A History of Russia

638 Pages·1999·2.48 MB·english

by  Riasanovsky Nicholas V.

A HISTORY OF
RUSSIA
SIXTH EDITION
NICHOLAS V. RIASANOVSKY
To My Students
Copyright 2000 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
ISBN 0-19-512179-1
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
For a student of Russian history to write a complete history of Russia is, in a sense,
to give an account of his entire intellectual and academic life. And his indebtedness
to others is, of course, enormous. I know at least where to begin the listing of my
debts: my father, Valentin A. Riasanovsky, made a huge contribution to this History
of Russia both by his participation in the writing of the book and, still more
important, by teaching me Russian history. Next I must mention my teachers of
Russian history at Harvard and Oxford, notably the late Professor Michael
Karpovich, the late Warden B. H. Sumner, and Professor Sir Isaiah Berlin. A number
of colleagues read sections of the manuscript and made very helpful comments. To
name only those who read large parts of the work, I thank Professors Gregory
Grossman, Richard Herr, and Martin Malia of the University of California at
Berkeley, my former teacher Professor Dimitri Obolensky of Oxford University,
Professor Richard Pipes of Harvard University, and Professor Charles Jelavich of
Indiana University.
I wish, further, to thank the personnel of the Oxford University Press both for great
help of every kind and for letting me have things my own way. I am also indebted to
several University of California graduate students who served as my research
assistants during the years in which this work was written and prepared for
publication; in particular, to Mrs. Patricia Grimsted and Mr. Walter Sablinsky, who
were largely responsible for the Bibliography and the Index, respectively. Nor will I
forget libraries and librarians, especially those in Berkeley. The publication of this
volume can be considered a tribute to my wife and my students : my wife, because of
her persistent and devoted aid in every stage of the enterprise; my students, because
A History of Russia developed through teaching them and has its main raison d'être
in answering their needs.
I would also like gratefully to acknowledge specific contributions of material to my
History of Russia. The following publishers allowed me to quote at length from the
works cited.
Harvard University Press for Merle Fainsod, How Russia Is Ruled (Cambridge,
1954), pp. 372-73.
American Committee for Liberation for News Briefs on Soviet Activities, Vol. II, No.
3, June 1959.
Houghton Mifflin Company for George Z. F. Bereday, William W.
Brickman, and Gerald H. Read, editors, The Changing Soviet School (Boston, 1960),
pp. 8-9.
Further, I am deeply grateful to the Rand Corporation and to Harvard University
Press for their permission to use Table 51 on page 210 of Abram Bergson, The Real
National Income of Soviet Russia Since 1928 (Cambridge, 1961). A condensed
version of that table constitutes an appendix to my history. Professor Bergson not
only gave his personal permission to use this material but advised me kindly on this
and certain related matters.
Several people have been most generous in lending material for the illustrations. I
should like to thank Mr. George R. Hann for making available to me prints of his
superb collection of icons: Mrs. Henry Shapiro, who lent photographs taken by her
and her husband during recent years spent in Russia; Professor Theodore Von Laue,
who took the pictures I have used from our trip to Russia in 1958; Miss Malvina
Hoffman, who lent the pictures of Pavlova and Diaghilev; and the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, which permitted reproduction of a painting in their collection,
Winter by Vasily Kandinsky.
As every writer — and reader — in the Russian field knows, there is no completely
satisfactory solution to the problems of transliteration and transcription of proper
names. I relied on the Library of Congress system, but with certain modifications:
notably, I omitted the soft sign, except in the very few cases where it seemed
desirable to render it by using i, and I used y as the ending of family names. A few of
these names, such as that of the composer Tchaikovsky, I spelled in the generally
accepted Western manner, although this does not agree with the system of
transliteration adopted in this book. As to first names, I preferred their English
equivalents, although I transliterated the Russian forms of such well-known names as
Ivan and used transliterated forms in some other instances as well, as with Vissarion,
not Bessarion, Belinsky. The names of the Soviet astronauts are written as spelled in
the daily press. I avoided patronymics. In general I tried to utilize English terms and
forms where possible. I might have gone too far in that direction; in any case, I feel
uneasy about my translation of kholopy as "slaves."
