Encyclopedia of Russian History

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Khabarovsk, and St. Petersburg. The company’s fleet

consisted in 2002 of 111 airplanes, including two

Boeing-767-300s, eight Airbuses A-310-300, six

long-range Iluyshin-96-300s, eighteen Iluyshin-

76TD cargo planes and one cargo DC-10/30F, and

other jets, illustrating the diversification of aircraft

in the post-Soviet period.

See also: AVIATION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aeroflot: Russian International Airlines. (2003). Avail-

able at <http://www.aeroflot.org>.

AUL

R. G

REGORY

AFGHANISTAN, RELATIONS WITH

Afghanistan has played a key role in the foreign

policy history of both the Russian Empire and the

Soviet Union. During the nineteenth century, Russ-

ian and British intelligence and government offi-

cials vied for influence in the region, with the final

delineation of spheres of influence being the Amu

Darya river—north of that was considered Russian

and south of that was British. During the Bolshe-

vik Revolution and civil war, opposition forces in

Central Asia used Afghanistan as a base of opera-

tion against Red Army units. Indeed, Afghanistan

was a haven, and then a transit route, for those

wanting to escape the Soviet Union at this time.

After a series of treaties, Afghanistan became a

neutral neighbor for the Soviet Union and relations

focused largely on trade and economic develop-

ment. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Soviet in-

volvement in Afghanistan increased. Soviet

assistance was almost equally divided between eco-

nomic and military forms. Between 1956 and

1978, the Soviet Union gave $2.51 billion in aid to

Afghanistan, compared to U.S. assistance of only

$533 million. This was part of a larger Soviet strat-

egy to increase their presence in South Asia, as the

United States was seen as being more influential in

Iran and Pakistan. Equally important, although

commercial ties always remained modest, the So-

viet Union used this relationship as a “positive ex-

ample” for the rest of the developing world.

The Sawr Revolution in April 1978 radically

changed the Soviet presence in the region, as the

new leaders—first Nur Muhammed Taraki and

then Hafizulla Amin—debated the extent to which

they wanted outside powers involved in the coun-

try. The leadership in Moscow feared that the

Afghan government under Amin was going to drift

out of the Soviet Union’s orbit, and began to put

pressure on it to remain a loyal ally. Finally, as a

measure to ensure full subordination, the Soviet

Army invaded Afghanistan in December 1979.

Amin was killed in the ensuing conflict, to be re-

placed by Babrak Karmal in 1980.

The Brezhnev administration claimed that it

sent troops into Afghanistan to help the current

leadership stabilize the country. Within months,

Soviet bases were established in a number of cities

in the country and Afghanistan was effectively un-

der Soviet occupation. Many states in the interna-

tional community condemned the invasion and a

majority of Western states boycotted the 1980

Summer Olympics in Moscow as a sign of protest.

Within two years, opposition groups—often

based on tribal or clan affiliations—began to in-

crease their resistance efforts against the Soviet oc-

cupiers. Known collectively as the Mujahedeen, the

opposition fought both Soviet units and those of

the People’s Democratic Republic of Afghanistan

army. Although the Mujahedeen fared poorly in

the opening campaigns, increased training and sup-

port from outside powers, especially the United

States, helped turn things around. By the mid-

1980s, it was apparent that the Soviet Union was

bogged down in a guerrilla war that wore down

both troop numbers and morale.

By 1984, Soviet citizens were beginning to get

frustrated with this “endless war.” The rise of

Mikhail Gorbachev in the following year signaled

a new phase in the conduct of the war, as he ac-

knowledged that the Soviet Union ought to look at

a way to end their participation in the conflict.

Over the next two years, United Nations–mediated

negotiations took place, which resulted in a peace

settlement and the Soviet withdrawal from the

country. The government was finally admitting ca-

sualty figures, which became difficult as fighting

intensified in 1985 and 1986. By this time, there

were between 90,000 and 104,000 Soviet troops in

Afghanistan at any one time.

It was not until early 1989 that the last Soviet

troops left Afghanistan. In all, the ten-year Afghan

War cost the Soviet Union more than 15,000 killed

and more than 460,000 wounded or incapacitated

due to illnesses contracted while serving in the coun-

try (this was an amazing 73 percent of all forces

AFGHANISTAN, RELATIONS WITH

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

that served in the country). Such casualties severely

damaged the country’s international reputation and

internal morale. During this period of glasnost by

the Gorbachev administration, it was commonplace

for Soviet citizens to criticize the government’s war

effort and the effect it had on returning veterans,

the “Afghantsy.” Indeed, many observers compared

the Soviet experience in Afghanistan with that of

the United States in Vietnam.

For the first several years after the Soviet with-

drawal, the government of Najibullah, the Soviet-

sponsored leader of Afghanistan who succeeded

Babrak Karmal, was able to maintain power. How-

ever, by 1992, the Mujahedeen forces ousted him

and set up their own provisional government.

