The history of Russia

THE

HISTORY

OF RUSSIA

ADVISORY BOARD

John T. Alexander

Professor of History and Russian and European Studies,

University of Kansas

Robert A. Divine

George W. Littlefield Professor in American History Emeritus,

University of Texas at Austin

John V. Lombardi

Professor of History,

University of Florida

GREENWOOD PRESS

An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations

Frank W. Thackeray and John E. Findling, Series Editors

THE

HISTORY OF

RUSSIA

SECOND EDITION

CHARLES E. ZIEGLER

Copyright 2009 by Charles E. Ziegler

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without

prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ziegler, Charles E.

The history of Russia / Charles E. Ziegler.—2nd ed.

p. cm. — (The Greenwood histories of the modern nations)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-313-36307-8 (paper : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-313-36308-5

(ebook) 1. Russia—History. 2. Soviet Union—History. 3. Russia

( Federation)—History—1991- I. Title.

DK40.Z54 2009

947— dc22 2009028949

13 12 11 10 09 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook.

Visit www.abc-clio.com for details.

ABC-CLIO, LLC

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Santa Barbara, California 93116–1911

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

To Janna and Alan

Map of Russia. [Cartography by Bookcomp, Inc.]

Series Foreword ix

Preface xiii

Preface to the Second Edition xvii

Timeline of Historical Events xix

1 Russia and Its People 1

2 Kievan Russia and the Mongol Experience 9

3 Muscovite Russia, 1240–1613 21

4 Russia under the Romanovs: Empire

and Expansion, 1613–1855 33

5 Reform, Reaction, and Revolution, 1855–1921 51

6 Building Communism, 1921–1953 71

Contents

viii Contents

7 De-Stalinization and Developed Socialism, 1953–1985 95

8 Gorbachev, Perestroika, and the Collapse of Communism 123

9 Russia’s Search for Democracy: The Yeltsin Era 149

10 Return to Authoritarianism: Putin and Beyond 181

Notable People in the History of Russia 209

Glossary of Selected Terms 213

Bibliographic Essay 217

Index 225

A photo essay follows page 122

The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations series is intended to provide stu￾dents and interested laypeople with up-to-date, concise, and analytical his￾tories of many of the nations of the contemporary world. Not since the 1960s

has there been a systematic attempt to publish a series of national histories,

and as series advisors, we believe that this series will prove to be a valuable

contribution to our understanding of other countries in our increasingly inter￾dependent world.

Some 40 years ago, at the end of the 1960s, the Cold War was an accepted

reality of global politics. The process of decolonization was still in progress,

the idea of a unified Europe with a single currency was unheard of, the United

States was mired in a war in Vietnam, and the economic boom in Asia was

still years in the future. Richard Nixon was president of the United States,

Mao Tse-tung (not yet Mao Zedong) ruled China, Leonid Brezhnev guided the

Soviet Union, and Harold Wilson was prime minister of the United Kingdom.

Authoritarian dictators still controlled most of Latin America, the Middle East

was reeling in the wake of the Six-Day War, and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahl￾avi was at the height of his power in Iran.

Since then, the Cold War has ended, the Soviet Union has vanished, leaving

15 independent republics in its wake, the advent of the computer age has radi￾cally transformed global communications, the rising demand for oil makes

Series Foreword

x Series Foreword

the Middle East still a dangerous flashpoint, and the rise of new economic

powers like the People’s Republic of China and India threatens to bring about

a new world order. All of these developments have had a dramatic impact on

the recent history of every nation of the world.

For this series, which was launched in 1998, we first selected nations whose

political, economic, and socio-cultural affairs marked them as among the most

important of our time. For each nation, we found an author who was rec￾ognized as a specialist in the history of that nation. These authors worked

cooperatively with us and with Greenwood Press to produce volumes that re￾flected current research on their nations and that are interesting and informa￾tive to their readers. In the first decade of the series, more than 40 volumes

were published, and as of 2008, some are moving into second editions.

The success of the series has encouraged us to broaden our scope to include

additional nations, whose histories have had significant effects on their regions,

if not on the entire world. In addition, geopolitical changes have elevated other

nations into positions of greater importance in world affairs and, so, we have

chosen to include them in this series as well. The importance of a series such

as this cannot be underestimated. As a superpower whose influence is felt all

over the world, the United States can claim a “special” relationship with al￾most every other nation. Yet many Americans know very little about the histo￾ries of nations with which the United States relates. How did they get to be the

way they are? What kind of political systems have evolved there? What kind of

influence do they have on their own regions? What are the dominant political,

religious, and cultural forces that move their leaders? These and many other

questions are answered in the volumes of this series. The authors who contrib￾ute to this series write comprehensive histories of their nations, dating back,

in some instances, to prehistoric times. Each of them, however, has devoted a

significant portion of their book to events of the past 40 years because the mod￾ern era has contributed the most to contemporary issues that have an impact

on U.S. policy. Authors make every effort to be as up-to-date as possible so that

readers can benefit from discussion and analysis of recent events.

