Download totalitarian leaders. They are called

Modern World: Notes: Russian Revolution
The period between the two world wars was one of constant turmoil and conflict called the “interwar years.” The devastation
and destruction wrought by World War One had shattered the faith of many Europeans in the liberal ideas that has supported the Age
of Progress. This, in combination with the political and economic chaos of the post-war period, drove many people to seek new
political and economic systems that promised security and economic well-being. World War One had exhausted the major powers in
Europe and left a power vacuum across much of the world – a vacuum that new groups based on radical philosophies and nationalistic
aims took advantage of to develop governments that challenged liberal ideas. While these groups took power by promising to create
new idealistic and utopian societies based on extreme nationalism or communism, their style of rule resulted in brutal dictatorships.
During this interwar period the countries of Italy, Germany, the Soviet Union, Spain and Japan, all came under the control of
totalitarian leaders. They are called “totalitarian” because they controlled all aspects of the countries and people they ruled – they did
this by using the tools of mass society and secret police forces. Totalitarian governments actively suppressed any aspects of civil
society in the countries they ruled. While these rulers had different ideologies, they often resembled each other in their style of rule –
they use secret police, terror, and mass propaganda to control their populations.
Overview of Totalitarian Philosophies:
 Communism – Revolutionary socialism – based on the idea that society is a struggle between workers and capitalist owners.
This struggle will result in a revolution where the workers will overthrow the capitalists. After that, workers will establish a
society based on equality where the government owns everything and provides people will all they need. Communism
established dictatorships where the government controlled all aspects of its citizens’ lives and private property became
government property.
 Fascism – Extreme nationalism – based on the idea that national strength is goal of any society – therefore society needs to be
militarized and expand to control lands and people that can be used to strengthen the nation. Fascism glorifies war and is
ardently anti-communist. While Fascist governments protect private property, they control all political and social aspects of
their citizens lives – typically enforcing their policies with a secret police force.
 Nazism – Combination of Fascism and racism – based on the idea that the root of national strength is racial purity – therefore
society needs to rid itself of any people that do not belong to the “national race” of the society. Nazism imitates Fascism in
the control it exercises over its citizens. In addition, it expels or kills any part of the population that does not fit its racial
definition of the “national race.”
Russian Revolution – Creation of the Communist State
The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in November 1917 established a communist government that ruled Russia until the last
decade of the twentieth century. The Russian Revolution has been described as a firecracker with a very long fuse. The conditions
and causes of the Russian Revolution in 1917 had been building up in Russia for almost a hundred years.
In terms of geography, Russia is the largest country in the
world. From its western border in Europe to its Pacific coast, Russia
spans 12 time zones. The Russian Empire at the beginning of the
twentieth century was only slightly larger than modern nation of
Russia. Imperial Russia covered 8.5 million square miles and had a
population of 130 million people – of whom less than half were
Russians. The remaining people ranged from Catholic Poles and
Lithuanians to Orthodox Ukrainians and Georgians to Muslim
Kazaks and Uzbeks.
“The outside world should not be surprised that we
have an imperfect government, but that we have
any government at all. With many nationalities,
many languages, and a nation largely illiterate, the
marvel is that the country can be held together
even by autocratic means.”
- Count Sergey Witte
In theory, this vast land and diverse population was under the absolute rule of the Emperor or Czar. In reality, much of
Russia was a feudal society. The Czar was dependent on noble landlords who, in return for their loyalty to the Czar, were allowed to
rule their lands with absolute authority. The Russian peasants were treated as serfs – they were legally bound to the land they lived on
and had to work for the noble who owned the land. The peasants were desperately poor, illiterate and lived in small rural villages.
Only in 1861 did Czar Alexander II abolish serfdom. He noted his reasons for doing this when he said, “It is better to abolish serfdom
from above than to wait for the time when it will begin to abolish itself from below.”
The authoritarian and traditional Russian government had shunned liberal ideas and saw little reason to modernize the
country. Ever since the Decembrists Revolt by liberal army officers in 1825, members of the educated and liberal upper class, called
the intelligentsia, believed it was their duty to fight for the general good of the peasants. Often these groups adopted radial political
ideas (such as anarchism and Marxism) and focused on carrying out terrorist acts as political action. For example, in 1881, Czar
Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 by a terrorist group called the “People’s Will” – the tragedy of his assassination was that
Alexander II had earlier that day signed papers to move Russia to being a Constitutional Monarchy. After the assassination of his
father, Czar Alexander III became more authoritarian and refused to grant freedom or democracy in any form – he did not follow
through on his father’s liberal reforms. He refused to change Russian government and defined his reactionary rule as “autocracy,
orthodoxy, and nationality.” By this he meant:
 Autocracy – No one could question the absolute authority of the czar.
 Orthodoxy – No one could worship outside of the Orthodox Christian Church.
 Nationality – No one could speak any language but Russian – a policy called Russification.
Maintaining control over a large country made up of different religions and nationalities – each with their own language –
required the use the Okhrana (a secret police force) to spy on people and to exile political enemies to Siberia in the eastern part of
Russia. The Okhrana did more than spy on political groups, its agents infiltrated and collaborated with radical groups. These
reactionary policies helped keep Russia a backwards country with 75% of the population living as poor peasants ruled by a small
noble class. Because of the lack of modernization, only 2-3% of the population was industrial workers.
When Alexander III died unexpectedly in 1894, his son Nicholas II took the throne. Alexander had done little to prepare Nicholas
to rule Russia whom he thought was too immature to handle many of the responsibilities of governing. While Nicholas was capable,
he was plagued with indecisiveness when facing major decisions. An indication of the difficulty Nicholas would have in facing the
crisis of a world war and then revolution was shown when the 26 year old Nicholas II became czar and said “What is going to happen
to me and all of Russia?”
In 1904, the full extent of Russia’s backwardness was revealed to the world when Russia went to war against Japan over part
of northern China called Manchuria. Manchuria had large amounts of coal and iron that Japan wanted for developing its industry.
However, Russia also wanted the territory because it provided a naval base for Russia’s Pacific Fleet. When the war began, everyone
expected the larger European country, Russia, to defeat the only recently developed Asian country, Japan. However, Japan surprised
of the world when it defeated the Russian Army and sank both Russian naval fleets.
The result of the Russo-Japanese War caused problems for the Nicholas II. In January 1905, 200,000 workers and their
families in St. Petersburg began a peaceful protest asking the czar to improve their working and living conditions. The workers
largely respected the czar, whom they called “little father”. However, thinking the crowd was trouble, Nicholas fled the palace.
Soldiers guarding the palace were ordered to shoot the protesters – it is not clear who gave the order – over 1000 people were killed or
wounded in the event called “Bloody Sunday.” As news of Bloody Sunday spread, riots and revolts erupted across Russia. In
October 1905, a young socialist revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, organized a general strike that brought Russia to a standstill.
In response to the popular uprising, Nicholas II gave into popular demands to form an elected national assembly called the
Duma. In elections of 1906, socialist and democratic groups won the election, formed the majority of the Duma, and demanded
further political and economic reforms. Nicholas II reacted to the formation of the Duma by closing it. New elections in 1907 only
resulted in a Duma that was more socialistic, which Nicholas also shut down. After restricting the right to vote to the upper classes, a
Duma was elected that met with the approval of the Czar. At this time, Nicholas II appointed Pyotr Stolypin to be his Prime Minister.
Stolypin, while a traditional conservative, gave the peasants more rights in land ownership and freedom – which resulted in creating a
group of successful peasant farmers called kulaks or “big farmers” and a population of peasants moving to cities to work in
developing industries. Unfortunately, Stolypin was assassinated in 1911and with his death Nicholas II ceased his efforts to reform
Russia. As a result, few of the problems of Russian society had been solved, and Russia remained a weak, poor, backwards nation. In
July 1914, on the verge of World War One, industrial workers in St. Petersburg were involved in a large-scale strike that resulted in
workers battling police in the streets.
February Revolution
World War One was the event that triggered the Russian Revolution. Ironically, the outbreak of the war brought political
unity to Russia and created a patriotic fervor that gave Czar Nicholas popular support. In 1914, World War One began with Russia
joining England and France against Germany, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire (in 1917, the United States would join the war on the
side of England, France, and Russia). While Russia had the largest army in Europe, it was unprepared for modern war. It military
tactics were out of date and its soldiers were not equipped with modern weapons. The Russian army was torn apart by German
machine-guns, artillery, and airplanes. Russia lost more than 4 million men in the first year of the war. These losses led to mass
protest and anti-government violence across Russia. In 1915, Nicholas tried to turn around Russia’s war effort by taking personal
command of the army at the front. This proved to be a mistake – little could be done to change the Russian army during the war and
the continued high causalities and poor performance of the army turned many Russians against Nicholas’ leadership, because he was
leading the army. In addition, because he was absorbed with running the army at the front, he was not aware of the worsening
political situation back in Russia. By 1917, Russian soldiers were disobeying orders, deserting their posts, and killing their officers.
In fact, the German Army ceased to attack the Russian positions, in order to preserve soldiers for the fighting on the Western Front.
For Nicholas this situation was made worse by the fact that his only son, Alexis, suffered from hemophilia – a rare genetic
disease where a person’s blood does not clot and he can easily bleed to death from minor injuries. The only person who seemed to be
able to help the boy was Rasputin , a mysterious and sinister peasant monk from Siberia who claimed to be a “starets” or self ordained
holy man. In fact, he was an illiterate peasant who was an accused horse thief. In Russian, the name Rasputin means “dirty dog.”
Rasputin had a hypnotic power that seemed to heal the Czarovich (crown prince). This gained Rasputin influence wit h the Czarina
Alexandra and ultimately power in the Russian government. During the war, it became known that many traitorous government
officials had gained their positions through bribing Rasputin. Rasputin’s behavior (drunkenness and obscenity) caused most Russians
to view Rasputin as a vile and corrupt force in the government – especially the nobles and the Orthodox Church, the two traditional
powers behind the Czar. As the war turned against Russia and Rasputin’s power grew, the popular anger at both Czar Nicholas and
Czarina Alexandra became more intense. At a dinner party in 1916, a group of nobles attempted to kill Rasputin by drugging, then
poisoning, then shooting, then beating, before succeeding by drowning him. After murdering Rasputin, the killers openly bragged
about the murder and went unpunished, which only further under cut the power of Czar Nicholas.
On March 8, 1917, workers in Petrograd – the name of St. Petersburg was changed at the beginning of World War One
because it sounded too German - held a city-wide strike to protest the war and the poor economy – people in the city started to break
into stores to get food. The protesters demanded “bread and peace.” This protest marked the breaking point for the Russian war effort
– when the police shot at crowds of protesters, the protests turned into city-wide riots. The soldiers sent to put down the rebellion
refused to shoot the workers and instead killed their officers and joined the rebellion. On March 14, Czar Nicholas, who was unable to
return to Petrograd because revolting soldiers blocked the railway, abdicated (ending the 400 year Romanov rule of Russia), and the
Duma formed a new government called the Provisional Government - this event was called the February Revolution (at that time
Russian was on the Orthodox calendar which runs about two weeks later than the Western calendar). Nicholas and the royal family
remained in Russia, over time they were evacuated from Petersburg to the Ural Mountains, where they were held as prisoners.
