Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  The 1917 revolution posed serious problems for the former Imperial Theaters, and not least to the ballet, which was widely perceived as the bauble of the nation’s theater bureaucracy and former rulers. Nonetheless, the foment that surrounded attempts to revolutionize Russian theater in the years following the October Revolution had limited impact on the ballet. With most important Russian

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  choreographers, dancers, and pedagogues already working outside of Russia in the 1920s (Fokine, George Balanchine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Bronislava Ni-jinska, Anna Pavlova, and Tamara Karsavina, to name a few), experimentation in the young Soviet ballet was borne of necessity.

  The October Revolution and the subsequent shift of power, both political and cultural, to Moscow, led to the emergence of Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet. The company that had long occupied a distinct second place to the Petersburg troupe now took center stage-a position it would hold until the breakup of the Soviet Union. The creative leadership of the company had traditionally been imported from Petersburg, but in the Soviet period, so would many of its star dancers (Marina Semy-onova, Galina Ulanova).

  A new genre of realistic ballets was born in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and dominated Soviet dance theater well into the 1950s. The drambalet, shorthand for dramatic ballet, reconciled the ballet’s tendency to abstraction (and resulting lack of ideological content) to the new need for easily understandable narrative. The creative impotence of Soviet ballet in the post-Stalin era reflected the general malaise of the so-called period of stagnation of the Brezhnev years. When Russian companies dramatically increased the pace of moneymaking Western tours in the 1980s, it became clear that the treasure-chest of Russian classic ballets had long ago been plundered, with little new choreography of interest to refill it. As the history of the two companies would suggest, the loss of Soviet power resulted in the speedy demotion of the Moscow troupe and the rise of a post-Soviet Petersburg ballet. See also: BOLSHOI THEATER; DIAGILEV, SERGEI PAVL-OVICH; NIJINSKY, VASLAV FOMICH; PAVLOVA, ANNA MATVEYEVNA

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Roslavleva, Natalia. (1956). Era of the Russian Ballet. London: Gollancz. Scholl, Tim. (1994). From Petipa to Balanchine: Classical Revival and the Modernization of Ballet. London: Routledge. Slonimsky, Yuri. (1960). The Bolshoi Ballet: Notes. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. Souritz, Elizabeth. (1990). Soviet Choreographers in the 1920s, tr. Lynn Visson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Swift, Mary Grace. (1968). The Art of the Dance in the USSR. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Wiley, Roland John, ed. and tr. (1990). A Century of Russian Ballet: Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, 1810-1910. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  TIM SCHOLL

  BALTIC FLEET

  The Baltic Fleet, which controls the Kronstadt and Baltiysk naval bases, is headquartered in Kaliningrad Oblast (formerly called K?nigsberg), a region that once formed part of East Prussia. Today Kaliningrad is a Russian enclave completely cut off from the rest of Russia by Lithuania and Poland (now a NATO member). Thus, although the fleet is defended by a naval infantry brigade, its location is potentially the most vulnerable of the major Russian naval fleets. While the Baltiysk naval base is located on Kaliningrad’s Baltic Sea coast to the west, the Kronstadt base is situated on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland, about 29 kilometers (18 miles) northwest of St. Petersburg. The naval base occupies one half of the island, which is about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) long and 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) wide. Mutinies at Kronstadt took place in 1825 and 1882 and played a part in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. In March 1921, a revolt of the sailors, steadfastly loyal to the Bolsheviks during the revolution, precipitated Vladimir Lenin’s New Economic Policy. Kronstadt sailors also played a major role in World War II in the defense of St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) against the Germans.

