Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

Influenced by cubism and futurism, constructivism had its roots in the abstract geometric constructions of Vladimir Tatlin. In 1920 the sculptors An-toine Pevsner and Naum Gabo joined Tatlin in the publication of the Realist Manifesto, from which the name constructivism was derived. Like the Futurists, they admired the machine and technology, functionalism, and modern industrial materials. Within architecture the constructivists stressed that form should be determined in the process of construction by the utilitarian aim of the building and the natural characteristics of the building materials. They grouped around the “Union of Contemporary Architects” (OSA) led by the Vesnin brothers (Alexander, Viktor, and Leonid) and Moisei Ginzburg and its journal Sovremennaya arkhitektura (Contemporary Architecture). They argued that the construction of a new environment was not simply a matter of art or technology but entailed rebuilding culture from the bottom up. History had entered into a new creative cycle, and in that period of youth, utilitarian and constructive aspects of style were of paramount importance, and aesthetic simplicity and organizational logic must determine the new style.

  This in no way signaled the demise of aesthetic emotion, rather its transformation under the influence of modern economics, technology, and the machine. Ginzburg developed what became known as the Functional Method, whereby the functional requirements of a structure, such as the “diagram of movement,” within the building and the siting of individual living units within a structure, were given priority in spatial composition. To achieve the desired goal, adherents used the pavilion method, which divided a complex into blocks according to their intended use and linked these units by walkways or bridges to satisfy the entire ensemble’s ultimate social function as a work of art. Ginzburg put his theory to best use in a housing complex designed and built between 1928 and 1930 for Narkomfin (the People’s Commissariat of Finance) on Novinsky Boulevard, now House 25, Tchaikovsky Street. See also: CULTURAL REVOLUTION; FUTURISM.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Hudson, Hugh D., Jr. (1994). Blueprints and Blood: The Stalinization of Soviet Architecture, 1917-1937. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lodder, Christina. (1983). Russian Constructivism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

  HUGH D. HUDSON JR.

  CONTROL FIGURES

  Kontrol’nyi tsyfri, or control figures, were originally the preliminary plan targets prepared by the State Planning Commission (Gosplan, established 1921) in 1925-1926. Soon thereafter these targets were coordinated with the mandatory annual plans of the Supreme Council of the National Economy

  CONVENTIONAL FORCES IN EUROPE TREATY

  (VSNKh) and with the associated material balances, which theoretically provided the necessary inputs to produce the obligatory outputs. From early on and throughout the Soviet period, the control figures were approved by the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, usually in the summer prior to the plan year. (From 1957 to 1964 regional economic councils also had some role in plan formulation.) Prospective plans were usually expressed in percentage increases from the previously achieved level and published in the main newspapers as ranges for the current five-year and yearly plans. Often these priority targets for around a dozen important commodities were expressed in physical units, such as tons or number of vehicles, but where that was not reasonable, the target was in value terms. Supposedly, the annual control figures were coordinated with the five-year plan then in effect and other directives of the Party and Council of Ministers.

  During the five-year plan era the control figures were elaborated by ministries and chief administrations (glavki) for approximately two hundred to three hundred product groups and disaggregated into still more groups and passed down to the ministries (commissariats) and from there to the enterprises. Simultaneously the superior agencies would estimate the correct data to achieve these targets, often by applying established input-output norms to the targets.The subordinate enterprises would then request necessary supplies of labor, capital, and intermediate inputs such as energy, ores, and parts. Their requests, routinely exaggerated, would be pared down at the glavk, ministry, or Gosplan levels according to the authorities’ best estimates of necessary minima. Some bargaining would occur at this stage, too. Finally, early in the fall, Gosplan would endeavor to form a feasible national plan close to the original control figures. The eventual directive plan could have as many as sixty thousand separate headings. Usually, the sheer complexity of the task, unavoidable delays, and insufficient information meant that the legally binding enterprise plan (techpromfinplan) was neither consistent nor optimal from the planners’ point of view, not to mention the needs of the population at large. See also: FIVE-YEAR PLANS; GOSPLAN; TECHPROMFINPLAN