The Provisional Government faced many problems: Russia was still at war with Germany, its people were starving, and its
economy was in chaos. The leader of the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, a socialist, under pressure from the Allies to
keep Russia in the war, decided to continue the war with Germany while introducing liberal reforms of the economy and more
political freedom. The decision to continue fighting the highly unpopular war while creating the freedom for protests against the new
government caused more political instability. Worse for Kerensky, a Russian army offensive against the Austrian Army in the
summer of 1917 shattered the remaining unity of the Russian Army and made Russian soldiers ripe for more radical political ideas and
unwilling to support the Provisional Government.
October Revolution
Kerensky and the Provisional Government was not the only political force in Russia claiming the authority of government.
Across Russia, on farms, in factories, and even in the army, groups of radial revolutionaries set up organizations called soviets. The
soviets claimed their own authority to run the economy and army, which often ignored the orders of the Provisional Government.
Even in Petrograd, the city soviet usurped the power of the Provisional Government. On March 14, the day of the February
Revolution, the Petrograd Soviet issued Army Order # 1, which made the army a democratic institution that elected its officers and
made it subordinate to the Petrograd Soviet. The Petrograd Soviet was essentially a “shadow government” that was ready to assume
power if the opportunity arose. In addition, across Russia the Provisional Government ceased to have any authority as peasants took
nobles’ land for their own.
Into all of the chaos, Vladimir Lenin, the leader of a small revolutionary group called the
Bolsheviks (means “majority” in Russian), returned to Petrograd from exile in Switzerland in April
1917. The Germans assisted Lenin’s return to Russia to throw Russia into chaos and weaken its war
effort. British leader Winston Churchill would later compare Lenin’s return to a “plague bacillus” –
the bacteria that caused the Black Death. Lenin was a lifelong revolutionary (he became a
revolutionary when his brother was executed by the Okhrana for attempting to assassinate the czar)
who had been trying to overthrow the Russian government for decades. The name Bolshevik was a
clever piece of propaganda since it implied that they were the majority, when in reality Bolsheviks
represented, at most, one million people out of a population of 130 million Russians. Lenin and the
Bolsheviks were followers of Karl Marx and they wanted to establish a communist government in
Russia. Ironically, Karl Marx had written that Russia was too poor and backwards to become
communist. However, Lenin, who had spent years in exile reading Marx, believed that a communist
A lie told often enough
take over of Russia was possible if the Bolsheviks were disciplined and highly organized. Lenin
becomes the truth.
organized the Bolsheviks to be the “vanguard” of revolutionary action. Lenin sought to use the
- Lenin
chaos of Russia to create the opportunity for the Bolsheviks to seize power. Lenin also believed that
a successful communist revolution in Russia could be used as a platform to support communist revolutions in other countries.
Knowing that the Provisional Government opposed the Bolsheviks, Lenin turned to the soviets for support. Lenin promised
the Russian people “Bread, Land, and Peace” if the Bolsheviks came to power – this became the main slogan of the Bolsheviks. The
other major slogans they used were “all power to the soviets” and “all land to the peasants.” Such slogans gained the Bolsheviks the
support of the workers, peasants, and soldiers. Under Lenin’s leadership, the Bolsheviks used the newspaper Pravda, which means
“truth” in Russian, to spread their ideas and criticisms of the Provisional Government.
The Bolsheviks launched their first attempt to seize power in July 1917. It was largely unorganized and fizzled out after two
days of street fighting. The Provisional Government reacted by arresting Bolshevik leaders, raiding Bolshevik offices, and shutting
down Pravda. Lenin was forced to flee to Finland. At the same time, the Russian Army’s last military offensive collapsed and the
Russian Army disintegrated. By August, millions of Russian soldiers had deserted the army and were streaming home with their guns.
The Bolsheviks actively recruited the disillusioned soldiers to their cause.
In an effort to restore order to Russia, at the end of August, Russian general Lavr Kornilov announced that he would march to
Petrograd and take over the government and hang all the members of the soviets. While his own solders rebelled when he announced
his orders, his threat threw the Provisional Government into chaos and distracted it from dealing with the threat posed by the
Bolsheviks. This gave the Bolsheviks the opportunity to re-emerge into Russian politics.
Lenin appointed Leon Trotsky to organize the Bolshevik take over of Russia. Leon Trotsky, a former medical student, had
spent his life as a revolutionary (he was a leader in the revolt of 1905), which had resulted in being sentenced to either Russian
prisons, exiled to Siberia, or forced to live outside of Russia. In the chaos of the revolution and war, Trotsky was able to organize the
Red Guard, an armed group of 20,000 Bolshevik supporters. On Lenin’s order, Trotsky and the Red Guard attempted to seize power
on the night of November 7, 1917. Before the Provisional Government realized what was happening, the Bolsheviks had captured all
the important government buildings in Petrograd and arrested the leaders of the Provisional Government, except Kerensky, who
escaped in the car of the American ambassador. The Bolshevik seizure of power was successful not because it was dramatic or
because the population supported the Bolsheviks, but because Kerensky was unable to organize a military response to the Bolsheviks.
Within hours of the Bolshevik take over, a meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets in Petrograd declared that the Soviet
Central Executive Committee lead by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin, was the government. The Bolshevik take over took less than 48
hours and resulted in fewer than 20 deaths. The Bolshevik seizure of power is called the October Revolution – again because Russia
was on the old calendar.
While the Bolsheviks could claim power, winning the popular support of the population was more difficult. In November
1917, Russia held elections for positions in the assembly of the new government – 36 million men, more than half of Russia’s male
population, voted. Over half the voters supported Kerensky’s Socialist Party, while only a quarter supported the Bolsheviks. Faced
with electoral defeat, the Bolsheviks cancelled the new assembly on its first day in session. After this, the Bolsheviks banned all other
political parties.
The Bolsheviks came to power with the goal of transforming Russia from a rural agricultural society to a modern industrial
society and a force for promoting world-wide communist revolution. Upon taking power, they gave all of the land and factories to the
peasants and workers. However, similar to the Provisional Government, the new Bolshevik government found itself confronted by
problems and enemies: the war with Germany, major food shortages, and political chaos created by nationalistic groups that wanted to
break away from Russia and czarist forces that wanted to stop the revolution. The Bolsheviks first dealt with the war with Germany
by announced a truce with Germany. In March 1918, the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ending the war with Germany
and, in the process, surrendered a quarter of Russian territory and population to the Germans.
Peace with Germany allowed the Bolsheviks to focus on their largest problem, the ongoing war with their Russian enemies.
This was the Civil War that raged across Russia from 1918 to 1922. Lenin organized the policy of “war communism”, where
everything was put to the support of the Bolshevik cause, to fight the Civil War. The Bolsheviks confiscated property and crops to
supply their army and forced people to either labor for the Bolshevik war effort or serve in the Bolshevik army. Under Lenin’s
leadership, Leon Trotsky organized the Bolshevik army called the Red Army. Trotsky led the Red Army with ruthless discipline. If a
unit deserted, Trotsky would have the commanders and one in ten soldiers shot. Felix Dzerzhinsky organized the Bolshevik secret
police called the Extraordinary Commission for the Suppression of Counterrevolution or CHEKA to enforce Bolshevik policy and war
effort. In July 1918, Czar Nicholas II and his whole family were killed by the CHEKA on the order of Lenin. In the fall of 1918, the
CHEKA began a program of arresting, torturing, and killing any person believed to be against the Bolshevik revolution. This program
of the “Red Terror” silenced any internal opposition to the Bolsheviks. Lenin described the determination of the Bolsheviks to use
terror as a weapon when he said, "We did not hesitate to shoot thousands of people, and we shall not hesitate, and we shall save
the country."
Opposing the Bolsheviks in the Civil War were a loose collection of armed groups called the White Armies. The White
Armies were made up of Russian nobles and non-Russian ethnic groups that wanted independence, such as Ukrainians and Cossacks.
In addition, foreign soldiers from America, Japan, and Europe were sent to Russia to guard supplies the Allied powers sent to support
the Russian effort in World War One. The Allies did not want these supplies to fall into the hand of the Bolsheviks. Many o f these
Allies forces aided the White Armies and Allied soldiers fought limited battles with the Soviet Red Army. However, the Allied forces
in Russia did not play any major role in the war, except to assist some of the White Armies in evacuating from Russia at the end of the
war. In addition, in Siberia, 45,000 Czech prisoners of war, fearful that the Soviets would turn them over to the Germans, seized
control of the Trans-Siberian railway and fought for the White Armies. During the Civil War, the Red Army controlled the area of the
major cities of European Russia, while the White Armies controlled the Southern and Eastern parts of Russia. The combination of a
disciplined Red Army leadership, the use of terror as a weapon by the CHEKA, and the disorganization and disunity among the White
Armies, resulted in a Bolshevik victory in the Civil War. Three years of fighting in the Civil War caused the deaths of about 6 million
Russians – roughly 5 million people died of famine in 1920-21.
While the Bolsheviks fought the Civil War, Lenin began the process of transforming Russia
into a communist country. The Bolshevik Party became the Communist Party in 1918 and Russia
became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (known as the USSR or Soviet Union), and Moscow
became the capital of the Soviet Union. Then in March 1921, Lenin presided over the Tenth Party
Congress which made the more of dictatorship under the control of the Communist Party. At this
meeting he banned all opposition groups within the party, reduced party membership by 50%, and
placed all the power of the party under the Central Committee. This action made Lenin, the head of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the absolute leader of the Soviet Union. These
changes created the situation where whoever controlled the Central Committee of the Communist
Party would have total control over the Soviet Union. This action caused revolts amongst some of
the Soviets’ most ardent supporters. In March 1921, sailors on the Kronstadt naval base revolted
because of the “arbitrary rule of the commissars.” The Kronstadters had fought for the Soviets and
were now demanding a true soviet republic. The Soviet government responded by sending 25,000
Red Army soldiers to violently put down the rebellion.
“We shall now proceed
to construct the socialist
order!” - Lenin
By 1922, Lenin and the Bolsheviks had effectively won the Civil War. The combination of the military and political
discipline of the Bolsheviks and the corruption and infighting between the White Armies allowed the Bolsheviks to defeat the various
nationalist groups and the Allied armies had withdrawn from Russia. In addition, the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921 ended in a
treaty between Russia and Poland that stabilized the western border of Russia.
