670, 671, 673; Khrushchev's

view of, 85; limited, 662, 664, 671; Malenkov's view of, 85; possibility of, 671;

scenarios, 670, 671, 678, 686, 687; Soviet

military doctrine on, 653-54, 662; Soviet vic- tory in, 662; strategy for, in 1950s, 669-70;

transition to strategy for, 670; unprovoked

not likely, 664; victory in, 671, 673

nuclear weapons, 423, 442-43, 671, 699; deep

offensive operation using, 673; defense

against, 681; development of, 627, 669; ef- fect of, on operations, 672-73; effect of, on

strategy, 669, 677; fractional orbital bombard- ment system, 689; in general war, 670; and

inevitability of war, 653; limits on strategic, 442; manufacture of, 735; as means of destruction, 673; as means of deterrence, 443,

670; military efficacy of, 662-63; missiles, 676, 687-88, 690, 710-11, 716; NATO's, 416,

417, 444, 680; reductions in, 676, 690, 692;

Soviet, 416, 417, 421, 427, 444; Soviet refusal to provide, to China, 426; United States, 690

nurses, 268, 273

Nystad, Treaty of, 21

Ob' River, 14, 18, 109, 567, 581 obkom (oblast committee), 297; bureau of, 308; bureau membership, 308-9, 324; effect of party reform on, 309; first secretary of, 309-10; members of, 308; positions in, 308-9; secretaries, 310

oblasts, 293, 361, 364, 374; Brezhnev's Food

Program in, 524; civil defense in, 721; defined, 102, 308; described, 102-4; KGB administrations in, 766; number of, 308; obkom, 308; party conference of, 308

Oblomov (Goncharov), 39

obrazovanie (formal education), 245

occupation (see also socio-occupational categories): manual labor, 223; prestige of, 223-

24; professional and technical, 223; role of earning in, 224 October Manifesto, 46

October Railroad, 550, 554, 557 October Revolution. See Bolshevik Revolution 1044
Index

Octobrists, 46, 47 Oder-Neisse line, 421 Odessa, 26, 122, 181 Ogaden region, 439 Ogarkov, Nikolai V., 663, 665, 678, 679, 729

Ogonek (Little Fire), 381

oil, lxiv, lxxvii, 112, 430, 431, 476, 485, 487, 505-6; arms traded for, 613, 615, 618; drill- ing, 506, 611; drilling equipment, 506; ex- port of, lxiv, 592, 601, 605, 606, 609, 615; exports of, amount, 609; replaced by gas, 508; pipeline system, 506, 580-81, 860;

prices for, 602-3, 865; production level, 505;

refining centers, 506; reserves of, 505-6, 584; reexports of, 615, 618; uses of, 505 Oka River, 124 Okhotsk, Sea of, 428, 505 Okhrana, 36, 47

okrug (territorial subdivision), 361, 766

Oktiabr' (October), 382, 390 Okudzhava, Bulat, 389 Old Believers, 19; discrimination against, 48 Old Bolsheviks, 70 Old Church Slavonic, 190, 199

Oleg, 5, 7 Olekminskly Raion, 529

Olympics: boycott of Moscow, 92, 416; Mos- cow complex, 721 Oman, 432; obstacles to access to, 488 Omsk, 502, 567

One Day in the Life ofIvan Denisovich (Solzhenitsyn), 392 "On Measures for Improving Management of External Economic Relations," 597 "On Questions Concerning the Creation, on U.S.S.R. Territory, and the Activities of

Joint Enterprises, International Associations, and Organizations with the Participation of

Soviet and Foreign Organizations, Firms, and Management Bodies," 599 "On the Changeover of Scientific Organizations to Full Cost Accounting and Self- Financing," 640-41

operational art and tactics. See military operational art, military tactics Operation Barbarossa, 699 Opium War, Second, 37

oprichnina, 14

optics, 499

Ordzhonikidze, 561 Ordzhonikidze, Sergo, 156

Orel, 497 Orenburg, 508, 581 Orenburg natural gas project, 868-69

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 609

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), 615, 865; Soviet trade with, 616-18

Organization of the Islamic Conference; con- demnation by, of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 434 Orguz Turks, 171 Orlov, Aleksei, 24

Orsk-Khalilovo, 501 Orthodox Church. See Eastern Orthodox Church,

Russian Orthodox Church

Osetrovsk, 567 Osh, 169

Oskol, 501

Ossetians, 184, 194

Ostpolitik (Eastern Policy), 421

Ostrovskii, Aleksandr, 39 Ottoman Empire, 32, 36, 43, 49, 50, 153; fall of Constantinople to, 13; German interests

in, 48; as inspiration for Armenian revolutionaries, 42-43; wars of, with Russia, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 32, 37-38 Ottoman Turks, 20, 153 Outer Mongolia, 48 Outer Space Treaty, 688, 689

overbureaucratization, 277; in education, 248; of medical services, 263-64, 271; in schools, 262

Pacific Fleet, 727

Pacific Ocean, 3, 101, 102, 109, 112, 139, 489, 540, 546, 566, 570, 571, 575, 719

Pacific region, 412

Pacific rim, 570

Pahlavi, Mohammed Reza (Shah), 431

Pakistan, 108, 434, 435; secession of East from

West, 436; Soviet trade with, 613

Pale of Settlement, 24, 178-79

Paleologue, Sophia, 13

Palestine, 91

Palestine Liberation Organization, 779

Pamiat, 205 Pamir Mountains, 108, 139

pan-Islamic movement, 43 pan-Turkic movement, 43 Paraguay, 413

paramedics, 264; medical training for, 268

Paris, 592

Paris, Treaty of (1856), 36, 37 Party Building and Cadre Work Department (CPSU), 301, 314, 731 party commission, 731 party committees: indoctrination of personnel

by, 769

Party Conference: Eighteenth, 295; Nineteenth,

295, 296, 304, 311, 482

party conferences, 295-96; goals of Nineteenth, 296; importance of, 295-96; meetings of, 295; province-level, 308; resolutions of Nineteenth, 296 1045
Soviet Union: A Country Study

party congresses {see also under individual congresses), 71, 292, 293-95; attendance at, 293;

defined, 293; delegates, 293; economic plans presented at, 460; events, 295; frequency of, 293-95; industrial policy statements at, 492;

notable, 295; turnover rate at TwentySeventh, 297,; turnover rate at Twenty-Sixth, 297

party control: in the armed forces, 697, 730-33;

of art, 369, 371, 372; of film, 390; of govern- ment, 340-41; hindered by technological

revolution, 369; of journalists, 378; justifi- cation for, 370; of legislative system, 347-48;

of mass media, 369; of military-technical

policy, 666; of Ministry of Internal Affairs, 785; of music, 395; of science, 633-34; of

society, 281, 282; of society justified, 281 Party Control Committee, lxxxi, 292, 298

party members: candidate, 317-18, 321; demographics of, 289; disciplinary action against, 319; educational level of, 323; full, 318, 321; number of, 322; obligations for, 318; occupations of, 281; peasant, 323; professional, 323; rights of, 318-19; training of {see also party schools), 316, 320-22; white-collar, 323; working-class, 323

party membership, 316-22; benefits of, 218, 319-20; dues and fees of, 317-18; ethnic groups in, 322, 323-24; necessary for ad- vancement, 218, 316; occupational status of, 322-23; and political power, 211, 218;

professionals in, 322; proportional repre- sentation in, 322; requirements for, 316;

selection procedures for, 317-20; social composition of, 322-25; standards for admission, 317; of teachers, 248; women in, 322

party-organizational work, 307, 731

party organizations, city- and district-level, 310-12; composition of, 310-11; economic

administration in, 311-12; first secretary of, 311; members of, 310; science and technol- ogy under, 633-34; secretariat of, 311; struc- ture of, 310

party organizations, republic-level, 306-7; first secretaries of, 307; members of, 307; second

secretaries of, 307; secretariats of, 307; struc- ture of, 306-7

party political work, 731

party program, 295; 1986, proletarian inter- nationalism in, 684

Party Rules, 295, 299, 379; Central Committee

described in, 296; factions banned by, 288; on members' obligations, 318; on members'

rights, 318; on party congresses, 295; on

party hierarchy, 292, 308; on party membership, 297; on primary party organizations, 312

party schools: higher, 321; intermediate-level, 320-21; primary, 320; purposes, 321-22

Pasternak, Boris, 382, 390

patron-client relations, 313-14, 315-16; Brezhnev's as example, 315-16; factors in, 315;

loyalty in, 315; and nomenklatura 313-14,

315-16; policy-making implications of, 316; replacement of patron by client, 315

Paul, 27; assassination of, 28; reign of, 27-28

Pavlodar, 497, 503

Pavlov, Ivan P., 625

Pavlov, Valentin, Ixxix peaceful coexistence, 85, 86, 303, 412, 413, 416;

defined, 402; as foreign policy goal, 402; nuclear deterrence as cause of, 661

peaceful road to socialism, 440

Peasant Land Bank, 35

peasants, lxv, 26, 33, 51, 93, 211; collectivi- zation of, 148, 150, 151, 758; education of, 35; enserfment of, 149, 151; legal status of, 17; as party members, 323; and Populist movement, 40; private plots of, 473, 476,

522; reform of court system for, 47; re- sistance of, to collectivization, 69; seizure of land by, 472; social position of, in Russian

Empire, 212-13; starvation of, by Stalin, 69, 520 Pechora Basin, 558; coal reserves in, 508-9

pedagogy, 249-50

pensioners: continuing to work, 274; income

of, 221, 274; number of, 274

pension system, 274-75; eligibility, 274; new

law for, 275; long-service pensions, 275; per- sonal pensions, 275

Pentecostals, 191

People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, 410

People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade, 593, 594

People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. See NKVD

people's court, 359

People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan

(PDPA), 434

People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen), 414, 432; military advisers in, 684;

military access to, 727; observer status of, in Comecon, 616; satellite communications hookup to, 582; Soviet arms bought by, 614; Soviet arms deliveries to, 685; Soviet mili- tary base in, 685; Soviet trade with, 613; ties to Comecon, 855

People's Will, 41, 44

perestroiha (restructuring), lvii, lxi, 115, 451, 480, 515, 542, 764, 765; changes in econ- omy under, 592; contract brigades under,

525; demands of, for industry, 492-93; East European reaction to, 425; effects of, lix, lxiv; in foreign trade, 597; of health care, 263; individual productivity as target under,

490; in industry, 486, 495, 496; internal security under, 755; in military industry, 1046
Index

494; problems with, lvii, lxxviii; reaction to,

lix; resistance to, 490-91, 492; of science and

technology, 640; of schools, 244, 246-47,

256, 262; of trade, 608

Perm', 124

permafrost, 104 permanent revolution, 66

Persian, 172

Persian Achaemenid Empire, 160, 169

Persian Armenia, 153

Persian Empire. See Persian Achaemenid Empire, Persian Savafid Empire

Persian Gulf, 412, 430, 603

Persian Savafid Empire, 153

Peru, 441; Soviet aid to, 441

Peter I (the Great), 4, 19, 26, 28, 30, 139, 150, 161, 171; Academy of Sciences founded by, 624; annexation of Azerbaydzhan by, 157; ascension of, to throne, 20; drive for Westernization by, 22, 625; governmental struc- ture under, 21-22; Grand Embassy of, 20; industries developed under, 22, 486; mili- tary accomplishments of, 20; reign of, 20-22; Russian Orthodox Church under, 186; suc- cession to, 22-23; Table of Ranks of, 21, 212; taxes levied under, 22; youth of, 20

Peter II, 23

Peter III, 23; deposed by Catherine II, 23; murdered, 23-24; reign of, 23

Petersen, Phillip, 679

petrochemical industry, 502-3; joint ventures

in, 502; plants in, 502-3; products of, 502-3

Petrograd (see abo Leningrad, St. Petersburg),

51, 697

Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, 57; Bolshevik domination of, 59; contravention of Provisional Government by, 57-58; joint rule of, with Provisional Government, 57-59; "Order No. 1," 58; reac- tion of, to "July Days," 58 Petroleum Refining and Petrochemical Industry, Ministry of the, 493

