1961 ORIGINAL PRESS PHOTO NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV VINTAGE PREMIER RUSSIA SOVIET UNION
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev publicized Stalin's crimes, was a major player in the Cuban Missile Crisis and established a more open form of Communism in the USSR.
Synopsis
Born on April 15, 1894 in Kalinovka, Russia, Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin's death in 1953. In a 1956 "secret speech," he discussed Stalin's crimes for the first time, starting a process called "de-Stalinization." He also visited the West, putting a smiling face on his brand of "Reform Communism," though also known to have an abrasive persona. Khrushchev was one of the primary players in the Cuban Missile Crisis and oversaw the building of the Berlin Wall. After being pushed from power and retiring, he died several years later on September 11, 1971 in Moscow.
Early Years
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was born on April 15, 1894, in Kalinovka, Russia, near the Ukrainian border. After a few years at the village school, Khrushchev found work in a factory at age fifteen. In 1918, he joined the Communist Party and fought in the Red Army during the Russian Revolution. After the war, he received a technical education and became a true believer of communism.
Khrushchev rose quickly through the party ranks, becoming a member of the Central Committee in 1934 and winning election to the Politburo a few years later. During World War II, Khrushchev worked with the military to further Soviet control over Poland and Ukraine.
Rise to Power and De-Stalinization
After Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, Khrushchev deftly used his political skills to transfer or isolate political enemies who threatened his rise to party leadership. On February 24, 1956, he denounced the excesses of the Stalin era for several hours, stunning delegates attending the 20th Communist Party Congress. His de-Stalinization policy prompted movements against Soviet control in Poland and Hungary. To avoid being deposed, Khrushchev nonetheless used some Stalin-like methods to divide and outmaneuver opponents.
Domestically, Nikita Khrushchev became known for his dramatic ideas, with some perceived as more humanistic and others ill-conceived. He attempted to humanize the Soviet system by relaxing restrictions on free expression and releasing waves of political prisoners from the infamous Gulag forced labor camps. This led to a slow birth of a dissident movement. Yet Khrushchev also launched bold but unattainable agricultural goals by increasing production in areas not suitable for crops. He relaxed production on military goods and increased production of consumer goods only to impose cutbacks during the arms race.
Complex Personality
During much of the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev could be charming, playfully combative or belligerent, depending on his audience. Publicly, he called for a peaceful coexistence with the West and then warned “We will bury you!” And in what became known as the “kitchen debate,” in July 1959 Khrushchev verbally sparred with U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon over Soviet versus American innovation in home appliances, among other major disagreements.
Missile Crisis
Relations between the Soviet Union and the United States cooled considerably after the downing of an American U-2 spy plane in 1960. The following year, the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and the start of construction on the Berlin Wall in Germany further worsened relations.
In early 1962, Nikita Khrushchev had devised a plan to place nuclear missiles in Cuba. In October, the United States detected the missiles being installed and placed a naval blockade around the island nation. After 13 days of intense negotiations, the crisis ended with Russia agreeing to remove the missiles. The United States agreed to remove their Jupiter missiles from Turkey and Italy and not invade Cuba.
Final Years
Though the agreement avoided a nuclear showdown, much to the relief of most of the world, senior Communist Party officials saw it as a loss of prestige for the Soviet Union. This, along with two years of poor economic growth and strained relations with China, among other issues, gave Khrushchev’s political enemies in the Kremlin enough momentum to oust him from power.
On October 14, 1964, the Central Committee accepted Khrushchev’s request to retire due to his “advanced age and poor health.” He was replaced by Leonid Brezhnev and spent his remaining years at his estate. Nikita Khrushchev died of natural causes on September 11, 1971.
Nikita Khrushchev, in full Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, (born April 17 [April 5, Old Style], 1894, Kalinovka, Russia —died September 11, 1971, Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union ), first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1953–64) and premier of the Soviet Union (1958–64) whose policy of de-Stalinization had widespread repercussions throughout the communist world. In foreign affairs he pursued a policy of “peaceful coexistence” with the capitalist West.
Early Life
Unlike Lenin and most other Soviet leaders, who generally had middle-class backgrounds, Khrushchev was the son of a coal miner; his grandfather had been a serf who served in the tsarist army. After a village education, Khrushchev went with his family to Yuzovka (later named Stalino, now Donetsk, Ukraine), a mining and industrial centre in the Donets Basin, where he began work as a pipe fitter at age 15. Because of his factory employment, he was not conscripted in the tsarist army during World War I. Even before the Russian Revolution of 1917, he had become active in workers’ organizations, and in 1918—during the struggle between Reds, Whites, and Ukrainian nationalists for possession of Ukraine—he became a member of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik).
