by James Millar
Encounter between Russians, nineteenth-century engraving. THE ART ARCHIVE/MUSEO DEL RISORGIMENTO ROME/DAGLI ORTI
CRONY CAPITALISM
Nakhimov’s Black Sea squadron destroyed a Turkish supply convoy off Sinope (November 30), and the combined Anglo-French-Turkish fleet entered the Black Sea on January 1, 1854. Russia refused the humiliating allied demand to keep to port, and by early April, Britain and France were at war with Russia.
Russia’s million-man army was larger than that of the allies, but had fewer rifles and deployed 600,000 troops from Finland to Bessarabia as insurance against attacks from the west. Anglo- French fleets and logistics far outclassed Russia’s.
The war operated on several fronts. The Russians crossed the Danube in March and besieged Silistra, only to retreat and evacuate Wallachia and Moldavia in June in the face of Austro-German threats. Anglo-French naval squadrons entered the Baltic and destroyed Russia’s fortifications at Bo-marsund and Sveaborg, but did not harm Kron-stadt. In Transcaucasia, Russian counterattacks and superior tactics led to advances into Eastern Anatolia and the eventual investment of Kars in September 1855.
The key theater was Crimea, where the capture of Sevastopol was the chief Allied goal. Both sides made mistakes. The Russians could have mounted a more energetic defense against Allied landings, while the Allies might have taken Sevastopol before the Russians fortified their defenses with sunken ships and naval ordnance under Admiral Vladimir Kornilov and army engineer Adjutant Ed-uard Totleben. The Allies landed at Evpatoria, defeated the Russians at the Alma River (September 20, 1854), and redeployed south of Sevastopol. The Russian attempt to drive the Allies from Balaklava failed even before the British Light Brigade made its celebrated, ill-fated charge (October 25, 1854). The well-outnumbered allies then tried to besiege Sevastopol and thus exposed themselves to a counterattack at Inkerman on November 5, 1854, which the Russians completely mishandled with their outmoded tactics, negligible staff work, and command rivalries.
Despite a terrible winter, the Allies reinforced and renewed their siege in February 1855. Allied reoccupation of Evpatoria, where the Turks held off a Russian counterattack, and a summer descent on Kerch disrupted the flow of Russian supplies. The death of Nicholas I and accession of Alexander II (March 2) meant little at first. As per imperial wishes, the Russians mounted a hopeless attack on the besiegers’ positions on the Chernaya River (August 16). The constant Allied bombardment and French-led assaults on Sevastopol’s outer defenses led to an orderly evacuation (September 8-9). The Russians in turn captured Kars in Eastern Anatolia (November 26), thereby gaining a bargaining chip. Hostilities soon abated.
Russia lost the war in the Baltic, Crimea, and lower Danube, with the demilitarization of the ?land Islands and the Black Sea and retrocession of southern Bessarabia, but, at the cost of 400,000-500,000 casualties, defended the empire’s integrity from maximal Anglo-Ottoman rollback goals and won the war in the Caucasus and Transcaucasia. The evidence of Russia’s technological and structural inferiority to the West, as well as the massive turnout of peasant serfs expecting emancipation in return for volunteer service, were major catalysts of the Great Reforms under Alexander II. Russia became more like the other great powers, adhering to the demands of cynical self-interest. See also: GREAT BRITAIN, RELATIONS WITH; MILITARY, IMPERIAL ERA; NESSELRODE, KARL ROBERT; SEVASTOPOL; TURKEY, RELATIONS WITH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baumgart, Winfried. (1999). The Crimean War, 1853-1856. London: Arnold. Goldfrank, David. (1994). The Origins of the Crimean War. London: Longman.
DAVID M. GOLDFRANK
CRONY CAPITALISM
Crony capitalism is a term that describes an economic system where people with good connections to the center of power-the “cronies” of the government-manage to place themselves in positions of undue influence over economic policy, thus deriving great personal gains.
In the case of Russia, the term implies that between the president and the country’s business leaders-known as the “oligarchs”-there emerged a tacit understanding. If the oligarchs used their economic power to supply political and financial support for the president, in return they would be allowed to influence for their own benefit the formulation of laws and restrictions on a range of important matters.