Philippines, 437

physicians, 264; medical training for, 268, 272-73; improvement in quality of medical

training for, 273; poor quality of training for, 271; prestige of, 224; research by, 268, 273;

salaries of, 217, 224; women as, 221, 268; work load of, 263-64

physicians' assistants, 264; medical training for, 268, 273

physics, 623

Pioneers, 230, 246; military training of, 739

pipelines, 546, 580-81, 584; amount transported, 580; first, 580; gas, 581, 609, 721;

materials for, 606; oil, 580; technology transfer for, 644-45

Pipeline Troops, 721 planning: agencies for, 453, 629; allocation of

resources under, 460; bargaining in, 462; complexity of, 465-66; among Comecon

members, 866-70; difficulty of maintaining

control over, 469; for machine-building and

metal-working complex, 496, 500-501; prices established by, 460; reform of, 465-69; re- form of, under Khrushchev, 466; for science and technology, 629-32; targets in, 460, 500; worker participation in, 462

Planning, Budgeting, and Finance Commission, 357

planning, economic, 357

planning, long-range: for end of the twentieth

century, 481; norms of, 468; period covered

by, 460

planning, short-range: kinds of, 460; period covered by, 460

plans: annual, 460, 638; coordination of Comecon, 867-68; five-year, described, 460; pro- duction, 460, 462; review and revision of

draft, 462

plastics industry, 502

Plekhanov, Georgii, 41 Pobedonostsev, Konstantin, 36

Podgornyi, Nikolai, 88; as chairman of Presid- ium, 89

podmena (substitution), 292 pogroms, anti-Jewish, 46

Poland, 3, 9, 14, 15, 17, 18, 24, 42, 61, 62, 86, 101, 141, 151, 179, 414, 424, 425, 552,

575, 581, 862, 883, 890; army of, under

Soviet control, 877; Belorussia ceded to, 145;

de-Stalinization in, 879-80; Hitler's invasion

of, 73; influence of, on Baltic nationalities, 147; influence of, on Muscovy, 19; intelli- gence gathering by, 780; Jewish migration

to, 178; Latvia ceded to, 149; martial law imposed in, 610; as member of Comecon,

601, 854, 859, 871; Mongol invasion of, 9; nuclear-free zone proposed by, 691; occupation of, by Red Army, 877; October 1956

riots in, 880; partition of, by Catherine II, 24, 145, 190; partition of, by Hitler and

Stalin, 73, 474; revolution of 1989, lix; satellite communications hookup to, 582; Solidarity trade union movement in, 90, 229, 425;

Soviet forces stationed in, 728; Soviet in- fluence over, 423; Soviet invasion of, in 1939,

lviii, 74, 550, 682, 699; Soviet treaty with, 877; Stalin's desire for influence in, 77; Ukraine ruled by, 141 ; uprisings in, 45, 424; war of, with Muscovy, 18, 141; in World War I, 49

Poland, Russian, 29, 42; anti-Russian upris- ing in, 31 ; constitution granted to, 29; as in- dustrial area, 33; partition of, 24; reduced

to province, 31; in World War I, 49

Poles, 8, 24, 36, 45, 124, 138, 146, 148,

152, 178; as Bolsheviks, 322; discrimination 1047
Soviet Union: A Country Study

against, 48; rebellion of, against Russia, 147; rebellion of, against Russification, 42

police (see also Committee for State Security,

internal security police): under Brezhnev,

782; criticism of, 782; militsiia (uniformed

police), 783, 794; separated from security

police, 782

police state, tsarist: defined, 756; foundations

of, 756-57; impediments to, 757

policy: formation, 292-93, 633-34; implementation, 292-93

Polish Counter-Reformation, 18 Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 145, 147, 178

Polish People's Army, 880, 891

Polish Socialist Party, 42

Polish-Soviet War (1920-21), 62

Polish Succession, War of, 23

Polish United Workers' Party, 425, 880

Politburo (see also Presidium), 65, 88, 292, 298-300, 303, 305, 315, 330, 341, 343, 346,

347, 358, 629, 665, 702, 729, 764, 764, 781; authority of, 330; Central Committee's authorities delegated to, 296; defense minister

as member of, 729-30; as determiner of for- eign policy, 401; financial planning by, 632; formation of, 298; KGB control by, 769; as maker of foreign policy, 403-4, 409; members of, 299, 324, 783, 785; membership in, accession to, 299; membership of, in Secretariat, 300; nationalities represented on, 140; newspaper reports on, 379; nomenklatura authority of, 313; as policy maker, 292, 628; power of, 299; purpose of, 298-99; role of Defense Council in, 700; salaries in, 220; under Stalin, 71, 81; trends characterizing, 299-300

political action groups: conservative, lxix-lxx;

liberal, lxix-lxx

Political Consultative Committee (Warsaw

Pact), 879, 884-85, 889, 891; Committee of Minister of Foreign Affairs, 885; functions

of, 884-85; Joint Secretariat, 885; organization of, 884-85

political indoctrination, 880; in armed forces, 697, 877, 880; defined, 244; in education,

243, 244, 250, 262; in Hungary, 881; in preschool, 253; reinforcements of, 245

political rights, lxxiv Polonization: of Belorussians, 145; of Lithuanians, 147

Polovtsians, 8

Poltava, 20, 21 polycentrism, 414-15

polyclinic complexes (see also clinics, health care, hospitals), 263

polymers, 502

polytechnical education, 244; components of, 246; as creator of classless society, 247; focus

of, 258; importance of, 246-47; practical training in, 246, 250 Ponomarev, Boris, 407 Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), 439

Popular Unity (Chile), 440

population, 99, 115-30; able-bodied, 119; age, 119-20, 123; birth rates, 118, 119; causes of death, 120; censuses, 115-16; "center of gravity" of, 124; density, 124-25, 126; dis- asters decreasing, 99-100, 118-19; distribu- tion of, 101, 108, 124-25; divorce, 125- 27; and economy, 119; family, 125-27; fertility, 121; government reaction to problems of, 130; growth, 116, 118, 119, 125; importance

of demographic issues, 100; infant mortality, 116-18, 244; life expectancy, 116; marriage,

119, 125-27; migration, 122-24; mortality, 120-21; in 1940, 119; in 1959, 119; in 1989,

116; policies, 127-30; problems, 127-30;

rural, 224; of Russians, 127; in Russian

Republic, 102; sex ratio, 118, 119-20; sex

structure, 119-20, 123; urban, 224; urbanization, 121-22, 224; vital statistics, 116-19

Populist movement, 43; goals of, 40; leaders

of, 40; terrorism in, 41

Populists (Narodniki), 40

Port Arthur, 44

ports, categories of, 576

Portugal, 422, 435, 439

Portuguese Communist Party, 422

Postnikov, Mikhail M., 250

post offices, 585; censors in, 585; inspection of incoming parcels in, 585

potatoes, 533-34; area occupied by, 533-34;

cultivation of, 533; harvest, 541 Potsdam Conference, 80

poverty, 221; benefits, 276-77; among pensioners, 274; number of Soviet citizens living in, lxiv Power Machinery Building, Ministry of, 493 Poznan, 424

Prague, 720 Prague Spring, 425, 882-84; international re- action to, 884; outcome of, 883-84; Warsaw

Pact exercises in preparation for, 882-

83

Pravda (Truth), 311, 371, 378-79, 390, 415,

585, 682, 764; circulation of, 380; focus of, 380

preemptive nuclear strike, 690, 692

Premilitary Training Directorate, 742

preschool, 251-53; academic preparation in, 251-53; enrollment, 251; extended day care, 251; kindergartens, 251; locations of, 251; number of institutions, 251; nurseries, 251;

political indoctrination in, 253; problems in, 253 1048
Index

Preservation of Public Order, Ministry for the (MOOP) {see also Ministry of Internal Affairs), 782

presidency: creation of, lxxi; effect of, lxxi; powers of, lxxi Presidential Council: dissolved, lxxii; formed,

lxxi Presidium chairman (of Supreme Soviet), 352-53; duties of, 352; power of, 352; re- sponsibilities of, 352-53; status of, 352 Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, 81, 82, 84,

88, 268, 292, 333, 335, 339, 340, 347-48,

350, 351-52, 358, 702, 761; chairman of, 352-53; composition of, 330; decrees by,

351, 760; as creator of Defense Council, 700;

first deputy chairman, 352; foreign policy

responsibilities of, 408; KGB established by, 760; and law, 359; as leading legislative or- gan, 351; members of, 351, 629; powers of, 351-52; as steering committee for Supreme

Soviet, 351

price reform, lxi prices: under Comecon 1978 Comprehensive Pro- gram, 864-65; effect of subsidies on, lxiv, 470; government policy for setting, lxiv, 470; in- crease of food, 525; manipulation of, 470, 476; reform of structure of, 470, 599, 618

prikazi (government departments), 17, 21 primary party organizations (PPOs), 281, 292, 298, 310, 311, 312-13, 341, 346, 731; authority of, 282; and economic plan, 313;

decisions of, on applications for party membership, 317; number of, 312; party meeting of, 312; secretary of, 213; stimulation by, of production, 313; tasks of, 312

Primorskiy Krai, 529

Principles of Legislation on Marriage and the Family of the USSR and the Union Republics, 234

Private Life (Raizman), 391

private plot: defined, 522; output of, 522

Procuracy, 301, 335, 359-60, 756, 783, 787;

description of, 787; functioning of, 359, 787; purge of, 763; responsibilities of, 360, 771

procurator: defined, 359; general, 359; role of, 330, 787; supervision, 760-61

production, 624; organizations, 634-37; or- ganizational separation and, 638-39, 640

production associations, 453

production facilities, 635; functions of, 635; or- ganizational separation and, 638-39, 640;

pilot plants in, 635

productivity: method for improving, 451-52; need for improving, 478; under perestroika, 490

professional revolutionaries: necessity for, 283-

84; party as, 281, 282

Progressive Bloc, 50 Prokhanov, Aleksandr, 390

Prokhorov, Aleksandr, 623

proletarian internationalism: defined, 402; ef- fect of, on current foreign policy, 402; and

Soviet intervention in Third World, 684

proletarian populism, 389

pronatalist policy, 125 Propaganda Department (CPSU), 404, 407; power of, 374

property, personal ownership of, 453

prostitution, 234

Protestants, 184, 191; growth in number of, 200

Provisional Government, 59; downfall of, 59-60; formation of, 55, 58; joint rule of, with Petrograd Soviet, 57-59; Lenin's call for overthrow of, 58; loss of popular support

for, 59; membership of, 57, 58; overthrow

of, by Bolsheviks, lvii; Petrograd Soviet's contravention of, 57-58; popular uprising

against, 58; prosecution of World War I by,

58; reforms under, 58; right-wing challenge

to, 59

Prussia, 24, 31, 32, 147; end of Russian alli- ance with, 38; as member of Quadruple Alliance, 29; Russian alliance with, 23, 37; Russian invasion of, 23, 49; Russian rela- tions with, 36

Pskov, 57

psychiatry, 263; abuses of, 267; hospital-pris- ons, 267; number of hospital beds for, 268;

outdated, 267; possible reform of, 268; statistics, 268; as treatment for political dissenters, 267 Pugachev, Emelian, 25 Pugachev Uprising, 25-26

Pugo, Boris K., lxxv, Ixxix, 298

purges by Stalin (see also Great Terror), 55, 70-71, 78, 382, 761; of diplomats, 410; of

East European leaders, 80; effect of, on elite, 213; initiated, 70; of Kirgiz members of CPSU, 168; of military, 698-99; of party members, lviii; reasons for, 70-71; revealed

in "secret speech," 84; role of police in, 765; of scientists, 626

Pushkin, Aleksandr, 31, 38

Pushkin, Boris, 597

Qasim, Abd al Karim

Quadruple Alliance, 29 Quartermaster Troops, 739 Quran, 192

radio, 546; audience, 382; growth of, 582; in- ternational, 382; jamming of broadcasts, 382; Soviet, 382 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 382 Radio Industry, Ministry of the, 646 1049
Soviet Union: A Country Study

radios, 499

Radiotechnical Troops, 714, 715

Radishchev, Aleksandr, 26 Raduga satellite system, 585; uses of, 585 Rahr, Alexander, 300

raikom (raion committee): bureau of, 210; composition of, 310-11; economic administration

in, 311-12; first secretary of, 311; meetings

of, 311; members of, 310; secretariat of, 311;

structure of, 310

railroads, 545; automated signaling equipment,

554; Baykal-Amur Main Line, 557-58; cargo

on, 546-47; centralized train control, 554;

classification yards, 554; computerization in, 554; electrification of, 547, 552, 554; equip- ment of, 554-56; expansion of, 547, 553, 554;

freight traffic, 548, 553; heavily traveled axes, 557; history of (1913-39), 546-48; improvements, 552, 553; length of operating lines, 548; lessons learned from Soviet-Finnish war,