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Bergson, Abram. (1964). The Economics of Soviet Planning. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Gregory, Paul R., and Stuart, Robert C. (1998). Russian and Soviet Economic Performance and Structure, 6th ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

  MARTIN C. SPECHLER

  CONVENTIONAL FORCES IN EUROPE TREATY

  The Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty was signed in Paris on November 19, 1990, after less than two years of negotiation, by the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO). Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s announcement to the United Nations in December 1988 of unilateral Soviet force reductions had presented a challenge to NATO. Negotiations on conventional forces thus began in Vienna in March, 1989.

  The Soviet leadership sought 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. Both superpowers wanted to eliminate capabilities for initiating surprise attacks and large-scale offensive actions. The treaty mandated the reduction to equal levels of NATO and WTO forces from the Atlantic to the Ural Mountains across five categories of weapons: armored combat vehicles (ACVs), artillery, combat aircraft, combat helicopters and tanks. The WTO nations were expected to make the largest cuts, given their numerical superiority. The treaty also provided for an advanced verification regime, including intrusive on-site verification and data exchanges.

  The collapse of the USSR and Warsaw Pact in the period 1990-1991 presented problems, however. East European members of the WTO were unilaterally demanding the withdrawal of Soviet forces from their soil. Western critics argued that by focusing on bloc-to-bloc negotiations at a time like this, NATO was constraining itself unnecessarily. The USSR seemed hesitant to complete the CFE agreement, since the WTO hardly constituted a credible bloc. Meanwhile, the Soviet successor states were loath to see their future military forces constrained by a treaty signed by the former regime. Nevertheless, by January 1992, all agreed to ratify the CFE treaty, and three years later, the parCOOPERATIVE SOCIETIES ties had eliminated some fifty thousand weapons and withdrawn fifteen thousand more.

  The CFE treaty was later modified in November 1999, upon Russia’s request. As late as 2003, NATO was continuing to press Moscow to reduce the number of tanks, armored combat vehicles (ACVs), and artillery it deployed in its northern and southern “flank” regions, namely Moldova and Georgia, which border Europe and the Black Sea. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was monitoring Russia’s compliance with the CFE treaty. See also: NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION; WARSAW TREATY ORGANIZATION

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Graham, Thomas. (2002). Disarmament Sketches: Three Decades of Arms Control and International Law. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Jenner, Peter. (2000). Defense and Security for the 21st Century. London: NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Peters, John E. (1999). The Changing Quality of Stability in Europe: The Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty Toward 2001. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Sharp, Jane M. O. (2003). History, Analysis, and Evaluation of the CFE Negotiation Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  JOHANNA GRANVILLE

  and were thus placed on an equal footing with state ent
erprises. No longer was the size of a cooperative or the amount of its assets limited. Cooperatives could now engage in any economic activity, except for those prohibited by law. Financial arrangements also moved in a new direction. Shares in a business could be issued. There was no limit on income, the size of which could be based either on one’s financial contribution to the cooperative or on the amount of work one performed there. Cooperatives still had to be registered by local authorities, but these administrative organs no longer had the right of approval or disapproval of its activities. Cooperatives were made formally independent of the state sector, and the latter was forbidden to give compulsory state orders to cooperatives. Cooperatives were given the right to form joint ventures with foreign companies. In essence, the Law made cooperatives indistinguishable from capitalist enterprises. See also: CAPITALISM; ECONOMY, POST-SOVIET; LIBERALISM; PERESTROIKA

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Hansen, Philip. (1988). “The Draft Law on Cooperatives: An Assessment.” Radio Liberty 111/88, March 15. Jones, Anthony, and Moskoff, William. (1991). Ko-ops: The Rebirth of Entrepreneurship in the Soviet Union. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