After winning the Civil War, Lenin and the Communists found themselves ruling over a Soviet Union that was exhausted
from war, starving from famine, and in ruins. Lenin recognized that the Russian people would no longer tolerate “war communism”
now that the Civil War was over. More importantly, he saw that in order to rebuild the Soviet economy, he would have to give some
control of the economy over free markets. In 1921, Lenin announced the New Economic Plan (NEP), which allowed farms and
businesses to run for the profit of their owners – which was against communist philosophy. With the revolution won and the core of
the Russian economy under the direct control of the Communist Party, Lenin was willing to be more practical than idealistic if it was
for the benefit of the country. However, this did not mean that Lenin had given up the goal of creating a communist society. Under
the NEP, all major industries, such as steel plants and railroads, remained under the control of the government. Lenin claimed that the
government still controlled the “commanding heights” of the economy – which meant the heavy industry and railroads. Lenin also
began a program for building up the electrical system in the country. Lenin famously said, ‘Communism if Soviet power plus the
electrification of the whole country.” Under the NEP, the Soviet economy finally recovered to the level of the pre-World War One
Russian economy by the late 1920’s.
The Bolsheviks also moved to quickly modernized Russian society. Women were given legal equality to men – including the
right to vote. Women also had places of leadership in the Soviet government. The Soviet government began a program to educate the
entire country. Through enforced compulsory education, the literacy rate in the Soviet Union grew from 44% in 1920 to 87 % by
1939. By the 1950’s, the Soviet Union had near 100% literacy – higher than the United States!
However, the Soviet government began to actively suppress religion. This was because Marxist Communism is opposed to
organized religion and the Russian Orthodox Church was a reactionary institution that dominated Imperial Russia. When the
Bolsheviks came to power they began to openly attack the Orthodox Church. Churches were closed, demolished, or turned into
“museums of atheism” and their contents looted. By 1921, 28 bishops and more than 1,000 priests had been arrested or killed.
The ideological goal of a world-wide communist revolution was a core part of Russian Bolshevism. Socialist and
communists around the world were inspired by the Bolshevik take-over in Russia and many traveled to Russia to support the
establishment of the Soviet Union. In 1919, Lenin established the Communist International or Comintern in Moscow to organize,
train, and equip communist revolutionaries around the world. The establishment of the Comintern was designated at the Third
International to connect the Bolshevik Revolution to the First and Second Internationals led by Karl Marx. Representatives of
communist parties from across Europe and North America attended this meeting. The Comintern worked directly with communist
parties in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, supplying them with money and support. In return, these communist parties were under the
control and command of the Comintern. In the post-World War One world, the Comintern actively encouraged communist revolution
in Germany and the areas of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. In addition, the CHEKA, which was renamed the NKVD, was
engaged in economic espionage in Europe and the United States for the purpose of stealing technology to help the Soviet Union
industrialize.
While only 51 in 1921, Lenin’s health was failing. In May 1921, Lenin suffered his first stoke. Over the next three years, a
succession of stokes reduced his ability to write, speak, and rule Russia. Before he faded from power, Lenin warned that the Soviet
government had become too bureaucratic and incompetent. Lenin’s death in 1924 created a power struggle among his supporters that
would change everything in Russia. After his death, Lenin was turned into symbolic figurehead that was similar to being deified. In
memory of Lenin, the city of Petrograd was re-named Leningrad and Lenin’s body was preserved and put on permanent display in the
center of Moscow (where it remains today).
Joseph Stalin
Born in Georgia (south of Russia in the Caucuses Mountains), Joseph Stalin grew up in an
abusive family. Stalin’s original name was Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili. He took the name
“Stalin” (meaning steel) after he became a Marxist revolutionary. As a young man he studied to be a
priest in the Orthodox Christian Church until he converted to Marxist Communism. As a
revolutionary, Stalin did many of the dirty and organizational jobs for the Bolshevik Party including
bank robbery. Because of his revolutionary activities, at one point, Stalin was exiled to Siberia by the
Czarist Russian Government. After the October Revolution, Stalin rose through the ranks of the
Bolshevik government and by 1923 he was General Secretary of the Communist Party. Unlike the
charismatic Trotsky, Stalin was a bureaucrat who was known by other Bolsheviks as “Comrade CardIndex” because of the detailed records and notes he kept on the various members of the Bolshevik
Party. While the General Secretary was not an official government position, because it was the
administrative head of the Communist Party, Stalin was able to place his supporters in key positions
throughout the government and Communist Party. In addition, because of the changed Lenin made at the Tenth Party Congress,
Stalin’s control over the Communist Party gave him control over the government of the Soviet Union. In addition, Stalin had the task
of translating Lenin’s complex intellectual arguments into common language that the rank and file Communist Party members could
follow. As a result, many party members came to identify Stalin’s “voice” with Lenin.
When Lenin died in 1924, Stalin and Leon Trotsky were the two most powerful men in the Soviet Union. While Trotsky had
been the leader of the October Revolution and the Red Army during the Civil War, Stalin had worked himself to the top of the
Communist Party. Trotsky and Stalin had different ideas about the future of the Communist Revolution and the Soviet Union.
Trotsky wanted to use the Soviet Union as a springboard to start revolutions across Europe with the goal of spreading Communism to
the rest of the world. Stalin wanted to focus on building up the Soviet Union and wait on spreading the communist revolution until the
Soviet Union was strong. The combination of this difference in goals and a deep personal
“Stalin is too rude…I propose
mistrust between Stalin and Trotsky led to a vicious power struggle. As Lenin’s health failed,
to the comrades to find a way
Stalin became part of a triumvirate that ruled the Soviet Union. Stalin used this position to put
to remove Stalin.”
people who supported him in high positions and expelled those who opposed him from the
-Lenin in 1923
party. Before his death, Lenin warned of the danger of Stalin, but it was too late.
After the death of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky became involved in a power struggle over the control of the Soviet Union and
the future of the Communist Party. Stalin moved quickly to consolidate all power under his control. Using his supporters strategically
placed within the Communist Party, Stalin had Trotsky excluded from the government and removed from power. In 1927, at the
Fifteenth Party Congress, Stalin expelled Trotsky from the Communist Party and exiled within the Soviet Union. Then in 1929 he
expelled him from the Soviet Union. Later, in 1940, under orders from Stalin, Soviet agents assassinated Trotsky in Mexico.
Once Trotsky had been defeated, Stalin made himself a dictator over the Soviet Union. Stalin used his dictatorial power to
control all media in the Soviet Union to create a popular image of himself as a benevolent all-powerful ruler who would create a
socialist paradise. Images of Stalin were posted in public places and his words were published in newspapers and broadcast on radios.
For the average Soviet citizen, Stalin was an inescapable part of life. This complete saturation of Soviet life by Stalin created a “cult
of personality” where it seemed that the Soviet people thought of Stalin as a “socialist god”. The image of Stalin was so pervasive and
the censorship so extreme in the Soviet Union that even many of Stalin’s victims did not blame him for their suffering. They
believed it was a mistake of the system.
In addition, Stalin used the secret police force called the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs or NKVD (the renamed
CHEKA) to enforce Stalin’s control over the Soviet Union with an ongoing reign of terror. The term “secret police” does not mean
that they were unknown. On the contrary, the members of the NKVD were easily identifiable, often appearing in their blue uniforms.
NKVD prisons, like the Lubyanka in Moscow, were in city centers. What made the NKVD “secret” was that their actions were
undisclosed. People arrested by the NKVD would simply disappear. Typically, NKVD victims would be taken to a prison or
interrogation center where they would be tortured into confessing to being an “enemy of the people” and to incriminate other people.
After that, they would be sentenced to execution or the GULAG for forced labor.
Stalin used his power, image, and police terror to transform the Soviet Union from a peasant farming society into an urban
industrial society in ten years. In order to transform the Soviet Union into an industrial country, Stalin had the Soviet government take
control and ownership of all property and industry in the Soviet Union. Essentially, private property was abolished. This ended
Lenin’s NEP program. Stalin then had the government order and run the Soviet Union as a command economy. In a command
economy, the government commands the people to produce goods and the whole economy of a nation is directed to meeting the
demands of the government. While the government claims to be doing this in the interest of the people of a country, often it is the
people who suffer since they cannot get what they want, only what the government wants them to have. Beginning in 1928, Stalin
ordered the first Five Year Plan to develop the industrial base of the Soviet Union. The Five Year Plans were organized by the
Committee for State Planning, which was known as Gosplan. Basically, Gosplan planned and directed the whole economy from the
food grown on farms to the things produced in factories to the number of students in school. The Five Year Plan stated the production
goals for the Soviet Union and served as the work orders for every farm, factory, and institution in the Soviet Union.
The Five Year Plans represented a program for a forced industrial revolution that
involved two different actions. First, there was a program to improve agriculture so people
working growing food could be shifted to working in industry. Second, there was a program to
build industrial centers and utilize the natural resources that were available across much of
Asian Russia (especially in Siberia). Countries that had gone through the Industrial Revolution
had generally made the improvements in agriculture prior to large scale industrialization.
Stalin planned to do both at the same time.
“We are fifty to a hundred
years behind the advanced
countries. We must make
good this distance in ten
years. Either we do it or we
will be crushed.”
- Stalin
The program for improving agriculture was known as Collectivization in which
Agricultural Output 1928 - 1933
peasants were forced to turn over their property to state run collective farms called
Product
1928 1930 1933
kolkhozy. While Russia was an agricultural society in which most people farmed in rural
Grain
80.6
91.9
75.2
villages, these small rural farms were very inefficient. The goal of Collectivization was
change agriculture into large scale “industrial” farms. The goal was for these large
Cattle
70.5
52.5
38.4
collective farms to produce all the food necessary to feed the industrial workers in the
All numbers in millions
factories. However, many peasant farmers opposed the plan to take away their lands and
many wealthy peasants, called kulaks, refused to give up their property. Some even burned their property before it could be
confiscated. Stalin declared that they were enemies of the state and they were arrested and sent to the Gulag. As a result, in the first
years of collectivization, there was not enough food produced to feed both the farmers and the industrial workers. Stalin ordered that
the industrial workers get priority, since industrial development was considered more important. As a result, farmers would only get
food once they had met their quota. This was enforced by NKVD soldiers who guarded the harvest and killed any farmer caught
stealing food. In 1932-33, 7 million people in Ukraine lost their lives due to forced starvation. An additional political reason for the
famine was to destroy Ukrainian nationalism.