550; limits of, 553; major, 560; marshaling

yards, 554; mission of, under Lenin, 547; in nineteenth-century Russia, 33; names of, 554; nationalization of, 547; network of, 546, 553; organization of, 554-56; passengers on, 547; passenger traffic, 548, 553, 556-57; in post- war period, 552-54; problems, 548, 552, 553; purpose of, lxiii; in Soviet-Finnish War, 550;

in World War II, 550-52

Railroad Troops, 721

railways, metropolitan (metros), 561 Railways, Ministry of, 554

raion (territorial subdivision), 104, 225, 310,

361, 364, 766; Brezhnev's Food Program in, 524; civil defense in, 721-22 Raizman, Iulii, 391-92 Ramadan, 193

Rapallo, Treaty of, 67

rapid medical assistance system, 266-67

Rasputin, 50; assassination of, 51 Rasputin (Klimov), 392 Ratmanova Island (Big Diomede Island), 101 Razumovskii, 300 Reagan, Ronald W.: "Reagan Doctrine" of, 404; Soviet-United States relations under,

416; summits of, with Gorbachev, 418-19 Rear Services, lxxvi, 702, 720-21; conscripts

in, 743; mission of, 720-21; number of, 720; organizations in, 720-21

reasonable sufficiency, lxxvii, 663, 692, 693, 729

recording equipment, 499 Red Army (see also armed forces, Soviet), 55, 142, 148, 150, 154, 155, 158, 170, 171, 176, 472, 723, 758, 875, 876; in Civil War, 698;

control of non-Russian Soviet republics by,

64; egalitarianism of early, 698; formation

of, 697-98; Kronshtadt Rebellion put down

by, 63; modernization of, 698; NKVD in,

759; occupation of Eastern Europe by, 877-78; organized by Trotsky, 61; profes- sionalization of, 698; under Stalin, 698; in World War II, lviii, 75, 550-52 Red Guard, 426, 697 Red Sea, 439 Red Square, 291, 714, 729 Red Terror, 63, 758

reform, 452, 624; in research and development, 640

reform, economic. See economic reform

Reformation, 186

rehabilitation: of banned artists and writers, 370; of scientists, 627; of Stalin's victims, 84

regional agro-industrial associations (RAPOs),

524

Reinsurance Treaty (1887), 38

religion (see also under individual religions): diversity in, 27; under Gorbachev, lxvii; identified with nationality, 198, 199-200; under Khrushchev, 199; under NEP, 68; number of believers, 184; repression of, lxvii; repression of, under Stalin, 72; resurgence

in, under Brezhnev, 94; Soviet attempts to control, 198-99; Soviet attempts to eliminate, 198; Soviet attempts to exploit, 198-99;

Soviet policy on, 195, 198-201; Soviet re- pression of, 198, 199-201; under Stalin, 198- 99

religious groups (see also under individual denominations), 184-95 Remington, Thomas F., 322

Renaissance, 186

Repentance (Abuladze), 392

Republic of Korea (South Korea), 81, 413, 433, 714

republics (see also under individual republics): government of, 363-64; legal status of, 362-

63; new union, 362-63; original, 362; plan- ning in, 464; requirements for status as, 362 "Requiem" (Akhmatova), 382

research, 624; applied, 626; and development,

641; equipment, inadequacy of, 639-40; ex- pansion of, 627; genetics, 626; institutions, 638-39, 640, 665; laboratory, 635; in NEP

era, 625; organizational separation and, 638-39, 640; organizations, 634-37; vessels, 575-76

reserve officer training programs, 748

residence permits, 456

resources (see also natural resources), 547; al- location of, problems in, 491 ; exhaustion of, 485, 488; industrial, 487-91; restricted avail- ability of, 99, 488; uneven distribution of, 99

retail outlets, 456

revolutionary democracies, 428-29, 438

revolutionary tribunals, 372

revolution of 1905, 4, 45-46, 147, 176; causes

of, 45 1050
Index

revolution of February 1917, 55, 56-57, 145, 147, 164, 171, 174, 176, 179; description of

uprising, 57; economic change following, 213; social change following, 213

Reykjavik Summit (1986), 418, 419, 690, 892

rezidenty (KGB employees abroad), 777, 778;

guidelines for, 778

Reznichenko, Vasilii G., 675

Riga, 150, 201, 497, 540, 561

river fleet: air-cushion vehicles, 569, 570;

barges, 569; cargo vessels, 569; hydrofoils, 569; icebreakers, 569; passenger vessels, 569;

specialized vessels, 569; special-purpose

ships, 569; tugboats, 569 River Fleet, Ministry of the, 567

rivers, 108-9, 122; cargo transportation on, 545-46, 566; cargo vessels, 546; facilities on, 569-70; international ferries, 546; kilometers

of, 566; passenger liners, 546; ports on, 569-

70, 571; research ships, 546

roads, lxiii; density, 562; networks, 562, 565; poor condition of, 530, 545, 562-65; prob- lems caused by unpaved, 545; surfaces of, 562; unsurfaced, 562 Road Troops, 721

robots, 479; importance of, to industry, 499 Rocket Troops and Artillery, 707-8; artillery pieces, 707-8; missiles, 707; organization of, 707; uniforms and rank insignia of, 738-39

Rogers, William, 692 Roman Empire, 173 Romania, 49, 50, 73, 86, 90, 101, 174, 363,

414, 425, 474, 552, 575, 877, 885; as member of Comecon, 601, 854, 860, 871; occupation of, by Red Army, 877; reaction of, to Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, 884;

revolution of 1989, lix; satellite communications hookup, to, 582; Soviet influence

over, 423; Soviet invasion of, in 1939, 550;

Soviet relations with, 407; Soviet treaty with, 877 Romanians, Moldavians as, 173, 174 Roman Mstislavich (Prince), 9 Romanov, Alexis, 17, 20 Romanov, Filaret, 17 Romanov, Grigorii V., 305 Romanov, Mikhail, 17 Romanov Dynasty, 15-18, 139; overthrown,

51, 139 Romans, 155

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 77 Rostov, 8, 12 Rostov-na-Donu, 124, 265

Rostropovich, Mstislav, 395

Rotmistrov, Pavel A., 670

ruble, 591, 599; convertibility of, 618, 866; defined, 457; function of, 865-66; under price reform, lxi Riigen, 575

rural society, 224-26; agriculture as major employer in, 225; agricultural machinery

specialists in, 226; collective farm markets

in, 456; cooperatives in, 456; culture, 224; demographics of, 226; divorce rate in, 233; economy, 224; golovki in, 225; housing conditions, 224; influx of urbanites, 227; migration to the city, 226; nonpolitical elite, 226;

role of party in, 225; structure of, 225-26;

teachers, 226; tractor drivers in, 226; travel, 225; and urban society, differences between, 224-25; urbanization of, 226; white-collar workers in, 226; women in, 226

Rurik, 5, 8 Rurikid Dynasty, 5, 10, 12; end of, 15; organi- zation of Kievan Rus' under, 7; succession

in, 7 Ruska Pravda (Russian Truth), 7 Russia: territorial expansion of, 16; war of, with Sweden, 141 Russian autocracy, evolution of, 12-13 Russian Central Asia (see also Central Asia, Soviet Central Asia), 161, 162, 167, 171 Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) (see also All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik), Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Russian Social Democratic Labor Party), 55, 61, 64, 698; composition of, 322; consolidation

of authority by, 64-65; as constitutional rul- ers of Russia, 332; control of non- Russian

nationalities by, 64; as engine of proletarian

revolution, 283; founding of, by Lenin; in- tellectuals as professional revolutionaries, 283-84; Lenin's conception of, 282-88; as

professional revolutionaries, 281, 282; as sole interpreter of Marxist ideology, 281, 282

Russian culture, 196; influence of Western cul- ture on, 4; special status of, 140 Russian Empire, 101, 138, 139, 142, 153, 167, 182; agriculture in, 33, 530; alliances of, 23, 37-38; annexation of Georgian lands by,

155; attempted reforms in, 47-48; automotive transportation in, 561; dismantled, lvii, 61, 150; education in, 249; economy of, 27,

33, 47, 50; expanding role of, in Europe, 23; expansion of, 29, 36-37, 41; foreign affairs

of, 41; foreign policy goals of, under Alex- ander II, 37-38; genesis of, under Peter the Great, 21 ; impact of military victories of, 21

;

incompetence of, in World War I, 50; in- corporation of Lithuania into, 147; industry in, 33; influence of, on Soviet Union, lvii; literacy rate in, 243; as member of Quadruple Alliance, 29; Napoleonic wars of, 27,

28; nationalities problems origins in, 135;

origins of, in Muscovy, 3, 10-19, 21; as police state, 756; population growth in, 33; power of, 27; problems of, 26-27; railroads

in, 546-47; role of, in putting down Boxer 1051
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Rebellion, 44; social categories in, 212; territorial expansion of, 16; territory gained by,

in World War I, 50 Russian Far East, 41 Russianization, 137 Russian language, 127, 219; in armed forces, 747, 748; in Georgian Republic, 198; in school curriculum, 254; special status of, 140, 197; as tool of national unification, 196, 197-98 Russian nationalism: emphasis of Nicholas I on, 30; in literature, 389; after World War

II, 78 Russian navy, creation of, 20 Russian Orthodox Church (see also Holy

Synod), 17, 30, 36, 68, 184, 190, 291, 624; autonomy denied to, 48; characteristics of medieval, 186; convents of, 188; number of

active churches, 188; establishment of, 15; incorporation of, into government structure, 22, 186-88; infiltration of, by KGB, 199; as instrument of Russification, 199, 200; under Khrushchev, 199; as manifestation of Russian nationalism, 205; monasteries of, 186, 188; number of believers, 188; origins of, 186; under Peter the Great, 186-88; schism

in, 19, 186; Soviet attempts to eliminate,

198; Soviet cooperation with, 198-99; Soviet repression of, 198; under Stalin, 198-99; in World War II, 75, 198-99

Russian Republic, lviii, lxviii, 64, 87, 121, 123, 125, 139, 154, 162, 164, 166, 183, 184, 293,

361, 389, 412, 497, 561, 567; agriculture in, 533, 534, 536; alcoholism in, 270; area of, 102, 139; autonomous republics in, 176, 181; Code of Criminal Procedure, 761, 771, 775, 789; death following abortion or childbirth

in, 271; DOSAAF clubs in, 734; drainage

projects in, 529; families in, 236; fertility in, 121; forestry in, 538; infant mortality in, 116; irrigation projects in, 529; Jewish community in, 180; KGB in, 766; migration to and

from, 123; minorities in, 137, 145; party ap- paratus of, 140, 306, 308; population of, 102, 127; roads in, 562; Roman Catholic community in, 190; tree farms in, 475

Russians, 3, 5, 8, 135, 138, 151, 158, 162, 163, 164, 174, 182; declining birth rates among,

125, 127; distribution of, 139; divorce of, 233; dominance of, lxvi, 138-39, 747; dominance of, in high positions, 140; education

of, 218; in higher education, 140; history of, 139; membership of, in CPSU, 140, 219,

323, 324; membership of, in Politburo, 140;

nationalist movement among, 205; and nonRussians, tensions between, 388; poplulation, lxvi; as republic party first secretaries, 307; as percentage of Soviet population, 102; population of, 137, 139; social advantage of,

218; urbanization of, 139-40

Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (see also Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)), 42, 43, 61, 296-97; Bolshevik faction of, 57; Menshevik faction of, 57; politburo formed

by, 298-99

Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (see also Russian Republic), 332, 333, 362 Russian Turkestan, 167

Russification, 4; under Alexander III, 36; Central Asians' resistance to, 159; presaged by