  WILLIAM MOSKOFF CAROL GAYLE

  COOPERATIVES, LAW ON

  The Law on Cooperatives (hereafter the Law) was adopted in May 1988 to offer greater clarity about the direction of private economic activity during the early period of perestroika. This was necessitated by the fact that the earlier Law on Individual Labor Activity, which went into effect in May 1987 as the first step toward creating a legal private sector, was ambiguous as well as limited in its provisions for privatization. Private economic activity, embodied in organizations called “cooperatives,” quickly evolved beyond the provisions of the 1987 Law, and the new Law was intended to reflect the reality of the growing cooperative movement.

  In general, the Law liberalized the way in which cooperatives operated. The legal basis for private enterprise was changed, and cooperatives were accorded the status of “basic units” in the economy

  COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES

  Cooperative societies, as distinguished from the peasant commune and arteli (cooperative associations) of peasant migrant laborers, were seen by the liberal and socialist intelligentsia of the mid-nineteenth century as devices to protect the laboring classes from exploitation and empower them (cf. Chernyshevsky’s What Is to Be Done?). The famine of 1891-1892 and the subsequent intensification of industrial development led the educated classes and some government agencies to foster the growth of cooperatives, although bureaucratic restrictions persisted. The movement burgeoned between the Revolution of 1905 and World War I, with a tenfold increase in the number of cooperative societies, which handled roughly 7 percent

  COPPER RIOTS

  of consumer goods sales by 1914. The main types were urban consumer cooperatives, concerned principally with retail and wholesale trade, and agricultural credit cooperatives, whose primary purpose was to make short-term loans to members. There were also some producer associations, most notably butter cooperatives of Northern Russia and Western Siberia, and artisanal cooperatives. During World War I, cooperatives increased by another 60 percent, helping to produce goods for the war effort and cushion consumers against inflation.

  After 1917, Bolshevik policy alternated between tolerating cooperatives as voluntary organizations and making them into quasi-state organs. During war communism, cooperatives became adjuncts of the Commissariat of Supply, to which producers and consumers were required to belong. Agricultural producer cooperatives were few and weak, but valued by the Soviet regime as precursors of collective farming. During the New Economic Policy (NEP), the Communist Party allowed cooperatives to resume their function as voluntary organizations, and Lenin singled them out as the means to lead peasants to socialism. By 1926 and 1927, with the state supporting them as an alternative to private entrepreneurs, cooperatives accounted for as much as half of consumer trade, and a fifth of handicraft and small-scale industrial production. All this ended in 1929 and 1930, when voluntary cooperatives were eliminated during industrialization and collectivization. Although cooperatives nominally persisted, with the kolkhoz defined as an artel in the 1934 Model Charter, in fact they had lost their independent status and once again became channels for state-imposed economic activity.

  With the rise of perestroika under Mikhail Gorbachev, cooperatives took on renewed importance, emerging in the late-1980s as a principal structure for private economic activity. On April 1, 1990, on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were more than 185,000 operating cooperatives employing almost 4.4 million people. See also: COLLECTIVE FARMS; NEW ECONOMIC POLICY; PEASANT ECONOMY; PERESTROIKA; WAR COMMUNISM

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Kayden, Eugene M., and Antsiferov, Alexis N. (1929). The Cooperative Movement in Russia During the War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lewin, Moshe. (1968). Russian Peasants and Soviet Power. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

  CAROL GAYLE WILLIAM MOSKOFF

  COPPER RIOTS

  The Copper Riots (Medny bunt) were a series of riots in Moscow in the summer of 1662 in protest against an economic crisis caused by the use of an inflationary copper currency.

  The financial demands of the Thirteen Years’ War against Poland-Lithuania forced the Russian government to abandon its silver currency in the first year of the war. In addition to debasing the silver ruble, the government introduced a new copper ruble at an artificial 1:1 exchange rate vis-?-vis the old currency. The government assessed its levies in silver while using the copper currency to dispense its own obligations. Only silver currency could be used in foreign trade. Four mints produced small copper coins after 1655, and the total output of copper money clearly exceeded the initial emission of 4 million rubles severalfold.