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
A prominent example is that of insider dealings in the process of privatization, which, for example, allowed the transfer of major oil companies into private hands at extremely low prices. Another is the introduction of a system of “authorized banks,” whereby a few select commercial banks were allowed to handle the government’s accounts. Such rights could be abused: for example, by delaying the processing of payments received. Under conditions of high inflation, the real value eventually passed on to the final destination would be greatly diminished. There have also been serious allegations of insider dealings by the cronies in Russian government securities.
The overall consequences for the Russian economy were negative in the extreme. The influence of the so-called crony capitalists over the process of privatization led to such a warped system of property rights that some analysts seriously argued in favor of selective renationalization, to be followed by a second round of “honest” privatization.
Even more important, by allowing the crony capitalists to take over the oil industry for a pittance, the Russian government freely gave up the right to extract rent from the country’s natural resource base. This represented a massive shift of future income streams out of the government’s coffers and into private pockets, with severe implications for the future ability of the state to maintain the provision of public goods. See also: ECONOMY, POST-SOVIET; MAFIA CAPITALISM
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hedlund, Stefan. (1999). Russia’s “Market” Economy. London: UCL Press.
STEFAN HEDLUND
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most serious incidents of the Cold War. Many believed that war might break out between the United States and the Soviet Union over the latter’s basing of nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba.
Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba promising to restore the liberal 1940 constitution but immediately took more radical steps, including an economic agreement in 1960 with the Soviet Union. In turn, the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, promised in June to defend Cuba with Soviet nuclear arms. In early 1961, the United States broke relations with Havana, and in April it helped thousands of Cuban exiles stage an abortive uprising at the Bay of Pigs.
Khrushchev was convinced that the United States would strike again, this time with American soldiers; and he believed that Castro’s defeat would be a fatal blow to his own leadership. He decided that basing Soviet missiles in Cuba would deter the United States from a strike against the Castro regime. Moreover, so he reasoned, the Cuba-based medium-range missiles would compensate for the USSR’s marked inferiority to America’s ICBM capabilities. Finally, a successful showdown with Washington might improve Moscow’s deteriorating relations with China.
In April 1962, Khrushchev raised the possibility of basing Soviet missiles in Cuba with his defense minister, Rodion Malinovsky. He hoped to deploy the missiles by October and then inform Kennedy after the congressional elections in November. He apparently expected the Americans to accept the deployment of the Soviet missiles as calmly as the Kremlin had accepted the basing of U.S. missiles in Turkey. Foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, when finally consulted, flatly told Khrushchev that Soviet missiles in Cuba would “cause a political explosion” (Taubman) in the United States, but the premier was unmoved. In late April, a Soviet delegation met with Khrushchev before departing for Cuba. They were told to “explain the plan” to install missiles “to Castro” (Taubman). In fact, their mission was more one of “telling than asking.” Castro was hardly enthusiastic, but was ready to yield to a policy that would strengthen the “entire socialist camp” (Taubman). Later the Presidium voted unanimously to approve the move.
Perhaps
most remarkably, Khrushchev believed that the deployment of sixty missiles with forty launchers, not to mention the support personnel and equipment, could be done secretly. General Anatoly Gribkov warned that the installation process in Cuba could not be concealed. And American U-2 spy planes flew over the sites unhindered. The Cubans, too, doubted that the plan could be kept secret; Khrushchev responded that if the weapons were discovered the United States would not overreact, but if trouble arose, the Soviets would “send the Baltic Fleet.”
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
A U.S. reconnaissance photo reveals a Soviet cargo ship with eight missile transporters and canvas-covered missiles lashed on deck during its return voyage from Cuba to the Soviet Union. © HULTON ARCHIVE
In July 1962, the American government learned that the USSR had started missile deliveries to Cuba. By the end of August, American intelligence reported that Soviet technicians were in Cuba, supervising new military construction. In September, Kennedy warned that if any Soviet ground-to-ground missiles were deployed in Cuba, “the gravest issues would arise.” Rather than calling a halt to the operation, Khrushchev ordered it accelerated, while repeatedly assuring Washington that no build-up was taking place.