These groups no longer had a single unifying cause

(the removal of Soviet forces) to keep them to-

gether, and a civil war ensued. This lasted until

1996, at which time the Taliban were able to wrest

control of most of the country.

As a result of the United States–led “coalition

of the willing” attacks in 2001–2002, Russia iron-

ically became a more active player in the region.

Following the al-Qaeda attacks in the United States,

Afghanistan quickly came under attack for its sup-

port of that terrorist organization and its unwill-

ingness to hand over top al-Qaeda officials. By the

beginning of 2002, supportive of the U.S. effort,

Afghanistan has been more active in assisting what

it sees as the defense of its southern borders.

For more than two decades, Afghanistan has

remained a security problem for the Soviet Union

and the Russian Federation. Therefore, Russia will

undoubtedly continue to place importance on re-

maining politically involved in future developments

in that country, although given its somber experi-

ence in the 1980s, it is doubtful that Russia will

develop a military or security presence in the coun-

try any time soon.

The Afghans are likewise mistrustful of Russ-

ian influences in the country. Even in the early

twenty-first century, Afghanistan continued to feel

the effects of the Soviet campaign in the country.

As expected, U.S. troops toppled the Taliban regime

and were in the process of establishing a more rep-

resentative regime in Kabul. Russia, for its part, had

seen 1.5 million Afghans killed in the ten-year war,

most of whom were civilians. In addition, millions

more citizens became refugees in Iran and Pakistan.

Finally, hundreds of thousands of landmines re-

mained in place to cause injuries and death on a

near-daily basis. On a broader level, the economic

and social disruption caused by the war, and the

subsequent civil war and Taliban rule, had resulted

in a country completely in ruins.

Perhaps most telling for contemporary Russia is

the fact that Afghanistan symbolizes defeat on sev-

eral levels. It was a failed effort to export socialism

to a neighboring state; it was a failure of the Soviet

army to defeat an insurgency; it was a failure of

confidence by the population in the political leader-

ship; and it was a failure for the economy, as the

war created a drain on an already-troubled economy.

See also: BREZHNEV, LEONID, ILICH; GORBACHEV, MIKHAIL

SERGEYEVICH; MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dupree, Louis. (1980). Afghanistan. Princeton, NJ: Prince-

ton University Press.

Goodson, Larry P. (2001). Afghanistan’s Endless War:

State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Tal-

iban. Seattle: The University of Washington Press.

Grau, Lester, ed. (2003). The Bear Went Over the Moun-

tain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan, 2nd edi-

tion. New York: Frank Cass Publishers.

Kaplan, Robert D. (2001). Soldiers of God: With Islamic

Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan. New York:

Vintage Books.

Khan, Riaz. (1991). Untying the Afghan Knot: Negotiating

Soviet Withdrawal. Durham, NC: Duke University

Press.

Rashid, Ahmed. (2000). Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and

Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press.

Roy, Olivier. (1986). Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan.

London: Cambridge University Press.

Rubin, Barnett. (1995). The Fragmentation of Afghanistan:

State Formation and Collapse in the International Sys-

tem. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah. (1982). Afghanistan of the Afghans.

London: Octagon Press.

Tapper, Richard. (1991). The Conflict of Tribe and State in

Afghanistan. London: Croom Helm.

OGER

ANGAS

AGANBEGYAN, ABEL GEZEVICH

(b. 1932), leading Soviet economist and organizer

of economic research.

Academician Abel Gezevich Aganbegyan began

his professional career as a labor economist and was

AGANBEGYAN, ABEL GEZEVICH

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

an active member of the group of mathematical

economists that emerged in the USSR in the 1960s.

He was the Director of the Institute of Economics

and the Organization of Industrial Production in

Novosibirsk (1966–1985) and the creator and first

editor of the lively journal EKO for many years the

best economics journal in the USSR. In 1985 he re-

turned to Moscow and was an important economic

adviser to Mikhail Gorbachev. Aganbegyan seems

to have played a major role in promoting the ill-

fated acceleration (uskorenie) program of

1985–1986. Intended to speed up the national eco-

nomic rate of growth, the policy mainly resulted

in destabilizing the economy by sharply increasing

investment in projects without any short-run re-

turns. Aganbegyan was also involved in the prepa-

ration of the economic reform announced by

Gorbachev in June 1987. This reform did not

achieve its objectives but did contribute to the fi-

nancial crisis and economic destabilization of

1989–1991. In 1990, Gorbachev requested that he

produce a compromise economic program out of

the rival Five-Hundred-Day Plan of Stanislav

Shatalin and Grigory Yavlinsky on the one hand,

and the government program of Leonid Abalkin

and Nikolai Ryzhkov on the other. During pere-

stroika Aganbegyan became rector of the Academy

of the National Economy. He established a con-

sulting firm and founded a bank, of which he

served as CEO for five years, then honorary pres-

ident. A property development deal he made with

an Italian firm was a failure, leaving behind a half-

finished building.