The program for industrial development was equally brutal. Peasants were rounded up and forced to move to newly planned
cities. In the Soviet command economy, all economic decisions were made by the government. All Soviet citizens were issued
internal passports that were used to control their movements. In the Soviet Union, being unemployed or living in a place other than
the address in the internal passport was a crime. The technology to build this industrial base was provided by foreign companies that
were paid to build factories in the Soviet Union and through economic espionage by the NKVD. People had almost no freedom in
choosing either a job or a place to live and work. On arrival in the cities they first built factories, hydroelectric dams and mines and
then proceeded to work in the factories and build their housing – many workers lived in tents and railcars during the construction. The
construction of the massive steel works Magnitogorsk (Magnetic Mountain) in the Ural Mountains is an example of this process of
industrial development. The building of Magnitogorsk was modeled on the steel plant in Gary, Indiana, only larger. The 10 year
building project began in 1929 and by 1932 had more than 250,000 people working on the project in temperatures that ranged from -
40 F in the winter to more than 100 F in the summer. As many as 10% of the workers may have died in the first year of construction
from dangerous working conditions, poor living conditions and execution for bad work.
The Soviet government approached the Five Year Plan with the same ruthlessness by which it fought the Civil War. Under the
Five Year Plan, everyone in the Soviet Union was given production quotas that they had to meet. Workers who excelled in meet ing
their quotas were made into “Soviet heroes”, who were rewarded with better housing and living conditions. However, failure to meet
the quota could result in arrest or execution for the crime of “industrial sabotage.” Unfortunately, the production quotas were
unrealistically high and were seldom achieved. As a result, the Soviet command economy was prone to shortages and corruption as
people tried to hide their shortcomings in meeting quotas. Soviet propaganda portrayed the industrialization of the Five Year Plan as a
military operation with industrial “fronts” and “shock troops” of workers – often the industrial development was conducted as a state
of emergency where failure was considered an act of treason.
In order to maintain control and crush any resistance to the Five Year Plans, Stalin relied on the NKVD to eliminate any
opposition. Anyone who showed any objection to the Five Year Plan was arrested and then either executed or sent to work to death in
a system of labor camps across the Soviet Union, but mostly in Siberia, called the in the Gulag – Glavny Upravlenie Lagerey or Main
Administration for Camps. The Gulag was actually an entire system of NKVD operated labor camps for mining gold, foresting trees,
and building cities out in Siberia. From the perspective of Stalin and the NKVD, the millions of Soviet citizens arrested between the
1920’s and 1930’s were a free source of labor that was worked to death. It is
estimated that up to 10 million people died in the Gulag system – roughly
90% of the people sent to the Gulag. Life expectancy for a prisoner of the
Gulag was two years. The Kolyma Gulag in eastern Siberia was an NKVD
governed state in the Soviet Union, whose population mostly consisted on
guards and prisoners and the whole economy was based on prison labor.
Stalin was very paranoid and feared anyone who might have enough
“One death is a tragedy, a million deaths
power to challenge him, especially those who where in positions of power.
is a statistic.”
Beginning in the 1930’s, Stalin launched the Great Purge of any Soviet leader
- Stalin
thought to be disloyal. Stalin ordered the arrest and execution of many of the
leading Communist Party Officials and Red Army Officers – even those
Stalin thought of as “friends.” To demonstrate his power over these people,
there were a series of public show trials in the 1930’s, which were broadcast
“One death is a tragedy, a million deaths
across the Soviet Union. In these show trials, the Soviet leaders, whom Stalin had
is a statistic.”
arrested, publicly confessed to their disloyalty. Often the confessions were
- Stalin
extracted in exchange for the protection of their families from the purge. In the
purges, Stalin eliminated 70% of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
(98 of the 139 members) and 25 % of the Soviet Red Army officer corps.
Compare the two pictures above. What is different? The man standing next to Stalin is
gone. The picture on the bottom was “doctored” after Stalin had the man to his left, NKVD
leader Nikolai Yezhov, “disappeared” or was killed. After Stalin ordered a high-ranking
person to be killed, all photographs that were published would be “doctored” to remove any
proof that the person had ever existed. Libraries were ordered to remove pages from books
that mentioned the person. This elimination of any proof that a person had existed not only
demonstrated Stalin’s power, but also sent a clear warning to anyone who could challenge
him.
Those who control the
present control the past,
those who control the past
control the future.
- George Orwell
Nobody in Stalin’s Soviet Union was safe from arrest. The NKVD opened and read mail, listened to phone conversations,
and placed spies in every workplace and school. Just a hint of disloyalty to Stalin or the Five Year Plan could mean arrest. However,
arrests were also entirely random because the NKVD was subject to the same production quotas as the rest of the Soviet Union. The
NKVD had to meet quotas in the number of people it arrested and often people were arrested simply so the NKVDofficers could make
their quotas. An example of the massive number of arrests in the purge was the 100,000 people arrested by the NKVD in 1934 in
Leningrad. In order to insure that everyone arrested would confess, the NKVD used torture to get confessions. Actually, in the Soviet
legal system anyone arrested was presumed to be guilty. Being a member of NKVD did not insure safety under Stalin. In 1938,
NKVD directory Genrikh Yagoda was arrested and executed. Nikolai Yezhov, who Stalin appointed to run the NKVD (and who
oversaw the execution of Yagoda) was arrested and executed in 1940.
The combination of the forced industrialization, collectivization of agriculture,
Economic Growth 1927 - 1937
and political terror did make the Soviet Union a powerful industrial country. By the end of
Product
1928 1932 1937
the 1930’s, the Soviet economy was growing at a faster rate than any other major economy
in the world. However, it should be noted that this was during the Great Depression when
Coal
38.9
70.7 140.8
the economies of the Western Democracies were producing far below their potential. Still,
Oil
12.9
23.5
31.4
each year, the Soviet Economy was producing more wheat, coal, and steel. By 1937, the
Steel
4.4
6.5
19.5
Soviet Union was ranked second in the world, behind the United States, in terms of total
All numbers in millions of tons
industrial output. However, it should be remembered that a lot of this production was
done with slave labor that was worked to death. In addition, Soviet statistics were
unreliable since many officials lied about meeting their quotas in order to save their lives. And final point about Soviet economic
growth is that in contrast to the economies of Western Europe and the United States, the output in the Soviet Economy did not meet
the needs or desires of the Soviet population.
Throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s, the Soviet government told the Soviet people that they were building socialism and that
they had to become self-sufficient. The Soviet government would often report to its population that the capitalist countries of Western
Europe and the United States were trying to sabotage the Soviet economy. Contrary to what the Soviet government was telling its
people, the Soviet Union was actually engaging in diplomatic relations and trade with the capitalist west. While in 1927 the Soviets
rebuffed joining the League of Nations, by 1934 they became members. In 1933, the United States recognized the Soviet Union.
Even before diplomatic recognition was extended to the Soviet Union, American and European companies were working with the
Soviet Union. The Soviets used the grain and agricultural products produced by the Five Year Plans to buy Western technology and
expertise to develop the Soviet economy. For example, by 1927 85% of the trucks and tractors in the Soviet Union were Ford-built.
The Soviets had American companies design and build the factories and power plants of the Soviet Union. These factories turned out
replicas of American goods with Soviet names, such as the Chelyabinsk Tractor Works that produced a replica of the Caterpillar
Crawler called the “Stalinsts.” While imported technology helped boost the output of Soviet industry, a great deal of the industrial
output was wasted because it was not maintained. Ford engineers found that the Soviets had few repair facilities and many of the
tractors built were rendered useless since they could not be repaired. This was because the official statistics used to show the success
of the command economy was biased toward producing finished goods instead of producing spare parts to repair equipment to keep it
functioning.
By all measurements, the Soviet Union had reached Stalin’s goal and many countries in the world (especially in Asia and
Africa) looked to the Soviet Union as a guide to develop their economies. On paper, and in the carefully edited propaganda films that
the Soviet Union released, the Soviet Union appeared to be a political and economic success. However, the statistics on economic
growth hid the misery and suffering inflicted on the Soviet population to produce this outcome. With the apparent success of Soviet
socialism and the floundering of capitalism during the Great Depression, many people in the United States and Europe began to see
the Soviet system as a viable alternative to democratic capitalism. The Comintern actively used these points to promote communism
around the world.
Stalin maintained his tight control over the Soviet Union until the
“(Stalin) often chose the path of
day he died in 1953. After Stalin’s death, the new Soviet leaders tried to
repression and physical annihilation,
undo the worst of the Stalinist terror and violence. This was a difficult task
not only against actual enemies, but
also against individuals who had not
because it required placing all the blame on Stalin without undermining the
committed any crimes against the Party
legitimacy of the Soviet government. The next leader, Nikita Khrushchev,
and the Soviet Government.”
like most Soviet leaders, had worked closely with Stalin and participated in
his crimes. After the Stalin died, Khrushchev worked with other Soviet
-Khrushchev
leaders to have the former head of the NKVD Lavrentiy Beria arrested and
executed. After that, Khrushchev denounced “Stalin’s crimes” in a “secret”
meeting of the Communist Party in 1956. During Khrushchev’s rule, 7-8 million prisoners of the Gulag were released and returned to
Soviet society – they were officially rehabilitated. The Soviet Union remained a “police state” until the collapse of the Soviet Union
in 1991.
The Cold War (1945 – 1989)
The term “Cold War” is used to
describe to the struggle between the United
States and the Soviet Union from the end of
World War Two in 1945 to the collapse of the
Berlin Wall in 1989. For almost fifty years, the
Cold War was the dominant struggle in the
world. While there were other conflicts and
events throughout the world during this period,
most major events in the world were affected
by, if not directly connected to, the struggle
between the Soviet Union and the United
States.
American journalist Walter Lippmann
first used the term “Cold War” to describe the
relations between countries that are as close to
war as possible without actually fighting each
other – when countries are fighting it is called a
“hot war”. The reason the democratic and
communist countries were locked in a Cold
War, and neither side wanted to make it a hot
war, was nuclear weapons. For much of the period of the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear
weapons to destroy the world several times over. A nuclear war would have destroyed the world and ended human civilization.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev described the aftermath of a nuclear war by saying that, “the living would envy the dead”.
Overview of Cold War Struggle
At the end of World War Two, the traditional powers of Europe and the world lay in ruins. Millions of people had been
killed in the war and the cities of Europe were in ruins. Two-thirds of European factories were not operating and agriculture was
producing at half of its prewar level. Throughout large parts of Europe, the population was living at the point of starvation. In
Germany, the diet of adults averaged 700 calories a day (a typical adult need 2000-3000 calories). Worse still, the winter of 1946 was
extremely cold. Germans described the bleakness of the post war world as “Stunde Null” or zero hour. England, the only major
European country to emerge from the war relatively undamaged, was financially bankrupt, having fallen from being the world largest
creditor to being the largest debtor. Winston Churchill described Europe when he said, “What is Europe, now? … A ruble heap, a
charnel house, a breeding ground for pestilence and hate.”
Two new countries, the United States and the Soviet Union, emerged as the dominant world powers. Their armies dominated
Europe and their governments dictated the post-war development of Europe. The American army formed the core of the Western
Allies and provided the order necessary to re-establish democracy in Western Europe. The Soviet Red Army occupied all of Eastern
Europe, in which it established Soviet modeled communist governments. The dominating power of the United States and Soviet
Union expanded in the decades following World War Two to the point where their power would directly touch all parts of the world –
for this reason, both the United States and the Soviet Union were considered to be super powers.