On October 14, U.S. aerial reconnaissance discovered a medium-range ballistic missile mounted on a launching site. Such a missile could hit the eastern United States in a matter of minutes. On October 16, Kennedy and his closest advisers met to discuss the crisis and immediately agreed that the missile must be removed. On October 22, Kennedy announced a “quarantine” around Cuba, much to Khrushchev’s delight. The premier thought the word sufficiently vague to allow for negotiation and exulted, “We’ve saved Cuba!” Despite his apparent satisfaction, Khrushchev fired off a letter to Kennedy accusing him of interfering in Cuban affairs and threatening world peace. He then went to the opera.
The turning point came on October 24, when Attorney General Robert Kennedy told the Soviet ambassador that the United States would stop the Soviet ships, strongly implying that it would do so even if it meant war. Khrushchev reacted angrily, but a letter from President Kennedy on October 25 pushed the premier toward compromise. Kennedy wrote that he regretted the deterioration in relations and hoped Khrushchev would take steps to restore the “earlier situation.” With this letter, Khrushchev finally realized that the crisis was not worth the gamble and began to back down. Another war scare occurred on the twenty-seventh with the downing of a U-2 over Cuba, but by this
CUBA, RELATIONS WITH
point both leaders were ready and even anxious to end the crisis. On October 29, the premier informed Kennedy that the missiles and offensive weapons in Cuba would be removed. Kennedy promised there would be no invasion and secretly agreed to remove America’s Jupiter missiles from Turkey.
Khrushchev’s Cuban gamble helped convince the Soviet leadership that he was unfit to lead the USSR. This humiliation, combined with failures in domestic policies, cost him his job in 1964. See also: COLD WAR; CUBA, RELATIONS WITH; KHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH; UNITED STATES, RELATIONS WITH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fursenko, Aleksander, and Naftali, Timothy. (1997). “One Hell of a Gamble”: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958-1964. New York: Norton. Nathan, James A. (2001). Anatomy of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Taubman, William. (2003). Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. New York: Norton. Thomson, William. (1995). Khrushchev: A Political Life. Oxford, UK: Macmillan.
HUGH PHILLIPS
CUBA, RELATIONS WITH
The Cuban Communist Party began its frequently interrupted existence in 1925. Classically aligned with Moscow, the Cuban communists were among the most active communist parties in Latin America, placing one of their members in the President Batista’s cabinet during World War II. The Soviet Union had diplomatic relations with Cuba during the war and for a few years afterward, and reopened them in 1960.
In the mid-1950s Fidel Castro, the leader of a radical nationalist revolutionary movement, organized an armed revolt against Batista’s increasingly dictatorial rule. Castro was not a member of the Communist Party; the communists provided little or no support to his movement and openly criticized his tactics and strategies. After Castro seized power in 1959, communists, with a few exceptions, did not staff his new government and fell into obscurity. In 1960 President Eisenhower concluded that Castro threatened U.S. private and public interests and was not amenable to U.S. direction. Castro was seizing American-owned properties and moving toward one-man rule. In order to protect U.S. public and private interests and to reassert traditional bilateral relationships, the U.S. government embargoed sugar, Cuba’s main export, cut off access to oil, and continued an embargo of arms and munitions begun against Batista. These measures, unopposed, would have terminated Castro’s rule.
U.S. actions had unexpected results. The USSR seized this chance to establish a toehold in Cuba. Countering U.S. sanctions, the USSR bought Cuba’s sugar, sold its oil, and provided arms. U.S. efforts to overthrow Castro at the Bay of Pigs failed, and Cuba’s ties with the USSR were strengthened. Castro, his party, and the Cuban state adopted communist models.
The resolve of the three governments in the new triangular relationship was tested in the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1963. Emboldened by his toehold near Florida and reassured by Castro’s anti-Americanism and revolutionary intentions, Khrushchev ordered Soviet missiles to Cuba. President Kennedy, risking war, ordered the Navy to block missile deliveries. In subsequent negotiations Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles, and Kennedy agreed not to use force against Cuba.