As with transliteration, there is no satisfactory solution to constructing an effective
bibliography to a general history of a country. I finally decided simply to list the
principal relevant works of the scholars mentioned by name in the text. This should
enable the interested reader who knows the required languages to pursue further the
views of the men in question, and it should provide something of an introduction to
the literature on Russian history. The main asset of such a bibliography is that it is
manageable. Its chief liability lies in the fact that it encompasses only a fraction of
the works on
which this volume is based and of necessity omits important authors and studies.
I decided to have as appendixes only the genealogical tables of Russian rulers, which
are indispensable for an understanding of the succession to the throne in the
eighteenth century and at some other times, and Professor Bergson's estimate of the
growth of the gross national product in the U.S.S.R.
Berkeley, California Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
September 24,1962
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The second edition of my History of Russia follows in all essentials the first. Still,
the passage of time and the continuous development of scholarship resulted in many
additions and modifications. In particular, the Soviet period was expanded both to
encompass the last six years and to devote a little more attention to certain topics. A
dozen additional authors proved important enough to be cited by name in the second
edition, and thus enter the bibliography. Numerous other researchers in the field,
some of equal importance to me, received no personal citation. In addition to the text
and the bibliography, changes were made in the maps and the illustrations. In the
appendixes, the table of the U.S.S.R. gross national product was brought up to date
and a table of the administrative divisions of the U.S.S.R. was added. Moreover, a
new appendix containing a select list of readings in English on Russian history was
included in the second edition.
Again, I have very many people to thank. In the first place, I want to thank my
students and students throughout the United States who have used my History and
have thus given it its true test. I have tried to utilize their experience and their
opinions. I am also deeply grateful to very numerous colleagues who used History of
Russia in their courses, or simply read it, and made corrections or comments. While
it is not feasible to list all the appropriate names, I must mention at least Professor
Gregory Grossman of the University of California at Berkeley, without whom the
gross national product table would not have been possible and who, in addition, paid
careful attention to the entire section on the Soviet Union, and the Soviet scholar V.
B. Vilinbakhov, who has subjected my presentation of the early periods of Russian
history to a thorough and searching criticism. Needless to say, as I thank these and
other scholars for their help, I must state that they are not responsible for the
opinions or the final form of my book. I am further indebted to my research assistants
Mrs. Victoria King and Mr. Vladimir Pavloff and, most especially, to my wife.
Berkeley, California Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
December 19, 1968
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
No attempt has been made in this third edition of A History of Russia to alter the character and
basic design of previous editions. The passage of time since the completion of the second
edition in 1968 has brought us from the occupation of Czechoslovakia to the Twenty-fifth
Party Congress in 1976 and the current Tenth Five-Year Plan. Numerous changes have
therefore been made in the text as a consequence of recent events and of recent scholarship as
well. The bibliography and especially the English reading list have been expanded. The
section on the Soviet period has grown slightly in proportion to the whole, although the aim
remains to present a single balanced volume.
Many people deserve my special gratitude. Professor Gregory Grossman of the University of
California at Berkeley again brought up to date the gross national product table and, moreover,
was of invaluable help in up dating the entire Soviet section. Other Berkeley colleagues
generously contributed their knowledge and wisdom in regard to subjects which preoccupied
me during the preparation of this third edition. Colleagues else where were equally helpful as
they used A History of Russia as a textbook and informed me of their experience or simply
commented on the work. I would like to thank particularly many conscientious reviewers, such
as Professor Walter Leitsch of Vienna. Mr. Gerald Surh and Mr. Jacob Picheny proved to be
excellent research assistants, who aided me in every way and most notably in the preparation
of the English reading list and the index. The mistakes and other deficiencies that remain after
all that help are, I am afraid, mine, and, taking into account the scope of the book, they may
well be considerable. My most fundamental gratitude goes to my constant helper, my wife, and
to the students for whom this textbook was written and who have been using it. May the group
of students who recently called me across the continent from Brown University to discuss my
History of Russia and whose names I do not know accept the thanks I extend to them, as the
representatives of students everywhere.