The core of the Cold War struggle lay in the combination of the experience of World War Two and ideological differences
between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the ideological struggle, the United States represented the ideas of democracy and
capitalism and the Soviet Union represented totalitarianism and communism. Both of these ideologies believed that they could not coexist peacefully, and that in the end one would have to triumph. Ironically, both the Soviet Union and the United States claimed that
their actions and policies toward the other during the Cold War were defensive, while those of the other side were offensive.
The United States emerged from World War Two as the most powerful country in the world. In 1945, the United States
economy produced more than the combined economies of the rest of the world. In addition, the United States was the only country to
possess the atomic bomb, the most powerful weapon in the world. The United States viewed Soviet control of Eastern Europe as a
threat not only Western Europe, but potentially the United States. American leaders wanted to prevent the Soviet Union from
spreading its influence beyond the areas already occupied by the Soviet Red Army. In 1946, American diplomat George Kennan
outlined the policy of Containment to prevent the spread of Soviet power. Containment recommended that United States policy
contain the Soviet sphere of influence to the areas already under its control. However, the United States should not directly threaten
the Soviet Union or its sphere of influence. The goal of the United States was not to end communism, but to keep it from expanding.
Containment was the American policy throughout the Cold War. As Kennan said, “It is clear that the main element of any United
States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive
tendencies.”
In contrast to the United States, the Soviet Union emerged from World War Two seriously weakened. While in 1945 it
supported a powerful army of 11 million, the reality was that its population and economy had suffered greatly during the war. It had
lost 20 million people, roughly 10% of its population, and about 25% of its industrial capacity. The economic pressure of rebuilding
the Soviet Union after the war forced the Soviets to reduce its army to 3 million – which was still much larger than the United States
Army. From the Soviet perspective, Europe, in particular Germany, was a danger that had twice in a 30 year period of time attacked
the land of Russia. Stalin was determined that the Soviet Union would dominate Eastern Europe and maintain it as a “buffer zone” –
if there was to be another European war it would be fought in central Europe, not the Soviet Union. From this perspective, the Soviet
military occupation and the establishment of communist governments in the “satellite nations” of Eastern Europe was not an
expansionist move, but a defensive move. The Soviet Union viewed the American policy of Containment as plan to isolate and
encircle the Soviet Union with hostile countries.
Nuclear weapons defined the Cold War stand-off between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1945, at the end of
World War Two, the United States was the only country that possessed and had used the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb became the
centerpiece of American military strength during the Cold War. The United States used nuclear weapons to counter the threat of the
larger Soviet Army. In 1949, the Soviet Union also developed the atomic bomb. This lead to a spiraling escalation of military and
technical developments that continued for the whole Cold War. In response to the Soviet atomic bomb, the United States developed
the hydrogen bomb – a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb. The Soviet Union shortly thereafter developed the
hydrogen bomb. In addition, both sides developed new delivery systems for nuclear weapons. These delivery systems increased the
range of nuclear weapons and reduced the time it took to launch an attack. At first, both countries used fleets of bombers. By the
1960’s, both countries had developed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) that could carry multiple warheads and hit the other
country in less than an hour. Both countries also developed submarine based missile systems that could move anywhere in the world
and launch attacks. By the 1960’s both sides had build nuclear arsenals capable of destroying the world multiple times.
The fear of being attacked by the other country drove the United States and the Soviet Union to develop new technologies for
spying and monitoring the other country. In the early period of the Cold War, the United States relied on high altitude spy planes
called U-2’s. However, in 1960, the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 as it flew over the Soviet Union, which caused a
deterioration of American-Soviet relations. However, by then both sides had developed the space technology to launch spy satellites
that constantly monitored the other country.
At several points during the Cold War, most notably during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the United States and the
Soviet Union came terrifyingly close to nuclear war. However, despite the risk, the horrifying reality of nuclear weapons kept the
peace of the Cold War. Robert McNamara, American Secretary of Defense to President Kennedy, used the term “mutually assured
destruction” or MAD to explain how nuclear weapons maintained peace between the distrustful super powers since the use of nuclear
weapons by a country would result in its own destruction. The United States used the concept of MAD as the core premise for its
policy of “brinksmanship”. In conflicts, the United States would use nuclear weapons as a “credible threat” to force the Soviets to
back down.
Areas of Cold War Conflict
The reality of nuclear weapons meant that the United States and the Soviet Union fought each other with several indirect
weapons that boosted their international prestige, hurt the image of the other side, or caused dissent and disruption in the other
country’s “sphere of influence”. The main areas of competition were:
 Propaganda – Symbolic demonstrations of the superiority of country. The United States conducted radio broadcasts into the
Soviet Union through Radio Free Europe and Voice of America to undermine the Soviet government’s control of
information. The Soviets actively supported the American communist party. The Olympic Games became a competition
between both countries for the number of medals won. In 1980, the United States boycotted the Moscow Olympics to protest
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In 1984, the Soviet replied by boycotting the Olympics in Los Angeles.
 Diplomatic – Political and Military alliances with other nations. Both the United States and the Soviet Union used military
and economic assistance to reward the nations that sided with them. As a result, many nations tried to play both superpowers
against each other to gain the most aid. However, both the Soviets and the Americans also supported rebellions in
developing nations as a way of undermining the other side’s allies. As a result, the United States and the Soviet Union fought
proxy wars in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
 Scientific – Development of weapons of mass destruction and the “Space Race”.
“That’s one small step for man, one giant
The space race was the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union
leap for mankind.” – Neil Armstrong
over space exploration. For example, in 1957, the Soviets launched the first
satellite, Sputnik and in, 1961, the Soviet Union launched Yuri Gagarin, the first
from the moon.
man, into space and the first person to orbit the earth. While the Soviets took an
early lead in the Space Race, the United States won the race to put a man on the
moon when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon on July 20, 1969.
Soviet Leadership During the Cold War
Three leaders, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Lenonid Brezhnev, ruled the Soviet Union during the Cold War. These
three leaders were very different in their styles of leadership and the approach they took to Cold War relations with the United States.
Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union to his death in 1953. Following World War Two, he moved to bring the countries of
Eastern Europe under the same degree of totalitarian control that he had over the Soviet Union. He viewed the United States as a
hostile power that threatened the Soviet Union. The period from 1945 to 1953 was dominated by a hardening of relations between the
United States and the Soviet Union. In addition to Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, Stalin actively supported Mao’s communist
movement which took over China in 1949 and communist North Korea’s invasion of democratic South Korea in 1950. This was the
Korean War that United States fought until 1953.
After the death of Stalin in 1953, following a period of turmoil in which different Soviet
leaders struggled for control, Nikita Khrushchev became the leader of the Soviet Union. In
contrast to Stalin’s secretive leadership style, Khrushchev had an active, sometimes bombastic,
personality that publicly engaged and challenged the United States. The period of Khrushchev’s
rule represented a thaw in the Cold War as Khrushchev proposed the “peaceful coexistence”
between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, Khrushchev believed that the Soviet
Union would ultimately defeat the United States in the Cold War. Khrushchev boasted, “We will
bury you”. During this period, the Soviets expanded its nuclear capability and encouraged
communist takeovers of Cuba and North Vietnam.
Khrushchev wanted to improve Soviet relations with the United States in order to redirect
resources to reform the Soviet Union. After taking power, Khrushchev began a policy of deStalinization, which dismantled Stalin’s cult of personality and purged Stalin’s supporters from the
Soviet government (Stalin’s head of the NKVD, Lavrenty Beria was shot). In addition, millions of
people held in the Gulag were released and returned to Soviet society. There was a relaxation of government censorship, which
allowed Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn to publish “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” which told the story of a man in a
Gulag. Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1970 after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature for his book “The
Gulag Archipelago”. While the more brutal aspects of Soviet rule were curtailed under Khrushchev, the Soviet Union remained a
police state where political dissidents (people who opposed the government) were imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals instead of the
Gulag.
Under Khrushchev’s rule, the Soviet economy grew by 70%, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first satellite, and launched
the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin. However, Khrushchev’s reforms also created problems in the Soviet Union. His attempts to
increase agricultural productivity failed and resulted in a drought in 1963, forced the Soviet Union to import one million tons of wheat
from the United States. In 1964, the Soviet Union was forced to import 10 million tons of wheat from the Western World. In addition,
the fact that the United States bested the Soviets in several Cold War confrontations prompted the Soviet leadership to remove
Khrushchev from power in 1964. After being removed from power, Khrushchev lived quietly in retirement until his death in 1971.
Lenonid Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev in 1964 and ruled the Soviet Union until his
death in 1982. His period of leadership was know as the period of détente with the United States.
American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger described détente as a “process of managing
relations with a potentially hostile country in order to preserve peace while maintaining our vital
interests”. During this period, the United States and the Soviet Union began to standardize
relationships and negotiate limits on nuclear weapons development. Still, during this period, the
Soviet Union and the United States struggled for influence over Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Under Brezhnev, the Soviet economy began to stagnate under the weight of supporting a
large military. It is estimated that the Soviet Union spend 25% of its output on the military and
dedicated 20% of its workers to military production. In comparison, the United States spent 6%
of its output on the military and employed 6% of its workers on military production. It is
estimated that a third of the Soviet economy was dedicated to military spending. In addition, the
communist party leadership developed into a ruling class known as the nomenklatura or “list of
nominees”. The nomenklatura were the bureaucrats that oversaw and managed the Soviet
government and centrally planned economy. Because of their positions of power, they enjoyed a lifestyle not available to the average
Soviet citizen. The nomenklatura could buy western luxury items and travel outside the Soviet Union. As the economy stagnated, the
nomenklatura focused on preserving their benefits rather than reforming the system. This is because there was no incentive or reward
for fixing the system and lack of freedom of information made it easy to hide the economic problems. The people who felt the
economic stagnation were the average Soviet citizens whose quality of life declined. For example, Soviet citizens had to wait in long
lines to buy basic consumer goods and wait years to buy cars. Throughout the Brezhnev period, the government became more corrupt
and the Soviet population became more resentful of the privileges of the Soviet leadership.
End of the Cold War in Europe
After the World War Two, the Soviet Union was able to
expand communism to the countries of Eastern Europe. The Soviet
Union was able to assist communists in gaining control of China and
counties in South East Asia, Africa, and Central America. For most
of the Twentieth Century, these communist countries were against the
democratic governments of the United States and Western Europe – a
struggle called the Cold War.