In January 1919 Khrushchev joined the Red Army and served as a junior political commissar, ultimately in the campaigns against the Whites and invading Polish armies in 1920. Soon after he was demobilized, his wife, Galina, died during a famine. In 1922 Khrushchev secured admission to a new Soviet workers’ school in Yuzovka, where he received a secondary education along with additional party instruction. He became a student political leader and was appointed secretary of the Communist Party Committee at the school. There he married his second wife, Nina Petrovna, a schoolteacher, in 1924.
Political Career Under Stalin
In 1925 Khrushchev went into full-time party work as party secretary of the Petrovsko-Mariinsk district of Yuzovka. He distinguished himself by his hard work and knowledge of mine and factory conditions. He soon came to the notice of Joseph Stalin’s close associate, Lazar M. Kaganovich, secretary general of the Ukrainian Party’s Central Committee, who asked Khrushchev to accompany him as a nonvoting delegate to the 14th Party Congress in Moscow. For the next four years—in Yuzovka, then in Kharkov (now Kharkiv) and Kiev—Khrushchev was active as a party organizer. In 1929 he received permission to go to Moscow to study metallurgy at the Stalin Industrial Academy. There he was appointed secretary of the academy’s Party Committee. In 1931 he went back to full-time party work in Moscow. By 1933 he had become second secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee.
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During the early 1930s Khrushchev consolidated his hold on the Moscow party cadres. He supervised the completion of the Moscow subway, for which he received the Order of Lenin in 1935. That year he became first secretary of the Moscow city and regional party organization—in effect, the governor of Moscow. In the preceding year, at the 17th Party Congress, he had been elected a full member of the 70-man Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
Khrushchev was a zealous supporter of Stalin in those years and participated in the purges of party leadership. He was one of only three provincial secretaries who survived the mass executions of the Great Purge of the 1930s. He became a member of the Constitutional Committee in 1936, an alternate member of the Central Committee’s ruling Politburo in 1937, and in the same year a member of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Supreme Soviet. A year later Khrushchev was made a candidate member of the Politburo and sent to Kiev as first secretary of the Ukrainian party organization. In 1939 he was made a full member of the Politburo.
In 1940, after Soviet forces had occupied eastern Poland, Khrushchev presided over the “integration” of this area into the Soviet Union. His principal objective was to liquidate both the Polish and Ukrainian nationalist movements, as well as to restore the Communist Party organization in Ukraine, which had been shattered in the Great Purge. This work was disrupted by the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Khrushchev’s first wartime assignment was to evacuate as much of Ukraine’s industry as possible to the east. Thereafter he was attached to the Soviet army with the rank of lieutenant general; his principal task was to stimulate the resistance of the civilian population and maintain liaison with Stalin and other members of the Politburo. He was political adviser to Marshal Andrey I. Yeremenko during the defense of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) and to Lieutenant General Nikolay F. Vatutin during the huge tank battle at Kursk.
After the liberation of Ukraine in 1944, Khrushchev reassumed control of Ukraine as first secretary of the Ukrainian party organization. He worked to restore the civil administration and to bring that devastated country back to a subsistence level. A famine in 1946 was one of the worst in Ukraine’s history; Khrushchev fought to restore grain production and to distribute food supplies, against Stalin’s insistence on greater production from Ukraine for use in other areas. During this period Khrushchev gained a firsthand acquaintance with the problems of Soviet agricultural scarcity and planning. In 1949 Stalin called him back to Moscow, where he took over his old job as head of the Moscow City Party and concurrently was appointed secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
The period 1949–53 was far from pleasant for Khrushchev and other members of the Soviet leadership, who found themselves pawns in Stalin’s palace politics. Khrushchev moved more and more into agriculture, where he began his schemes for the agrogorod (“farming town”) and larger state farms at the expense of the conventional collectives. His innovations were rejected in 1951, however, when responsibility for agriculture was transferred to Georgy M. Malenkov.
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Nikita Khrushchev
QUICK FACTS
Nikita Khrushchev
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BORN
April 17, 1894
Kalinovka, Ukraine
DIED
September 11, 1971 (aged 77)
Moscow, Russia
TITLE / OFFICE
Prime Minister, Soviet Union (1958-1964)
POLITICAL AFFILIATION
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Bolshevik
ROLE IN
Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty
Khrushchev’s Secret Speech
Cuban Missile Crisis
U-2 Incident
Twentieth Congress Of The Communist Party Of The Soviet Union
Hungarian Revolution
De-Stalinization
AWARDS AND HONORS
Order Of Lenin (1935)
Leadership Of The Soviet Union
After Stalin’s death in March 1953 and the execution of the powerful state security chief, Lavrenty Beria—which Khrushchev engineered—he engaged in a power struggle with Malenkov, who was Stalin’s heir apparent. Khrushchev soon gained the decisive margin by his control of the party machinery. In September 1953 he replaced Malenkov as first secretary and in 1955 removed Malenkov from the premiership in favour of his handpicked nominee, Marshal Nikolay A. Bulganin.