Berkeley, California Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
March 12,1976
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
The death of Leonid Ilich Brezhnev on November 10, 1982, and Iurii Vladimirovich
Andropov's prompt succession to the leadership of the Soviet Union have provided a striking
terminal point to this fourth edition of my History of Russia. The new material in the book
covers the last seven years of the Brezhnev regime. It includes also additions and changes in
all previous parts of Russian and Soviet history as well as the updating of the two
bibliographies.
Acknowledging my overall fundamental and grateful indebtedness to the scholarship in the
field, I must record special thanks to my colleagues, particularly Berkeley colleagues, who
contributed directly to the preparation of this edition. Professor Gregory Grossman again
updated the population and gross national product table and, beyond that, offered invaluable
help based on his matchless knowledge of the Soviet economy and of the Soviet Union in
general. Other colleagues, such as Professor George Breslauer, whose notable book
Khrushchev and Brezhnev as Leaders: Building Authority in Soviet Politics came out just as
Brezhnev died, were also generous with their time and expert advice. For checking,
rechecking, typing, preparing the index, and much else, I was blessed with an excellent
research assistant, Mr. Maciej Siekierski, who also contributed his special knowledge of
Poland and Lithuania, and an excellent secretary, Ms. Dorothy Shannon. And, once more, I
must emphasize my indebtedness to my students and my wife: the students have been using A
History of Russia, often both enthusiastically and critically, for some twenty years; my debt to
my wife is even more basic as well as of a still longer duration.
Berkeley, California Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
September 1983
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION
I ended the first four editions of A History of Russia with a comment on the
contemporary Soviet conundrum. I wrote that the Soviet Union was neither a stable
nor a happy country, but that the problem of change, either by revolution or by
evolution, was, in its case, an extremely difficult one, which I could not clearly
foresee. The last sentences were,
To conclude, the Soviet system is not likely to last, not likely to change
fundamentally by evolution, and not likely to be overthrown by a revolution. History,
to be sure, has a way of advancing even when that means leaving historians behind.
Shortly after this assessment appeared in print, an author of a generally kind and
even flattering review wrote in exasperation that Professor Riasanovsky,
unfortunately, terminated 710 lucid pages with a murky sentence. In response to my
critic, I have considered and reconsidered my conclusion throughout the years and
with every edition, but always retained it. To be sure, it was not distinguished by
perspicacity or precision, but it was the best I could offer. Now, however, I am
moving it from the conclusion to the preface. Historians, and all others as well, have
been left behind. The first part of my commentary, on the instability and unhappiness
in the Soviet Union, needs no elaboration. The second, on the difficulty of change, is
something the citizens of the former Soviet Union and even other people in the world
are living through day by day.
To be sure, as many friends have advised me, it would be wiser to wait with a new
edition of A History of Russia. I am not waiting for two reasons : I have always been
in favor of writing contemporary history, no matter how contemporary, as well as
other kinds, and Oxford University Press has provided me with an excellent
determined editor with whom I have been working for many years. Let us hope that
the next edition will be lucid in its final as well as its earlier pages. (And,
incidentally, that it will bring reliably up to date Tables 5 and 6 of the Appendix, an
impossibility at present.)
The next edition may also be richer in historiography. Glasnost has been perhaps the
most striking substantive change in the Soviet Union in the past few years. It does
represent the breaking out from a totalitarian straight jacket so characteristic of
Soviet society and culture. It may be irreversible. But so far, because of the shortage
of time and other reasons, it has not transformed Soviet historiography. Having
participated in the conference,
held in Moscow in April 1990, on rewriting Soviet history, having read Soviet publications,
and having talked with Soviet historians, I must conclude that the change has been slow. I do
not want to minimize the work of such revisionist historians as Evgeny Viktorovich Anisimov,
all the more so because to them probably belongs the future, but I have been on the whole
impressed and depressed by the difficulty of change. Understandably, if often unfortunately,
people who have spent many years or a lifetime at hard work try to retain at least some of their
accomplishment rather than sweep it away. Bolder and more important historiographical
developments should appear in the coming years.