  The unpopular currency reform was followed by other calamities: a devastating cholera epidemic in 1654 and 1655 and disastrous harvests from 1656 to 1658. A two-year campaign against Sweden from 1656 to 1658 failed in its central objective of gaining access to the Baltic. The initially successful campaigns against the Commonwealth turned into a Russian retreat in the years 1659 to 1661. In order to finance the growing military demands, the government imposed extraordinary levies that further increased the pressures facing the population. In addition to several regional levies, a 10 percent tax on townsmen in 1654 was followed by a 20 percent levy in 1662.

  By the early 1660s, inflation got out of control, leading to a breakdown of market-driven distribution. A system of parallel silver and copper prices came into existence, and severe shortages of many foodstuffs became commonplace. Counterfeiting was widespread, and rumors circulated about government involvement. Ultimately, there was a flight from money, and the government was forced increasingly to collect taxes in kind.

  The growing discontent, which had generated a flood of petitions to the tsar, burst into the open

  CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

  on July 25, 1662. Following a meeting by discontented townsmen in response to the new 20 percent levy, some four to five thousand people assembled in Red Square to hear merchants and soldiers voice their grievances against speculators. Some degree of organization had preceded the event, although no key group of instigators was identified. During the days leading up to the event, various “proclamations” (vorovskie listy) from various parts of the country circulated in the capital. The proclamations singled out various members of the political and economic elite as “traitors,” with especially damning criticism directed at the Miloslavskys, Fyodor Rtishchev, Bogdan Khitrovo, Dementy Bashmakov, Vasily Shorin, and Semeon Zadorin. The “traitors” were accused of counterfeiting and pro-Polish sentiments.

  Military detachments in the Kremlin failed to respond to the gathering, and some soldiers from their ranks even joined the demonstrators. After a three-hour gathering, the crowd marched on the tsar’s residence in Kolomenskoye with a petition that the speculators and counterfeiters be handed over and punished. In addition, the crowds called for lower
taxes. After leading boyars failed to appease the crowd, the tsar agreed to address them. Having received a petition, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich gave a conciliatory speech, in which he promised to reduce the tax burden and investigate the demonstrators’ grievances.

  In the meantime, a riot broke out in Moscow, and many demonstrators attacked the warehouses of prosperous merchants, especially those belonging to the family of the gost (privileged merchant) Vasily Shorin. Shorin’s son was captured by the rioters and forced to “confess” his father’s guilt. Another crowd of five thousand departed for Kolomenskoye, meeting with the members of the earlier crowd along the way. The gates of the tsar’s residence were locked, and six to seven thousand troops massed around the royal residence. The demonstrators demanded that “guilty” boyars be handed over and, failing that, threatened to storm the palace. In response, the tsar ordered the troops to attack, an operation that led to some 900 deaths. At the same time, 225 alleged organizers of the events were arrested in Moscow. Eighteen of those arrested were hanged the following day, a measure that succeeded in restoring calm after a day of rioting. An official investigation was ordered into the events. In the course of a month, large numbers of people were arrested, with several tortured and executed or exiled. The riots, in spite of their limited duration, appear to have strengthened the government in its resolve to reform the bankrupt monetary system. In order to make possible a return to a silver standard, in 1662 the government collected extraordinary taxes and monopolized for a year the exportation of six key export commodities: potash, hemp, yuft leather, tallow, sable furs, and white ash. A total of 1.4 million copper rubles was spent on requisitioning these goods, and while most of these sold quickly, some remained on the market until 1676. Russia returned to a silver standard in May 1663. See also: ALEXEI MIKHAILOVICH; ECONOMY, TSARIST; TAXES; THIRTEEN YEARS’ WAR