In addition to the historical narrative, each volume contains an introductory

chapter giving an overview of that country’s geography, political institutions,

economic structure, and cultural attributes. This is meant to give readers a

snapshot of the nation as it exists in the contemporary world. Each history

also includes supplementary information following the narrative, which may

include a timeline that represents a succinct chronology of the nation’s histori￾cal evolution, biographical sketches of the nation’s most important historical

figures, and a glossary of important terms or concepts that are usually ex￾pressed in a foreign language. Finally, each author prepares a comprehensive

bibliography for readers who wish to pursue the subject further.

Series Foreword xi

Readers of these volumes will find them fascinating and well written. More

importantly, they will come away with a better understanding of the contem￾porary world and the nations that comprise it. As series advisors, we hope

that this series will contribute to a heightened sense of global understanding

as we move through the early years of the twenty-first century.

Frank W. Thackeray and John E. Findling

Indiana University Southeast

This page intentionally left blank

Russia is a very large country with a long and complex history. This book

provides a brief, accurate introduction to Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet his￾tory in a readable format that will be of use to high school students, college

students, teachers, and nonspecialists. It includes major social, cultural, and

economic developments so that readers new to the subject will come away

with a good general understanding of this fascinating and troubled country.

For those who wish further reading, the bibliographic essay includes some of

the better known accessible works.

For those who grew up in the post–World War II United States, Russia (or

more accurately, the Soviet Union) was a constant source of fear and attention.

Secretive leaders in the Kremlin, the massive stone fortress in the heart of

Moscow, had sworn to spread communism across the globe. At any time they

might rain thousands of nuclear warheads on America. School children in the

1950s learned to “duck and cover”—to hide under their desks and put their

hands over their heads in the event of a nuclear attack. U.S. taxpayers spent

billions and then trillions of dollars on bombers, missiles, fighter aircraft, sub￾marines, aircraft carriers, troops, tanks, and the other war paraphernalia to de￾fend against the communist threat. Leftists and communist sympathizers were

hounded and persecuted by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American

Activities Committee in the 1950s. The United States lost 58,000 men and rent

Preface

xiv Preface

itself apart trying to stop the spread of communism in Vietnam in the 1960s

and early 1970s. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan swept into office on a

strong anticommunist platform, pledging to build a space shield that would

provide a comprehensive missile defense for America.

Few experts or government officials expected the Soviet communist gov￾ernment to collapse in 1991. When it did, Americans were overjoyed, expect￾ing that once Russians had rejected dictatorship and socialist economics, they

would quickly learn the ways of democracy and market capitalism. Russians

likewise expected that within a few years they would be as affluent as the

West Europeans, Japanese, or Americans. After all, Russia was a highly edu￾cated nation with talented people and vast natural resources. Sadly, as the

20th century drew to a close, these expectations had still not been borne out.

Russia’s economy had shrunk nearly every year since 1991. The government

was deeply in debt, joblessness was rising, and crime was rampant. Russia

had managed to hold several rounds of relatively free presidential and par￾liamentary elections, but the country’s new democracy was still quite fragile.

Moreover, democratic Russia had had only one president, Boris Yeltsin, and

he was frequently sick and unable to govern.

Americans seem to have lost interest in Russia now that it is no longer com￾munist and seems to pose no threat to the United States or its allies. Russia,

however, is still a major nuclear power, and its leaders are determined that it

will be influential and respected around the world. And Russia may some day

extricate itself from the economic morass into which it has sunk. If that hap￾pens, Russia will indeed once again be a power to reckon with.

A brief note on transliteration and pronunciation: Russian names are written

in Cyrillic, and so must be transliterated into the Latin alphabet. This means

that occasionally the same word will be rendered by two different spellings:

for example, tsar and czar. In most cases, I have followed the Library of Con￾gress transliteration style used in the United States, with a few minor modifi￾cations for common usage (Trotsky instead of Trotskii). In Russian words and

names, unlike French, all the letters should be pronounced.

Readers should also be aware that until the 20th century, Russia followed

the old, Julian calendar abandoned by Europeans in 1582. The Julian calendar

was inaccurate, so in Russia dates were 12 days behind the modern Grego￾rian calendar in the 19th century and 13 days behind in the 20th century. The

Bolsheviks adopted the Gregorian calendar in February 1918, but the Russian

Orthodox Church still celebrates its holidays according to the older calendar.

Different dates for events in Russian history therefore are often referred to as

“Old Style” or “New Style,” depending on which calendar was in effect.

Chapter 8 draws in part from Charles E. Ziegler, “The Collapse of the Soviet

Union, 1985–1991: Interpretive Essay,” in Events That Changed the World in the