In the preparation of this new edition, I made the usual additions and changes throughout the
manuscript, and considered or introduced at least fifty-seven emendations in Soviet history
prior to 1985. If not always minor — the figure of Soviet casualties in the Second World War
was raised from 20 million to 27 million, and that is 7 million more dead — they were brief
and precise. The last narrative chapter was, of course, written anew, and the "Concluding
Remarks" underwent considerable change.
As always, I am deeply indebted to many people: my colleagues at the University of
California, Berkeley; other colleagues whom I met at the Wilson Center and the Kennan
Institute in Washington, D.C., where I spent the 1989-1990 academic year; still other
American colleagues elsewhere as well as extremely numerous Soviet scholars and other
Soviet visitors. I must emphasize my gratitude to Professor Gregory Grossman, whose help has
been, again, invaluable in the treatment of the Soviet economy in the volume and, moreover,
whom I consider in general to be our best specialist on the Soviet Union. I am grateful to
Nancy Lane and her colleagues at Oxford University Press; to my secretary, Nadine
Ghammache; and to my research assistants, Theodore Weeks, John W. Randolph, Jr., and Ilya
Vinkovetsky, who had the major responsibility for revising the index. More generally, I am
grateful for the continuing response to my History abroad as well as in the United States. Since
the publication of the fourth American edition, there appeared another and different Italian
edition, a French edition, and even a pirated Korean edition in South Korea of the imperial
part of my volume (I was told that the earlier part is being prepared for publication). But as
usual, in these fluid times, too, my main indebtedness is to my students and my wife.
Berkeley, California Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
April 1992
PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION
The seven years that passed since the last edition of my A History of Russia proved to be less
definitive for that country than many specialists, as well as the general public, had expected.
Russia is still in transition and under great stress and strain. Its economy continues to decline.
Indeed, the financial collapse of August 1998 delivered a major blow even to those groups in
society which had formerly prospered because of the transformation. Still, grim as numerous
forecasts of the Russian future are, they do not include a return to the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics. For well or ill the country has entered a new historical period, that of Russian
Federation. The great importance attached to the forthcoming elections is one clear indication
that the scenario has changed.
As with earlier editions, and probably more so, I tried to keep up with the latest developments,
especially for the new chapter on "Yeltsin's Russia," and also to profit by the opening of the
Russian archives, particularly for the Soviet period. Fortunately some of the best work based
on these archives has been done by our Berkeley Ph.Ds and Ph.D. candidates. I used
opportunities to go to Russia, attend scholarly conferences, and engage in discussion with
many Russian scholars (as well as with many more when they came to Berkeley or to
international or our national conferences), and I lectured in Moscow (in the Kremlin, no less).
I want to thank here warmly my Russian hosts and interlocutors. I am also deeply grateful to
American colleagues and helpers. Professor Gregory Grossman, as before, was invaluable in
the area of economics, but also for his unsurpassed knowledge of the Soviet Union in general.
Other colleagues who usefully read and criticized parts of the manuscript included Professors
Robert Middle-kauff, Alexander Vucinich, and Reginald Zelnik. Dr. John Dunlop of the
Hoover Institution provided some very valuable newly-available source material. My research
assistant, Ilya Vinkovetsky, demonstrated again his marvelous acquaintance with the Soviet
and contemporary Russian scene, and he also worked on the index. Ms. Nadine Ghammache
supplied once more fine and eager secretarial help. Further, I want to acknowledge the prompt
and effective work of what is for me a new Oxford University Press "team" of Ms. Gioia
Stevens, Ms. Stacie Caminos, and Mr. Benjamin Clark. Our daughter Maria helped me with
the photographs and in certain other matters. Finally, I am most in debt, for reasons too long to
list here, to my wife Arlene.
