Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  of a nuclear freeze movement induced the Reagan administration to reconsider its earlier aversion to nuclear arms control. Although political uncertainty in Moscow in the first half of the 1980s made it difficult to resume arms control talks or to diminish bilateral tensions, the Reagan administration was far more intent on pursuing arms control by the mid-1980s than it had been earlier.

  This change of heart in Washington, while important, was almost inconsequential compared to the extraordinary developments in Moscow in the latter half of the 1980s. The rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in March 1985 was soon followed by broad political reforms and a gradual reassessment of the basic premises of Soviet foreign policy. Over time, the new thinking in Soviet foreign policy became more radical. The test of Gorbachev’s approach came in 1989, when peaceful transformations in Poland and Hungary brought noncommunist rulers to power. Gorbachev not only tolerated, but actively encouraged this development. The orthodox communist regimes in East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania did their best to stave off the tide of reform, but a series of upheavals in October-December 1989 brought the downfall of the four orthodox regimes.

  The remarkable series of events following Gorbachev’s ascendance, culminating in the largely peaceful revolutions of 1989, marked the true end of the Cold War. Soviet military power was still enormous in 1989, and in that sense the Soviet Union was still a superpower alongside the United States. However, Gorbachev and his aides did away with the other condition that was needed to sustain the Cold War: the ideological divide. By reassessing, recasting, and ultimately abandoning the core precepts of Marxism-Leninism, Gorbachev and his aides enabled changes to occur in Europe that eviscerated the Cold War structure. The Soviet leader’s decision to accept and even facilitate the peaceful transformation of Eastern Europe undid Stalin’s pernicious legacy. See also: ARMS CONTROL; CHINA, RELATIONS WITH; CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS; D?TENTE; KHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH; KOREAN WAR; STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH; UNITED STATES, RELATIONS WITH Cohen Warren I., and Tucker, Nancy Bernkopf, eds. (1994). Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World: American Foreign Policy, 1963-1968. New York: Cambridge University Press. Cold War International History Project Bulletin (1992-). Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Fursenko, Aleksandr, and Naftali, Timothy. (1997). “One Hell of a Gamble”: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964. New York: Norton. Gaddis, John Lewis. (1972). The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947. New York: Columbia University Press. Gaddis, John Lewis. (1982). Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy. New York: Oxford University Press. Haynes, John Earl Haynes, and Klehr, Harvey. (1999). Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hogan, Michael J. (1998). A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State. New York: Cambridge University Press. Holloway, David. (1994). Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Journal of Cold War Studies (quarterly, 1999-). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Leffler, Melvyn P. (1992). A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Naimark, Norman, and Gibianskii, Leonid, eds. (1997). The Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Schmidt, Gust?v, ed. (2001). A History of NATO: The First Fifty Years, 3 vols. New York: Palgrave. Stokes, Gale. (1993). The Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. New York: Oxford University Press. Taubman, William C. (2003). Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. New York: Norton. Thornton, Richard C. (2001). The Nixon-Kissinger Years: Reshaping America’s Foreign Policy, rev. ed. St. Paul: Paragon House.

  MARK KRAMER

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Andrew, Christopher M., and Mitrokhin, Vasili. (1999). The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. New York: Basic Books.

  COLLECTIVE FARM

  The collective farm (kolkhoz) was introduced in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s by Josef Stalin, who was implementing the controversial process

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  COLLECTIVE FARM

  Combine harvesters at Urozhai Collective Farm in Bashkortosan. © TASS/SOVFOTO of collectivization. The collective farm, along with the state farm (sovkhoz) and the private subsidiary sector, were the basic organizational arrangements for Soviet agricultural production, and survived, albeit with changes, through the end of the Soviet era.

  The concept of a collective or cooperative model for the organization of production did not originate in the Soviet Union. However, during the 1920s there was discussion of and experimentation with varying approaches to cooperative farming differing largely in the nature of membership, the form of organization, and the internal rules governing production and distribution.

  In theory, the collective farm was a cooperative (the kolkhoz charter was introduced in 1935) based upon what was termed “kolkhoz-cooperative” property, ideologically inferior to state property used in the sovkhoz. Entry into and exit from a kolkhoz was theoretically voluntary, though in fact the process of collectivization was forcible, and departure all but impossible. Decision making (notably election of the chair) was to be conducted through participation of the collective farm members. Participants (peasants) were to be rewarded with a residual share of net income rather than a contractual wage. In practice, the collective farm differed significantly from these principles. The dominant framework for decision making was a party-approved chair, and discussion in collective farm meetings was perfunctory. Party control was sustained by the local party organization through the nomenklatura (appointment) system and also through the discipline of the Machine Tractors Stations (MTS). Payment to peasants on the collective farm was made according to the labor day unit (tru-doden), which was divided into the residual after the state extracted compulsory deliveries of product at low fixed prices. As collective farm members were not entitled to internal passports, their geographical mobility was limited. Unlike the sovkhoz, the kolkhoz was not a budget-financed organization. Accordingly, the state exercised significant power over living levels in the countryside by requiring compulsory deliveries of product. Peasants on collective farms were entitled to hold a limited number of animals and cultivate a small plot of land.