The tense Cold War division of the world, between the
democratic countries and the communist countries, lasted from the
end of World War Two in 1945 until 1989 when the communist
countries began to collapse and turn democratic. The collapse of
“communist block” – the name given to the communist countries –
seemed sudden and complete. However, it was really neither. The
causes for the collapse had been building for over a decade. There are
several reasons for the collapse of the collapse of communism:
 No freedom of information – in the communist countries, because the government controlled all the media, people lived in
ignorance of the rest of the world and of their own society. The communist governments lied to their people and to
themselves. In addition, people could not complain or protest against the government without risking their lives. As a result,
the consequences of government actions were ignored and problems got worse. This was especially true of environmental
and health problems.
 Few incentives to work – in the communist countries people were paid about the same regardless of the difficultly or the
quality of their work. This meant there was little reason to work hard or do a good job. The result was the economies of the
communist countries were weak and inefficient. Stores typically had empty shelves and people had to wait in long lines to
buy the most basic goods. Everyone had money, but there was little to buy – this led to the saying in the Soviet Union, “We
pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us”.
 Economy produced shoddy goods – because the government owned all the factories and farms, there was no economic
competition to produce better goods. The result were goods that did not work, fell apart quickly, and that nobody really
wanted. A good example of this were the Czechoslovakian cars named “Skoda”, which translated literally means “pity”.
 Competition with the democratic countries for military superiority – the Cold War conflict drove both the democratic
countries and the communist countries to try to gain military superiority over each other. Typically, the communist countries
had larger military forces than the democratic countries, but the democratic countries had militaries that used greater
technology, better weapons, and more dedicated soldiers. Because of their weak economies, the communist countries found
it more difficult to keep pace with the growing military capabilities of the democratic countries.
Gorbachev and the Soviet Union
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union. He took
over a country that pretended to be as powerful and strong as the United States, but in
reality was much weaker and suffering from many serious problems:
 War in Afghanistan – Since 1980, The Soviet Union had been stuck in a war
that had killed tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers that it could not win or
leave.
 American Technical-Military Superiority – America was able to produce more
advanced weapon systems and had a stronger economy.
 Soviet Economic Problems – decades of economic inefficiency and
mismanagement had led to economic stagnation and declining standards of
living for the people in the Soviet Union.
 Loss of Control over Information – New devices such as audio and videotape
cassettes as well as copy machines made it possible for people to produce and
spread information in the communist block countries. Information about the
outside world – including movies and music – were smuggled into the
communist countries and information about the abuses and problems in the
communist countries were spread to the rest of the world.
Gorbachev realized that he could not ignore these problems. If the Soviet Union was to survive he needed to solve these
problems. With his goal being the preservation of the Soviet Union with a communist government, Gorbachev tried to reform the
country. However, he faced several problems including trying to reform a government that never admitted any problems, getting the
support of a population that had been abused by its government, and maintaining military power against the United States.
Beginning in 1985, Gorbachev announced two new major programs in the Soviet Union to try to learn about the full extent of
the economic problems in the Soviet Union and to get the support of the population in solving these problems. The programs were:
 Glastnost – means “openness”. Gorbachev announced that people would be allowed to criticize the government and express
their own ideas about how the government should operate. Books and movies that were banned were allowed; political
prisoners were released; and non-governmental news agencies were allowed to exist. After decades of repression, people
began to not only criticize the current problems, but also the problems of the past (such as Stalin) and the problems with
communism.
 Perestroika – means “economic restructuring”. Gorbachev reduced government control over the economy and gave farm and
factory managers more power to make decisions. He also allowed people to set up private businesses to compete with
government owned companies. The goal was to improve Soviet industry. The result was Soviet firms became aware the
poor quality of their factories and their products – many companies had such poor performance that they were technically
bankrupt, only government support kept them operating.
The first test and failure of Gorbachev’s new programs was the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986. During a routine
test of the safety equipment on one reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, a faulty gauge malfunctioned and caused the reactor to
“meltdown” – the nuclear material in the reactor overheated and exploded, scattering radioactive material into the atmosphere.
American and European governments quickly became aware of the problem, but the Soviet government refused to admit that there had
been a disaster at the nuclear plant. Worse, the Soviet government lied to its own people. It refused to admit the disaster for several
days, until it could no longer deny the problem. By that time, over a million
people had been exposed to harmful radiation. For many people, the behavior of
the Soviet government to the Chernobyl disaster demonstrated that Gorbachev’s
reforms had done little to change the true nature of the Soviet Union and led to
even more internal criticism of the Soviet government and the communist system.
The combination of Glastnost and Chernobyl resulted in revelations of how Soviet
governance had created environmental catastrophe across the Soviet Union. For
example, Lake Karachay, a dumping ground for nuclear waste is considered the
most polluted place on earth. The second is another Soviet nuclear dump in
Tomsk. As a result of agricultural policies diverting rivers to grow cotton, the
Aral Sea has shrunk to a third of its natural size, creating a desert.
In 1987, Gorbachev allowed open elections for local government positions and the results were stunning. In many cities, the
population elected leaders critical of the Soviet government and the communist system. An example of this was Boris Yeltsin, who
became mayor of Moscow, then a member of the Russian Parliament, and finally President of the Soviet Republic of Russia in 1990.
In many parts of the Soviet Union, these elected leaders demanded more representation and power for their own national groups, as
opposed to the traditional Russian culture.
Gorbachev did have more success in dealing
with the United States. To reduce the cost of
maintaining a strong military that was bankrupting the
Soviet economy, Gorbachev moved to end the Cold
War with the United States. In 1987, Gorbachev and
American President Ronald Reagan reached
agreement on the reduction of medium range nuclear
weapons when they signed the Intermediate Range
Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). This was the first of
several nuclear weapons reduction treaties that would
ease the Cold War conflict between the United States
and the Soviet Union.
Break-up of Soviet Union
The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in the fall of 1989, led to the collapse of not only communism in the Soviet
Union, but the disintegration of the Soviet Union itself. While Russia was the dominant nationality and population in the Soviet
Union, the Soviet Union encompassed more than 100 other ethnic groups. The largest of these groups had their own republics within
the Soviet Union – Republics in the Soviet Union were similar to states in the United States. They were under the control of Moscow
but able to run their own affairs.
Within the Soviet Union, many of the non-Russian peoples did not like living under Russian domination. The non-Russian
nationalities felt that they were treated like second-class citizens, because they spoke different languages, worshiped different
religions, and had been historically oppressed by the Russians. When these nationalities saw the countries of Eastern Europe breaking
away from communism and the Soviet Union, they began to act for their own independence.
The first nationalities to push for independence were the small Baltic Republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. All three
republics had been independent countries prior to being forced into the Soviet Union in 1940 and had strong connection to Europe
because of language and religion. Other republics, such as Ukraine began to push for their independence as a result of environmental
disasters, such as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Some republics, such as Armenia and Azerbaijan got caught up fighting each other
over historic ethnic issues.
Mikhail Gorbachev, who was trying to reform the Soviet Union through his programs of Glasnost and Perestroika, found that
he was unable to control the nationalist groups pushing for independence. The largest Baltic Republic, Lithuania, declared itself
independent of the Soviet Union in March 1990. In response, Gorbachev had Lithuania blockaded by the Soviet military. In January
1991, Soviet soldiers attacked and killed protesting Lithuanian civilians. This type of government repression had happened before in
the Soviet Union, but now because of Glasnost, it was reported across the Soviet Union. Protests against Gorbachev erupted across
the Soviet Union.
Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Republic, used the violence in Lithuania to gain more independence for Russia, the
dominant republic in the Soviet Union. As Yeltsin rose in power, he came into more conflict with Gorbachev. However, both had a
greater problem, the leaders of the military and secret police (KGB).
On August 18, 1991, the leaders of the military and KGB called the State Committee organized a military coup to take over
the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was placed under arrest and many pro-democracy leaders were arrested. However, Yeltsin was beyond
their control. He was surrounded in his office building in Moscow, defended by pro-Yeltsin members of the army. Yeltsin went on
television and appealed to the Russian people and the other countries of the world to fight the State Committee. On August 20th, the
coup collapsed, the army sided with Yeltsin, and Gorbachev was released and returned to Moscow.
The coup against Gorbachev marked the end of the
Soviet Union. Yeltsin was recognized as the real leader of
Russia, while Gorbachev was viewed as a symbolic leader
whose power was diminishing. Yeltsin began to push for greater
independence. As a result of the failed coup, other national
groups in the Soviet Union also pushed for independence.
Beginning in August 1991, each republic voted itself out of the
Soviet Union. By December every republic had declared
independence. Gorbachev resigned his position as president of
the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union – created during the
Russian Revolution of 1917 – ceased to exist. It was now 15
independent republics.
Post Soviet Russia
The fifteen independent republics that emerged from the Soviet Union faced the simultaneous problems of forming new
governments, developing new economic systems, and dividing up resources of the Soviet Government, particularly the Soviet
military. As the Soviet Union ended, on December 8, 1991, Russia (the largest of the republics) joined with Ukraine and Belarus to
form the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). This loose organization provided a framework for the division of the Soviet
Union. However, there was no doubt that Russia was the dominant country in the relationship. Control of nuclear weapons became a
major international concern with several of the new republics inheriting large stockpiles of nuclear warheads. In order to prevent the
danger posed by these nuclear weapons, the United States took the lead in giving assistance to former Soviet republics to dismantle
their nuclear stockpiles. As a result, only the Russia retains its nuclear weapons.
For the most part, the division of the Soviet Union into the fifteen republics was a peaceful process. However, the rise of
nationalism in many of the non-Russian republics led to a number of conflicts. For example, historic conflicts between Christian
Armenians and Muslim Azerbaijanis resulted in a war between the two new republics that resulted in 30,000 dead and more than a
million refugees that still has not been completely settled. Currently Armenia occupies the region of Nagorno-Karabakh as an
Armenian enclave surrounded by Azerbaijan. In addition there have been conflicts between the different nationalities in republics and
the large Russian minorities that lived in the republics because of rising nationalism and the legacy of oppressive Soviet rule. In some
of these republics, many ethnic Russians found that had become second-class citizens overnight. In Latvia, the ability to speak
Latvian was made a precondition for citizenship. In Moldova, in which the majority of the population is ethnic Romanian, the Russian
minority fought a brief war against the government of Moldova with resulted in 700 dead and creation of the separatist republic of
Transdnistria. Russia has exploited these conflicts as an excuse to keep military forces in the new republics, often opposed by the
republics governments. For example, a large Russian army protects Transdnistria by claiming to be a peace-keepers. The Russians
also maintain naval bases on the Black Sea in Ukraine and keep soldiers in Georgia.
Shock Therapy& Economic Collapse
Transforming the socialist command economies to a free market economy has been a difficult process that has affected all
other parts of post communist societies. The countries of Eastern Europe, which won their independence in 1989, began the process
of transformation several years before the Soviet Union. These countries, led by Poland, followed a policy of “shock therapy” in
which they attempted to shift their economies from socialism to free markets in a short period of time. The idea of shock therapy was
promoted by “Washington Consensus” and supported by the policies of the American government, the IMF, and the World Bank.