See also: FIVE-HUNDRED-DAY PLAN; PERESTROIKA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aganbegyan, Abel. (1989). Inside Perestroika. New York:

Harper & Row.

Aslund, Anders. (1991). Gorbachev’s Struggle for Economic

Reform, 2nd ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

ICHAEL

LLMAN

AGITPROP

Agitprop, the agitation (speech) and propaganda

(print, film, and visual art) section of the Central

Committee of the Communist Party, was estab-

lished in August of 1920, under the direction of R.

Katanian to coordinate the propaganda work of all

Soviet institutions. Agitprop was originally divided

into five subsections, the two most important be-

ing the agitation subsection, which directed propa-

ganda campaigns and supervised local press, and

the political education subsection, which developed

curriculum for Party schools. The three remaining

subsections were concerned with publishing Cen-

tral Committee works, addressing problems with

the distribution of propaganda in literature, and co-

ordinating work among the parties of the national

minorities. Agitprop, whose activities reached their

fullest height during the Stalinist era, was one of

the most important Central Committee sections by

1946. The role of Agitprop during the Brezhnev

years and beyond included overseeing publishing,

television, radio, and sports, directing agitation and

propaganda work, guiding political education

within the Party, and conducting cultural work

with trade unions.

Agitprop techniques, based on the political ed-

ucation of the immediate postrevolutionary period,

were basically solidified in the 1920s. Early Agit-

prop in the cities included parades, spectacles, mon-

umental sculpture, posters, kiosks, films, and

agit-stations, located at major railroad stations,

which had libraries of propaganda material, lecture

halls, and theaters. These varied activities contin-

ued throughout the Soviet period. Agitation and

propaganda were taken to the countryside during

the civil war by agit-trains and agit-ships, a unique

Bolshevik method for the political education of

rural citizens and front-line troops. These modern

conveyances functioned like moving posters with

exterior decorations of heroic figures and folk art

motifs accompanied by simple slogans. The trains

and ships brought revolutionary leaflets, agitators,

newsreels, and agitki (short propaganda films),

among other items. Agit-trains were reinstituted

during World War II to convey propaganda to

forces at the front. After the civil war, and through-

out the Soviet period, propaganda continued to be

exported to the countryside via radio, traveling ex-

hibitions, posters, literature, and film. Agitprop,

like other Central Committee departments, had be-

come relatively stable in its organization by 1948,

and remained so until the collapse of the Soviet

Union.

See also: CENTRAL COMMITTEE; HIGHER PARTY SCHOOLS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kenez, Peter. (1986). The Birth of the Propaganda State:

Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929. New

York: Cambridge University Press.

AGITPROP

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Stites, Richard. (1995). Russian Popular Culture: Enter-

tainment and Society Since 1900. New York: Cam-

bridge University Press.

K. A

NDREA

USNOCK

AGRARIAN PARTY OF RUSSIA

The Agrarian Party of Russia (APR) was established

on February 26, 1993, on the initiative of the par-

liamentary fraction Agrarian Union, the Agrarian

Union of Russia, the profsoyuz (trade union) of

workers of the agro-industrial complex, and the

All-Russian Congress of Kolkhozes. Its chair was

Mikhail Lapshin, elected a couple weeks earlier as

the vice-chair of the restored Communist Party

of the Russian Federation (CPRF). In the 1993

elections, the APR list, headed by the leader of

the Agrarian fraction Mikhail Lapshin, profsoyuz

leader Alexander Davydov, and vice-premier Alexan-

der Zaveryukha, received 4.3 million votes (8.0%,

fifth place) and twenty-one mandates in the fed-

eral district; sixteen candidates won in single-man-

date districts. In 1995 the Agrarians entered the

elections with a similar makeup, but a significant

portion of the left-wing electorate consolidated

around the Communist Party of the Russian Fed-

eration, and as a result, the Agrarians’ list only won

2.6 million votes (3.8%). In the single-mandate dis-

tricts, the agrarians brought forth twenty candi-

dates; this allowed them to form their own delegate

group, with the addition of delegates from the CPRF

dedicated to this task. In the 1999 elections, the APR

leadership split over the issue of bloc formation.

The majority, with chair Lapshin in the lead, joined

the bloc Fatherland-All Russia (OVR); the others,

including the leader of the parliamentary fraction

Nikolai Kharintonov, went on the CPRF list. As a

result of OVR’s low results, Lapshin’s supporters

were unsuccessful in forming their group, and the

communists with single-mandate candidates cre-

ated the Agro-Industrial Group with Kharitonov at

the head.