The Cuban Missile Crisis settlement set the framework for the relationships between the three countries. Castro became even more dependent on Soviet largess, as he was deprived of political and economic ties with the United States, previously Cuba’s most important economic partner. The United States continued its anti-Castro campaigns short of invasion. The USSR replaced the United States as the hegemonic power over Cuba with all the advantages, costs, and risks involved.
Castro’s dependence on the Soviet Union for trade, military equipment, and foreign aid grew steadily over the years. In return for Soviet aid, Castro copied the ideology, political structure, and economic system of the USSR. In 1976 the constitution formalized a communist structure in Cuba that harmonized with communist structures elsewhere, with party control of agriculture, industry, and commerce. Cuba’s ties with the USSR facilitated Castro’s iron one-man rule for more than thirty years. Castro reciprocated ongoing Soviet assistance through his support of pro-Soviet revolutionary movements in Latin America, including
CULT OF PERSONALITY
Nicaragua and El Salvador, and elsewhere, including Angola and Ethiopia. These movements supported the USSR and copied Soviet models.
The Soviet Union’s ties with Cuba had global implications. Soviet armed forces had access to the Western Hemisphere, and Cuba could serve as a point of contact for regional revolutionary movements. This alliance, taken together with Communist governments in Eastern Europe and Asia, provided Moscow with an arguable claim to worldwide influence. Moscow also took satisfaction in having a presence in Cuba matching that of the U.S. in Berlin.
Castro proved independent and unruly, not an ideal client by Soviet standards. The leaders of other Communist parties in the hemisphere were under Soviet control through the Foreign Department of the Soviet Communist Party. Unlike most other Communist leaders, Castro manipulated Moscow as much as or more than Moscow manipulated him.
The Soviet Union’s ties with Cuba proved very costly over the years. The USSR paid high prices for Cuban sugar, and Cuba paid low prices for Soviet oil. Moscow equipped Cuba with one of the strongest military forces in Latin America. Foreign economic assistance probably far exceeded $70 billion during the relationship. Cuba became the Soviet Union’s largest debtor along with Vietnam. The Soviet leadership kept these huge expenditures secret until the USSR began to collapse.
Soviet economic and military investment
s in Cuba, including the establishment of a military brigade near Havana, were both a strategic advantage and a vulnerability, the latter because of the preponderance of U.S. power in the region. Soviet leaders were careful to make clear that they did not guarantee Cuba against a US attack. Nor was Cuba admitted to the Warsaw Pact. In that military sense their relationship was more a partnership than an alliance. After the Nicaraguan revolution of 1979, Moscow was even more careful, learning from lessons in Cuba, not to guarantee the Sandinistas economic viability or military security.
General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s commitment to glasnost led to public knowledge in Russia of the costly nature of Soviet subsidies to Cuba; perestroika led to a reexamination of the Cuban regime and its relationship to Soviet interests. In his efforts to put the USSR on a more solid footing, particularly with respect to Germany, Gorbachev sought support from the United States. For their part, President George Bush and Secretary of State James Baker sought Gorbachev’s collaboration in ending the Cold War in Latin America. In response to U.S. pressure among other factors, Gorbachev withdrew the Soviet military brigade from Cuba and ended lavish economic aid to Cuba. His actions led to the termination of Soviet and Cuban involvement in revolutionary movements in Central America. To Moscow’s advantage, and to the huge impoverishment of Cuba, the Soviet Union and Cuba were set free of their mutual entanglements. See also: COLD WAR; CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS; KHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH; UNITED STATES, RELATIONS WITH.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blasier, Cole. (1989). The Giant’s Rival: The USSR and Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Mesa-Lago, Carmelo, ed. (1993). Cuba after the Cold War. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Pavlov, Yuri. (1994). Soviet Cuban Alliance, 1959-1991. Miami: University of Miami North South Center. Smith, Wayne S., ed. (1992). The Russians Aren’t Coming: New Soviet Policy in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.