  When the Soviet Union collapsed, the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania deprived the new Russian state of key bases on the Baltic Sea. The 15,000-square-kilometer (5,800-square-mile) Kaliningrad Oblast between Poland and Lithuania remained as the fleet’s only ice-free naval outlet to the Baltic Sea. One of the first steps taken in the late 1990s to reform the Baltic Fleet was to incorporate air defense units into the Baltic Fleet structure. A second step was to restructure ground and coastal troops on the Baltic Fleet units. As of 2000, these forces consisted of the Moscow-Minsk Proletarian Division, a Marine Brigade, Coastal Rocket Units, and a number of bases at which arms and equipment were kept. The Baltic Fleet did not include any strategic-missile submarines, but as of mid-1997 it included thirty-two major surface

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  combatants (three cruisers, three destroyers, and twenty-six frigates), more than 230 other surface vessels, roughly two hundred naval aircraft, nine tactical submarines, and a brigade of naval infantry.

  As of mid-2000 the Baltic Fleet included about one humdred combat ships of various types, and the fleet’s Sea Aviation Group units were equipped with a total of 112 aircraft. Operational forces as of 1996 included nine submarines, twenty-three principal surface combatants (three cruisers, two destroyers, and eighteen frigates), and approximately sixty-five smaller vessels. The Baltic Fleet included one brigade of naval infantry and two regiments of coastal defense artillery. The air arm of the Baltic Fleet included 195 combat aircraft organized into five regiments and a number of other fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. Generally, armed forces comparable in size to the entire Polish army have been stationed in Kaliningrad Oblast.

  In 1993 pressure for autonomy from the Russian Federation increased. Seventy-eight percent of the population (about 900,000) is Russian. Some claimed that, although K?nigsberg was awarded to the Soviet Union under the Potsdam Accord in 1945, the Russian Federation held no legal title to the enclave. Polish critics and others claimed that the garrison should be reduced to a level of reasonable sufficiency. Since Poland was admitted to NATO in 1999, however, Russian nationalists have argued that Kaliningrad is a vital outpost at a time when Russia is menaced by Poland or even Lithuania, if that country is also admitted to NATO. See also: KRONSTADT UPRISING; MILITARY, POST-SOVIET

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Getzler, Israel. (2002). Kronstadt 1917-1921: The Fate of a Soviet Democracy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hathaway, Jane. (2001). Rebellion, Repression, Reinvention: Mutiny in Comparative Perspective. Westport, CT: Praeger. Hughes, Lindsey. (2001). Peter the Great and the West: New Perspectives. New York: Palgrave. Kipp, Jacob W. (1998). Confronting the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office. Saul, Norman E. (1978). Sailors in Revolt: The Russian Baltic Fleet in 1917. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas.

  JOHANNA GRANVILLE

  BANKING SYSTEM, SOVIET

  In the Soviet economy, the role of money was basically passive: Planning was primarily in physical quantities. Therefore, the banking system lacked most of the tasks it has in market economy.

  Money circulation was strictly divided into two separate spheres. Households lived in a cash economy, facing mostly fixed-price markets for consumer goods and labor. Inside the state sector, enterprises could legally use only noncash, monetary transfers through a banking system closely controlled by the planners, for transactions with other enterprises. Wages were paid out by a bank representative, and retail outlets were tightly supervised.

  The banking system basically consisted of a single state bank (Gosbank), which combined the roles of a central bank and a commercial bank. Such an arrangement is often called a monobank. Gos-bank had no autonomy, but was basically a financial control agency under the Council of Ministers. As a central bank, Gosbank created narrow money (cash in circulation outside the state sector) by authorizing companies to pay wages in accordance with accepted wage bills. If government expenditure exceeded government revenue, and sufficient household savings were not available to cover the budget deficit, state sector wage bills still had to be paid, which would cont
ribute to imbalance in the consumer goods markets. This was probably the case at least toward the end of the Soviet period, though the relation between the state budget, Gosbank, and money supply was among the best-kept secrets in the USSR. Gosbank also managed the currency reserves of the country.