In the regional elections, the APR entered in

coalition with the CPRF, and had several serious

victories to its credit, including the election of APR

leader Lapshin as head of the small Republic of Al-

tai, and head of the Agrarian Union Vasily Staro-

dubtsev as governor in the industrial Tula Oblast

(twice).

At the time of registration in May 2002, the

APR declared 42,000 members and fifty-five re-

gional branches. While lacking potential as a self-

sufficient entity, the APR was quite attractive to

the Communist Party, and to the “ruling party,”

by virtue of the provincial infrastructure, the pop-

ularity of the name, and the influence on the rural

electorate, traditionally sympathetic toward the

left.

On the threshold of the 2003 elections, a strug-

gle for control of the APR arose between the leftist

Kharitonovtsy (Kharitonov was the head of the

Agro-Industrial Union) and the pro-government

Gordeyevtsy (Alexei Gordeyev was the leader of the

Russian Agrarian Movement, founded in 2002),

both sides trying to put an end to Lapshin’s ex-

tended leadership.

See also: COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERA-

TION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

McFaul, Michael. (2001). Russia’s Unfinished Revolution:

Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. Ithaca: Cor-

nell University Press.

McFaul, Michael, and Markov, Sergei. (1993). The Trou-

bled Birth of Russian Democracy: Parties, Personalities,

and Programs. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution

Press.

Reddaway, Peter, and Glinski, Dmitri. (2001). The Tragedy

of Russia’s Reforms: Market Bolshevism against Democ-

racy. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press.

IKOLAI

ETROV

AGRARIAN REFORMS

The concept of agrarian reform refers to changes

implemented in the agricultural economy, changes

designed broadly to improve agricultural perfor-

mance and notably to contribute to the process of

economic growth and economic development. The

concept of reform implies changes to an existing

system or policies, though the interpretation of

change and the precise boundaries of the agricul-

tural sector are general and broad. Thus charac-

terized, agrarian reform has been a continuing and

important component of the Russian economic ex-

perience. Moreover, the nature of agrarian reform

has been closely associated with the differing stages

of Russian economic development and with the role

envisioned for the agrarian economy in the process

of industrialization and modernization.

AGRARIAN PARTY OF RUSSIA

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Russia has been an agrarian economy since its

beginnings. For this reason, changes in the agrar-

ian economy have been central to any discussion

of economic growth and economic development in

Russia. Beginning in the era of serfdom and the ex-

istence of a premodern agriculture, the focus has

been on the nature of agrarian reform necessary to

contribute to modernization.

The nature of agrarian reform necessarily de-

pends heavily on the time period considered. In the

Russian case, a convenient turning point is 1861,

the date of the Emancipation Act, the purpose of

which was to eliminate serfdom. Prior to this date,

the Russian rural economy was feudal in charac-

ter, with serfs bound to their landlords, commu-

nal landholding, and periodic redistribution of land

plots.

Although the Emancipation Act was judicial

more than economic in character, it nevertheless

introduced a long period of agrarian reform

through the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. During

this period, there was gradual reallocation of land,

although preservation of the village (mir) as a com-

munal form of local decision making limited the

extent to which the modernization of agriculture

could take place. Peasant mobility was limited, a

major reason for political instability in the early

1900s and the implementation of the Stolypin re-

forms, a series of changes designed to break the

communal system, to change land usage, and to

introduce individual peasant farming.

The agrarian reform, prior to the Bolshevik rev-

olution, has been the subject of controversy. The

traditional agrarian crisis view has supported a

negative view of the Russian rural economy, while

the revisionist view argues that output and struc-

tural changes during the late tsarist era were di-

rectionally important for the ultimate development

of a modern agricultural sector.

It is perhaps ironic that by the 1920s and the

period of the New Economic Policy (NEP), the rural

economy would again be at the forefront of atten-

tion. Specifically, the focus would be the potential

role of agriculture in Soviet economic development.

After extensive discussion and experimentation

during the NEP, Stalin forcibly changed the insti-

tutional arrangements on Soviet agriculture begin-

ning in 1928. The introduction of the collective

farms (the kohlkoz), the state farms (the sovkhoz)

and the private subsidiary sector fundamentally

changed the manner in which agriculture was or-

ganized. Markets were replaced by state control.

Although these changes remained in effect

through the end of the Soviet era, there were im-

portant changes made in the rural economy during

the Soviet years. In effect, there was a continuing

search for optimal organizational arrangements.

This search led to important changes in the mech-

anization of agriculture (especially the introduction

of the Machine Tractor Stations), the nature of land

use (amalgamation of farms seeking scale advan-

tages and the conversion of collective to state farms)

and the relations between the state and the farm

units in terms of deliveries, financing, and the like.