Significantly, by 1954 Khrushchev had been able to reform the Stalinist security apparatus by subordinating it to the top party leadership. Stalin’s Ministry of Internal Affairs was divided into criminal police and the security services—the Committee on State Security (KGB), which in turn reported to the U.S.S.R.’s Council of Ministers.
In May 1955, when Khrushchev made his first trip outside the Soviet Union—to Yugoslavia with Bulganin—he began to show his flexibility; he apologized to Josip Broz Tito for Stalin’s denunciation of Yugoslav communism in 1948. Later, in trips to Geneva, Afghanistan, and India, he began to exhibit a brash, extroverted personal diplomacy that was to become his trademark. Although his attacks on world capitalism were virulent and primitive, his outgoing personality and peasant humour were in sharp contrast to the image earlier Soviet public figures had cultivated.
On February 25, 1956, during the 20th Party Congress in Moscow, Khrushchev delivered his memorable secret speech about the excesses of Stalin’s one-man rule, attacking the late Soviet ruler’s “intolerance, his brutality, his abuse of power.” The spectacle of the first secretary of the Communist Party exposing the wrongful executions of the Great Purge of the 1930s and the excesses of Soviet police repression, after years of fearful silence, had far-reaching effects that Khrushchev himself could barely have foreseen. The resulting “thaw” in the Soviet Union saw the release of millions of political prisoners and the “rehabilitation” of many thousands more who had perished. (See also Khrushchev’s secret speech.)
Khrushchev’s rule was not without its dark side—including an intensified persecution of religion. Nonetheless, by smashing the repressive icon of Stalinism and the mentality of terror that had been imposed on the general population, Khrushchev inspired a new intellectual ferment and widespread hopes for greater freedom, particularly among students and intellectuals.
Inevitably, the de-Stalinization movement had repercussions in the communist countries of eastern Europe. Poland revolted against its government in October 1956. Hungary followed shortly afterward. Faced with open revolution, Khrushchev flew to Warsaw on October 19 with other Soviet leaders and ultimately acquiesced in the Polish leader Władysław Gomułka’s national communist solution, which allowed the Poles a great deal of freedom. Khrushchev’s shared decision to crush the Hungarian Revolution by force, however, came largely because of the Hungarian premier Imre Nagy’s decision to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact. Aside from this sanguinary exception, Khrushchev allowed a considerable amount of freedom to the European communist parties.
The stresses in eastern Europe helped crystallize opposition to Khrushchev within the Soviet Communist Party. In June 1957 he was almost overthrown from his position, and, although a vote in the Presidium (i.e., the Politburo) actually went against him, he managed to reverse this by appealing to the full membership of the party’s Central Committee. In the end, with the help of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, he secured the permanent disgrace of Malenkov, Vyacheslav M. Molotov, and others, who were labeled members of the antiparty group. A few months later, in October, he dismissed Marshal Georgy Zhukov from his post as minister of defense. In March 1958 Khrushchev assumed the premiership of the Soviet Union.
Confirmed in power, Khrushchev set a new policy of “Reform Communism.” In an attempt to humanize the Soviet system—but without sacrificing its ideology—he placed greater emphasis on producing consumer goods, in contrast to the Stalinist emphasis on heavy industry. With several million political prisoners newly released from the infamous labour camps of the Gulag, the domestic political atmosphere became freer. In his rough way, Khrushchev was a populist.
In foreign affairs, he widely asserted his doctrine of peaceful coexistence with the noncommunist world, which he had first enunciated in a public speech at the 20th Party Congress. In opposition to old communist writ, he stated that “war is not fatalistically inevitable.” At the 21st Party Congress in 1959 he said: “We offer the capitalist countries peaceful competition.” His visit to the United States in 1959, where he toured cities and farms with the ebullience of a politician running for office, was a decided success, and the “spirit of Camp David,” in Maryland, where he conferred with U.S. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, brought Soviet-American relations to a new high. Notwithstanding these hopeful developments, Khrushchev as a diplomat remained irascible and blunt. At a Moscow reception in 1956 he directed his famous “We will bury you!” comment at the capitalist West. During a meeting with U.S. Vice Pres. Richard M. Nixon in Moscow in 1959 (the so-called “kitchen debate,” named for the model American kitchen in which part of the meeting took place), Khrushchev failed to be impressed by a display of American innovations, boasting that the Soviet Union soon would surpass the United States in its technological developments. A long-planned summit conference with Eisenhower in Paris in May 1960 broke up with Khrushchev’s announcement that a U.S. plane (a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft) had been shot down over the Soviet Union and its pilot captured. Later that year, at the United Nations, he reacted to a comparison between Soviet control of eastern Europe and Western imperialism by banging his shoe on a desk (or perhaps just brandishing it menacingly, as some witnesses attested). In 1961 his blustering Vienna conference with the new U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, led to no agreement on the pressing German question; the Berlin Wall was built shortly thereafter.