  By the early 1940s there were roughly 235,000 collective farms in existence averaging 3,500 acres

  COLLECTIVIZATION OF AGRICULTURE

  per farm, accounting for some 80 percent of total sown area in agriculture. After World War II a program of amalgamation and also of conversion to state farms was implemented along with a continuing program of agroindustrial integration. As a result, the number of collective farms declined to approximately 27,000 by 1988, with an average size of 22,000 acres, together accounting for 44 percent of sown area. By the end of the 1980s, the differences between kolkhozes and sovkhozes were minimal.

  During the transition era of the 1990s, change in Russian agriculture has been very slow. Collective farms have for the most part been converted to a corporate structure, but operational changes have been few, and a significant land market remains to be achieved. See also: AGRICULTURE; COLLECTIVIZATION OF AGRICULTURE; PEASANT ECONOMY; SOVKHOZ

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Davies, R. W. (1980). The Soviet Collective Farm, 1929-1930. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stuart, R. C. (1972). The Collective Farm in Soviet Agriculture. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.

  ROBERT C. STUART

  contracts. Although the state moved away from the pervasive application of the principle of collective responsibility in the eighteenth century, it was still used in certain situations such as military conscription and collection of delinquent taxes. Even after the Great Reforms, local police officials retained the right to hold large peasant communes collectively responsible for major tax arrears as a measure of last resort. Although theoretically state officials could inventory and sell individual holdings to cover communal ar
rears, in practice this occurred infrequently. In Soviet legal procedures collectives could be called upon to monitor and vouch for their members, and individuals accused of committing minor legal infractions could be handed over to a collective for corrective measures as an alternative to incarceration. See also: GREAT REFORMS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Dewey, Horace W., and Kleimola, Ann M. (1970). “Suretyship and Collective Responsibility in Pre-Petrine Russia.” Jahrb?cher f?r Geschichte Osteuropas 18: 337-354.

  BRIAN BOECK

  COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY

  Collective or mutual responsibility (krugovaia poruka), often reinforced through legal guarantees or surety bonds.

  It is first documented in the medieval period in an expanded version of the Russkaya Pravda that mandated that certain communities would be collectively responsible for apprehending murderers or paying fines to the prince. In the Muscovite period collective responsibility was frequently invoked to make communities collectively responsible for the actions and financial obligations of their members. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, state officials shifted much of the responsibility for apprehending criminals and preempting misdeeds to groups that could monitor and discipline their members. Surety in the form of financial and legal accountability was frequently demanded by the state from groups to insure that their individual members would not shirk legal obligations or responsibilities such as appearing in court, performing services for the state, or meeting the terms of

  COLLECTIVIZATION OF AGRICULTURE

  The introduction of the collective farm (kolkhoz) into the Soviet countryside began in the late 1920s and was substantially completed by the mid-1930s. The collectivization of Soviet agriculture, along with the introduction of state ownership (nationalization) and national economic planning (replacing markets as a mechanism of resource allocation), formed the dominant framework of the Soviet economic system, a set of institutions and related policies that remained in place until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

  Following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Lenin attempted to introduce change in the Soviet agricultural sector, and especially to exert state control, through methods such as the extraction of grain from the rural economy by force (the pro-drazverstka). This was the first attempt under Soviet rule to change both the institutional arrangements governing interaction between the agrarian and industrial sectors (the market) and the terms of trade between the state and the rural economy. The impact of these arrangements resulted in a significant

  COLONIAL EXPANSION

  decline in agricultural output during the period of war communism.

  Following the collapse of war communism, the peasant economy predominated during the New Economic Policy (NEP). The relationship between the rural economy and the urban industrial economy was characterized by alliance (smytchka), although the issue of the rural economy and its role in socialist industrialization remained controversial. Events such as the Scissors Crisis brought these issues to the fore. In addition, the potential contribution of agriculture to the process of economic development was a major issue in the great industrialization debate.

  In 1929 Josef Stalin initiated the process of collectivization, arguing that a “grain crisis” (peasant withholding of grain) could effectively limit the pace of Soviet industrialization. Collectivization was intended to introduce socialist organizational arrangements into the countryside, and to change fundamentally the nature of the relationship between the rural and urban (industrial) sectors of the Soviet economy. Markets were to be eliminated, and state control was to prevail.

  The organizational arrangements in the countryside were fundamentally changed, the relations between the state and the rural economy were altered, and the socialist ideology served as the framework for the decision to collectivize. The process and outcome of collectivization remain controversial to the present time.