Most important, in the latter years of the Soviet

era, the focus became agro-industrial integration,

an effort to reap the benefits of Western “agri-

business” types of arrangements for production

and marketing of agricultural products.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991,

the era of socialist agriculture and socialist agri-

cultural policies came to an end. Much less atten-

tion was paid to the rural economy; it was not

central to the Russian approach to transition, and

yet agrarian reform was once again on the agenda.

Throughout the 1990s, the emphasis has been the

creation of a corporate (share) structure in farms

and the conversion of these farms to various forms

of private equity arrangements. However, given the

very slow emergence of land reform, and specifi-

cally the slow development of a land market in Rus-

sia, fundamental change in the Russian rural

economy continues to be at best very slow.

See also: AGRICULTURE; ECONOMIC GROWTH, SOVIET;

FREE ECONOMIC SOCIETY; NEW ECONOMIC POLICY

PEASANT ECONOMY; SERFDOM

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gregory, Paul R., and Stuart, Robert C. (2001). Russian

and Soviet Economic Performance and Structure, 7th ed.

New York: Addison Wesley Longman.

Volin, Lazar. (1970). A Century of Russian Agriculture.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

OBERT

C. S

TUART

AGRICULTURE

Agriculture is that sector of an economy concerned

with the production of food and food products both

for domestic use, in (industrial) production and

(household) consumption, and for export to exter-

nal markets. Although it is often difficult to define

AGRICULTURE

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

the sectoral boundaries of agriculture with preci-

sion, agriculture is critical to the process of eco-

nomic growth and economic development. Less

developed economies are typically primarily agri-

cultural in terms of output and resource usage and,

appropriately, focus on institutions and policies

that encourage the modernization of agriculture as

a sector to support the growth of industry and ser-

vices.

As economic growth and development occur,

the relative importance of the major producing sec-

tors changes, usually with a declining relative im-

portance for agriculture and a growing relative

importance of industry and services. This means

that, in the early stages of economic development,

agriculture is an important sector in which pro-

ductivity growth sustains the growth of output.

This process involves the substitution of capital for

labor and changes the role of agriculture itself as

economic growth and development proceed.

In the Russian case, the agricultural sector has

always been surrounded by controversy. The rea-

sons for this controversy are best understood

within the context of the individual periods of Russ-

ian and Soviet economic growth and development,

although there are common threads throughout.

Not only are policies and institutions important,

but ideology has played a major if not always con-

structive role in this essential sector.

Prior to the legal end of serfdom in 1861, the

Russian rural economy was organized on a com-

munal basis (the mir). The premodern agriculture

under this feudal-manorial system was character-

ized by limited mechanization, archaic modes of

land usage, and the limited development of human

capital.

With the formal end of serfdom in Russia and

the emergence of significant economic growth af-

ter 1880, attention focused on the extent to which

a modern agriculture (emerging market institu-

tions, market policies, investment in both human

and physical capital, and so forth) was emerging

in Russia and could therefore serve as the under-

pinning of industrialization. From an ideological

AGRICULTURE

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

ETTY

MAGES

perspective, this would mean the development of

capitalism. Two major schools of thought, the

agrarian crisis view and the revisionist view, ad-

dress this issue in different ways. The agrarian cri-

sis view argues that backwardness was sustained

prior to the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, while the

revisionist view sees significantly greater change in

the agricultural and other sectors. These interpre-

tations have both been important for our under-

standing of the level of economic development in

1917, the ideological options available to Lenin and

the Bolsheviks, and the subsequent discussions re-

garding agriculture during the New Economic Pol-

icy (NEP) period.

The second important era in which agriculture

became controversial in Russia is the NEP of the

1920s and its termination through mass collec-

tivization. While the role of agriculture in Russian

economic development was an issue of major im-

portance in the 1920s, the implementation of col-

lectivization by Josef Stalin in the late 1920s

radically changed the institutional arrangements: It

attempted to create a mechanism to support rapid

industrialization, while at the same time imposing

the ideology of collectivism. It has been argued that,

from a strategic point of view, the policies and in-

stitutions established did not in fact finance Soviet

industrialization. Worse, it has also been argued

that the legacy of these institutions and related poli-

cies, and especially their manner of implementation,

led to serious negative long-term consequences for

the necessary but unachieved long-term growth of

agricultural productivity. In these respects, collec-

tivization has been viewed, in broad perspective, as

a mistake.

The third important era for Russian agriculture

is the post-collectivization experience through the

end of the 1980s. In spite of continuing attention

to and controversy surrounding agriculture in this

era, it is agreed that agricultural productivity de-

clined from the 1950s through the 1980s to such

a degree that significant grain imports became nec-

essary beginning in the 1960s. Thus agriculture be-

came increasingly expensive (an effect of poor

productivity performance) and was artificially sus-

tained by large state subsidies. From a structural

point of view, agriculture in this era failed in the

sense that agricultural productivity change could

not support necessary structural change, a legacy

that would await the reformers of the transition

era.

