Russia

by Philip Longworth

  26. On conditions for ordinary people, methods of coping and prevailing optimism in the 1930s, see S. Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism (Oxford, 1999), p. 75 and passim; on support for the transformation in society, p. 224. For a critical view of Fitzpatrick’s new approach to the Stalinist years, see M. Malia, ‘Revolution fulfilled’, TLS, 15 June 2001, pp. 3-4.

  27. Chamberlin, Russia’s Iron Age, p. 49.

  28. Ibid., pp. 52-3.

  29. R. Conquest, The Great Terror (London, 1968).

  30. Quoted in M. Lewin, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power (London, 1968), p. 516.

  31. See V. Zhiromskaia, ‘Chislennost’ naseleniia Rossii v I939g.: poisk istiny’, in Poliakov et al., eds., Naselenie Rossii v 1920-1950-e gody, pp. 27—47; Chamberlin, Russia’s Iron Age, pp. 364-6.

  32. J. Erickson, Stalin’s War with Germany, vol. 1: The Road to Stalingrad (London, 1998), pp. 63-4.

  33. See ibid., ch. 1.

  34. On the Khalkin-Gol campaign see J. Erickson, The Soviet High Command (London, 1961), pp. 532-57.

  35. Ibid., pp. 542-7.

  36. The point is made by A. J. P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War (London, 1969), pp. 316-19.

  37. Erickson, The Road to Stalingrad, ch. 2.

  38. For good accounts of the early operations, see Erickson’s The Soviet High Command, chs. 17 and 18, and his The Road to Stalingrad, pp. 99—222.

  39. Quoted in Erickson, The Road to Stalingrad, p. 5.

  40. Ibid., p. 235.

  41. C. Andrew and V. Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West (London, 2000), p. 135.

  42. Ibid., p. 433.

  43. J. Erickson, Stalin’s War with Germany, vol. 2: The Road to Berlin (New Haven, 1999), pp. 45-6.

  44. Ibid., ch. 3, esp. p. 135.

  45. Longworth, The Cossacks, pp. 329-39.

  13: THE HIGH TIDE OF SOVIET IMPERIALISM

  1. For details of the operation see J. Erickson, The Road to Berlin, pp. 139-42, and passim for subsequent operations.

  2. Quoted in J. Haslam, Vices of Integrity (London, 1999), p. 107.

  3. J. Mackintosh, Strategy and Tactics of Soviet Foreign Policy (London, 1962), p. 10.

  4. M. Djilas, Conversations with Stalin (Harmondsworth, 1969), p. 90.

  5. O. Gordievsky claims that the Germans lost 9 million men in the fighting on all fronts, whereas the Soviet Union lost between 20 and 30 million on its western front alone - see his letter in the TLS, 4 May 2001.

  6. Primo Levi, The Voice of Memory: Interviews 1961-1087, ed. M. Belpoliti, trans. R. Gordon (New York, 2001), p. 52.

  7. For a concise account of the circumstances at the conclusion of the war and events up to the onset of the Cold War, see P. Longworth, The Making of Eastern Europe (2nd edn, London, 1997), pp. 69-82 and nn. 1-13, pp. 92-3.

  8. O. Jaszi, ‘The economic crisis in the Danubian states’, Social Research (New York, New School of Social Research), 2 (1935), 98-116. The extract quoted is on p. 116.

  9. See Longworth, The Making of Eastern Europe, pp. 80—81.

  10. M. Perrie, The Image of Ivan the Terrible in Russian Folklore (Cambridge, 1987), p. 117.

  11. Personal communication from the daughter.

  12. R. Slusser and J. Triska, Calendar of Soviet Treaties (Stanford, 1959), pp. 304, 323. The work gives an impression of intense diplomatic activity round the world in the post-war years.

  13. Mackintosh, Strategy and Tactics of Soviet Foreign Policy, pp. 130-32.

  14. Ibid., pp. 205ff.

  15. Pravda, 28 January 1959.

  16. Service, Twentieth-Century Russia, p. 351.

  17. See Bugai, N., ‘Pravda o deportatsii chechenskogoï ingushetskogo narodor’ [The Truth about the Deportation of the Chechen and Ingush Peoples], Voprosy istorii, 7 (1990), pp. 32-44.

  18. Kappeler, Russland als Vielvölkerreich, pp. 310-12.

  19. V. Kabuzan, Russkie v mire: dinamika, chislennost’ i rasselenniia 1710-1080 (St Petersburg, 1996), p. 271.

  20. Grossman, ‘The industrialization of Russia’.

  21. Olcott, The Kazakhs, pp. 238-40.

  22. Armstrong, Russian Settlement in the North, p. 170.

  23. Kabuzan, Russkie v mire, p. 274.

  24. Kappeler, Russland als Vielvölkerreich, p. 313.

  25. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, pp. 651-5.