  As a commercial bank, Gosbank issued short-term credit to enterprises for working capital. Household savings were first kept by a formally separate Savings Bank, which was incorporated into the Gosbank in 1963. Household savings were an important source of finance for the state. Gos-bank also controlled Stroibank, the bank for financing state investment, and Vneshekonombank, the bank for foreign trade. There were also several Soviet-owned banks abroad. In the perestroika period, the number of specialized formally independent banks increased, but no competition between them was allowed. The emergence of cooperative banks in 1988 and afterward had a key role in the informal privatization of the Soviet economy and the emergence of a market-based banking system.

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  The key role of the Soviet banking system was in controlling plan fulfillment. The financial plan was an essential component of enterprise planning. All legal inter-enterprise payments had to go through Gosbank, which only authorized payments that were supported by a relevant plan document. Thus the banking system was primarily a control agency. This also meant that money was not a binding constraint on enterprises: Any plan-based transactions were authorized by Gosbank. The banking system thus facilitated a soft budget constraint to enterprises: The availability of finance did not constrain production or investment. See also: GOSBANK; STROIBANK

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Garvy, George. (1977). Money, Financial Flows, and Credit in the USSR. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Johnson, Juliet. (2000). A Fistful of Rubles: The Rise and Fall of the Russian Banking System. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Zwass, Adam. (1979). Money, Banking, and Credit in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. White Plains, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

  PEKKA SUTELA

  BANKING SYSTEM, TSARIST

  From the time of Emancipation onward, Russian banks developed into the most important financial intermediaries of the empire. They performed the classic banking functions of collecting savings from the population and allocating loans to creditworthy borrowers. Initially Russian banks reflected the backwardness of the economy and society in many ways. The economy was still predominantly rural, and mining and manufacturing enterprises competed for resources with the government’s needs for war finance and infrastructure and the nobility’s hunger for loans. Commercial honesty was often unreliable, and therefore bankers had to be cautious in making loans to strangers, even for the short term.

  Russian banks were more specialized than banks elsewhere. At the center was the State Bank (Gosudarstvenny Bank), established in 1860 to replace the more primitive State Commercial Bank (founded in 1817) and informal arrangements among merchants and industrialists. It stabilized the ruble’s foreign exchange value, issued paper currency, and accepted deposits from the treasury, whose tax sources were mostly seasonal. Because the government remained in deficit through the 1880s, in spite of the efforts of Finance Minister Mikhail von Reutern, the State Bank also accommodated the treasury with loans of cash. The State Bank helped further Russian interests in China and Persia. As time went on, it served as lender of last resort of the emerging private banks. When they experienced illiquidity as a result of unexpected withdrawals, the State Bank discounted their notes and securities so the private bankers could pay depositors. Such episodes were common during the recession of 1900-1902. Besides these central banking functions, the State Bank did some ordinary lending, discreetly favoring government projects such as railroad lines, ports, and grain elevators, as well as some private engineering, textile, and sugar ventures. For instance, the State Bank bought shares of the Baltic Ironworks on the premise that such firms, albeit private, had state significance.

  The tsar’s government also sponsored Savings Banks, which were frequently attached to post offices. These institutions expanded their urban branches during the 1860s and their rural outposts two decades later. They accepted interest-bearing accounts from small savers and invested in mortgages or government loans, notably for railroads.

  Most Russian lending up to 1914 was backed by land mortgages, the most secure collateral at this time of rising land prices. Both the Peasants’ Land Bank (founded 1882-1883) and the Nobility Bank (1885) made such loans to the rural classes by issuing bonds to the public with government guarantees of their interest payments. In addition to these banks, a large number of credit cooperatives made small loans to peasants and artisans.

  Private commercial banks were the last to emerge in Russia. The founders of the main Moscow banks were textile manufacturers, while the directors of the St. Petersburg banks were often retired officials, financiers, or rich landowners. By 1875 there were thirty banks in St. Petersburg and Moscow; by 1914 the capital had 567 banks and Moscow had 153. In 1875 the five major banks had total assets of only 247 million rubles; by 1914 they would increase that figure nearly tenfold. Like all other Russian banks, private and joint-stock banks were subject to strict regulation by the Ministry of Finance, but after 1894 statutes were liberalized, and state funds were put at their disposal. Dealing at first with short-term commercial paper

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  for business working capital, they gradually began to lend for mortgages on urban land and industrial projects. They also offered checking accounts to business customers, thereby reducing transaction costs over this vast empire. With interregional deliveries to make over long distances in difficult conditions, manufacturers might have to wait months for payments from merchants, who themselves had widely separated customers. For all of them short-term credit was crucial, as cash payments were inconvenient.