Catherine II, 25; rebellion against, 42; Russian Orthodox Church as instrument of, 199; under Stalin, 154, 154 Russo-Japanese War, 4, 44-45, 428; acceler- ation by, of political movements, 45

Rust, Mathias, 714, 729 Ruthenian language, 10 Ryazan', 12, 497, 511 Rybakov, Anatolii, 390 Ryzhkov, Nikolai I., 341, 356, 603

Sacharov, Vadim, 397 Saddam Husayn, 431

St. Petersburg (see also Leningrad, Petrograd),

22, 23; "Bloody Sunday" in, 45; as industrial region, 33

St. Petersburg Soviet, 57

St. Sofia Cathedral (Kiev), 7

St. Sofia Cathedral (Novgorod), 7 Sakhalin, 45, 418, 611, 714

Sakharov, Andrei, lxxiv, 634, 637

Saliut space program, 582, 689

samizdat, 197, 389

sanatoriums, 267 San Stefano, Treaty of (1878), 38

Sarai, 9 Saratov, 497

Saratovskaya Oblast, 561

Sardinia, in Crimean War, 32 Saudi Arabia, 432

savings accounts, 458; amounts in, 458

Savinkin, Nikolai, 769

Savkin, Vasilii E., 658

Sayano-Shushenskoye, 511

Scandinavia, 3, 612; Soviet objectives in, 423;

Soviet relations with, 422-23

Schnittke, Alfred, 395

schools: abuses in, 261; administration of, 247;

centralization of, 243, 247; differences be- tween rural and urban, 251; excessive bureaucracy in, 262; failure of, to meet labor needs, 261; formal academic education in, 246; higher education, 257-60; KGB lectures

to, 772-74; kinds of, 250; preschool, 251-53; problems in, 261; reform of, 262; secondary

education, 253-56, 742; special education, 257; upgrading vocational education and

labor training in, 249 1052
Index

schools, specialized secondary, 742; enrollment, 256; major fields of study, 256; school re- form in, 256, 262

Schools for Young Communists, 321

Schools of the Fundamentals of MarxismLeninism, 320

school system: administration of, 247; administrative organs of, 247-48; structure of, 252

science: administration of, 628-33; under Brezh- nev, 94; Comecon cooperation in, 869-70; commitment to, 623; curriculum for, 649;

directions of, 632; financing of, 632-33,

640-41; and ideology, 633-34; implementation of plans for, 630; influence of, on party

decisions, 634; Khrushchev's reforms in, 627; literature abstracts, 633; long-term goals and, 624, 632; mixed results of commitment

to, 623-24; necessity of growth in, 623; or- thodox Marxist interpretation of, 72; party

control of, during 1930s, 71-72; planning

for, 629-32; policy making for, 628-29,

633-34; problems in training, 649; problems

of, 624; and production, connection between,

641; severance of ties with West, 626; short- term goals and, 624; spending on, 715; under

Stalin, 625-26; training in, 648-50

Science and Education Institutions Department (CPSU): educational policies instituted by, 247; as monitor of Academy of Sciences, 628-29

scientific production associations (NPOs),

494-95; defined, 641; number of, 641; problems in, 641

scientific research institutes (Nils), 494, 503, 636; focus of, 634-35; number of, 635; re- search laboratories .under, 635 "Segodniav mire," 383; audience, 383; for- mat, 383

sculpture, 396-97

Scythia, 173

Scythians, 5 sea lines of communication, 678

sea routes, 574 Second Chief Directorate (KGB): foreign in- telligence role of, 777; responsibility of, 767 Second Five-Year Plan (1933-37), 69, 473, 548 secondhand stores, 456

Secretariat (CPSU), 88, 292, 300-301, 314, 403, 404, 762; Central Committee's authorities delegated to, 296; departments of, 301; lines of authority in, 300-301; military research and

production under, 647; as party bureaucracy administration, 292; as policy implementer,

292; as policy maker, 292-93, 628; political weight of, 300; power of, 300; role of, 300;

State and Legal Department, 769; supervision of arts and mass media by, 373

"secret speech," 82-84, 305, 424, 627, 760

Security Council, lxxii

security sections, 757

Security Troops, 756; number of, 793; organization of, 793; tasks of, 793

self-employment, under 1977 Constitution, 453

self-sufficiency: in agricultural production, 529;

in industrial raw materials, lxxvii, 488, 603;

as reason for low level of foreign trade, 591

;

as socialist goal Seljuk Turks, 155

sel'sovet (village soviet), 225

Semichastnyi, Vladimir, 762

Senate, 35

Serbia, 49, 50 Serbo-Ottoman war, 37

Serbs, 138, 146

serfdom, 26, 27; abolition of, 212; Radishchev's

attack on, 26; sanction of, by government, 17

serfs, 33; dissatisfaction of, with outcome of emancipation, 34; emancipation of, 4, 34, 35, 486; Ukrainians as, 141 Serov, Ivan, 761

Sevastopol', 32, 540

Seventeenth Party Congress, 295

Seventh Chief Directorate (KGB): responsibility of, 767 Seventh-Day Adventists, 191 Seven Years' War, 23

sexually transmitted diseases, 269, 271

Seychelles, 616, 727 shamanism, 184 Shaposhnikov, Eugenii, lxxix, lxxx

Shatalin, Iurii, 794

Shatrov, Mikhail, 394

Shchelokov, Nikolai, 316, 782

Shcherbyts'kyy, Volodymyr, 299, 316

Shchetinin, M., 250

Shelepin, Aleksandr, 761, 762 Shevardnadze, Eduard A., 156, 346, 410, 422, 428, 437, 441, 682; resignation by, from CPSU, lxviii Shevchenko, Arkady, 778

Shikotan-to Island, 428

Shilinski, Dmitrii, 397

Shipbuilding Industry, Ministry of the, 496, 646

ships, 545; freighters, 571-72; import of, 611; passenger fleet, 572

Shostakovich, Dmitrii, 395 show trials, 70 Shubkin, Vladimir N., 250

Shuiskii, Vasilii, 15

Siberia, 99, 101, 102, 108, 110, 125, 139, 176,

194, 433, 546, 550, 553, 566, 567, 581, 727;

age-sex structure in, 123; agriculture in, 529; Aeroflot service to, 578; climate and terrain

of, 100, 110, 112; coal reserves in, 508; Decembrists exiled to, 30; deportation of purged

party members to, 70; economic develop- ment of, 479; electric generation in, 510; 1053
Soviet Union: A Country Study

exploitation of resources of, 41, 488, 611; for- estry in, 538-39; gas in, 609; kulaks deported

to, 69; lack of electricity in, 510; lack of road

service facilities in, 565; location of industry in, 488, 497; metal industry in, 502; migration to and from, 122, 123; mountains

of, 107; natural resources in, 113, 485; obtained by Muscovy, 18; oil reserves in, 506;

railroad construction in, 558; railroads in, 547; relocation of workers to, 490; roads in, 562; virgin land campaign in, 475, 522; water resources in, 108; winter in, 558

Siberian Development Program, 490

Siberian Division (Academy of Sciences), 636, 640

Siberian Khanate, 14, 175

Signal Troops, 708-10; equipment of, 709; mission of, 709; organization of, 708-9

Sikhs, 436

Simferopol', 557

Sino-Indian war, 435; Soviet neutrality during, 435

Sino-Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship, 426

Sino-Soviet relations, 80-81, 407, 426-27, 571; border clashes, 426; breakup of, 415, 426,

604; Brezhnev's attempt to reconcile, 426, 427; decline in, 90; under Gorbachev, 427; mutual defense treaty, 81; negotiations to improve, 426-27; resumption of, 604; and

Soviet relationship with India, 435-36;

Soviet withdrawal of troops from Chinese

border, 604; trade, 604

Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance, 426

Sixth Five-Year Plan, 476

Sizov, Leonid G., 785

Slavic culture, 3, 4, 10

Slavic nationalities (see also under name of nationality), 138-46

Slavophiles, 30-31

Slavs (see also East Slavs, South Slavs, West

Slavs), 127, 138, 168; birth rates of, 118; dominance of, 138, 218, 747; influence of, in development of Kievan Rus', 6; origins

of, 5 Sliun'kov, 299

Slovaks, 138, 146

Slovenes, 138 smoking: campaign against, 270; efforts to reduce, 121, 270; health problems of, 270; number of smokers, 270

Smolensk, 17 Soares, Mario, 422

socialism, 40, 331, 480

"socialism in one country," 66, 593

socialist competitions, 228-29, 471

socialist internationalism, 683

socialist legality, 786-87; under Gorbachev,

786-87; under Stalin, 786

socialist morality (see also communist ethics): defined, 246, 262; schools as molders of, 246

socialist orientation, countries of, 429

socialist ownership, lxi; environments of, 452; forms of, 452

socialist parties, 42

socialist property, 331, 339, 771

socialist realism, lxxii, 71-72, 370-71, 372-73; denned, 369, 372; demands of, 372; interpre- tation of, under glasnost ', 371, 397; in liter- ature, 389-90; as official party doctrine, 372; under Stalin, 372

Socialist Revolutionary Party, 45, 57, 60, 63;

exile of members of, 65

socialist virtues: examples of, 245

social mobility, 226, 227-28; under Brezhnev, 227-28; and cronyism and nepotism, 227; downward, 227-28; effect of perestroika on, 227; and geographic mobility, 227; Russian language necessary for, 227; slow progress

of, 227, 228; as source of party legitimacy, 289-90; under Stalin, 227

social organizations, 228-30; examples of, 212;

sports organizations as, 230; trade unions as, 228-29; youth organizations as, 229-30

social position: and allocation of housing, 222-23; benefits of, 219-24; determiners of, 211; and income, 211; and nationality, 218-

19; and party membership, 218; role of education in, 217-18

social sciences: institutes for, 257; orthodox Marxist interpretation of, 72; party control

of, during 1930s, 71-72

social structure: changes in, in industrializing economy, 213; male-female relationships, 231-34; self-perpetuation of, 211-12

society (see also under individual categories):

classes in, 214; cleavages in, 215; formation

of, 212-15; socio-occupational categories in, 211; stratification of, 214, 215-27

socio-occupational categories, lxv, 211; agricultural workers, 217; blue-collar workers, 217;

elite, 216; manual laborers, 217; white-collar workers, 216-17

Socotra: Soviet military base in, 685

Sofia, 20

soft-currency goods, 603

Soiuz pipeline, 581 Soiuz space program, 582

Sokolov, Sergei, 729

Sokolovskii, Vasilii D., 662, 665, 670-71, 680, 689

Solidarity (Polish trade union movement), 90, 229, 425, 888, 890; consequences of, for Soviet hegemony, 890; suppression of, 890-91

Solov'ev, Iurii, 348 1054
Index

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, lxxii, 392

Somalia, 413, 439, 684

Somali-Ethiopian war, 432

Sotsialisticheskaia industriia (Socialist Industry), 381 South Africa, 438, 439, 605 Southern Group of Forces, 881 Southern Railroad, 557 South Korea. See Republic of Korea

South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast, 156 South Slavs, 7, 138, 146 South Yakut industrial complex, 489

South Yemen. See People's Democratic Republic of Yemen

Sovetskaia kul'tura (Soviet Culture), 382

Sovetskaia Rossiia (Soviet Russia), 380

Sovetskaya Gavan', 558

Soviet alliance system, 875-78

Soviet anthem, 339-40

Soviet army. See armed forces, Red Army

Soviet Asians, 127

Soviet-Bulgarian ferry line, 575

Soviet Central Asia, 100, 102, 107, 108, 123,

124, 130, 161, 162, 164, 168, 388, 514, 534,

561, 581, 727; agriculture in, 532, 536; area, 159; birth rates in, 1 18; climate of, 112; cot- ton grown in, 532; divorce rate in, 233; educational quality in, 261 ; electric generation in, 510; families in, 236, 238; fertility in, 121, 139; free trade zones in, 604; gas

reserves in, 507; increase in infectious dis- eases in, 270; industrialization of agriculture

in, 227; industry in, 497; infant mortality

in, 116; irrigation projects in, 529; lack of

electricity in, 510; metal industry in, 502; migration to cities in, 226; mosques in, 200-201; motherhood medals in, 236; nationalities in, 159-72; natural resources in, 488; population of, 159, 226; railroads in, 547 ; relocation of workers to, 490; resistance of residents of, to party membership, 324;

rivers in, 527; steppes of, 1 10; Tatars in, 177;

unofficial income in, 221-22

Soviet Copyright Agency, 409

Soviet-East European relations, 423-26

Soviet-East German ferry line, 575

Soviet-Egyptian Treaty of Friendship and

Cooperation, 433

Soviet Europeans, 127

Soviet expansion: to create buffer zone, 79; prevention of, by Western allies, 79-80