  26. Longworth, The Making of Eastern Europe, pp. 51—2 passim and n. 12, p. 66.

  27. M. Sicker, The Strategy of Soviet Imperialism (New York, 1988), p. 13.

  28. The standard source for this is M. Kaser, COMECON (London, 1967); see also his (ed.) The Economic History of Eastern Europe (3 vols., Oxford, 1986).

  29. Service, Twentieth-Century Russia, p. 388.

  30. Sicker, The Strategy of Soviet Imperialism, pp. 145-7.

  31. Ibid., p. 69; Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, pp. 508-11.

  32. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, pp. 149—77, passim. For a Russian account of these activities based on archives preserved by the Association of Veterans of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, see Ocherk istorii rossiiskoi vneshnei razvedki, vol. 6: 1945-1965 (Moscow, 2003).

  33. A. Reid, The Shaman’s Coat: A Native History of Siberia (London, 2002), pp. 133 passim; 160-61.

  14: AUTOPSY ON A DECEASED EMPIRE

  1. See Tuminez, Russian Nationalism since 1836, p. 42. As she points out, this policy of ‘rooting’ (korenizatsiia) also encouraged nepotism, cronyism, corruption and the creation of virtual fiefdoms, but then nationalism has always been used as a means of accessing political power and economic advantage.

  2. V. Shlapentokh, ‘A normal system? False and true explanations for the collapse of the USSR’, TLS, 15 December 2000, pp. 11-13. The author herself conducted several of the surveys referred to.

  3. Boris Aristov to Moscow, 18 October 1978, quoted in Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, p. 666.

  4. Described by a sociologist involved - T. Zaslavakaia, ‘Novosibirsk report’, Survey, 28, 1 (1984), 88-108.

  5. I have described the processes of collapse before in the context of the Soviet Bloc states themselves - Longworth, The Making of Eastern Europe, ch. 1, especially pp. 11ff.

  6. It was reported that Soviet scientists eventually concluded that a mirror system fitted to their missiles could divert missiles sent against them. In practice it was unnecessary for all Soviet missiles to get through: the prospect of only two or three of them succeeding in destroying as many large American cities would have constituted an effective deterrent (and the fear of one reaching its target might have been enough). Meanwhile the cost of the arms race, some scholars argue, contributed to the destabilization. For an interesting account of Soviet science and references to some useful literature on the subject, see Y. Rabkin and E. Mirskaia, ‘Science and scientists in the post-Soviet disunion’, Social Science Information, 32, 4 (1993), 553—79.

  7. In retrospect this turned out to be the best opportunity to create a genuine democracy that was to be offered, but at that moment it was too radical even for Gorbachev, and the chance was missed - cf. Archie Brown’s lecture at the School of Slavonic Studies, London, 1 March 2004.

  8. The author’s observation. He was in Moscow and Kiev at the time.

  9. See Service, Twentieth-Century Russia, pp. 445—6.

  10. Quoted by David Remnick reviewing F. Chuyev’s interviews with Molotov and Ligachev’s autobiography in New York Review, 25 March 1993, pp. 33-8.

  11. From this point on the text reflects BBC transcripts of broadcasts from the Soviet Union and the Bloc countries, SU/0472 i etc. and EE/0457 etc.

  12. Gorbachev, 28 March 1989, BBC, SU 0419 i.

  13. Gorbachev, 18 July 1989, BBC, SU/0515 C1/1-4, 22 July 1989.

  14. BBC, SU/0527 i and 0536 i.

  15. BBC, SU/0528 c1/1-6/.

  16. I have told the story before in Longworth, The Making of Eastern Europe, pp. 12-15.

  17. Interview of 25 February 1991 rep
orted in the press.

  18. Private communication confirmed by another eyewitness.

  19. See A. Stent, Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, the Soviet Collapse and the New Europe (Princeton, 1999), esp. pp. 11ff.

  20. The point is suggested by M. Malia, ‘The August revolution’, NewYork Review, 26 September 1991, pp. 22—6. The account of the coup which follows also draws on this source, though the interpretation of events is mine,.

  21. Service, Twentieth-Century Russia, p. 495. Service provides an account of the last days of the old regime which is sympathetic to Gorbachev.

  22. For a useful summary of the economic decline and the political collapse consequent upon it, see the Quarterly Reports issued by The Economist’s Intelligence Research Unit for 1990 and 1991.

  23. Tuminez, Russian Nationalism since 1856, pp. 239, 241.

  24. See A. Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (Oxford, 1996).

  15: REINVENTING RUSSIA

  1. Stent, Russia and Germany Reborn, p. 211.

  2. J. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents (London, 2002), p. 56. Generally on the reforms see R. Service, Russia: Experiment with a People (London, 2002), ch. 9.

  3. The Times, 18 July 2001, p. 20.

  4. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, p. 139.