Nikita Khrushchev at the UN General Assembly
Nikita Khrushchev at the UN General Assembly
Nikita Khrushchev (centre) at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, New York City, 1960.
U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (neg. no. LC-USZ62-134149)
Cuban missile crisis
Cuban missile crisis
Overview of the Cuban missile crisis and its effect on Germany, 1962.
Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz
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Soviet success in lofting the world’s first space satellite in 1957 had been followed by increased missile buildups. In 1962 Khrushchev secretly attempted to base Soviet medium-range missiles in Cuba, but these efforts were detected by the United States. During the resulting tense confrontation in October 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union apparently stood on the brink of nuclear war, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles on the promise that the United States would make no further attempt to overthrow Cuba’s communist government. (See Cuban missile crisis.) The Soviet Union was criticized by the Chinese communists for this settlement. The Sino-Soviet split, which began in 1959, reached the stage of public denunciations in 1960. China’s ideological insistence on all-out “war against the imperialists” and Mao Zedong’s annoyance with Khrushchev’s coexistence policies were exacerbated by Soviet refusal to assist the Chinese nuclear weapon buildup and to rectify the Russo-Chinese border. The Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty reached between the Soviet Union and the United States in 1963, although generally welcomed throughout the world, intensified Chinese denunciations of Soviet “revisionism.”
During Khrushchev’s time in office, he had to steer constantly between, on the one hand, popular pressures toward a consumer-oriented society and agitation by intellectuals for greater freedom of expression and, on the other, the growing fear of the Soviet bureaucracy that reform would get out of hand. Khrushchev himself was uneasy with intellectuals, and he sanctioned the repression of Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago (1957) within the Soviet Union, culminating in the refusal to allow Pasternak to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958. His crude condemnations of Soviet avant-garde artists recalled Stalin’s intolerance in cultural matters. On the other hand, Khrushchev permitted the 1962 publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, with its sweeping denunciation of Stalinist repression. Other similar works of protest followed, creating what the historian Martin Malia calls “a culture of dissidence”—an emerging public opinion in Russia which later repression proved unable to completely control. Meanwhile, for the first time, Soviet tourists were permitted to go overseas, and Khrushchev often seemed amenable to widening exchanges with both socialist and capitalist countries.
Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev
Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev
Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev making their way through a crowd, 1960.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-USZ62-127233)
Khrushchev’s desire to reduce conventional armaments in favour of nuclear missiles was bitterly resisted by the Soviet military. His often high-handed methods of leadership and his attempted decentralization of the party structure antagonized many of those who had supported his rise to power. By this time, four decades after the Revolution, the Communist Party had solidified into the so-called nomenklatura—a 10 million-strong elite of bureaucrats, managers, and technicians intent on guarding their power and prerogatives. In 1962 Khrushchev further weakened the party’s hold over the economy by announcing a policy of creating separate party-government networks in the fields of industry and agriculture.
The central crisis of Khrushchev’s administration, however, was agriculture. An optimist, he based many plans on the bumper crops in 1956 and 1958, which fueled his repeated promises to overtake the United States in agricultural as well as in industrial production. He opened up more than 70 million acres of virgin land in Siberia and sent thousands of labourers to till them; but his plan was unsuccessful, and the Soviet Union soon again had to import wheat from Canada and the United States.
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
The resignation of Nikita Khrushchev.
Universal Newsreels/Public Domain
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The failures in agriculture, the quarrel with China, and the humiliating resolution of the Cuban missile crisis, added to growing resentment of his own arbitrary administrative methods, were the major factors in Khrushchev’s downfall. On October 14, 1964, after a palace coup orchestrated by his protégé and deputy, Leonid Brezhnev, the Central Committee accepted Khrushchev’s request to retire from his position as the party’s first secretary and chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union because of “advanced age and poor health.”
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Last Years
For almost seven years thereafter, Khrushchev lived quietly in Moscow and at his country dacha as a “non-person”—officially a special pensioner of the Soviet government. He was mentioned in the Soviet press occasionally and appeared in public only to vote in Soviet elections. The one break in this ordered obscurity came in 1970 with the publication of his memoirs in the United States and Europe, although not in the Soviet Union. This was the first installment of a large body of personal reminiscence that he dictated in secret during his retirement.
Almost 48 hours elapsed after his death before it was announced to the Soviet public. He was denied a state funeral and interment in the Kremlin wall, although he was allowed a quiet burial at Novodevichy Convent Cemetery in Moscow.