  Instead of the British-type commercial banks typical of Moscow, which continued to deal in short-term loans, St. Petersburg’s banks increasingly resembled the universal bank model typical of Germany. They helped float securities for urban improvements, mines, and other private enterprises against bonds and other securities as collateral without government guarantees. They also opened accounts secured by preferred shares with first call on dividends for investors who formerly might have demanded only fixed-interest obligations for their portfolios. The largest of the joint-stock banks attracted foreign capital, particularly from France and Belgium, as well as from the State Bank. Some of the larger heavy industrial projects so financed were profitable, like the South Russian Dniepr Metallurgical Company, but many others were over-promoted. According to Olga Crisp’s calculation, based on data from Pavel Vasilievich Ol’, foreigners held 45 percent of the total capital of the ten largest joint-stock banks by 1916.

  As in central Europe, each large bank had special client companies on whose managing boards the bankers sat. They facilitated discounting of the affiliates’ bills and marketing of their common stock. For example, Alexander Putilov, chairman of the famous Russo-Asiatic Bank, was also head of the Putilov engineering company, the historically famous Lena Goldfields Company, the Nikolayev Shipbuilding Company, and the Moscow-Kazan railways, and director of at least three petroleum companies. About 80 percent of the Russo-Asiatic Bank’s equity capital was French-owned. The Azov-Don Bank, based in St. Petersburg after 1903, was heavily involved in coal, sugar, cement, and steel enterprises. The International Bank, heavily involved in shipbuilding, was 40 percent German-owned. Occasionally these banks helped reorganize and recapitalize failing enterprises, thus extending their ownership control.

  While demand for credit from private businessmen increased during the 1890s, the great efflorescence of tsarist banking came with the boom following the war and revolutions of 1904 to 1906. By 1913 there were more than one thousand private and joint-stock banks in the country, still mostly in the capitals, Warsaw, Odessa, and Baku. Securities held by the Russian public more than tripled between 1907 and World War I. Lending was
increasingly for heavy industry and the highly profitable consumer goods industries, although the latter could often rely on retained profits. The role of the government thus declined as the main organ of capital accumulation to be replaced by the banks, as Alexander Gerschenkron has remarked.

  As happened elsewhere, the Russian banks became somewhat more concentrated. In 1900 the six biggest commercial banks controlled 47 percent of deposits and other liabilities. By 1913 that share had risen to 55 percent. Marxists such as Vladimir Lenin believed concentration of finance capital, and these big capitalists’ underwriting of the cartels, would bring on revolution. It seems highly doubtful that this would have happened in absence of war, however. In any case, all the tsarist banks were nationalized by the Bolsheviks in 1917. See also: ECONOMY, TSARIST; FOREIGN TRADE; INDUSTRIALIZATION

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Crisp, Olga. (1976). Studies in the Russian Economy before 1914. London: Macmillan. Falkus, M. E. (1972). The Industrialization of Russia,

  1700-1914. London: Papermac. Gatrell, Peter. (1986). The Tsarist Economy, 1850-1917.

  New York: St. Martin’s. Gerschenkron, Alexander. (1962). Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kahan, Arcadius. (1989). Russian Economic History, ed. Roger Weiss. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kaser, Michael C. (1978). “Russian Entrepreneurship.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. VII: The Industrial Economies, Capital, Labour, and Enterprise, Part 2, The United States, Japan, and Russia, eds. Peter Mathias and M. M. Postan. London: Cambridge University Press.