Soviet Far East, 73, 108, 110, 125, 180, 546, 566, 567, 570, 572, 585, 721,725; Aeroflot

service to, 578; agriculture in, 529; climate

of, 112; economic development of, 479; electric generation in, 510, 511; exploitation of resources in, 611; forestry in, 538-39; free trade zones in, 604; lack of electricity in, 510;

location of industry in, 488-89, 497; migration to and from, 122; poverty benefits in, 277; railroad construction in, 558; relocation of workers to, 490; rivers in, 567; roads in, 562

Soviet Far North, 124, 546; Aeroflot service to, 578; lack of road service facilities in, 565;

location of industry in, 488

Soviet-Finnish relations, 419-20, 422-23

Soviet-Finnish War, 74, 473, 682, 699; role of

railroads in, 550; Soviet casualties in, 699

Soviet flag, 339

Soviet-Indian relations, 429, 433, 435-36; Chinese antipathy to, 435; genesis of, 435;

Soviet economic and military assistance, 435; Soviet technology transfer, 435-36; state

visits between, 436

Soviet-Iraqi Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation (1972), 431

Soviet-Japanese relations, 427-28; origins of poor, 427-28

Soviet-Middle East relations, 430-33; with

Iran, 431-32; with Iraq, 431-32; with Turkey, 430-31

Soviet Military Encyclopedia, 658, 668

Soviet of Nationalities, 333, 351; legislation passed by, 351; members of, 353; powers of, 353; purposes of, 353-54; status of, 353

Soviet of the Union, 333, 351, 356, 357; legis- lation passed by, 351 ; members of, 353; powers of, 353; purposes of, 353-54; status of, 353

Soviet Railroads (SZD), 554

Soviets, 213; sessions of provincial and district, 365

Soviet-Spanish relations, 422

Soviet-United States relations, 415-19; cold, 419; detente in, 416; effect on, of changes

in Soviet leadership, 418; under Gorbachev,

418; nuclear threat as factor in, 415; under Reagan, 416; trade, 607-9

Soviet-West European relations, 419-23; with

Britain, 421-22; with France, 420; goals in, 419; proper relationship between, 419-20;

with Portugal, 422; with Scandinavia, 422-23; since World War II, 419; with

Spain, 422; with West Germany, 420-21

sovkhozy. See state farms Sovnarkom. See Council of People's Commissars

space, 611, 715; ban on nuclear weapons in, 442, 688; defenses, 715-16; objectives in, 688-89; race to the moon, 94; research, 623, 624; systems, 499; talks, 689; treaties pro- posed, 689; weapons development, 689

Spanish Civil War: Soviet support for, 73, 422

special departments (KGB), 775-76; criminal

investigations, 775; duties of, 775; organization of, 775; political surveillance by, 775,

776; protecting state secrets, 776; under Stalin, 775 1055
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Special Purpose Forces (Spetsnaz), 719-20,

727; in Afghan war, 720; mission of, 720; number of, 720

Speranskii, Mikhail, 28

Spitak, 108

sports organizations, 230

Sputnik, 623, 689

SRs. See Socialist Revolutionary Party

Staar, Richard F., 664

Stalin, Joseph V., 44, 55, 67, 74, 82, 85, 139, 154, 183, 293, 295, 305, 342, 379, 385, 394,

522, 756; Academy of Sciences under, 625; Anthem of the Soviet Union composed under, 340; assigned to post of general secretary, 65; body

of, removed from Lenin Mausoleum, 84; centralized planning under, 495; change of domestic policies by, in World War II, 75; Comecon under, 859; Comintern dissolved by, 414; compulsory labor under, 455; consolidation of power of, lviii, 66, 68, 759; control by, of Politburo, 299; control over science under, 633; cult of, 84, 88, 291, 295; death

of, 81-82; denunciation of, by Khrushchev,

760; education under, 249; education pro- grams established under, 243-44; elimination of NEP by, 68; environmental damage by,

113; family, strengthening of, under, 235;

First Five-Year Plan, 68-69, 487; five-year plans of, 492; forced collectivization under,

lviii, 213, 473, 519, 593, 758; forced industrialization under, lviii; foreign policy under,

72; Great Terror of, 392; health care pro- grams established under, 243- 44; industrial management system of, 485; instigation of Great Terror by, lviii; labor camps under,

389; legacy of, 82; Lenin's dislike of, 65; Marshall Plan aid refused by, 474; militarypolitical relations under, 729; nation defined

by, 195; nationalities policy under, 243; opposition of, to Nazi Germany, 73; opposition

of, to social democrats, 72; opposition of, to Trotsky, 65; original name of, 156; partial re- habilitation of, 762; patronage system built by, 314; political police under, 755; position

of, in Bolshevik government, 60; power of, 71; program of intensive construction under,

68; purges by, 55, 56, 78, 84, 213, 382, 626,

698, 759, 765; purges of party members by,

lviii; religion under, 198-99, 200, 201; repres- sion justified by, 78; reverence accorded, 71;

' 'revolution from above, "68; Red Armyunder,

698; rise to power of, 66; Russification under,

196; science and technology under, 625-27;

security police under, 786; "socialism in one

country" proposed by, 66; socialist realism implemented under, lviii, 369, 371, 372; and

Soviet constitution, 332, 362; Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe by, 79; special departments under, 775; territorial claims

against Turkey by, 430; titles appropriated by, 291; war philosophy of, 658, 661; welfare pro- grams established under, 243-44; Yugoslavia

expelled from Cominform by, 414, 424

"Stalin Constitution" (of 1936), 333

Stalingrad {see also Volgograd): Soviet victory

at, in World War II, 75, 550, 699

Stalin Prize, 214

State Agro-Industrial Committee, 524

State and Legal Department, 301, 769, 770, 785

State Bank, 35

State Commission on the Electrification of Russia, 547

State Committee for Cinematography. See Goskino

State Committee for Construction, 461; role of, in planning process, 461

State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations (GKES), 594, 600; functions of, 595, 596

State Committee for Foreign Tourism (Inturist), 409

State Committee for Labor and Social Problems, 275; role of, in planning process, 461

State Committee for Material and Technical

Supply: role of, in planning process, 461

State Committee for Physical Culture and

Sports, 230, 597

State Committee for Publishing Houses, Print- ing Plants, and the Book Trade. See Gos- komizdat

State Committee for Science and Technology

(GKNT), 597, 737, 600, 629, 637; functions

of, 595, 629-30, 632; military research and

development under, 647; role of, in planning

process, 461

State Committee for Television and Radio

Broadcasting (see Gostelradio)

State Committee for the Protection of Nature.

See Goskompriroda

State Committee for the State of Emergency,

lxxviii; decrees under, lxxviii-lxxix State Committee for the Supply of Production Equipment for Agriculture, 524

State Committee for the Utilization of Atomic

Energy, 376

State Committee on Prices, 595

State Council, lxxxi State Examination Committee, 259

state farms (sovkhozy), lxii, 69, 118, 538; changes to, 521-22; conversion of collective farms to, 522; conversion of, to cooperatives, 522; defined, 521; income of, 521; labor

productivity of, 521; military, 720; output

of, 521; planning reform in, 466-67; self- financing of, 522

State Foreign Economic Commission, 595; role

of, 597-99; upgrading of, 597 1056
Index

State Planning Commission. See Gosplan

State Police Department, 757

State Political Directorate (GPU); formed, 758; powers of, 758, 758

state secrets, censorship of, 374

Statsionar satellite system, 585

steppes, 104, 110; agriculture in, 527; cherno- zem soil of, 527; climate of, 527; described,

107; irrigation in, 527

Stockholm, 575

Stolypin, Petr, 46, 48; assassination of, 47; peasant reform program of, 47

Strategic Air Armies, 710-11; bombers of, 710-11; mission of, 710; organization of, 710

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I), 91-92, 415, 442, 443, 686-87

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), 92, 416, 443

strategic arms reductions, 690

Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START), lx, 417, 443, 687

Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty: described,

lx; signing of, lx Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 671, 688;

Soviet reaction to, 688, 689

Strategic Rocket Forces, lxxvi, 661, 676, 697, 703-5, 733; downgraded, 678; general or- ganization of, 703, 705; locations of, 705; mission of, 677, 703-5; as part of strategic nuclear forces, 678; purpose of, lxxvi; role

of, 678, 703-5; uniforms and rank insignia

of, 737-39; weapons of, 705

strategy. See military strategy Stroganov family, 14, 486 Submarine Forces, 716-18; incursions into Scandinavia, 423; intelligence-gathering by, 716; kinds of vessels, 716-18; mission of, 716; number of vessels, 716

subtropical zone, agriculture in, 527

succession, leadership, 288, 304; stages in struggle for, 305-06

Sumgait, 202 Supreme Court, 329, 330, 335, 359 Supreme High Command (VGK), 677, 701,

703, 719, 727 Supreme Soviet, 195, 204, 272, 296, 304, 329, 330, 333, 334, 335, 338, 339, 341, 345, 350-58, 409, 670, 730, 765, 791-92; armed

forces under, 700; authority of, 330, 350;

authority of chairman of, 330; chairman of, 334, 352-53; chambers of, 333; commissions and committees, 355-57; delegation of powers by, 350; election to, 330; foreign policy

responsibilities of, 408; function of, 350; and

independence of republics, lxxi; legislative process in, 357-58; meetings of, 354; Ministry of Defense and, 702; new, after coup of 1991, lxxxi; new republics created by, 362; party controls, 358; party membership in,

358; planning function of, 462; powers of chairman of, 334; Presidium of, 351-52;

procedures in sessions of, 354; selection of

delegates to, 358; sequence of events in ses- sions of, 354; sessions of, 354-55; Soviet of

Nationalities, 353-54; Soviet of the Union,

353-54; term of, 354

Surakhany, 547

Surgut, 502, 567

Suslov, Mikhail A., 94, 95, 299

Suvorov, Aleksandr, 28; science of victory, 654 Suvorov military schools, 257, 748

Suzdal' {see also Vladimir-Suzdal'), 8 Sverdlovsk, 506

Sverdlovsk Railroad, 557 Sweden, 14, 15, 21, 28, 78, 141, 149; attack by Peter the Great on, 20; Estonia controlled by, 151; Soviet relations with, 422; war be- tween Russia and, 141 Switzerland: as importer of Soviet gas, 508; Russian military campaign in, 28

Synia, 558

Syr Darya, 527, 529

Syria, 91, 153, 432, 582, 712; privileged affili- ation of, with Comecon, 616; military ac- cess to, 727; Soviet arms bought by, 614, 616, 779; Soviet trade with, 612, 614

Syrian army, 91 system of material balances, 461

Tabaka, Maya, 397

Tabasarans, 194 Table of Ranks, 21, 212

tactics. See military tactics

Tactics (Reznichenko), 675 Tadzhik Autonomous Republic, 162, 170

Tadzhikistan, 362; Afghan conquest of, 169-

70; Russian conquest of, 170 Tadzhik language, 180 Tadzhik Republic, 102, 121-22, 159, 160, 434;

families in, 236; major cities of, 170; nationalist movement in, 204; opposition to family planning in, 236; party apparatus in, 308

Tadzhiks, lxvi, 160-61, 162, 169-71, 194; dis- tribution of, 170; etymology of, 169; griev- ances of, 204; in higher education, 170-71

;

history of, 169-70; language of, 170; as members of Central Committee, 171; as members of CPSU, 171, 324; Pamiri, 170;

of the plain, 170; population of, 170; as scientific workers, 171; urbanization of, 170 Taganka Theater, 394

taiga zone, 104, 110, 526; agriculture in, 526;

climate in, 526; described, 104-7, 526; for- estry and fur industries in, 526 Taiwan, 86, 413