Legacy
For the Soviet Union and indeed for the entire world communist movement, Nikita Khrushchev was the great catalyst of political and social change. In his seven years of power as first secretary and premier, he broke both the fact and the tradition of the Stalin dictatorship and established a basis for liberalizing tendencies within Soviet communism. Khrushchev was a thoroughgoing political pragmatist who had learned his Marxism by rote, but he never hesitated to adapt his beliefs to the political urgencies of the moment. His experience with international realities confirmed him in his doctrine of peaceful coexistence with the noncommunist world—in itself a drastic break with established Soviet communist teaching. He publicly recognized the limitations as well as the power of nuclear weapons, and his decision to negotiate with the United States for some form of nuclear-testing control was of vast importance. At the same time, Khrushchev’s rough empathy with the Soviet people resulted in concessions to a consumer economy and in a general relaxation of security controls, which had equally far-reaching effects. Despite his repression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, his acceptance of “different roads to socialism” led to growing independence among European communist parties, but his Russian nationalism and his suspicion of Mao Zedong’s communism helped create an unexpectedly deep fissure between China and the Soviet Union. By the time he was removed from office, he had set up guidelines for and limitations to Soviet policy that his successors were hard put to alter.
The cautious handling of his death announcement reflected his increasing popularity in his last years, both in the Soviet Union and the outside world, as many contrasted his consistent, if occasionally stormy, peaceful coexistence diplomacy with the more restricted, conservative, and quietly repressive policy of his successor, Leonid Brezhnev. Even at the time of Khrushchev’s death, it was widely felt that the basic changes in Soviet life made under his regime would be hard to uproot and might indeed result in ultimate changes in the pattern of Soviet society and world power relationships.
Khrushchev’s attempts to reform communism, once begun, powerfully and permanently influenced similar tendencies in the world’s other communist states, from Władysław Gomułka’s Polish thaw (1957) to Alexander Dubček’s “socialism with a human face” in Czechoslovakia (1968) down through the efforts of Deng Xiaoping and his successors to combine a market economy with the dictatorship of the Communist Party in China during the 1980s and ’90s. In fact, the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s reform policies of perestroika (“restructuring”) and glasnost (“openness”) in the late 1980s owed much to Khrushchev’s attempts to liberalize the communist party-state. Gorbachev, Aleksandr Yakovlev, and other leading figures of this twilight period of Soviet communism developed their reformist outlook during the post-Stalin thaw, as did those more-radical reformers, led by Boris Yeltsin, who came to power in Russia after the collapse of communism in 1991. These “children of the 20th Party Congress,” as they were called, were in their 20s and 30s when Khrushchev’s impassioned expose of Stalin’s dictatorship burst on their consciousness. Their shock at hearing the crimes of the leadership thus publicly exposed engendered a mood of doubt and gathering disbelief that ultimately tore down the whole structure of Lenin’s imposed ideology.
Whatever the view of Khrushchev’s personal eccentricities, his boisterousness, his vulgarity, and his bewildering shifts, he was accounted a man of stature. Throughout the 1990s, increased access to party and state archives in Russia produced a steady stream of publications relating to Khrushchev’s career—and with them an inevitable reassessment of the peasant statesman, flawed though he was, whose courage in revealing the crimes of the past would ultimately work to change his country’s and the world’s future.
Khrushchev was leader of the Soviet Union from 1955 until 1964, succeeding Joseph Stalin. He presided over the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was born in 1894 into a poor family near Kursk in south-western Russia. He received very little formal education. He joined the Bolshevik Party in 1918 and served in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.
In 1929, Khrushchev moved to Moscow to attend the Stalin Industrial Academy. In 1931, he began to work full-time for the Communist Party, rising through its ranks to become first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee in 1938. The following year he became a member of the Politburo, the highest decision-making body of the Communist Party. During World War Two, Khrushchev worked as a political commissar in the army.
Stalin died in March 1953. Khrushchev became leader of the party shortly afterwards, but it took him several years to consolidate his position. In February 1956, he made a secret speech to the 20th Party Congress, denouncing Stalin. It caused a sensation in the Communist Party and in the West, although Khrushchev failed to mention his own role in the Stalinist terror.
The speech initiated a campaign of 'de-Stalinisation'. Khrushchev also attempted to improve Soviet living standards and allow greater freedom in cultural and intellectual life. In the mid-1950s, he launched his 'Virgin Lands' campaign to encourage farming on previously uncultivated land in the Kazakh Republic (Kazakhstan). He invested in the Soviet space programme, resulting in the 1957 flight of Sputnik I, the first spacecraft to orbit the earth.
In relations with the West, Khrushchev's period in office was marked by a series of crises - the shooting down of an American U2 spy-plane over the Soviet Union in 1960, the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and, most significantly, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Despite this, Khrushchev also attempted to pursue a policy of co-existence with the West. This change in doctrine, together with Khrushchev's rejection of Stalinism, led to a split with Communist China in 1960.
Significantly, Khrushchev was not prepared to loosen the grip of the Soviet Union on its satellite states in Eastern Europe and, in 1956, an uprising in Hungary against Communist rule was brutally suppressed.
By 1964, Khrushchev had alienated much of the Soviet elite and was forced to retire by opponents led by Leonid Brezhnev. Khrushchev died on 11 September 1971 in Moscow.