  Why has collectivization been so controversial? First, the process of collectivization was forcible and violent, resulting in substantial destruction of physical capital (e.g., animal herds) and the reduction of peasant morale, as peasants resisted the state-driven creation of collective farms. Second, the kolkhoz as an organization incorporated socialist elements into the rural economy. It was also viewed as a mechanism through which state and party power could be used to change the terms of trade in favor of the city, to eliminate markets, and, specifically, to extract grain from the countryside on terms favorable to the state. The collective farm was, in theory, a cooperative form of organization through which the state could extract grain, leaving a residual for peasant consumption. The mechanism of payment for labor, the labor day (trudoden), facilitated this process. Third, peasant resistance to the creation of the collective farms was cast largely within an ideological framework. Thus resistance to collectivization, in whatever form, was blamed largely upon the wealthy peasants (kulaks). Fourth, the institutions and policies resulting from the collectivization process, even with significant modifications over time, have been blamed for the poor record of agricultural performance in the Soviet Union. In addition to the costs associated with the initial means of implementation, the collective farms lacked sufficient means of finance and were unable to provide appropriate incentives to stimulate the necessary growth of agricultural productivity.

  Thus collectivization replaced markets with state controls and, in so doing, used a process and instituted a set of organizational arrangements ultimately deemed to be detrimental to the long-term growth of the agricultural economy in the Soviet Union. See also: AGRICULTURE; COLLECTIVE FARM; ECONOMIC GROWTH, SOVIET; PEASANT ECONOMY; SOVKHOZ

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Davies, R. W. (1980). The Socialist Offensive: The Collectivisation of Soviet Agriculture, 1929-1930. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lewin, Moshe. (1968). Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization. London: Allen amp; Unwin.

  ROBERT C. STUART

  COLONIAL EXPANSION

  In 1300 Moscow was the capital of a very small, undistinguished principality whose destiny was almost certainly beyond anyone’s imaginings at the time: by 1991, it would control more than one-sixth of the earth’s landed surface. This expansion was achieved by many means, ranging from marital alliances and purchase to military conquest and signed treaties.

  Moscow was already in control of a multiracial, multiethnic region in 1300. The primordial inhabitants were Finnic. Much later Balts moved in, and then around 1100 Slavs migrated to the region, some from the south (from Kievan Rus), perhaps the majority from the west, the area of Bohemia. In 1328 the Russian Orthodox Church established its headquarters in Moscow, giving stability to the Moscow principality at crucial junctures and helping legitimize its annexation of other, primarily Eastern Slavic, principalities. Much of the Muscovite expansion was nearly bloodless, as elites

  COLONIAL EXPANSION

  in other principalities chose to join the elite in Moscow over liquidation or marginalization in small principalities. After 1450 Moscow’s rivals became more formidable, especially the Republic of Novgorod in the northwest, with its vast lands in the Russian North (annexed as the result of military campaigns in 1471 and 1478); the eastern entrepot of the Hansa League, at the time perhaps the major fur supplier to much of Eurasia; and Lithuania, the largest state in Europe in the mid-fifteenth century. Moscow unleashed its army against Lithuania and by 1514 had annexed much of its territory (sometimes known as “West Russia”).

  In the mid-sixteenth century Muscovy pursued colonial expansion full force. In 1552 the Tatar Khanate of Kazan was annexed, and in 1556, after a dash down the Volga, the Tatar Khanate of Astrakhan was conquered. Although Muscovy controlled numerous regions from 1300 onward, the annexations of the 1550s converted Muscovy into a truly multinational empire. Both moves were made for security concerns, only marginally (at best) for economic reasons.

  The conquests of Kazan and Astrakhan made it possible for the Russians to move farther east, first into the Urals
, then into Siberia. There the Muscovite expansion began to take on hues resembling Western European colonial expansion into the New World and Asia. A pivotal figure was Ermak Timofeyev syn (i.e., son of the commoner Timofei; had Ermak’s father been of noble origin, then his patronymic would have been Timofee-vich), a cossack ataman who at the end of the 1570s or the beginning of the 1580s (the precise date is unknown) campaigned into Siberia and initiated the destruction of the Tatar Siberian Khanate. Once the Siberian Khanate was annexed, the path was open through Siberia to the Pacific. The Russians garrisoned strategic points and began to collect tribute (primarily in furs, especially sables) from the Siberian natives. Colonial expansion in many parts of the world was not profitable, because administrative costs ate up whatever gains from trade there may have been. In Siberia, however, the opposite has been true for more than four centuries. The conquest, pacification, and continuing administrative costs were low there, while the remittances to Moscow and St. Petersburg in the form of furs, gold and other precious metals, diamonds, timber, and, more recently, oil and gas were all profitable. If one includes the Urals, developed between the reign of Peter the Great and 1800, the trans-Volga push was very profitable for Russia. The colonists who settled Eurasia between the Urals and the Pacific were certainly among the most motley ever assembled. Leading the pack were cossacks and other adventurers. They were followed by fur traders and perhaps trappers. Government officials and garrison troops were next. They were followed by peasants fleeing serfdom, then by exiles from the center. Even as late as the last years of the Soviet Union, permanent residents of Siberia volunteered aloud their disgust over the fact that Moscow used their land as a dumping ground for criminal and political exiles. In the eighteenth century landlords claimed huge tracts in Siberia and moved all of their peasants from Old Russia to the new lands. Probably the last wave were Soviet professionals who responded to quadruple wages to settle in mineral-rich but climatically unfriendly regions of Siberia.