Tallin, 152, 540 Tamerlane, 155 1057
Soviet Union: A Country Study

tamizdat (underground literature published

abroad), 389 Tank Troops, 707; uniforms and rank insig- nia of, 738-39

Tanzania, 438, 616

Taraki, Nur Muhammad, 434

Tartu, 152 Tashauz, 172 Tashkent, 162, 163, 427, 493, 578 TASS, 345, 373; operations of, 375 Tatar Autonomous Republic, 176, 177, 181 Tatar lands, 18 Tatar language, 166, 182

Tatars, 20, 24, 152, 162, 168, 173, 174, 175-77, 182; attempts to create independent

state, 176; conversion of, to Islam, 192; dis- tribution of, 176-77; in higher education,

177; history of, 175-76; languages of, 177;

as members of Central Committee, 177; as members of CPSU, 177; as Muslims, 176,

194; population of, 176; urbanization of, 177

Tatars, Crimean, 175; attempt to establish in- dependent state, 176; conquered by Russia,

175; emigration of, 176; exile of, during World War II, 176; national dissent move- ment of, 197; Russian repression of, 176

Tatars, Siberian, 175; conquered by Russia,

175; employment, 176; language, 177; population, 176

Tatars, Volga, 175; attempt to establish in- dependent state, 176; conquered by Russia,

175; conversion to Christianity, 175; lan- guage of, 177; revolts against Russian rulers, 175

taxes: under Peter the Great, 22; to support eco- nomic plans, 469 Taymyr Peninsula, 101

Tbilisi, 156, 198, 497, 557, 561

teachers, 226, 251 ; education level of, 261 ; elite, 261; respect for, 260; salaries of, 217, 226,

261; women as, 261

teacher training, 260-61; focus of, 261; level

of, 261 technicums, 256

technology (see also innovation): administration

of, 628-33; for Comecon, 854, 863, 869; Comecon cooperation in, 869-70; commit- ment to, 623; directions of, 632; financing

of, 632-33; high, 479, 608; implementation

of plans for, 630; Khrushchev's reforms in, 627; literature abstracts, 633; long-term goals and, 624, 632; mixed results of commitment

to, 623-24; planning for, 629-32; policy making for, 628-29; problems of, 624; short- term goals and, 624; under Stalin, 643

technology transfers: under Brezhnev, 643; by

commercial sale, 643; by covert acquisition, 644; under Gorbachev, 644; impact of, 645; by industrial cooperation, 643-44; industries

using, 644-45; by intergovernmental agree- ment, 644; from Japan, 643; under Khrushchev, 643; under Lenin, 642-43; means

of, 643-44; to overcome backwardness, 642; problems with, 645; by scholarly exchange,

644; from the United States, 643, 644, 645

telecommunications systems, 586

telegraph offices, 585

telephone, 546; exchanges, 585; government

eavesdropping, 585; system, 585-86; underdeveloped, 586

telephones: number of, 586; requests for instal- lation of, 586

television, 382-84, 546; audience, 382-83; cover- age, 383-84; growth of, 582; ideological themes of, 384; industry, 514; programs on,

384; "Segodniavmire," 383; "Vremia," 383

televisions, 499, 514 Tenth Five-Year Plan (1976-80), 477-78, 532 Tenth Party Congress, 64, 286, 293 Tereshkova, Valentina, 351

territorial administration, 361-66; administrative subdivisions, 361; district level, 364-65;

of economy, 361; government, 363-64, 365; provincial level, 364-65; republic level, ,362-64; of security, 361

territorial expansion, origins of, 3

testing facilities (scientific and technological): lack of, 639-40; organizational separation and, 638-39, 640

textile industry, 22, 503, 514-15; in nineteenth- century Russia, 33; origins of, 486

textiles, 615

Thailand, 437

Thatcher, Margaret, 422

theater, 388, 393-94; avant-garde, 393-94; con- ventional, 393; liberalization of, 394; per- formers, 393

theater of military operations (TVD), 669, 674, 678, 727, 729, 730; combined arms strate- gic operation in, 676, 677; continental, 672; deep offensive operation in, 673; defined, 672; oceanic, 672; strategic operation in, 679-80

thermonuclear fusion, 94

thermonuclear plants, 510, 511, 512 Third Chief Directorate (KGB), 733; responsibility of, 768, 775 Third Five-Year Plan (1938-41), 69, 473-74

Third Section, 30, 757 Third World (see also under individual countries), 585; agreements with, 413; arms transfers to, 890; characteristics of Soviet trade

with, 612; Chinese attempt to influence, 90; deemphasis on Soviet influence in, 429; di- vision of, between China and Soviet Union,

86; expansion of Soviet influence in, 90-91,

404, 416; Khrushchev's categories of, 428-

29; Soviet aid to, 431, 446; Soviet arms and 1058
Index

military sales to, 612-13; Soviet conservative view of, 429; Soviet diplomacy in, 412; Soviet disagreements with, in United Nations, 445;

Soviet influence in, 401, 407, 413, 429, 684, 889-90; Soviet military interventions in, 684;

Soviet military presence in, 684-85; Soviet objectives in, 684; Soviet policy toward, 85-86,

428, 441; Soviet pragmatist view of, 429;

Soviet reorientation of relations in, under Gorbachev, 438; Soviet support for, lx; Soviet trade with, lxiii, 591, 592, 612-18

Thirteenth Five-Year Plan (1991-95), 470

Tibet, 48 Tien Shan Mountains, 108 Tikhonov, Nikolai A., 316, 603

Tilsit, Treaty of, 28 Time of Troubles, 14-15, 17, 18; events in, 15; origins of, 14 Time of Wishes, A (Raizman), 391-92

Tinsulanonda, Prem, 437

Tiraspol', 498

Titarenko, Sergei M., 307

Tithe Church (Kiev), 7 Tito, Josip Broz, 80, 424

Tkachev, Petr, 40, 43 Tobol River, 182

Tobol'sk, 502, 567

Tolstaia, Tat'iana, 390

Tolstoi, Aleksei, 389, 390

Tolstoy, Lev, 39-40

Tol'yatti, 122, 497 Tomsk, 497, 503, 506, 567 topography and drainage, 104-9, 105-6 Toshiba scandal, 610 Townes, Charles H., 623

Trade, Ministry of, 597 Trade Reform Act of 1974 (United States), 608

trade unions: aim of, 228-29; membership,

456; operation of, 228; quota for deputies

to Congress of People's Deputies, 348; socialist competitions organized by, 228-29;

system, 228; and workers' interests, 229

trains: diesel-electric, 547-48, 554-56; electric, 554-56; freight cars, 548, 556; inventory, 556; maximum axle loads, 556; maximum speeds, 556; number of, 556; operating efficiency of, 548; passenger capacity, 556; passenger operations, 556-57; short-haul, 556; suburban, 556 Transbaykal (Zabaykaliye), 557, 727 Transcaucasian Federated Republic (1918), 153-54

Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (1922-36), 64, 154, 155, 333, 412

Transcaucasus, 153, 514 Transcaucasus Military District, 727

transportation (see also transportation system),

lxii, lxiii; automobiles, lxiii; party influence

in, lxix; purpose of, lxiii; railroads, lxiii; trucks, lxiii

transportation enterprises, 565

transportation system: air, 546; automotive,

545; density of, 545; disruptions of, in Soviet- Finnish War, 473; expansion of, 530; freight, 565; local, 561; inadequacy of, 530; influ- ences on development of, 545; output of, as percentage of net material product, 453; pas- senger, 565-66, 570, 572, 545; water, 545-46

Trans-Siberian Railway, 41, 42, 44, 124, 489,

557, 558

treaties, 412, 413-14; with Egypt, 684; military, 414; purposes of, 413; with Third World, 413 Treaty of Mutual Assistance and Cooperation

(Finnish-Soviet), 423 Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1968), 91, 421

Tret'iakov Gallery, 396

Trifonov, Iurii, 94

Triple Entente, 48, 50

troika of Kamenev, Stalin, and Zinov'ev, 65-66

Trotsky, Leon, 65, 67, 68, 180; as chairman

of Petrograd Soviet, 59; as commissar of war,

61, 698; exiled by Stalin, 66; jailed after "July Days," 59; Kronshtadt Rebellion put down by, 63; murder of, 70; position of, in Bolshevik government, 60; Red Army or- ganized by, 61; troika's opposition to, 65, 66

trucks, 545, 561; failure of, factors contribut- ing to, 565; freight on, 561; importance of, to local transportation systems, 561 ; local and

short hauls, 565; most important customers

of, 565; use of, lxiii Trud (Labor); circulation of, 380; focus of, 380 Truman Doctrine, 80

Trushin, Vasilii P., 785

Trust, 743-45 "Trust in Cadres," 89

trusts, 453

tsars (see also under individual names), 4; end

of rule of, 57; Ivan III as first, 12, 13

Tsiolkovskii, Konstantin E., 625 Tsushima Straits, 44

Tsvigun, Semen, 762

tuberculosis, 269

Tukhachevskii, Mikhail N., 672

Tula, 533

tundra zone, 104, 526; agriculture in, 526; area

of, 526; climate of, 526; described, 104, 526; employers in, 104; frost weathering in, 104; percentage of Soviet population in, 104; rein- deer herding in, 526; vegetation of, 104 Turan Lowland, 104 Turgenev, Ivan, 31, 39, 40 Turkestan, 160, 161, 168, 176 Turkestan Autonomous Republic, 162, 167, 170; Soviet organization of, 162 Turkestan Military District, 725, 727

Turkestan-Siberian Railway, 547 1059
Soviet Union: A Country Study

Turkey, 28, 61, 80, 101, 153, 155, 157, 171,

174, 423, 430-31; as importer of Soviet gas, 508; Soviet economic assistance to, 431;

Soviet territorial claims against, 430-31;

Soviet trade with, 612, 613; United States arms embargo against, 431 Turkic languages, 168, 182 Turkic tribes, 156-57, 160, 176 Turkish army, 158 Turkmenia, 171, 172, 362 Turkmenistan, 171, 362 Turkmen lands, 38 Turkmen Republic, 102, 121, 159, 160, 162, 434, 527; gas reserves in, 507; infant mortality in, 1 16; life expectancy in, 116; major

cities in, 172; nationalist movement in, 204; party apparatus in, 307, 308 Turkmens, lxx, 160, 162, 166, 171-72; distri- bution of, 172; forced collectivization of, 172; grievances of, 204; in higher education, 172; history of, 171; as members of CPSU, 172, 324; language of, 172; national resurgence

of, 172; population of, 172; opposition of, to Russian rule, 171; Russian conquest of, 171; as scientific workers, 172; urbanization

of, 172; Uzbek conquest of, 171 Tuvinians, 184

Tver', 12 Twelfth Five-Year Plan (1986-90), 478-82,

492, 494, 515, 540-42; agricultural targets, 541-42; computerization goals, 384-85; con- servation emphasized in, 541; consumer

goods in, 502, 514; energy goals under, 511;

first-year results of, 482-81; goals of, 495,

496; increase in food prices in, 525; increase

in preschool facilities in, 251 ; principal tasks

of, 478; second-year results of, 482; targets

for, 480-81, 540; technical progress in, 481; telecommunications goals, 384-85

Twentieth Party Congress, 82-84, 295, 424,

661; Khrushchev's "secret speech," 627, 761 Twenty-Fifth Party Congress, 125, 440

Twenty-First Party Congress, 84 Twenty-Fourth Party Congress, 197 Twenty-Second Party Congress, 84

Twenty-Seventh Party Congress, 427, 444, 730; Chebrikov's KGB speech to, 764; Comecon

as "socialist commonwealth," 423, 425; dele- gates to, 293; discussion of Warsaw Pact in, 892; foreign policy goals, 402; Gorbachev's

call for glasnost' and perestroika, 295, 451, 525,

597; price reform under, 618; member turn- over at, 297; pronatalist policy, 125; technol- ogy policy, 492, 603; Third World relations, 438; women elected at, 324

Twenty-Sixth Party Congress, 125, 297, 427 Twenty-Third Party Congress, 88 Tynda, 558 Tyuman oil fields, 505-6

Tyumenskaya Oblast, 102

U-2 shoot-down, 87

Ufa, 182-83, 201, 502

Ukraine, 5, 10, 12, 24, 25, 30, 42, 61, 145, 178; economic region, 503; partition of, 142; Soviet republic established in, 61; split between Muscovy and Poland, 18, 141; western, incorporated by Soviet Union in 1939, lviii, 200

Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, 640, 641 Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church,

188-89, 199; Soviet government's hostility toward, 189, 200; origins of, 188-89

Ukrainian party organization: Khrushchev as head of, 82 Ukrainian Republic, 5, 64, 74, 102, 107, 123,

125, 138, 141, 145, 147, 154, 188, 307, 333, 362, 412, 526, 527; agriculture in, 532-34;

alcoholism in, 270; Catholics in, 199-200; es- tablishment of, 142; families in, 236; famine

in, 196; forced collectivization of, 142; gas

reserves in, 507; Helsinki watch group estab- lished in, 197; industry in, 486; irrigation projects in, 529; Jewish community in, 178, 180; legal age for marriage in, 232; major

cities in, 144; nationalities in, 146; nationalist demonstrations in, 202-4; nationalist move- ment suppressed in, 759; occupation of, by German army, 74-75, 142; party apparatus

in, 308; population decline, 127; population

density, 124; Roman Catholic community in, 190. 204; Russification in, 204; starvation of peasants in, 69, 142; tree farms in, 475

Ukrainians, 3, 5, 8, 24, 27, 36, 138, 141-44,

164, 166, 168, 174; deportation of, by Nazis, 76; discrimination against, 48, 142; dis- tribution of, 144; enserfed by Polish rulers, 141 ; in higher education, 144; history of, 141

;

influence of, on Muscovy, 18-19; influence of Polish rule on, 141; language of, 35, 204; language of, prohibited, 35; as members of CPSU, 144, 324; as members of Central Committee, 144; national assertiveness by,

141, 142, 202-4; oppression of, by Polish nobility, 141; oppression of, by Russian govern- ment, 141-42; persecution of Catholic, 200; population of, 144; as scientific workers, 144; struggle of, for independence, 143, 144; ur- banization of, 144

Ukrainization, 142 Ulan-Ude, 493

Ulbricht, Walter, 889

Ulianov, Aleksandr, 41 Ulianov, Vladimir (see also Lenin, Vladimir I.), 41; exiled, 43; influence of Chernyshevskii

on, 41 underprovisioning, 221, 274, 277 unemployment, 490 1060
Index

Uniate Church, 190; suppression of, 30, 145

Unified Electrical Power System, 511 Unified Science and Technology Department,

630 union agreement of 1991, lxx; republics refus- ing to join, lxx Union of Brest, 190 Union of Cinematographers, 390; Disputes Committee of, 390 Union of Journalists, 378 Union of Liberation, 45 Union of Unions, 45-46 Union of Writers, 370, 372, 382, 385, 774; conservative views in, 389-90; Eighth Congress

of, 389-90; liberal changes in, 389

union republics (see also republics and under in- dividual republics): civil defense in, 721; defined, 102; desire of, for autonomy, lxx; determinants for status as, 102, 196; in- dependence declared by, lxx-lxxi; minority

nationalities in, lxx; nationalities in, 135-36,

137; proclamations of independence by, lxx, status as, lxvi union treaty, lxx-lxxi, lxxix United Arab Emirates, 432 United Deep-Water Network, 568

united front, 415, 429

United Nations, 445-46; condemnation by, of

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 434, 445; condemnation by, of Vietnamese occupation

of Cambodia, 445; Gorbachev's arms reductions announcement in, 444; involvement of, in Korean War, 81, 445; permanent members, 445; Soviet boycott of, 445; Soviet

financial contributions to, 446; Soviet role

in establishing, 445; United States contributions withheld from, 446; voting in, 413, 445 United Socialist Revolutionary Party, 43 United States, 45, 56, 121, 433, 435, 439, 457, 497, 526, 539, 548, 561, 562, 671; agricultural exports to Soviet Union, 608; Army,

strategy of, 680; assistance of, to Soviet Union in World War II, 75, 550; and Cold War, 79; debt payments to, 606; destruction of targets in, 677; diplomatic recognition by, of Soviet Union, 412; diplomatic recognition withheld from Soviet Union, 67; diplomatic

support of, for Iran, 79; emigration to, lxxiv; establishing relations with Japan, 37; in- fluence of, in Middle East, 430, 432; involve- ment of, in Korean War, 81; involvement

of, in Civil War (Russia's), 61; Limited Test Ban Treaty signed by, 87, 688; MarxistLeninist view of, 655; as member of United

Nations, 445-46; nuclear parity of, with

Soviet Union, 401, 681, 699; nuclear weapons of, 691; recognition by, of independence

of Baltic states, lxxxi; relations of, with Egypt, 91; relations of, with Soviet Union,

91-92, 401; role of, in putting down Boxer

Rebellion, 44; Russian relations with, 36; Soviet support from, in World War II, 76-77; Soviet attempts to limit influence of, 441; Soviet Buying Commission in, 593;

Soviet trade with, lxiii, 605, 607-9; START

talks, 687; technology transfers from, 645;

trade boycott of Soviet Union by, 601 , 609;

trade policy of, 608; as world power, 32

universities, lxiv-lxv; competition for entrance

to, 258; enrollment, 258; graduate training

in, 260; mission of, 258; restricted under

Alexander II, 35

Unkiar-Skelessi, Treaty of, 32 Ural-Kuznetsk industrial complex, 547 Ural Mountains, 33, 45, 99, 101, 104, 107, 124, 139, 487, 550, 581, 705, 721; coal reserves in, 508; forestry in, 538; location of industry in, 488, 490, 493, 497, 501, 503; metal industry in, 502; natural resources in, 112-13, 506; railroads in, 553 Ural River, 182 uranium, 510

urbanization, 121-22, 125, 127, 130, 224; and

control over migration, 122; distribution of, among regions and nationalities, 121-22; and gender roles, 230; rates of, 121-22; of

rural life, 224 urban society: culture, 224; economy, 224; housing conditions, 224; and rural society, differences between, 224-25; state retail outlets in, 456; travel, 225; workers with peasant backgrounds in, 227 Urengoy, 502, 558; gas reserves in, 507, 581 Urengoy-Uzhgorod pipeline, 609, 610; foreign technology acquired for, 644-45 Urengoy-Yamburg rail line, 558 Uruguay, 441

Usinsk, 558

uskorenie (acceleration), 597

Ussuri River, 37, 90, 426, 723

Ust'-Ilimsk, 511 Ust'-Kut, 558 Uvarov, Sergei, 30 Uygurs, 194

Uzbekistan, 362 Uzbek Khan, 160 Uzbek Republic, 102, 121, 159, 160, 162, 166, 170, 177, 362, 434, 527; agriculture in, 534;

cities in, 163; cotton grown in, 532; families in, 238; gas reserves in, 507; infant mortality in, 116; nationalities in, 168; party apparatus in, 308; population of, 162; opposition to family planning in, 236

Uzbeks, lxvi, 168, 170; alphabet of, 163; ancient history of, 160; conquest by, of Turkmens, 171; distribution of, 162; divorce of, 233; in higher education, 163; language of, 163, 166; medieval history of, 160-61; as 1061
Soviet Union: A Country Study

members of the Central Committee, 163; as members of CPSU, 163; modern history of, 161-62; as Muslims, 194; population of, 162; as scientific workers, 163; urbanization of, 163 Uzhgorod, 581

Vanino, 575

Varangians, 138; described, 5; Oleg, 5; role

of, in establishing Kievan Rus', 5-6; Rurik,

5 Varna, 575

Vasilii HI, 12

veche (popular assembly), 8 Vecheka, 60, 547; abolished, 758; described, 755; growth of, 757-58

Venezuela, 440

Ventspils, 580 Verdun, 49 Verkhnyaya Pyshma, 506 Verkhoyansk Range, 107 Vernyy, 108

Veterinary Troops, 739

victory, 692; combined arms for, 677; objective, 659; and weapons, relationship be- tween, 659

video cassette recorders, 384, 385, 499

Vienna, 592 Vietnam, 90, 407, 414, 423, 426, 427, 430, 433, 440, 612; as burden on Comecon, 871; Chinese incursion into, 426; Comecon aid

to, 871; labor transfers from, 870; as member of Comecon, 601, 603, 854, 871; mili- tary access to, 727-28; Soviet and East European military advisers in, 684; occupation by, of Cambodia, 437; power of, in Comecon, 871; satellite communications hookup to, 582; Soviet economic aid to, 591, 592, 605; Soviet economic relations with, 612; Soviet military bases in, 603, 685;

Soviet support for, lx; Soviet ties with, 437; war, 91 , 404, 571 ; withdrawal of troops from Cambodia, 604

village, defined, 224

Vilnius, 147, 148 Vinnitsa district, 311

virgin land campaign, 87, 303, 475, 522 Vladimir (see also Vladimir-Suzdal'), 8, 9, 186, 497, 585 Vladimir (Prince): accomplishments of, 7; Christianization of Kievan Rus' under, 7, 186

Vladimir-Suzdal', 8, 9, 10, 12 Vladivostok, 122, 540, 727; building of Russian naval base at, 37; Gorbachev's speech

in, 435, 728

Vlasov, Aleksandr V., 763, 783

Vneshniaia torgovlia (Foreign Trade), 600

Vneshtorgbank, 611

vocational-technical schools, 256

vodka, 93

voenkomat (military commissariat), 743, 746, 750

Voennaia mysV (Military Thought), 670 Voice of America, 382

Voinovich, Vladimir, lxxii Volga automotive plant, 497-98 Volga-Don canal, 567 Volga Economic Region, 502 Volga-Kama waterways, 569 Volga River, 5, 8, 9, 14, 18, 108, 122, 124, 181, 182, 183, 567, 568, 581; hydroelectric system on, 108 Volga River Valley, 18, 113, 475, 527, 699

Volga-Ural region, 175, 176, 581; gas reserves

in, 507; oil fields in, 505 Volgograd (see also Stalingrad), 75, 124, 497, 506

Volhynia, 141 Volkogonov, Dmitrii A., 659, 663 Vologda, 124 Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Army,

Air Force, and Navy (DOSAAF), 730; or- ganization of, 742; premilitary training by, 739; specialist training in, 742 Vorkuta, 558 Voronezh, 497 Voroshilov General Staff Academy, 749

Voslensky, Michael, 315

vospitanie (upbringing), 245

voting, 333; as duty, 348; for deputies in Congress of People's Deputies, 347, 348

Voznesenskii, Andrei, 388, 389, 390 "Vremia," 383; audience, 383; format, 383 VUZy. See education, higher Vyborg, 506

Vysotskii, Vladimir, 94, 393-94; grave of, 395

wages: effect of reform on, 470-71; egalitari- an, 470; minimum, 470, 471; as tool of eco- nomic control, 470 war (see also nuclear war): arms control to avoid, 686, 691; avoidability of, 654, 661; combined

arms offensive in, 671, 675, 676; as continuation of politics, lxxvi, 654, 655-57, 667;

fought with conventional weapons, 663, 671, 673; guidelines for categorizing, 655; inevitability of, 653, 661; just, 655, 657; MarxistLeninist theory of, 654-59; mobilization for, 750; of national liberation, 681, 780; as out- come of class struggle, 655; unjust, 655; world, doctrine of fighting, 661, 681

war, laws of, 657-69, 668; combat power, 668; with conventional weapons, 668; defined, 657; dependence of the forms of war on people and equipment, 668; Marxism-Leninism

as basis for discovering, 657; mutability of, 1062
Index

657, 668; with nuclear weapons, 668; objective victory, 658-59; permanently operating

factors in, 658; as political philosophy of CPSU, 657; and principles of military art, 666; reordering of, 658; Savkin's, 658 War and Peace (Tolstoy), 40 war communism, 68, 472; defined, 63; econ- omy under, 63; and Kronshtadt Rebellion,

63, 64; results of, 63 War Industries Committee, 50, 51 Warsaw, Grand Duchy of, 28 Warsaw Pact, 90, 424, 444, 510, 608, 693, 714, 727, 749, 875-92; arms reductions by, 663,

692; arms transfers by, 890; cohesion in, 881-82, 888-91; Committee of Ministers of Defense, 886; as counterweight to NATO,

875, 878; cuts by, in military budget, 445;

in deep offensive operation, 680, 888;

defense-oriented military doctrine of, 663,

892; defined, 86; detente and, 888-91; dis- solution of, lx; East European participation

in, 875; and end of detente, 891; formation

of, 860, 878-80; function of, 875; under Gorbachev, 892; invasion of Czechoslovakia by, 425, 442, 882-83; Joint Command of, 879,

886; Joint Staff of, 886-87; under Khrushchev, 879-80, 881-82; leadership of, 886;

as legitimation of status quo, 888-89; meetings of, 885, 886; members of, 423, 692, 876; Military Council, 886; military exercises of, 882-83, 889, 890; military organization of, 882, 885-87; Military Scientific- Technical

Council, 887; military tasks of, 885; and

Ministry of Defense, 702; NATO as threat

to, 891; policy coordination in, 888; politi- cal Consultative Committee of, 879, 884-85; problems in, 875; relations of, with NATO,

403, 419; Soviet control of, 885-86; 887; and

Soviet military strategy, 885, 887-88; Soviet reevaluation of, after 1956 revolutions, 881-82, 888; Technical Committee, 887; as

tool in East-West diplomacy, 879; treaty es- tablishing, 879; structural changes in, 886 Warsaw Television Plant, 514 Washington Summit: of 1987, 418, 419; of

1990, lx Watergate scandal, 404

water resources, 108-9; inland bodies, 109 weapons, 339; antisatellite (ASAT), 688-89;

buildup of conventional, 692; conventional, improved, 675; customers for, 614, 618; de- velopment programs, 666; export of, 613-14,

615; limited by treaty, 686; nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC), 709-10; preposi- tioning of, 685; Soviet strategic, 687;

transfers, 410; United States strategic, 687; and victory, relationship between, 659 Wehrmacht, 699

welding technology, 623

welfare programs: family subsidies, 276-77; under Khrushchev, 243-44; maternity benefits, 276; pension system, 274-75; under

Stalin, 243-44; total-care facilities, 275; types

of, 243; workers' compensation, 276 Western culture, lxvii; defined, 4; influence of, on Russian culture, 4, 19; progress of modernization in, 4 Western Europe, 121, 581, 664, 781; fuel exports to, 606, 612; grain imports from, 608; KGB-sponsored terrorism in, 779; missiles aimed at, 705; Soviet relations with, 401;

Soviet trade with, 609-10; trade boycott of

Soviet Union by, 601; war scenario in, 680 Western Front (World War I), 49

Westernization: under Alexander I, 29; under

Catherine II, 25, 26; under Elizabeth I, 23; Peter the Great's drive for, 22

Westernizers, 30 Western technology, lvii, 623; imports of, 592;

interest of tsars in, 19; military, 36; Soviet import of, lxiii West Germany. See Federal Republic of Ger- many

West Siberia Economic Region, 502, 503 West Siberian Plain, 104 West Slavs, 138, 146 West Turkic-Kipchak languages, 177 What Is to Be Done? (Chernyshevskii), 40 What Is to Be Done? (Lenin), 43, 283 White armies, 142, 167, 171, 176; defeat of, 62-63; professional officers in, 698; rights

of, denied under constitution, 332; supported by Allied Powers, 61 White Sea, 10, 567 Wilhelm II (Kaiser), 38 Winter War. See Soviet- Finnish War

Witte, Sergei, 46, 47, 48; dismissal of, 42, 46; economic programs of, 41; and evacuation

of Manchuria, 44; results of policies of, 42; Russo-Chinese Bank established by, 44 women, 391-92; as agricultural workers, lxii, 217; in armed forces, 747-48; burdens of,

lxvi; child care by, 265; death following abortion or childbirth, 271 ; equal rights of, lxvi, 212, 230-31; health care of, 266; in the labor

force, 477; in higher education, 258; low sta- tus of, 231; maternity benefits for, 234, 243, 276; maternity leave for, lxvi, 130, 231, 276; medals and payments to mothers with large

families, 235, 236; medical care of, 231; medical education of, 35; as members of Central Committee, 324; as members of CPSU, 231, 322, 324; occupations of, 212,

221, 231; percentage of, in work force, 119, 120; as physicians, 221, 268; protection of, in workplace, 231; reasons of, for not join- ing party, 324; salaries of, 221, 231; social 1063
Soviet Union: A Country Study

status of, 212; status of, lxvi; subsidies to, with more than two children, 276; surplus

of, 119; as teachers, 261; time spent on

housework by, 232 wood industries, 514-15, 539, 611

workers, 48, 51, 214; blue-collar, lxv, 211; motivation of, 479; number of, 454; pay of, lxv; productivity of, 479; white-collar, lxv workers, agricultural: children of, in higher

education, 258; defined, 217; as party members, 217, 323; as percentage of population, 217; position of children of, 211; wages and

benefits of, 217, 220

workers, white-collar, 211, 216-17; children of, in higher education, 258; income of, 216, 220; as members of CPSU, 216, 323; number of, 216; position of children of, 211;

privileges of, 216; in rural areas, 226 Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, 698

workers' compensation: maternity leave, 276;

sick leave, 276

workers' insurance organizations, 47 work force: distribution of, 455-56, 485, 490;

health care to guarantee, 262-63; laxness of, 479; and perestroika, 490-91; redistribution

of, 489-90; shift in nature of, 490

working-age population, 454 working class, 42, 48, 331 World Bank, 619 World Peace Council, 407, 779 world revolution, 412, 681

world socialist system, lxxvi, 401, 414, 683, 697; and Comecon, 857; and Soviet political in- fluence, 684; Soviet Union as leader of, 878 World War I, 4, 61, 147, 179, 472; Bolshevik

refusal to pay debts from, 593; disengage- ment by Soviet government from, 60; impact of, on Russia, 56-57; initial phase of, 49, 50; land ceded by Russia in, 61; Russia's offensives in, 49; Russian casualties in, 50; strains of, 50-51 World War II, 82, 101, 139, 145, 150, 183, 200, 290, 291, 342, 401, 415, 421, 422, 424, 474, 475, 494, 571, 572, 580, 610, 626, 659,

661, 699, 733, 875, 877; Allied assistance in, to Soviet Union, 75, 77; automotive production during, 562; automotive transportation during, 562; beginning of, 73; church used

in, to arouse patriotism, 198-99; Crimean

Tatars exiled during, 176; depletion of male

population in, 226; deportation of nationalities during, 196; diplomatic recognition of

Soviet Union during, 412; domestic policies changed to increase support for, 75, 198-99;

early Soviet losses in, 74; effect of, on population, 118-19; effect of Stalin's purges on

success in, 84, 699, 759; friction among Allies in, 77; German victories in, 75; inland navigation in, 566-67; Internal Troops in,

794; maritime fleet in, 566-67; military political relations after, 729; patriotic films on, 384; recovery from, 451; Red Army in, lviii; role of Internal Troops in, 723; role of rail- road in, 550-52; science and technology during, 626-27; Soviet deaths in, lviii, 77, 699; Soviet civil aviation in, 577; Soviet lack of preparation for, 74; Soviet material losses in, 77-78; Soviet strategy in, 672; Soviet trade

during, 593; Soviet victory at Stalingrad, 75; Soviet victory in, 75; use of German tech- nology during, 643; trade boycott of Soviet Union after, 601; and transfer of industry

to Asian part of Soviet Union, 487, 490

Yakut Autonomous Republic, 529 Yakut Basin, 509

Yakutiya, 558, 567, 611 Yakuts, 184 Yakutsk, 110, 112 Yalta Conference, 77 Yamal Peninsula, 507, 558 Yamburg, 507, 558 Yanov, Alexander, 310

Yaroslavl', 12

Yeltsin, Boris N. : action by, after coup of 1991

,

lxxx; career of, lxviii; opposition by, to coup,

lxxix; ouster of, as Moscow party chief, 764-

65; political agenda of, lxviii; popularity of,

lxviii; resignation by, from CPSU, lxviii Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen), 432;

Soviet arms bought by, 614

Yenisey River, 18, 104, 109, 122, 167, 526, 567 Yerevan, 115, 154, 202

Yiddish, 180, 201 Young Octobrists, 229, 230, 246 Young Turks, 157 youth organizations: activities of, 246; descrip- tion of, 229-30; Komsomol, 229, 230, 246;

Pioneers, 229, 230, 246; purpose of, 246; Young Octobrists, 229, 230, 246

Yugoslavia, 80, 86, 407, 414, 424, 878, 884;

Soviet trade with, 591, 603-4; ties to Comecon, 603, 855

Zalygin, Sergei, 388 Zambia, 438

zampolit (deputy commander for political af- fairs), 748, 877; power of, 733; responsibilities of, 731-32 Zankov, Leonid V., 249 Zaporozhye, 497, 501 Za rubezhom (Abroad), 381

zemskii sobor (national assembly), 15 zemstvos, 34, 35, 36, 45, 46, 50 Zeravshan River, 527

zero option, 416-17 Zeya River Valley, 529 1064
Index

Zhdanov, 501 Zhdanov, Andrei, 78, 81 Zhdanovshchina, 78 Zheng Toubin, 604

Zhilin, Pavel A., 617

Zhivkov, Todor, 892

Zhukov (Marshal), 82, 84 Zimbabwe, 438, 616

Zinov'ev, Grigorii V., 65, 66, 180; accused of murdering Kirov, 70; in show trials, 70 Zionism, 201 Zukov, Georgii K., 729

1065

Published Country Studies

(Area Handbook Series)

550-65 Afghanistan 550-87 Greece 550-98 Albania 550-78 Guatemala

550-44 Algeria 550-174 Guinea

550-59 Angola 550-82 Guyana and Belize 550-73 Argentina 550-151 Honduras

550-169 Australia 550-165 Hungary

550-176 Austria 550-21 India 550-175 Bangladesh 550-154 Indian Ocean

550-170 Belgium 550-39 Indonesia 550-66 Bolivia 550-68 Iran 550-20 Brazil 550-31 Iraq 550-168 Bulgaria 550-25 Israel 550-61 Burma 550-182 Italy 550-50 Cambodia 550-30 Japan

550-166 Cameroon 550-34 Jordan

550-159 Chad 550-56 Kenya

550-77 Chile 550-81 Korea, North

550-60 China 550-41 Korea, South 550-26 Colombia 550-58 Laos 550-33 Commonwealth Caribbean, 550-24 Lebanon

Islands of the 550-91 Congo 550-38 Liberia 550-90 Costa Rica 550-85 Libya

550-69 Cote d Ivoire (Ivory Coast) 550-172 Malawi

550-152 Cuba 550-45 Malaysia 550-22 Cyprus 550-161 Mauritania 550-158 Czechoslovakia 550-79 Mexico

550-36 Dominican Republic and 550-76 Mongolia

Haiti 550-52 Ecuador 550-49 Morocco

550-43 Egypt 550-64 Mozambique

550-150 El Salvador 550-35 Nepal and Bhutan

550-28 Ethiopia 550-88 Nicaragua 550-167 Finland 550-157 Nigeria 550-155 Germany, East 550-94 Oceania

550-173 Germany, Fed. Rep. of 550-48 Pakistan 550-153 Ghana 550-46 Panama

T 1067
550-156 Paraguay 550-53 Thailand 550-185 Persian Gulf States 550-89 Tunisia 550-42 Peru 550-80 Turkey

550-72 Philippines 550-74 Uganda

550-162 Poland 550-97 Uruguay

550-181 Portugal 550-71 Venezuela 550-160 Romania 550-32 Vietnam

550-37 Rwanda and Burundi 550-183 Yemens, The

550-51 Saudi Arabia 550-99 Yugoslavia 550-70 Senegal 550-67 Zaire 550-180 Sierra Leone 550-75 Zambia

550-184 Singapore 550-171 Zimbabwe

550-86 Somalia 550-93 South Africa 550-95 Soviet Union

550-179 Spain 550-96 Sri Lanka

550-27 Sudan

550-47 Syria 550-62 Tanzania

1068



PIN: 006946-000