Economists from American universities, the IMF, and the World Bank, worked as advisors to these nations. State owned companies
were quickly privatized (the governments sold them to private investors) or were shut down if they could not be made profitable. The
result was a short period of high unemployment during the transition.
The problem of economic transformation was that the industries in the socialist countries had to be transformed from
organizations that produced goods according to government orders into companies that could compete on the global economy against
the rest of the world. These industries were hopelessly inefficient and produced poor quality goods. The break-up of socialist
production organization resulted in factories not being able to get parts and supplies, which meant that they went out of business.
Often industrial regions were based on one industry, so when the industry collapsed there was no other employer, and the former
socialist countries suffered from large pockets of unemployment. In addition, these companies carried social burdens, such as
providing housing for workers, that companies in other parts of the world did not. Perhaps the biggest problem was that the workers
and managers in these companies had no concept of how to meet the demands of a market economy.
Following the model of Eastern Europe, Boris Yeltsin’s Russian government also
attempted economic transformation based on shock therapy. The result was economic collapse.
The rapid shift to free markets resulted in economic production dropping by 50%. Unable to collect
enough tax money to pay workers, the government began to print money to meet its needs, which
resulted in 500% inflation (at points it hit 2000%). Upwards of half the population fell into poverty
as incomes fell from $72 a month in 1988 to $32 a month in 1993. It should be noted that in 1988,
Soviet citizens did not have to worry about paying for health care, education, or housing. As one
Russian economist summed up the process, “We pinned all of our hopes on the free market, which
we believed would cure the country and rectify all our wrongs. Instead we ended up with utter
anarchy and disorder.”
In the midst of this economic collapse, the government began to privatize state controlled
industries. Without any tradition of rule of law or of private property rights, the government began
to sell off state owned industries and property. Many high-ranking Soviet officials capitalized on
their positions to use the privatization programs to steal entire industries. They rigged the
privatization auctions so that they would win ownership of the companies for absurdly small amounts of money. This practice of
“insider privatization” meant that a small group of people, known as the oligarchs, became the owners of most of Russian industry.
These oligarchs took control up to 85% of the Russia’s major companies controlling oil production, television, and transportation.
One Russian economist described this period by saying, “We have a situation in which everything is allowed, when thieves of all sorts
ripped the country off and gotten away with it because there were no laws.” Thievery was not limited to the oligarchs, as millions of
average Russians stole machines, tools, and anything else, from their workplaces to sell on the street to get enough food to eat. As a
result, Russian industry and agriculture simply disintegrated. The result of economic liberalization has caused many Russian to
become cynical about market economics, and the rule of law. It was during this period that the organized crime and corruption
became common in a Russia where everything was for sale. As one Yeltsin advisor said, "every owner of a shop or kiosk pays a
racketeer."
The effect of the economic transformation on the population has been extreme. Social norms have been overturned.
Formerly prestigious jobs, such as professors and scientists, have become unemployed and impoverished. The result is that Russia has
suffered a “brain drain” as many of it most talented people have emigrated to Europe and the United States. Overall, the Russian
population has gone into steep decline. During the 1990’s, Life expectancy for Russian men dropped from 64 to 57. On reason was a
60% increase in alcoholism. Currently in Russia, there are one an half times as many deaths as births. In some of the other former
Soviet Republics the result of economic transformation has been even harder. Moldova is now the poorest country in Europe. The
increases in poverty and crime, which were relatively unknown during Soviet rule, caused many people in the former Soviet Union to
long for and romanticize the “good old days” of socialist rule.
Russia's Unsteady Democracy
The economic hardships of the 1990's resulted in political instability as well. Boris Yeltsin had become the president of
Russia because he had been elected president of the Soviet Republic of Russia in 1987. When the Soviet Union ceased to exist, he
was the president of the newly independent country. The transition to a democratic country after decades of authoritarian rule was a
difficult task, which was made more difficult by the simultaneous economic transformation from communism to capitalism. The
social problems created by economic shock therapy in which people connected to the Yeltsin government became very wealthy while
the rest of the country suffered economic hardship caused a popular backlash against liberal democratic reformers. In the years
following the collapse of communism, many former socialist parties re-emerged to win electoral victories across Eastern Europe and
the former Soviet Union. These socialist parties returned to power not by advocating a return to the socialism, but by criticizing the
policies of shock therapy and by promoting a gradual transformation to market economics and democracy. In addition, there was the
rise of very nationalistic groups that were also very hostile toward capitalism and democracy.
Yeltsin's government faced consistent challenges from a coalition of communists and ultra-nationalists dominated the
Russian parliament or Duma. This conflict exploded into violence in September 1993, when Yeltsin ordered the army to shut down
the Duma, in which about 70 people were killed. Yeltsin claimed he was forced to act to prevent a coup d’tat. In 1995 Parliamentary
elections, the communists gained more seats in the Duma.
This set the stage for the 1996 Russian presidential elections, in which Yeltsin was seeking to win re-elections. Yelstin’s
main opponent was Genady Zyuganov, the leader of the communist party, who led Yeltsin in public opinion polls. Yeltsin used the
fear of a resurgent communist party to rally support from the oligarchs and governments in Europe and the United States. The
oligarchs bankrolled Yeltsin’s campaign and the IMF announced loans of $10 billion to Russia. Yeltsin won the elections, but the
elections were marred with accusations of widespread corruption and fraud. This made an already cynical population more skeptical
about democracy.
Yeltsin’s victory did not seem to bring economic or political stability to Russia. Following the elections, Yeltsin’s health
declined and it was unclear if he was running the country. During this time, Yeltsin had a series of prime ministers, none of whom
lasted more than a few months in office. Despite continuing economic chaos, the Russian economy did seem to improve due to
increasing oil prices. It is estimated that 20% of the Russian government’s revenues come from oil and gas exports. However, the
drop of oil prices in 1998 led to another economic collapse when the government defaulted on paying its debts. This economic
collapse resulted in hyper-inflation and more economic misery for most Russians. It was later reviled that many of the oligarchs were
able to smuggle their wealth out of Russia before the collapse.
Putin
In August 1999, the ailing Yeltsin appointed former KGB officer Vladimir Putin as
Prime Minister and successor. Yeltsin surprised the world when he resigned on December 31,
1999 and Putin became president. Putin went on to win the March 2000 Presidential elections.
When Putin first became President, many people hope that he would bring political and economic
stability to Russia. This is an major reason people supported Putin as he become more of an
authoritarian and nationalistic leader and changed the Russian constitution to give the president
more direct power over the country.
Putin has used his power to take control of media, such as television, and to silence
anyone who might oppose him. Principally, Putin targeted the oligarchs who oppose him. The
best example of this is Mikhail Khodorkovsky who was at one point the richest person in Russia.
Khodorkovky owned the profitable oil company Yukos, which he had gained through dubious means in the 1990's. Khodorkovsky
was an outspoken critic of Putin who used his wealth to fund opposition political parties. In response to this, in 2005, the Russian
government charged both Khodorkovsky and Yukos with tax evasion. As a result, Yukos was forced into bankruptcy and was sold to
oligarchs who supported Putin. The government put Khodorkovsky on trial in which despite a lack of evidence found guilty and he
was sentenced to prison in Siberia for nine years. For many observers this trial resembled the show trials under Stalin. In 2010,
Khodorkovsky was put on trial again and again he was found guilty, his sentence was extended to 2017. By doing this Putin has
discouraged any group in Russia that could challenge his power.
A major reason for Putin's seizure of power has been to enrich himself and his supporters. While Putin's wealth is unknown,
it has been estimated to be as high as $40 billion. Putin has built up this wealth through massive corruption in which companies doing
business with the Russian government are expected to pay some of their revenue into funds that Putin and his supporters control.
Examples of this corruption can be seen in the preparations for the Sochi Olympics in 2014, which was originally estimated to cost
$12 billion, ended up costing $51 billion (making it more expensive than the Beijing Olympics which cost $44 billion). In another
example, the investment firm Hermitage Capital was targeted by the government and had its assets seized. These assets were then
transferred to supporters of Putin who used face accounting books to get a $230 million tax refund from the Russian government.
Putin has also overseen the re-emergence of Russia as a world power by trying to exert greater control over former Soviet
republics and standing up to the United States on some issues. For example, Putin was very critical of NATO expansion to the former
Soviet Republics of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. All three Baltic nations are western oriented and joined NATO in 2002 and the
European Union in 2004. Estonia has gone further by adopting the euro as its currency in 2011. The Russians have resented losing
influence over these former republics of the Soviet Union. In the fall of 2007, (with support from the Russian government) Russian
computer hackers launched a cyber-attack on Estonia’s internet in protest of Estonia taking down a Soviet World War Two
monument. Putin has also criticized the United States for interfering and promoting democracy in former Soviet republics such as
Georgia and Ukraine. Instead he has praised dictatorial leaders in the former Soviet republics of Belarus and Turkmenistan. Putin
also revived the image of the Soviet Union and tied it to the Russian government. Putin described the collapse of the Soviet Union as,
“a national tragedy of enormous scale” from which “only the elites and nationalist of republics have gained”. Putin made the Soviet
national anthem the nation anthem of the Russia. However, it would be a mistake to think that Putin simply wanted to recreate the
Soviet Union. Putin has said, “One who does not regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart; one who wants to bring it back
has no brain.”
In 2008, Putin was forced to step down from the post of president because the Russian constitution barred him from a third
term as president. In the 2008 election, Putin’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was elected president with Putin’s support.
Medvedev, in turn, appointed Putin to be the Prime Minister. During the four years of Medvedev’s presidency, Putin was largely
viewed as being the person in charge of Russia, and in 2012, when his term came to an end, few were surprised when Medvedev
supported Putin’s election to presidency again. In the face of the open manipulation of power and disregard for democracy, tens of
thousands to Russians protested Putin’s re-election as president. However, Putin’s control of the media and restrictions on opposition
political parties, made it impossible to pose a serious electoral challenge to Putin and he won with 61% of the vote.
While Putin’s re-election was the result of suppressing the opposition and vote rigging, this does not mean that Putin is not
popular in Russia. Across Russia, especially in rural areas, many people support Putin because he has appeared to make economically
and politically stable. The rise of global oil prices in the 2000's improved the Russian economy, which is a major oil exporter. The oil
money allowed the government to spend a great deal to employ people, pay higher pensions and modernize the military. This
spending made Putin popular. However, this easy oil money meant that Russia did little to reform its economy or make its industry
globally competitive. As a result, the recent decline in global oil prices have hurt the
economy. Putin has also become more anti-liberal and authoritarian. The most visible
case of this has been the enactment of laws against gay people in Russia and harassing
organizations that promote human rights, democracy and rule of law.
War in Chechnya
Since the end of the Soviet Union, nationalist conflicts have plagued the
region of the Caucasus Mountains. All the former Soviet republics in the region have
fought wars against each other or to prevent separatist regions from breaking away.