Finally, when the Soviet system collapsed and

Russia faced economic transition to capitalism, agri-

culture as a sector was largely neglected. Whereas

it was commonly predicted that agriculture would

be a leading sector in transition economies, this was

not the case in Russia. From a twenty-first-century

perspective, it is evident that during transition agri-

culture has been a low-priority sector, one in which

institutional change has been at best modest. Al-

though markets have emerged and trade patterns

have changed, the most fundamental element of

market agriculture, namely the pursuit of private

property rights along with appropriate institutional

support, remains controversial and elusive.

See also: AGRARIAN REFORMS; COLLECTIVE FARM; COL-

LECTIVIZATION OF AGRICULTURE; COUNTRY ESTATES;

ECONOMIC GROWTH, IMPERIAL; ECONOMIC GROWTH,

SOVIET; NEW ECONOMIC POLICY; PEASANT ECONOMY;

SERFDOM; SOVKHOZ

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gregory, Paul R., and Stuart, Robert C. (2001). Russian

and Soviet Economic Performance and Structure, 7th ed.

New York: Addison Wesley Longman.

Volin, Lazar. (1970). A Century of Russian Agriculture.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

OBERT

C. S

TUART

AIGUN, TREATY OF

The Treaty of Aigun (May 28, 1858) granted the

expanding Russian Empire vast new territories in

eastern Siberia at the expense of China, which had

entered upon a period of decline. In the late 1840s,

after more than a century of stable relations with

China, governed by the Treaties of Nerchinsk

(1689) and Kiakhta (1728), Russia renewed its east-

ward expansion under the leadership of Nikolai

Muraviev, the governor-general of Eastern Siberia,

and Count E. V. Putiatin and General Nikolai Ig-

natiev, both of whom were diplomatic envoys. The

three men shared a vision of Russia as a Pacific

power, and operated as quasi-independent agents

of an imperial state in this era before modern trans-

portation and communications.

In the early 1850s, Russia sent a naval flotilla

down the Amur River, established military settle-

ments along its northern bank, and ignored Chinese

protests. Focused on suppressing the Taiping rebel-

lion that threatened the dynasty’s hold on power,

Chinese officials greatly feared Russian military

AIGUN, TREATY OF

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

power, the strength of which they overestimated.

When they failed to persuade the Russians to with-

draw from territories they considered part of their

own domain, the Chinese had no choice but to ne-

gotiate with Muraviev, who had threatened them

with war.

In accordance with Muraviev’s demands, the

Treaty of Aigun established the Russo-Chinese

boundary along the Amur, from the Argun River

in the west to the Sea of Okhotsk in the east. Rus-

sia was accorded navigation rights on the Amur,

Ussuri, and Sungari rivers along with China, but

third countries were excluded, as Muraviev feared

encroachment by the British Navy. Trade, which

had been previously been restricted to one point

along the border, was now permitted along its en-

tire length. China viewed the Treaty of Aigun as a

temporary concession to Russian military pressure,

but Muraviev and St. Petersburg correctly under-

stood it as a giant step in Russia’s rise as an Asia-

Pacific power.

See also: CHINA, RELATIONS WITH; MURAVIEV, NIKITA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clubb, O. Edmund. (1971). China and Russia: The “Great

Game.” New York: Columbia University Press.

Mancall, Mark. (1971). Russia and China: Their Diplomatic

Relations to 1728. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-

sity Press.

Paine, S. C. M. (1997). Imperial Rivals: Russia, China, and

Their Disputed Frontier. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Quested, Rosemary. (1984). Sino-Russian Relations: A

Short History. Boston: George Allen & Unwin.

Tien-fong Cheng. (1973). A History of Sino-Russian Rela-

tions. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973.

TEVEN

I. L

EVINE

AJARS

In 1913 Josef Stalin posed the question, “What is

to be done with the Mingrelians, Abkhasians, Ad-

jarians, Svanetians, Lezghians, and so forth, who

speak different languages but do not possess a lit-

erature of their own?” Of the Ajars, however, who

call themselves Ach’areli (plural Ach’arlebi), he

more accurately observed, two paragraphs later,

that they were a people “who speak the Georgian

language but whose culture is Turkish and who

profess the religion of Islam.”