Berkeley, California Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
May, 1999
CONTENTS
Part I INTRODUCTION
I A Geographical Note 3 II Russia Before the Russians 11
Part II KIEVAN RUSSIA
III The Establishment of the Kievan State 23
IV Kievan Russia: A Political Outline 29
V Kievan Russia: Economics, Society, Institutions 43
VI Kievan Russia: Religion and Culture 52
Part III APPANAGE RUSSIA
VII Appanage Russia: Introduction 63
VIII The Mongols and Russia 67
IX Lord Novgorod the Great 77
X The Southwest and the Northeast 88
XI The Rise of Moscow 95
XII Appanage Russia: Economics, Society, Institutions 114
XIII Appanage Russia: Religion and Culture 120
XIV The Lithuanian-Russian State 132
Part IV MUSCOVITE RUSSIA
XV The Reigns of Ivan the Terrible, 1533-84, and of Theodore,
1584-98 143 XVI The Time of Troubles, 1598-1613 157 XVII The Reigns of Michael, 1613-45, Alexis,
1645-76, and
Theodore, 1676-82 175 XVIII Muscovite Russia: Economics, Society, Institutions 183 XIX Muscovite
Russia: Religion and Culture 196
Part V IMPERIAL RUSSIA
XX The Reign of Peter the Great, 1682-1725 213 XXI Russian History from Peter the Great to
Catherine the Great: The Reigns of Catherine 1, 1725-27, Peter II, 1727-30, Anne, 1730-40, Ivan VI,
1740-41, Elizabeth, 1741-62, and Peter III, 1762 242 XXII The Reigns of Catherine the Great,
1762-96, and Paul, 1796-
1801 254 XXIII The Economic and Social Development of Russia in the
Eighteenth Century 276 XXIV Russian Culture in the Eighteenth Century 285 XXV The Reign of
Alexander I, 1801-25 300 XXVI The Reign of Nicholas I, 1825-55 323 XXVII The Economic and
Social Development of Russia in the First
Half of the Nineteenth Century 341 XXVIII Russian Culture in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century
348 XXIX The Reign of Alexander II, 1855-81 368 XXX The Reign of Alexander III, 1881-94, and the
First Part of the
Reign of Nicholas II, 1894-1905 391 XXXI The Last Part of the Reign of Nicholas 11: The Revolution
of
1905 and the Constitutional Period, 1905-17 404 XXXII The Economic and Social Development of
Russia from the
"Great Reforms" until the Revolutions of 1917 422 XXXIII Russian Culture from the "Great Reforms"
until the Revolutions
of 1917 435 XXXIV The Revolutions of 1917 453
Part VI SOVIET RUSSIA
XXXV Soviet Russia: An Introduction 465 XXXVI War Communism, 1917-21, and the New Economic
Policy,
1921-28 474 XXXVII The First Three Five-Year Plans, 1928-41 492 XXXVIII Soviet Foreign Policy,
1921-41, and the Second World War, 1941-45 509 XXXIX Stalin's Last Decade, 1945-53 527
XL The Soviet Union after Stalin, 1953-85 539 XLI Soviet Society and Culture 567
XLII The Gorbachev Years, 1985-91, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union 588
Part VII RUSSIAN FEDERATION
XLIII Yeltsin's Russia, 1991-1999 611
Bibliography 631
Appendix tables
1-4 Russian Rulers 647
5 Political Subdivisions of the U.S.S.R. as of January 1, 1976 652
A Select List of Readings in English on Russian History 655
LIST OF MAPS
MAPS HAVE BEEN PREPARED BY VAUGHN GRAY AND BILL NELSON.
1 Vegetation and Soils 6-7
2 Early Migrations 12
3 Kievan Russia in the Eleventh Century 35
4 Trade Routes during Kievan Period 44