  5. S. Cohen, Failed Crusade. America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia (New York, 2000), p. 150.

  6. P. Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin (New York, 2000), is informative on the subject, particularly the links with the ‘Chechen mob’. The author was subsequently murdered.

  7. J. Nell and K. Stewart, Death in Transition: The Rise in the Death Rate in Russia since 1992, UNICEF Occasional Papers: Economic Policy Series, no. 45 (Florence, 1994), pp. 36, table 22, pp. 20, v, 12-13.

  8. B. Kagarlitsky, Restoration in Russia: Why Capitalism Failed, trans. R. Clarke (London, 1995), p. 24.

  9. R. Medvedev, Post-Soviet Russia (New York, 2000).

  10. Service, Russia: Experiment with a People, p. 107.

  11. See Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin, pp. 200-210 passim.

  12. Ibid., pp. 135, 325.

  13. Personal observation.

  14. Service, Russia: Experiment with a People, p. 156 and passim. On the connections with organized crime, its abetters among Russian officials, and with Boris Berezovskii see also Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin, pp. 40—2.

  15. For an account of the war see A. Lieven, Chechnya’Tombstone of Russian Power (New Haven, 1998).

  16. Rossiia v tsifrakh (Moscow, 1997), p. 262; Financial Times, 18 December 1996 and 22 and 24 January 1997.

  17. G. Smith, ed., State-Building in Russia: The Yeltsin Legacy and the Challenge of the Future (New York, 1995), pp. 217-25.

  18. See G. Derluguian, ‘Che Guevaras in turbans’, New Left Review, 237 (September/October 1999), 3-27.

  19. Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin, p. 265.

  20. For a full account of the election and the means by which it was won based on the researches of an able journalist, see ibid., ch. 8.

  21. The lower estimate is cited by Service, Russia: Experiment with a People, p. 156, the higher by Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin.

  22. For reports on the Latvian issue, see Reuters reports, 9 March 1998. More generally, see J. Taylor in Atlantic Monthly, February 2002, pp. 69ff.

  23. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, p. 145 et seq.

  24. Kagarlitsky, Restoration in Russia, p. 58.

  25. The Swiss government was to issue a warrant for Borodin’s arrest on charges of money-laundering late the following year.

  26. Cohen, Failed Crusade, pp. 136, 141.

  27. B. Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries (London, 2000), p. 266.

  28. Derluguian, ‘Che Guevaras in turbans’.

  29. V. Putin, ‘Russia at the Turn of the Millennium’, has been translated as an appendix (pp. 209—19) to N. Gevorkian, N. Timakova, A. Kolesnikov [and V. Putin], First Person, trans. G. Fitzpatrick (London, 2000); see also L. Shvetsova, Putin’s Russia (New York, 2003), and Tuminez, Russian Nationalism since 1836, pp. 297-8.

  30. B. Lo, Russian Foreign Policy in the Post-Soviet Era (Basingstoke, 2002), pp. 157-67.

  31. O. Skrypnyk on the Senkus web site. Most other unreferenced sources in this chapter are from the press, particularly the Financial Times.

  32. See the World Bank’s report From Transition to Development (New York, 2004).

  33. See S. Kotkin, Financial Times Magazine, 6 March 2004, p. 19.

  34. For an interesting, not unsympathetic, article on Khodorkovskii see C. Freeland in Financial Times Magazine, 1 November 2003, pp. 17—22. The business is still violent, however. The death of a London lawyer who headed Yukos’s holding company in an unexplained helicopter crash in March 2004 has been attributed to his reported willingness to co-operate with the prosecution - see Private Eye, 1102 (19 March 2004), 28.

  35. For an example, see Freeland, Financial Times Magazine, 1 November 2003, pp. 17-22.

  36. Lo, Russian Foreign Policy, p. 125.

  CONCLUSION

  1. Presniakov, The Formation of the Great Russian State, p. 381.

  2. Against undertakings given by Washington and Bonn at the time, and against the advice of George Kennan, Paul Nitze and others — see Stent, Russia and Germany Reborn, p. 221.

  3. Russian census statistics posted on UN website, 9 June 2004, p. 3.

  4. As reported by J. Page in The Times, 27 May 2004, p. 50.

  5. M. Walker in World Policy Journal, 11, 1 (1994), 1.

  6. I. Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy: Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge 1998), p. 272.

  7. Personal communicaton of Dr V. Zhiromskaia at ELTE seminar, Budapest, May 2004.

  8. R. Allison, ‘Regionalism, regional structures and security management in Central Asia’, International Affairs, 80, 3 (May 2004), 463-83.

  9. A. Bohr, ‘Regionalism in Central Asia: New geopolitics, old regional order’, International Affairs, 80, 3 (May 2004), 485-502.

  10. B. Lo, ‘The long sunset of strategic partnership: Russia’s evolving China policy’, International Affairs, 80, 2 (March 2004), 295-309.

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