The Ajarian Autonomous Republic was estab-

lished on July 16, 1921, as a result of Turkey ced-

ing Batumi to Georgia, along with territory to its

north, in accordance with the terms of the Russo-

Turkish Treaty of March 16, 1921. Ajaria (capital:

Batumi) occupies 2,900 square kilometers in south-

western Georgia and borders the provinces of

Guria, Meskheti, and (predominantly Armenian)

Dzhavakheti; the Black Sea; and Turkey (Lazistan

and the old Georgian region of Shavsheti). The last

Soviet census (1989) showed 324,806 Ajar resi-

dents, constituting 82.8 percent of the autonomous

republic’s population. The local dialect suggests

both Laz and Turkish influence—Islam was intro-

duced here and in other border regions to the east

by the Ottoman Turks. Ajarians share with the

Abkhazians, some of whom settled the area in late-

tsarist times, a subtropical microclimate with sim-

ilar agriculture, although Ajaria held first place in

the USSR for precipitation, with sea-facing slopes

experiencing an annual rainfall of 2,500–2,800

millimeters.

When Stalin deported to Central Asia the neigh-

boring Meskhians (usually called “Meskhetian

Turks,” though their precise ethnicity is disputed),

Hemshins (Islamicized Armenians), and other Mus-

lim peoples in the northern Caucasus in 1943 and

1944, the Ajars escaped this fate. The regional

leader, Aslan Abashidze, appointed by Georgian

president Zviad Gamsakhurdia in the dying years

of Soviet rule, managed, in the turmoil that fol-

lowed Georgia’s 1991 independence, to turn Ajaria

into a personal fiefdom to the extent that central

government writ was (as of January 2002) no

longer running in what had by then effectively be-

come an undeclared but de facto independent state.

See also: CAUCASUS; GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS; ISLAM;

NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES

POLICIES, TSARIST

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Burdett, Anita L. P., ed. (1996). Caucasian Boundaries:

Documents and Maps, 1802–1946. Slough, UK:

Archive Editions.

The Golden Fleece (Songs from Abkhazia and Adzharia).

(1993). Leiden, Netherlands: Pan Records Ethnic Se-

ries.

Stalin, Joseph. (1913). “Marxism and the National Ques-

tion.” In his Marxism and the National and Colonial

Question. London: Martin Lawrence.

B. G

EORGE

EWITT

AJARS

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

AKAYEV, ASKAR AKAYEVICH

(b. 1944), president of Kyrgyzstan who served in

that post throughout the country’s first decade of

independence.

Askar Akayev was born in the Kyrgyz Soviet

Republic (Kyrgyzia) and earned a doctor of sciences

degree at the Leningrad Precision Mechanics and

Optics Institute. He returned to Kyrgyzia in 1972,

assuming a teaching post at the Politechnical In-

stitute in Frunze (now Bishkek). He authored more

than one hundred scientific works and articles on

mathematics and computers, and in 1989 became

president of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences. He

also served as a department head for the Central

Committee of the Kyrgyz Communist Party.

As the Soviet Union began to break apart, he

was elected to the presidency of the republic in 1990

by the republic’s legislature, and in 1991 Kyr-

gyzstan gained independence and Akayev was

elected president in a popular election. In contrast

to other post-Soviet states in Central Asia, whose

leaders retained their power from Soviet times, Kyr-

gyzstan made an attempt to break with the Soviet

past. In his first years in office, Akayev won in-

ternational acclaim as a backer of political and eco-

nomic liberalization, aiming to turn his country

into the “Switzerland of Central Asia.” Akayev was

reelected president in 1995 and in 2000. In the mid-

1990s, however, some called his democratic cre-

dentials into question as he launched campaigns

against journalists, imprisoned political opponents,

and pushed through constitutional amendments to

augment the powers of the presidency. In 2000

elections he won 75 percent of the vote, but ob-

servers claimed these elections were marred by

fraud. Throughout 2002 and 2003, he was the tar-

get of protesters in Kyrgyzstan, who blamed him

for chronic corruption and mounting economic dif-

ficulties. Nonetheless, in February 2003 he won ap-

proval of more changes to the constitution that

enhanced his powers still further and won support

in a referendum to confirm his term of office un-

til December 2005. After these events, critics

charged that he had become much like the Central

Asian dictators.

While in office, Akayev has tried to assure

inter-ethnic harmony in the country (30% of the

population is ethnically Uzbek) and cracked down

on small groups of Islamic militants. He has main-

tained good relations with Russia, and in 2001 of-

fered air bases and other support to U.S. forces op-

erating in Afghanistan.

See also: KYRGYZSTAN AND KYRGYZ; NATIONALITIES POLI-

CIES, SOVIET

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Akayev, Askar. (2001). Kyrgyzstan: An Economy in Tran-

sition. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Press.

Anderson, John. (1999). Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia’s Island

of Democracy? Amsterdam: Harwood Academic.

AUL

J. K

UBICEK

AKHMATOVA, ANNA ANDREYEVNA

(1889–1966), leading Russian poet of the twenti-

eth century; member of the Acmeist group.