The Russian wars in Chechnya are the violent example of these conflicts. The region
of Chechnya had a population of one million people at the time of the Soviet break-up.
Unlike the republics of Georgia, Armenia, or Azerbaijan, Chechnya was part of the
Russian republic. However, the Chechens despised being under Russian control. During World War Two, Stalin ordered that the
entire Chechen population be deported to Siberia. Up to one third of the population died in this deportation. They were only allowed
to return in 1957. In 1991, Chechnya declared its independence from Russia, and began to set up its own government.
In 1994, Yeltsin responded to Chechen independence by ordering the Russian army to invade Chechnya. Yeltsin did this
because he thought it would be an easy victory and it would discourage other non-Russian regions from attempting to break away
from Russia. The invasion was a fiasco. The Russian army blasted its way into the Chechen capital of Grozny, killing 25,000 people
and turning 300,000 people into refugees. The Russian army sent to Chechnya was a far cry from the military machine of the Soviet
Union and Chechen fighters put up a determined resistance to the Russian invasion. The war soon became very unpopular in Russia
and an embarrassment for the Yeltsin government. In 1996, the Russian government negotiated a peace treaty with the Chechens that
gave them de-facto independence.
The Chechen conflict erupted again in September 1999 after a series of apartment buildings were bombed across Russia and
Chechen fighters attacked the Russian region of Dagestan. Even though there was no direct evidence connecting the bombings to
Chechnya, the Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian army to re-invade Chechnya. By February 2000, the
Russians had taken Grozny, creating 300,000 more refugees. Russian general Gennady Troshev summed up the brutality of the
Russian invasion when he said, “If they shoot at us from a house, we destroy the house. If they shoot from all over a village, we
destroy the village.” This brutality has resulted in Chechen fighters turning to radical fundamentalist Muslim groups, such as AlQaeda for support. After the September 11th attack on the United States, Putin united the Russian war in Chechnya with America’s
“war on terrorism”.
The brutality of the Russian occupation of Chechnya has resulted in Chechen terrorist attacks across Russia, including an
attack on the Moscow subway system, blowing up Russian airplanes and an attack on a school in Beslan, Russia that resulted in the
deaths of 330 people, half of whom were children. However, Russian brutality and military occupation has resulted in the wars mostly
quieting down. Currently, Chechnya is ruled by a government that is loyal to Russia, although large parts of the region are effectively
ungoverned. It is estimated that 25,000 to 50,000 died in the second part of the Chechen war.
Democracy in the other Former Soviet Republics
The other former Soviet Republics have also had a difficult transition to democracy. These republics have almost no modern
history as independent nations, no tradition of civil society or rule of law, and were still in the Russian sphere of influence. As a
result, some of the new republics have come under the control of authoritarian leaders. In Turkmenistan, Saparmyrat Niyazov, the
former Soviet governor became the president of the republic. He built a personality cult around himself, even taking the name
Turkmenbashi or “Father of Turkmen”. A book of his writings, the Ruhnama, is required reading for all school children. Niyazov
died in 2006 and since then the new leader of Turkmenistan has been undoing his cult of personality. Belarus came under the control
of former collective farm manager Alexander Lukashenka, who set himself up as a Soviet style authoritarian leader. The Belarusian
economy remained under government control and political opponents were arrested and imprisoned. He is considered to be the last
dictator in Europe and has vowed to hold power “no matter what it costs”. The Russian government directly supported and provided
assistance to these countries.
Other former Soviet republics have tried to move away from Russian domination and become closer top Europe, with
aspirations of being like the Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, which were former Soviet Republics that had become
members of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The former Soviet Republics of Ukraine and
Georgia have both attempted to pull away from the Russian sphere of influence. Russia has responded by undermining these efforts
by supporting violent separatist movements in these countries that keep these countries destabilized.
Georgia is a small country on the eastern coast of
the Black Sea and is very close to Chechnya. In February
2004, Georgia was swept by popular demonstrations after
an election was stolen by the pro-Russian government.
These protests led to the Rose Revolution where the
people forced the pro-Russian government from power
and new elections. In these elections Mikhail Saakashvili,
American trained lawyer who has worked to liberalize the
Georgian political and economic systems, became
president. In 2005, NATO began to discuss with NATO
how Georgia could be integrated into the alliance. Russia
was opposed to the further expansion of NATO. In the
summer of 2008, Russia supported the government of
South Ossetia (a pro-Russian separatist region in Georgia)
to attack Georgia. Georgia responded with a military
offensive against the South Ossetian separatists. At this point, Russia invaded Georgia and beat back the Georgian army, claiming
that it was acting to stop the war and protect civilians. The war only lasted a few weeks and killed a few hundred people. After the
cease fire, Russian forces have reminded in South Ossetia (which is still technically part of Georgia).
The country of Ukraine is historically and
culturally split between Europe and Russia - the name
"Ukraine" means "borderland" in Ukrainian. The eastern
part of Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the
western part was part of Poland. The country was unified
into one republic in the Soviet Union. After the collapse of
the Soviet Union, Ukraine emerged as an independent
country. However, it was linguistically divided between the
Ukrainian speaking west of the country and the Russian
speaking east of country. At the time of independence,
Ukraine had one of the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons
in the world (legacy of the Soviet military). In an
agreement brokered and supported by the United States,
Ukraine dismantled it nuclear arsenal in return for Russian
guarantees to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Throughout the 1990's and early 2000's, the government of
Ukraine walked a neutral line between Europe and Russia.
The reality was that the Ukrainian government was very corrupt with most government officials using their position to enrich
themselves. This all seemed to change in December 2004 when in a popular revolt in Ukraine, that mirrored events in Georgia, called
the Orange Revolution. Again popular protests over elections stolen by the pro-Russian government resulted in 10 days of street
protests demanding new elections. In the new elections, Victor Yushshenko, an economic liberal with an American wife became the
new president of Ukraine. However, Yushenko's government proved to be ineffective in reforming Ukraine with many of the
reformers fighting between each other. As a result, many Ukrainians lost faith in the Yushenko and in the next elections the proRussian leader Victor Yanukovych became president. Yanukovych set up a very corrupt government and tried to play the European
Union against Russia to get good trade deals for Ukraine - that would benefit his supporters. As part of this, Yanukovych began to
negotiate a free trade treaty with the European Union. The treaty was very popular with many people in Ukraine (especially in
western Ukraine) because it held the promise that Ukrainians would help the Ukrainian economy. However, Putin was very opposed
to this treaty and made counter offers to Yanukovych. In November 2013, without any warning, Yanukovych refused to sign the
treaty.
Yanukovyk's rejection of the treaty with the European Union sparked mass protests in Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Despite the cold
winter, the daily protests grew from 100,000 to several hundred thousand. The protesters build a permanent camp in the center of
Kyiv and the protests spread to other parts of the country. The protests divided the country between the pro-European west and the
pro-Russian east. In addition, the protests sparked conflicts between the United States government which supported the protesters and
Russia which supported the Yanukovych government. In January 1914, the protests began to spread to other parts of the country and
it became more unclear how the protests would end. Then in February the protest became violent as the protesters and securit y forces
fought pitched battles around the center of Kyiv. The security forces tried to push the protesters out of their encampment and the
protesters began to take over government buildings. As the violence became worse, supporters of the protests in western Ukraine
seized police stations in the western part of the country and looted their weapons. Many people began to fear that the weapons would
be brought to Kyiv and used against the security forces, which might spark a civil war. Then, at the end of February, after several
days of fighting between protesters and police, in which almost a hundred people were killed, Yanukovych left Ukraine when his
security forces refused to stop the protests out of fear for their own lives. Within hours of his departure, the violence ended and proEuropean political parties took control of the government. This new government planned for new elections and to re-open the
negotiations with the European Union.
However, Russia took advantage to this time to seize control of Crimea, a peninsula that extended from Ukraine into the
Black Sea. Crimea had been under the control of the Ottoman Turks until the Russian conquered it in the nineteenth century. The
Russians had fought Britain and France for control of Crimea during the Crimean War. The naval base at Sevastopol was an
important Russian, and then Soviet, base. During the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev had take administrative control of Crimea
away from the Soviet Republic of Russia and given it to the Soviet Republic of Ukraine. As a result, when the Soviet Union
collapsed, Crimea was part of Ukraine. Crimea, with a large Russian speaking population, had been a point of on-going conflict
between Russia and Ukraine, A week after Yanukovych fled Ukraine, Russian military personal without any insignia (they were
called "little green men") moved out of Russian bases in Crimea and took over the region. Rather than risk a war with Russia, the
newly empowered Ukrainian government pulled it forces out of Crimea. In March, Russia annexed the region, making it officially
part of Russia and people living in Crimea became Russian citizens. The United States and the European Union responded by placing
economic sanctions on Russia.
Then, mirroring the events in Crimea, in early April, pro-Russian gun men without military insignia begin to occupy
government buildings in eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. The government of Ukraine did not seem to respond
forcefully to these take-overs. More and more cities in the east began to see the "little green men" taking government buildings. The
tipping point in this was in the southern city of Odessa where a clash between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian groups that results in 80
pro-Russian supporters being burned to death in government building that they had attempted to take-over (the pro-Ukrainian group
surrounded the building and attacked it). After this, it became that Ukrainians would fight back against further Russian aggression
with "little green men".
After this, in May, the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk declared that they were independent republics and they
appealed for Russia for assistance. While the new governments of these regions tried to portray themselves as local creations created
in opposition to the new Ukrainian government in Kyiv, the leadership of these separatists governments were led by Russian citizens
who had worked in the Russian security services or military. At the same time, Ukraine had elections that brought pro-European
parties to power that did not recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and swore they would end the uprising in the East.
The Ukrainian army moved into eastern Ukraine to prevent further separatist action to take territory.
In July, the Ukrainian army started an offensive against the rebels and began to push them out of many cities in the east.
Russia began to send weapons and soldiers (the Russians said they were "volunteers") to support the governments of Donetsk and
Luhansk. It was speculated that the Russians were trying to drive across eastern Ukraine to build a land connection to Crimea.
However, the Russian offensive became an international crisis when Russian separatists shot down a Malaysian airliner with Russian
supplied missile, killing 298 people. After this, while the fighting continued, Russian support for the separatists seemed to waiver
and, due to international pressure, both sides in the Ukrainian conflict met in Minsk, Belarus to negotiate a cease fire.
While both sides agreed to a ceasefire, the fighting on the ground did not end, it merely subsided. In the late fall of 2014,
Russia began to supply the separatists with more weapons and more Russian soldiers began to enter the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk.
In early 2015, the separatists in Donetsk launched an offensive against the Ukrainian army. At this point, more than 9,000 people
have been killed and large parts of eastern Ukraine have been destroyed or damaged leaving more than half a million people displaced
from their homes.