Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  ROGER KANGAS

  FEDERAL PROPERTY FUND

  The State Property Committee agency charged with receiving and overseeing privatization of state enterprises designated for privatization began operations in October 1992 (under Anatoly Chubais) in what became a large-scale sale of state enterprises. The first stage was voucher privatization. Vouchers were sent to every man, woman, and child in Russia. These voucher checks could be used to purchase shares in what had previously been state enterprises. Or they could be invested in managed mutual funds or sold on the secondary market.

  Enterprises slated for privatization were transferred to the Federal Property Fund. The initial stage of privatization excluded enterprises of national significance, such and oil and electric generation

  FEDERATION TREATIES

  and those of military or strategic significance. Large scale, non-military enterprises were transferred subsequently in 1994-1995 and many were auctioned off under what was called the “loans for shares” program. When enterprises were transferred to the Federal Property Fund they were required to be converted into open joint stock companies before privatization. The Federal Property Fund was to oversee this transformation and supervise the privatization process.

  In the end the Federal Property Fund participated in the largest privatization program in economic history, one that was replete with insider advantages, corruption, bribery, and scandalous underpayment by the ultimate owners. Privatization was also incomplete because the government maintained either a majority ownership or “golden shares” that allowed a veto over management decisions. See also: PRIVATIZATION

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Gregory, Paul R., and Stuart, Robert C. (2001). Russian and Soviet Economic Performance and Structure, 7th ed. New York: Addison Wesley. Hedlund, Stefan. (1999). Russia’s “Market” Economy: A Bad Case of Predatory Capitalism. London: UCL Press.

  JAMES R. MILLAR

  FEDERATION TREATIES

  On March 13, 1992, representatives of eighteen of Russia’s twenty ethnic republics initialed a treaty of federation with the Russian federal government. Two republics-Chechnya and Tatarstan-refused to sign. A separate agreement was initialed by representatives of Russia’s oblasts and kraya (administrative divisions) that same week, followed several days later by a third agreement with the country’s autonomous okruga (territorial divisions) and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. On March 31, 1992, the three treaties, which would be collectively referred to as the “Federation Treaty,” were formally signed into law. After the formal separation of the Chechen and Ingush Republics was ratified by the Sixth Congress of Peoples’ Deputies in April 1992, the number of republics under Russian constitutional law rose to twenty-one. While Ingushetia signed the Treaty upon its establishment, Chechnya refused to do so, asserting that it had declared formal independence in November 1991.

  The April 1992 Treaty provided for a complicated and vague division of powers between the federal government and Russia’s eighty-nine “subjects of the federation.” It also required as many as one hundred enabling laws, most of which were never adopted. Symbolically, the most important provision was the Treaty’s designation of the ethnic republics, but not the Russian Federation’s other constituent units (oblasts, kraya, and autonomous okruga), as “sovereign,” although it was not clear what legal rights, if any, “sovereign” status entailed. Some advocates of the republics argued that it implied a right to refuse to join the federation as well as a right of unilateral secession. Unlike the USSR constitution in effect at the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, however, Russia’s Federation Treaty of 1992 made no reference to a right of secession for the republics. Nor did federal authorities agree that the republics had a right to refuse to join the federation. The Treaty also stipulated that the constitutions of the republics had to conform to the federal constitution.

  The intent of the drafters of the April 1992 had been to include the Treaty’s provisions in a new constitution for the Russian Federation. However, the text of the Treaty was left out of the Russian Constitution of December 12, 1993, although Article 11.3 stated that the distribution of federal and regional powers is governed by “this Constitution, the Federation Treaty, and other treaties (dogovory) that delineate objects of jurisdiction and powers.” Article 1, Part 2, of the constitution added that “should the provisions of the Federation Treaty . . . contravene those of the Constitution of the Federation, the provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation shall apply.” In effect, the terms of the Federation Treaty were superseded by the federation provisions in the new constitution, which did not identify the republics as sovereign and was unequivocal in denying the subjects of the federation a unilateral right of secession.

  While the Treaty had limited legal significance, its signing in early 1992 helped ameliorate some of the tension between the Russian federal government and the republics in the wake of the dissolution of the USSR. It also provided President Boris Yeltsin with an important political victory. But it left many critical issues unresolved, particularly the legal status of Chechnya and Tatarstan. In FebruFELDSHER ary 1994, Tatarstan agreed to become a constituent unit of the Russian Federation pursuant to the terms of a bilateral treaty. Chechnya would continue to refuse to join the federation, however, a position that led to war between the Russian federal government and supporters of Chechen independence later that year. See also: CONSTITUTION OF 1993; FEDERALISM; RUSSIAN SOVIET FEDERATED SOCIALIST REPUBLIC

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Ahdieh, Robert B. (1997). Russia’s Constitutional Revolution: Legal Consciousness and the Transition to Democracy. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Lapidus, Gail W., and Walker, Edward W. (1995). “Nationalism, Regionalism, and Federalism: Center-Periphery Relations in Post-Communist Russia.” In The New Russia: Troubled Transformation, ed. Gail W. Lapidus. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

  EDWARD W. WALKER

  had to be devoted to the producers’ goods sector. Net investment would have to be proportional to the existing allocation of capital. The greater the capacity to produce capital goods, the faster the economy could grow, according to the model. Capital-output ratios in the two sectors could be minimized by working several shifts. This early growth model, however, ignored likely scarcities of food, foreign exchange, and skilled labor that would result when growth accelerated. See also: ECONOMIC GROWTH, SOVIET; GOSPLAN

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Domar, Evsey D. (1957). Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth. New York: Oxford University Press. Ellman, Michael. (1990). “Grigorii Alexandrovic Fel’d-man.” In Problems of the Planned Economy, eds. John Eatwell, Murray Milgate, and Peter Newman. New York: Norton.

  MARTIN C. SPECHLER

  FELDMAN, GRIGORY ALEXANDROVICH

  (1884-1958), a pioneer in the mathematical study of economic growth.

  Grigory Alexandrovich Feldman, an electrical engineer by profession, worked in Gosplan from 1923 until 1931. His report to the committee for long-term planning of Gosplan, entitled “On the Theory of the Rates of Growth of the National Income,” was published in 1928 and became the basis for the committee’s preliminary draft of a long-term plan. However, Feldman soon came under attack for his ideas on the politically sensitive subject of socialist industrialization and use of mathematics in the heroic atmosphere of those times. His numerical targets, though supported by the head of the committee, proved too optimistic and could not be realized. After some tendentious criticism, Feldman’s career never recovered. Even his later work on growth in the United States, an early interest of his, could not be published. He apparently spent several years in labor camps before being released, quite sick, in 1953.

  Feldman’s two-sector growth model was based on the macroeconomic concepts of Karl Marx. Feldman first demonstrated that the higher the aggregate growth of an economy, the more capital

  FELDSHER

  Medical assistant.

  Feldshers first appeared in Russia during the eighteent
h century, when they served as medical assistants in urban hospitals or as army corpspeo-ple. During the nineteenth century they played a major role in rural medical systems. The law restricted them to practice under a physician’s direct supervision; many were nevertheless assigned to run remote clinics on their own because of the dearth of physicians in the countryside. Forced by circumstances to tolerate such independent feldsher practice, known as “feldsherism,” leading physicians adamantly opposed granting it legal sanction. “Feldsherism” remained a contentious issue as well as a widespread practice well into the 1920s.

  During the 1870s, many provincial zemstvos established feldsher schools in order to raise feldshers’ overall qualifications. Opening feldsher practice to women in 1871 brought growing numbers of urban women with gymnasium training into these schools. By the twentieth century, the qualifications of these newer feldshers and feldsher-midwives had improved dramatically. As of 1914 there were more than 20,000 civilian feldshers in Russia. Most served in rural areas, but one-third worked for urban hospitals, railroads, schools, and factories.

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  FELLOW TRAVELERS

  The publication in 1891 of the newspaper Feld-sher sparked the appearance of a feldsher professional movement. In 1906, local feldsher societies formed a national Union of Societies of Physicians’ Assistants, which published the newspaper Feld-shersky vestnik (Feldsher Herald) and lobbied on feld-shers’ behalf. During the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, most feldshers identified with moderate socialist parties. In 1918 the Union was dissolved; its members entered the industrial medical union Vsemediksantrud.

  The Soviet regime ceased training feldshers altogether in 1924, focusing instead on midwives and nurses. Feldsher training was resumed in 1937, and feldshers continue to serve as auxiliary medical personnel in Russia. See also: HEALTH CARE SERVICES, IMPERIAL; HEALTH CARE SERVICES, SOVIET

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Ramer, Samuel C. (1976). “Who Was the Russian Feld-sher?” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 50:213-225. Ramer, Samuel C. (1996). “Professionalism and Politics: The Russian Feldsher Movement, 1891-1918.” In Russia’s Missing Middle Class: The Professions in Russian History, ed. Harley D. Balzer. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

  SAMUEL C. RAMER

  FELLOW TRAVELERS

  Intellectuals sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause and later to the Soviet Union as a socialist state.

  The term fellow traveler (poputchiki) was used by Vladimir Lenin and other Bolsheviks to describe those who agreed with the principles of socialism but did not accept the entire Bolshevik program. Lenin attacked these “petty-bourgeois fellow travelers” for their weak understanding of theory and tactics, and for leading workers away from revolution. Leon Trotsky, in 1918, described the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in similar terms because of their vacillation on the October Revolution.

  The pejorative sense of the term gave way in 1924, when Trotsky argued that fellow travelers in literature could be useful for the young Soviet state. He used the term to describe non-party writers who could serve the cause of revolution even though they were not proletarians. In Literature and Revolution, Trotsky argued that non-party intellectuals were no longer a serious threat and could be guided toward a proletarian view of the world. This was followed by a Central Committee resolution in 1925 refusing to prefer one faction or theory of literature over any other.

  The groups and individuals defined as fellow travelers during the 1920s constituted a flourishing artistic and literary culture that produced the best Soviet literature of the decade. The most famous group was the Serapion Brotherhood, whose membership included Konstantin Fedin, Yevgeny Zamyatin, and Vsevolod V. Ivanov. These authors believed that literature should be free from outside control, but were generally sympathetic to the goals of the revolution. Others, perhaps less favorably inclined toward the Bolsheviks but nonetheless counted as fellow travelers, were Boris Pilnyak, Isaac Babel, and Mikhail Bulgakov.

  By the late 1920s, fellow travelers were coming under increasing pressure from groups claiming to represent the proletariat, such as the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP). In 1932, all independent organizations for writers and artists disappeared and the Writers’ Union was created. Fellow travelers were required to either join the union and follow its rules or stop publishing.

  By the end of 1920s, the term “fellow traveler” had been taken up in other countries as a designation for people sympathetic to the Soviet Union and especially for intellectuals who publicly expressed support for Stalin. Romain Rolland and George Bernard Shaw, for instance, praised the Soviet Union and saw it as a real alternative to western political systems. In the post-World War II era, “fellow traveler” became a term of derision, applied by conservatives to people who were communists in all but party affiliation. Albert Einstein, for example, was called a “dupe and a fellow traveler” by Time magazine in 1949 for his outspoken belief in socialism. See also: CULTURAL REVOLUTION; RUSSIAN ASSOCIATION OF PROLETARIAN WRITERS; SERAPION BROTHERS; UNION OF SOVIET WRITERS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Canute, David. (1988). The Fellow-Travellers: Intellectual Friends of Communism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Maguire, Robert. (1987). Red Virgin Soil: Soviet Literature in the 1920s. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

  KARL E. LOEWENSTEIN

  FEMINISM

  FEMINISM

  Feminism in Russia first developed during the 1850s, following the disastrous Crimean War and the accession of Alexander II. At a time of political ferment over the nation’s future, an intense debate arose within educated society over the dependent status of women and inherited assumptions about their capacities and their roles. The idea of women’s emancipation was readily linked to peasant emancipation, plans for which were being publicly debated during these years. If one section of the population-enserfed peasants-could be liberated, why not women too, half the human race? Many activists in the women’s movement over the next half-century pinpointed the 1850s and 1860s as the moment when women first challenged their own subordinate legal status, inferior education, exclusion from all but menial paid employment, and vulnerability to sexual exploitation, as well as the complex web of convention and sanction that restricted their everyday lives. A number of women writers-and some radical male writers-had already addressed these themes a generation earlier, but always as individuals. It was only during the 1850s that a women’s movement, dedicated to change, could coalesce.

  Unlike women in many western countries, Russian upper- and middle-class women kept their property upon marriage and were not forced into financial dependence on their husbands. However, even propertied women were disadvantaged by inferior inheritance rights; despite their financial autonomy, the law required that they obey their husbands and live in the marital home unless given formal permission to leave. In an abusive marriage a woman could apply to the courts for legal separation, but this was a tortuous process and available only to the relatively well-to-do. The vast majority of Russian women in this period were peasants; before 1861 many were serfs. Even after peasant emancipation their status in the family was subordinate, particularly as young women. They were valued in the village for their ability to work- in the fields and in the household-and to produce and raise children. Few had time to think about the possibilities of an alternative life or about their own lack of rights or status. It was feminists and female radicals who first set out to improve women’s personal rights and establish their legal and actual autonomy, though the prevailing social conservatism on gender issues and the extreme limitations on political campaigning impeded any meaningful legislative change until the last years of tsarist rule.

  Feminist ideas in Russia were inspired not only by social and political change at home, but equally by the emerging women’s movement in the West (particularly North America, Britain, and France) in this period. Russian feminists established lasting contacts with their western counterparts and read western literature on the “woman question.” Most considered
themselves “westernizers” rather than “slavophiles” in the contemporary political-cultural controversy over Russia and its future. The word “feminism” itself was rarely used in Russia or elsewhere, and even when it gained wider currency toward the end of the century, it most often had a pejorative connotation, both for conservative and radical opponents of reformist women’s movements, and for feminists too. Before 1905 they called themselves “activists in the women’s movement” (deyatelnitsy zhenskogo dvizheniya). During the 1905 Revolution, when the movement was politicized, the most uncompromising became “equal-righters” (ravnopravki), emphasizing the struggle for social equality overall, not just for women. After 1917 feminist activists either emigrated or were silenced, and for the entire Soviet period feminism was branded a “bourgeois deviation.”

  RADICAL ALTERNATIVES TO FEMINISM

  Like feminists, revolutionary women and men espoused sexual equality. But they fiercely rejected feminism, insisting that women’s liberation must be part of a wider social revolution. Feminists, they claimed, based their appeal to women by driving a wedge between men and women of the oppressed classes struggling for their rights. Feminists denied the radical claim that they were motivated only by their own “selfish” ends, and saw themselves working for Russia’s “renewal” and “regeneration,” for the betterment of the whole population.

  Although a socialist women’s movement developed in Russia (as elsewhere) around 1900, both populist and Marxist revolutionary groups were antagonistic to separate work among women, and only well after 1900 was it possible for Bolshevik women (such as Alexandra Kollontai, Inessa Ar-mand, and Nadezhdaya Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife) to address women’s issues specifically within their party organization. Though dubbed a “Bolshevik feminist” by later western historians, Kollontai herself was one of the most outspoken critics of reformist feminism-and the very concept of femi-nism-before and after 1917.