Anna Akhmatova (Anna Andreyevna Gorenko)

was born on June 23, 1889, near Odessa, and grew

AKHMATOVA, ANNA ANDREYEVNA

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Kyrgyzstan president Askar Akayev. C

OURTESY OF THE

MBASSY OF

YRGYZSTAN

up in Tsarskoye Selo, the imperial summer resi-

dence, where Pushkin had attended the Lyceum. She

studied law in Kiev, then literature in St. Peters-

burg. She married poet Nikolai Stepanovich Gu-

milev in 1910, and the couple visited western

Europe on their honeymoon. She made a return

visit to Paris in 1911, and Amedeo Modigliani, still

an unknown artist at the time, painted sixteen por-

traits of her.

In 1912, Akhmatova published her first collec-

tion of poetry, Vecher (Evening), and gave birth to

her son Lev. The clarity, simplicity, and vivid de-

tails of her poetry amazed her contemporaries.

For instance, in 1934, Marina Tsvetaeva praised

Akhmato’s “Poem of the Last Meeting,” extolling

the lines “I slipped my left-hand glove/Onto my

right hand” as “unique, unrepeatable, inimitable.”

Also in 1912, Gumilev founded the Poets’

Guild, a group whose opposition to the Symbolists

led to the name “Acmeist,” from the Greek akme,

“perfection.” The Acmeists, including Gumilev,

Akhmatova, and Osip Mandelshtam, advocated

simplicity, clarity, and precision over the vague-

ness and otherworldliness of the Symbolists.

Akhmatova’s marriage with Gumilev was un-

happy and ended in divorce. Her second collection,

Chetki (Rosary), published in 1914, revolves around

the decline of the relationship, her sense of repen-

tance, and her identity as a poet. In her following

collections, Belaya Staya (White Flock, 1917), Podor-

ozhnik (Plantain, 1921), and Anno Domini (1922),

Akhmatova assumed the role of poetic witness, re-

sponding to the chaos, poverty, and oppression

surrounding the Revolution and civil war.

In 1921, Gumilev was charged with conspir-

acy and executed. None of Akhmatova’s work was

published in the Soviet Union between 1923 and

1940. Yet, unlike many of her contemporaries,

Akhmatova refused to emigrate. Her view of emi-

gration is reflected in her 1922 poem from Anno

Domini, “I am not one of those who left the land.”

Between 1935 and 1940 Akhmatova wrote the

long poem Requiem, a lyrical masterpiece. Dedicated

to the victims of Josef Stalin’s terror, and largely

a maternal response to her son Lev’s arrest and im-

prisonment in 1937, it recalls the Symbolists in its

use of religious allegory, but maintains directness

and simplicity. Akhmatova’s next long poem, the

complex, dense, polyphonic Poema bez geroya (Poem

without a Hero, 1943) interprets the suicide of poet

and officer Vsevolod Knyazev as a sign of the times.

Some critics place it alongside Requiem as her finest

work; others see it as the beginning of Akhma-

tova’s poetic decline.

At the outbreak of World War II, Stalin briefly

relaxed his stance toward writers, and Akhmatova

was published selectively. In 1946, however, An-

drei Zhdanov, secretary of the Central Committee,

denounced her and expelled her from the Writers’

Union. In 1949, her son Lev was arrested again and

exiled to Siberia. In a desperate and futile effort to

secure his release, Akhmatova wrote a number of

poems in praise of Stalin. She later requested the

exclusion of these poems from her collected work.

After Stalin’s death, Akhmatova was slowly

“rehabilitated.” Publication of her work, including

her essays and translations, resumed. She received

international recognition, including an honorary

degree from Oxford in 1965. She died on March 5,

1966, and is remembered as one of Russia’s most

revered poets.

See also: DISSIDENT MOVEMENT; GUMILEV, LEV NIKO-

LAYEVICH; GUMILEV, NIKOLAI STEPANOVICH; INTELLI-

GENTSIA; MANDELSHTAM, OSIP EMILIEVICH; PURGES,

THE GREAT

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna. (1973). Poems of Akhma-

tova: Izbrannye Stikhi, ed. and tr. Stanley Kunitz and

Max Hayward. Boston: Little, Brown.

Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna. (1990). The Complete Po-

ems of Anna Akhmatova, tr. Judith Hemschemeyer,

ed. Roberta Reeder. Somerville, MA: Zephyr.

Amert, Susan. (1992). In a Shattered Mirror: The Later Po-

etry of Anna Akhmatova. Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni-

versity Press.

Ketchian, Sonia. (1985). “Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna.”

In Handbook of Russian Literature, ed. Victor Terras.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Leiter, Sharon. (1983). Akhmatova’s Petersburg. Philadel-

phia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

IANA

ENECHAL

AKHROMEYEV, SERGEI FYODOROVICH

(1923–1991), chief of the Soviet General Staff and

first deputy minister of defense (1984–1988) and

national security advisor to President Mikhail Gor-

bachev (1988–1991).

AKHROMEYEV, SERGEI FYODOROVICH

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY