Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  Before entering the bay, the allied commanders sent Ibrahim an ultimatum demanding that he cease all operations against the Greeks. Ibrahim was absent, but his officers refused, and they opened fire when the allies sailed into the bay on the morning of October 20. In the intense fighting that ensued, the Azov, the Russian flagship, was at one point engaged simultaneously by five enemy vessels. Commanded by Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev, the Azov sank two frigates and damaged a corvette. The battle was over within four hours. The Ottoman-Egyptian fleet lost all three ships of the line along with twenty-two frigates and seven thousand sailors. Only one battered frigate and fifteen small cruisers survived. The Russian squadron left fifty-nine dead and 139 wounded.

  In the aftermath, the recriminations began almost immediately. The duke of Wellington, Britain’s prime minister, denounced Codrington’s decision to take action as an “untoward event.” From the British standpoint, the annihilation of the Turkish-Egyptian fleet was problematic, because it strengthened Russia’s position in the Mediterranean. Shortly after the battle Codrington was recalled to London. Tsar Nicholas I awarded the Cross of St. George to Vice Admiral L. P. Geiden, the commander of the Russian squadron, and promoted Lazarev to rear admiral. The Azov was granted the Ensign of St. George, which in accordance with tradition would be handed down, over the generations, to other vessels bearing the same name. The Russian squadron recovered from the battle and repaired its ships at Malta. During the Russo-Turkish War of

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  NAVY

  1828 to 1829, Geiden took command of Rear Admiral Peter Rikord’s squadron from Kronstadt. The Russian fleet now numbered eight ships of the line, seven frigates, one corvette, and six brigs. Geiden and Rikord blockaded the Dardanelles and impeded Ottoman-Egyptian operations against the Greeks. After the war’s end, Geiden’s squadron returned to the Baltic. See also: GREECE, RELATIONS WITH; RUSSO-TURKISH WARS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Anderson, Roger Charles (1952). Naval Wars in the Levant, 1559-1853. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Daly, John C. K. (1991). Russian Seapower and the “Eastern Question,” 1827-1841. London: Macmillan. Daly, Robert Welter. (1959). “Russia’s Maritime Past.” In The Soviet Navy, ed. Malcolm G. Saunders. London: Weidenfeld amp; Nicolson. Woodhouse, Christopher Montague. (1965). The Battle of Navarino. London: Hoddler amp; Stoughton.

  JOHN C. K. DALY

  NAVY See BALTIC FLEET; BLACK SEA FLEET; MILITARY, IMPERIAL ERA; MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET; NORTHERN FLEET; PACIFIC FLEET. Nursultan Nazarbayev, president of independent Kazakhstan.

  HULTON/ARCHIVE. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.

  NAZARBAYEV, NURSULTAN ABISHEVICH

  (b. 1940), Communist Party, Soviet, and Kazakh government official.

  Born into a rural family of the Kazakh Large Horde in the Alma-Ata region, Nursultan Abishe-vich Nazarbaev finished technical school in 1960, attended a higher technical school from 1964 to 1967, and married Sara Alpysovna, an agronomist-economist. He joined the Communist Party (CPSU) in 1962, began working in both the Temirtau City Soviet and Party Committee in 1969, and advanced rapidly thereafter. In 1976 he graduated from the external program of the CPSU Central Committee’s Higher Party School, and from 1977 to 1979 he led the Party’s Karaganda Committee. Nazabayev’s abilities as a “pragmatic technocrat,” and the support of such patrons as the Kazakh Party’s powerful first secretary Dinmukhammed Kunayev and Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov and Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov in Moscow ensured his election as a secretary of the Kazakh Central Committee in 1979, to the Soviet Party’s Central Auditing Commission from 1981 to 1986, to chairmanship of the Kazakh SSR’s Council of Ministers in 1984, and to the CPSU Central Committee in March 1986.

  In the riots following Kunaev’s ouster in December 1986, Nazarbayev sought to control student demonstrators. Rather than harming his career, his stance won him considerable support among Kazakh nationalists, and loyalty to Mikhail Gorbachev ensured his place on the Soviet Central Committee. Elected to the new Congress of People’s Deputies, he quickly became the Kazakh Party’s first secretary when ethnic riots again broke out in June 1989. From February 1990 he also was chairman of the Kazakh Supreme Soviet, which elected him the Kazakh SSR’s president in April. He joined the Soviet Politburo in that July but, after briefly temporizing during the August 1991 putsch, left the Soviet Party the following September. He presided over the Kazakh Party’s dissolution in Oc1028

  NAZI-SOVIET PACT OF 1939

  tober, and then won a massive electoral victory on December 1, 1991. As president, Nazarbaev oversaw formation of an independent Republic of Kazakhstan and its entry into the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Despite deep ethnic, religious, and linguistic divisions; continuing economic crisis; Russian neglect; and bitter political disputes within the elite, he maintained Kazakhstan’s unity and position within the CIS. To this end he replaced the parliament with a People’s Assembly in 1995, and a referendum extended his term until 2000. Surprising the opposition by calling new elections, Nazarbaev became virtual president-for-life in January 1999 and, with his family dynasty, dominates a powerful cabinet regime that often constrains, but has not abolished, Kazakh civil liberties. See also: COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION; KAZAKHSTAN AND KAZAKHS; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Bremmer, Ian, and Taras, Ray. (1997). New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Olcott, Martha Brill. (1995). The Kazakhs, 2nd ed. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution. Olcott, Martha Brill. (2000). Kazakhstan: Unfilled Promise. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Morozov, Vladimir, ed. (1995). Who’s Who in Russia and the CIS Republics. New York: Henry Holt.

  DAVID R. JONES

  NAZI-SOVIET PACT OF 1939

  The Nazi-Soviet Pact is the name given to the Treaty of Non-Aggression signed by Ribbentrop for Germany and Molotov for the USSR on August 23, 1939.

  In August 1939, following the failure of attempts to negotiate a treaty with Great Britain and France for mutual assistance and military support to protect the USSR from an invasion by Adolf Hitler, the Soviet Union abandoned its attempts to achieve collective security agreements, which was the basis of Maxim Maximovich Litvinov’s foreign policy during the 1930s. Instead, Soviet leaders sought an accommodation with Germany. For German politicians, the dismissal of Litvinov and the appointment of Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov as commissar for foreign affairs on May 3, 1939, was a signal that the USSR was seeking a rapprochement. The traditional interpretation that Molotov was pro-German, and that his appointment was a direct preparation for the pact, has been called into question. It seems more likely that in appointing Molotov, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was prepared to seize any opportunity that presented itself to improve Soviet security.

  Diplomatic contact with Germany on economic matters had been maintained during the negotiations with Great Britain and France, and in June and July of 1939, Molotov was not indifferent to initial German approaches for an improvement in political relations. On August 15, the German ambassador proposed that Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, should visit Moscow for direct negotiations with Stalin and Molotov, who in response suggested a non-aggression pact.

  Ribbentrop flew to Moscow on August 23, and the Treaty of Nonaggression was signed in a few hours. By its terms the Soviet Union and Germany undertook not to attack each other either alone or in conjunction with other powers and to remain neutral if the other power became involved in a war with a third party. They further agreed not to participate in alliances aimed at the other state and to resolve disputes and conflicts by consultation and arbitration. With Hitler about to attack Poland, the usual provision in treaties of this nature, allowing one signatory to opt out if the other committed aggression against a third party, was missing. The agreement was for a ten-year period, and became active as soon as signed, rather than on ratification.

  As significant as the treaty, and more notorious, was the Se
cret Additional Protocol that was attached to it, in which the signatories established their respective spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. It was agreed that “in the event of a territorial and political rearrangement” in the Baltic states, Finland, Estonia, and Latvia were in the USSR’s sphere of influence and Lithuania in Germany’s. Poland was divided along the rivers Narew, Vistula, and San, placing Ukrainian and Belorussian territories in the Soviet sphere of influence, together with a part of ethnic Poland in Warsaw and Lublin provinces. The question of the maintenance of an independent Poland and its frontiers was left open. In addition, Germany declared itself “disinterested” in Bessarabia.

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  NAZI-SOVIET PACT OF 1939

  USSR foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov (right), German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (left), and Josef Stalin (center) at the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, August 23, 1939. © CORBIS

  The treaty denoted the USSR’s retreat into neutrality when Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, and Great Britain and France declared war. Poland collapsed rapidly, but the USSR delayed until September 17 before invading eastern Poland, although victory was achieved within a week. From November 1939, the territory was incorporated in the USSR. Estonia and Latvia were forced to sign mutual assistance treaties with the USSR and to accept the establishment of Soviet military bases in September and October of 1939. Finnish resistance to Soviet proposals to improve the security of Leningrad through a mutual assistance treaty led to the Soviet-Finnish War (1939-1940). Lithuania was assigned to the Soviet sphere of influence in a supplementary agreement signed on September 28, 1939, and signed a treaty of mutual assistance with the USSR in October. Romania ceded Bessarabia following a Soviet ultimatum in June 1940. It is often argued that, in signing the treaty, Stalin, who always believed that Hitler would attack the USSR for lebensraum, was seeking time to prepare the Soviet Union for war, and hoped for a considerably longer period than he received, for Germany invaded during June of 1941. Considerable efforts were made to maintain friendly relations with Germany between 1939 and 1941, including a November 1940 visit by Molotov to Berlin for talks with Hitler and Ribbentrop.

  The Secret Protocol undermined the socialist foundations of Soviet foreign policy. It called for the USSR to embark upon territorial expansion, even if this was to meet the threat to its security presented by Germany’s conquest of Poland. This may explain why, for a long period, the Secret Protocol was known only from the German copy of the document: The Soviet Union denied its existence, a position that Molotov maintained until his

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  NEAR ABROAD

  death in 1986. The Soviet originals were published for the first time in 1993.

  In all Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, during August 1987, during the glastnost era, demonstrations on the anniversary of the pact were evidence of resurgent nationalism. In early 1990 the states declared their independence, the first real challenge to the continued existence of the USSR. See also: GERMANY, RELATIONS WITH; MOLOTOV, VY-ACHESLAV MIKHAILOVICH; WORLD WAR II

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Read, Anthony, and Fisher, David. (1988) The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin, and the Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939-1941. New York: Norton. Roberts, Geoffrey. (1989) The Unholy Alliance: Stalin’s Pact with Hitler. London: I.B. Tauris.

  DEREK WATSON

  NEAR ABROAD

  The term near abroad is used by the Russian Federation to refer to the fourteen Soviet successor states other than Russia. During the Yeltsin era Russia had to cope with the collapse of Communism and the transition to a market economy, and the end of the Cold War and the loss of superpower status. This caused a national identity crisis that engendered key shifts in Russian foreign policy toward what it designates the near abroad. (The fourteen republics do not call themselves “near abroad.”) Should Russia assert itself as the dominant power throughout the territories of the ex-USSR in its desire to protect Russians living abroad? Or alternatively, now that the Cold War was over, should Russia adopt a position enabling reduced prospects of nuclear war and the possibility of the expansion of NATO to include the near abroad countries? This uncertainty, compounded by widespread economic, social, and political instability, affected Russian objectives toward the near abroad. Three different approaches emerged. First, the in-tegrationalists and reformers (such as Andrei Kozyrev) argued that Russia’s expansionist days were over and that it must therefore identify more closely with the West, promote Russia’s integration into world economy, and ensure that the European security system includes Russia. This means taking a soft, noninterventionist stance on the near abroad. Second, Centrists and Eurasianists (including Victor Chernomyrdin and Yevgeny Primakov) stressed the need to take into account Russia’s history, culture, and geography and to ensure that Russia’s national interest is protected. They sought to gain access to the military resources of the successor states, seal unprotected borders, and contain external threats, namely Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia. For these reasons Centrists and Eurasianists wanted to forge links or build bridges between Russia and Asia (namely Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and China). Finally, the traditionalists and nationalists (such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Gennady Zyuganov) are anti-Western and pro-Russian/Slavophile. They advocate a neo-imperialist Russian policy that seeks to restore the old USSR (Zyuganov) or at least build stronger links between Russia and other Slavic nations (Zhirinovsky). Such politicians have frequently made reference to alleged abuses of the rights of ethnic Russian or Russian-speaking populations in near abroad countries to justify such a stance.

  Throughout the 1990s, reactions to key issues relating to the near abroad varied considerably. Thus nationalists tended to oppose NATO enlargement, criticize Western policy toward the Balkans and Iraq, and be concerned about the fate of Russians abroad, whereas liberals favored growing Western involvement in the ex-USSR and a moderate stance on the near abroad. Russians in general were concerned about the nuclear weapons left in successor states (i.e., Ukraine), with the role of ex-USSR armed forces, and with the possibility that conflicts in successor states (including Tajikistan, Georgia, Moldova, and Azerbaijan) may spread to Russia. Despite the West’s initial fears and Russian criticism of NATO’s Eastern enlargement, it still went ahead, because Yeltsin preferred to mend fences with Ukraine and improve relations with China and Japan. Also some of his government colleagues (e.g., Primakov) preferred closer relations with Belarus, while others such as Anatoly Chubais wanted closer relations with the West (via IMF, etc.). Furthermore, Yeltsin wanted to retain Western support for Russia’s drive toward market and liberal democracy, so he was willing to sacrifice old “spheres of influence” and adopt a less aggressive stance on the near abroad. Yeltsin realized that Russia, weakened by the loss of its superpower status, was no longer able to police the ex-USSR. As a consequence, Yeltsin largely ignored the near abroad in favor of alliances with other powers resentful of American supremacy (e.g., China, India). Through1031

  NECHAYEV, SERGEI GERADIEVICH

  out the 1990s, Yeltsin pursued a Gorbachev-style policy concerning the West and continued to cut ties with the East while maintaining a watchful eye over the near abroad, a new area of concern, given the presence of up to 30 million ethnic Russians in these countries. Wherever possible Yeltsin sought to maximize Russian influence over the other former Soviet republics. Vladimir Putin has continued to walk the tightrope between assertiveness and integration, taking into account the nature of the new world order of the twenty-first century. See also: CHERNOMYRDIN, VIKTOR STEPANOVICH; KOZYREV, ANDREI VLADIMIROVICH; PRIMAKOV, YEVGENY MAX-IMOVICH; YELTSIN, BORIS NIKOLAYEVICH

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Kolsto, Pal. (1995). Russians in the Former Soviet Republics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Trofimenko, Henry. (1999). Russian National Interests and the Current Crisis in Russia. Aldershot, UK: Ash-gate. Williams, Christopher. (2000). “The New Russia: From Cold War Strength to Post-Communist Weakness and Beyond.” In New Europe in Transiti
on, ed. Peter J. Anderson, Georg Wiessala, and Christopher Williams. London: Continuum. Williams, Christopher, and Sfikas, Thanasis D. (1999). Ethnicity and Nationalism in Russia, the CIS, and the Baltic States. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.

  CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS

  NECHAYEV, SERGEI GERADIEVICH

  (1847-1882), Russian revolutionary terrorist.

  Sergei Nechayev epitomizes the notion of using any means, however ruthless, to further revolution. He is perhaps best known for his coau-thorship of what is commonly known as the Catechism of a Revolutionary (1869). From its initial sentence, “The revolutionary is a doomed man,” to its twenty-sixth clause, calling for an “invincible, all-shattering force” for revolution, the Catechism has inspired generations of revolutionary terrorists. A public reading of the brief tract and the investigation of the murder of a member of his own organization at the trial of his followers in 1871 gave Nechayev instant notoriety. The notion that the end justified any means repelled most Russian revolutionaries, but others, then and later, admired Nechayev’s total commitment to revolution. One of his admirers was Vladimir Lenin. Fyodor Dos-toyevsky demonized Nechayev in the guise of Peter Verkhovensky in The Possessed (1873), but Rodion Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment (1866) has more psychological features in common with the real person.

  Born in Ivanovo, a Russian textile center, the gifted Nechayev had little hope of realizing his ambitions there. In 1866 he moved to St. Petersburg, where he obtained a teaching certificate. He quickly involved himself in the lively student movement in the city’s institutions of higher education, and he joined radical circles. The regime’s policies had driven the most committed revolutionaries underground, where they formed conspiracies to assassinate Alexander II and to incite the peasants to revolt. In 1868 and 1869 Nechayev began to show his ruth-lessness in his methods of recruitment. When a police crackdown occurred in March 1869, he fled to Switzerland to make contact with Russian emigr?s, who published the journal The Bell in Geneva. Nechayev falsified the extent of the movement and his role in it in order to gain the collaboration of Mikhail Bakunin and Nikolai Ogarev, who, with Alexander Herzen, published the journal. The romantic Bakunin especially admired ruthless men of action, and his connection with Nechayev foreshadowed future relationships between the theorists of revolution and unsavory figures. Before Nechayev’s return to Russia in September 1869, he and Bakunin wrote the Catechism of a Revolutionary and several other proclamations heralding the birth of a revolutionary conspiracy, the People’s Revenge. Bakunin’s tie with Nechayev figured in the former’s expulsion from the First International in 1872.