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev[a] (15 April [O.S. 3 April] 1894 – 11 September 1971)[1] led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War as the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and as chairman of the Council of Ministers (or premier) from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.
Khrushchev was born in 1894 in the village of Kalinovka, close to the present-day border between Russia and Ukraine. He was employed as a metal worker during his youth, and he was a political commissar during the Russian Civil War. With the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He supported Joseph Stalin's purges, and approved thousands of arrests. In 1938, Stalin sent him to govern the Ukrainian SSR, and he continued the purges there. During what was known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War (Eastern Front of World War II), Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals. Khrushchev was present at the bloody defense of Stalingrad, a fact he took great pride in throughout his life. After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers.
On 5 March 1953, Stalin's death triggered a power struggle in which Khrushchev emerged victorious upon consolidating his authority as First Secretary. On 25 February 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, he delivered the "Secret Speech", which denounced Stalin's purges and ushered in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union. His domestic policies, aimed at bettering the lives of ordinary citizens, were often ineffective, especially in agriculture. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for national defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite the cuts, Khrushchev's rule saw the most tense years of the Cold War, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Khrushchev's popularity was eroded by flaws in his policies. This emboldened his potential opponents, who quietly rose in strength and deposed the Premier in October 1964. However, he did not suffer the deadly fate of previous Soviet power struggles, and was pensioned off with an apartment in Moscow and a dacha in the countryside. His lengthy memoirs were smuggled to the West and published in part in 1970. Khrushchev died in 1971 of a heart attack.
Contents
1 Early years
2 Party official
2.1 Donbas years
2.2 Kaganovich protégé
2.3 Involvement in purges
3 World War II
3.1 Occupation of Polish territory
3.2 War against Germany
4 Rise to power
4.1 Return to Ukraine
4.2 Stalin's final years
4.3 Struggle for control
5 Leader (1953–1964)
5.1 Domestic policies
5.1.1 Consolidation of power; Secret Speech
5.1.2 Liberalization and the arts
5.1.3 Political reform
5.1.4 Agricultural policy
5.1.5 Education
5.2 Anti-religious campaign
5.3 Foreign and defense policies
5.3.1 United States and allies
5.3.1.1 Early relations and U.S. visit (1957–1960)
5.3.1.2 U-2 and Berlin crisis (1960–1961)
5.3.1.3 Cuban Missile Crisis and the test ban treaty (1962–1964)
5.3.2 Eastern Europe
5.3.3 China
6 Removal
7 Life in retirement
8 Death
9 Legacy
10 Media portrayals
11 See also
12 Notes
13 Citations
14 References
15 Further reading
16 External links
Early years
External video
Part One of Booknotes interview with William Taubman on Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, 20 April 2003, C-SPAN
Part Two of Booknotes interview with Taubman, 27 April 2003, C-SPAN
Khrushchev was born on 15 April 1894,[b][2] in Kalinovka,[3] a village in what is now Russia's Kursk Oblast, near the present Ukrainian border.[4] His parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Xeniya Khrushcheva, were poor peasants of Russian[4][5] origin, and had a daughter two years Nikita's junior, Irina.[2] Sergei Khrushchev was employed in a number of positions in the Donbas area of far eastern Ukraine, working as a railwayman, as a miner, and labouring in a brick factory. Wages were much higher in the Donbas than in the Kursk region, and Sergei Khrushchev generally left his family in Kalinovka, returning there when he had enough money.[6]
Kalinovka was a peasant village; Khrushchev's teacher, Lydia Shevchenko, later stated that she had never seen a village as poor as Kalinovka had been.[7] Nikita worked as a herdsboy from an early age. He was schooled for a total of four years, part in the village parochial school and part under Shevchenko's tutelage in Kalinovka's state school. According to Khrushchev in his memoirs, Shevchenko was a freethinker who upset the villagers by not attending church, and when her brother visited, he gave the boy books which had been banned by the Imperial Government.[8] She urged Nikita to seek further education, but family finances did not permit this.[8]
In 1908, Sergei Khrushchev moved to the Donbas city of Yuzovka (now Donetsk, Ukraine); fourteen-year-old Nikita followed later that year, while Ksenia Khrushcheva and her daughter came after.[9] Yuzovka, which was renamed Stalino in 1924 and Donetsk in 1961, was at the heart of one of the most industrialized areas of the Russian Empire.[9] After the boy worked briefly in other fields, Khrushchev's parents found him a place as a metal fitter's apprentice. Upon completing that apprenticeship, the teenage Khrushchev was hired by a factory.[10] He lost that job when he collected money for the families of the victims of the Lena Goldfields massacre, and was hired to mend underground equipment by a mine in nearby Rutchenkovo,[11] where his father was the union organiser, and he helped distribute copies and organise public readings of Pravda.[12] He later stated that he considered emigrating to the United States for better wages, but did not do so.[13]
Khrushchev and his first wife Euphrasinia (Yefrosinia) in 1916
When World War I broke out in 1914, Khrushchev was exempt from conscription because he was a skilled metal worker. He was employed by a workshop that serviced ten mines, and he was involved in several strikes that demanded higher pay, better working conditions, and an end to the war.[14] In 1914, he married Yefrosinia Pisareva, daughter of the lift operator at the Rutchenkovo mine. In 1915, they had a daughter, Yulia, and in 1917, a son, Leonid.[15]
After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917, the new Russian Provisional Government in Petrograd had little influence over Ukraine. Khrushchev was elected to the worker's council (or soviet) in Rutchenkovo, and in May he became its chairman.[16] He did not join the Bolsheviks until 1918, a year in which the Russian Civil War, between the Bolsheviks and a coalition of opponents known as the White Army, began in earnest. His biographer, William Taubman, suggests that Khrushchev's delay in affiliating himself with the Bolsheviks was because he felt closer to the Mensheviks who prioritised economic progress, whereas the Bolsheviks sought political power.[17] In his memoirs, Khrushchev indicated that he waited because there were many groups, and it was difficult to keep them all straight.[17]
In March 1918, as the Bolshevik government concluded a separate peace with the Central Powers, the Germans occupied the Donbas and Khrushchev fled to Kalinovka. In late 1918 or early 1919 he was mobilized into the Red Army as a political commissar.[18] The post of political commissar had recently been introduced as the Bolsheviks came to rely less on worker activists and more on military recruits; its functions included indoctrination of recruits in the tenets of Bolshevism, and promoting troop morale and battle readiness.[19] Beginning as commissar to a construction platoon, Khrushchev rose to become commissar to a construction battalion and was sent from the front for a two-month political course. The young commissar came under fire many times,[20] though many of the war stories he would tell in later life dealt more with his (and his troops') cultural awkwardness, rather than with combat.[19] In 1921, the civil war ended, and Khrushchev was demobilised and assigned as commissar to a labour brigade in the Donbas, where he and his men lived in poor conditions.[19]
The wars had caused widespread devastation and famine, and one of the victims of the hunger and disease was Khrushchev's wife, Yefrosinia, who died of typhus in Kalinovka while Khrushchev was in the army. The commissar returned for the funeral and, loyal to his Bolshevik principles, refused to allow his wife's coffin to enter the local church. With the only way into the churchyard through the church, he had the coffin lifted and passed over the fence into the burial ground, shocking the village.[19]
Party official
Donbas years
Through the intervention of a friend, Khrushchev was assigned in 1921 as assistant director for political affairs for the Rutchenkovo mine in the Donbas region, where he had previously worked.[21] There were as yet few Bolsheviks in the area. At that time, the movement was split by Lenin's New Economic Policy, which allowed for some measure of private enterprise and was seen as an ideological retreat by some Bolsheviks.[21] While Khrushchev's responsibility lay in political affairs, he involved himself in the practicalities of resuming full production at the mine after the chaos of the war years. He helped restart the machines (key parts and papers had been removed by the pre-Soviet mineowners) and he wore his old mine outfit for inspection tours.[22]
Khrushchev's second wife (though they were never officially married) was Ukrainian-born Nina Petrovna Kukharchuk, whom he met in 1922
Khrushchev was highly successful at the Rutchenkovo mine, and in mid-1922 he was offered the directorship of the nearby Pastukhov mine. However, he refused the offer, seeking to be assigned to the newly established technical college (tekhnikum) in Yuzovka, though his superiors were reluctant to let him go. As he had only four years of formal schooling, he applied to the training program (rabfak) attached to the tekhnikum that was designed to bring undereducated students to high-school level, a prerequisite for entry into the tekhnikum.[23] While enrolled in the rabfak, Khrushchev continued his work at the Rutchenkovo mine.[24] One of his teachers later described him as a poor student.[23] He was more successful in advancing in the Communist Party; soon after his admission to the rabfak in August 1922, he was appointed party secretary of the entire tekhnikum, and became a member of the bureau—the governing council—of the party committee for the town of Yuzovka (renamed Stalino in 1924). He briefly joined supporters of Leon Trotsky against those of Joseph Stalin over the question of party democracy.[25] All of these activities left him with little time for his schoolwork, and while he later claimed to have finished his rabfak studies, it is unclear whether this was true.[25]
Khrushchev's studies were aided by Nina Petrovna Kukharchuk, a well-educated Party organizer and daughter of well-to-do Ukrainian peasants, according to some sources.[26] The family was poor, according to Nina's own recollections. The two lived together as husband and wife for the rest of Khrushchev's life, though they never registered their marriage. They had three children together: daughter Rada was born in 1929, son Sergei in 1935 and daughter Elena in 1937.
In mid-1925, Khrushchev was appointed Party secretary of the Petrovo-Marinsky raikom, or district, near Stalino. The raikom was about 400 square miles (1,000 km2) in area, and Khrushchev was constantly on the move throughout his domain, taking an interest in even minor matters.[27] In late 1925, Khrushchev was elected a non-voting delegate to the 14th Congress of the USSR Communist Party in Moscow.[28]
Kaganovich protégé
NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda (middle) inspecting the construction of the Moscow-Volga canal, 1935. Khrushchev is left behind Yagoda.
Khrushchev met Lazar Kaganovich as early as 1917. In 1925, Kaganovich became Party head in Ukraine[29] and Khrushchev, falling under his patronage,[30] was rapidly promoted. He was appointed second in command of the Stalino party apparatus in late 1926. Within nine months his superior, Konstantin Moiseyenko, was ousted, which, according to Taubman, was due to Khrushchev's instigation.[29] Kaganovich transferred Khrushchev to Kharkov, then the capital of Ukraine, as head of the Organizational Department of the Ukrainian Party's Central Committee.[31] In 1928, Khrushchev was transferred to Kiev, where he served as second-in-command of the Party organization there.[32]
In 1929, Khrushchev again sought to further his education, following Kaganovich (now in the Kremlin as a close associate of Stalin) to Moscow and enrolling in the Stalin Industrial Academy. Khrushchev never completed his studies there, but his career in the Party flourished.[33] When the school's Party cell elected a number of rightists to an upcoming district Party conference, the cell was attacked in Pravda.[34] Khrushchev emerged victorious in the ensuing power struggle, becoming Party secretary of the school, arranging for the delegates to be withdrawn, and afterward purging the cell of the rightists.[34] Khrushchev rose rapidly through the Party ranks, first becoming Party leader for the Bauman district, site of the Academy, before taking the same position in the Krasnopresnensky district, the capital's largest and most important. By 1932, Khrushchev had become second in command, behind Kaganovich, of the Moscow city Party organization, and in 1934, he became Party leader for the city[33] and a member of the Party's Central Committee.[35] Khrushchev attributed his rapid rise to his acquaintance with fellow Academy student Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin's wife. In his memoirs, Khrushchev stated that Alliluyeva spoke well of him to her husband. His biographer, William Tompson, downplays the possibility, stating that Khrushchev was too low in the Party hierarchy to enjoy Stalin's patronage, and that if influence was brought to bear on Khrushchev's career at this stage, it was by Kaganovich.[36]
While head of the Moscow city organization, Khrushchev superintended construction of the Moscow Metro, a highly expensive undertaking, with Kaganovich in overall charge. Faced with an already-announced opening date of 7 November 1934, Khrushchev took considerable risks in the construction and spent much of his time down in the tunnels. When the inevitable accidents did occur, they were depicted as heroic sacrifices in a great cause. The Metro did not open until 1 May 1935, but Khrushchev received the Order of Lenin for his role in its construction.[37] Later that year, he was selected as First Secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee which was responsible for Moscow oblast, a province with a population of 11 million.[33]
Involvement in purges
Nestor Lakoba, Khrushchev, Lavrenti Beria and Aghasi Khanjian during opening of the Moscow Metro in 1936.
Stalin's office records show meetings at which Khrushchev was present as early as 1932. The two increasingly built a good relationship. Khrushchev greatly admired the dictator and treasured informal meetings with him and invitations to Stalin's dacha, while Stalin felt warm affection for his young subordinate.[38]
Khrushchev (sitting first from left), head of Moscow party branch, with various regional party leaders in 1935. Standing first from right is Mir Jafar Baghirov
Beginning in 1934, Stalin began a campaign of political repression known as the Great Purge, during which millions of people were executed or sent to the Gulag. Central to this campaign were the Moscow Trials, a series of show trials of the purged top leaders of the party and the military. In 1936, as the trials proceeded, Khrushchev expressed his vehement support:
Everyone who rejoices in the successes achieved in our country, the victories of our party led by the great Stalin, will find only one word suitable for the mercenary, fascist dogs of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite gang. That word is execution.[39]
Khrushchev assisted in the purge of many friends and colleagues in Moscow oblast.[40] Of 38 top Party officials in Moscow city and province, 35 were killed[40]—the three survivors were transferred to other parts of the USSR.[41] Of the 146 Party secretaries of cities and districts outside Moscow city in the province, only 10 survived the purges.[40] In his memoirs, Khrushchev noted that almost everyone who worked with him was arrested.[42] By Party protocol, Khrushchev was required to approve these arrests, and did little or nothing to save his friends and colleagues.[43]
Party leaders were given numerical quotas of "enemies" to be turned in and arrested.[43] In June 1937, the Politburo set a quota of 35,000 enemies to be arrested in Moscow province; 5,000 of these were to be executed. In reply, Khrushchev asked that 2,000 wealthy peasants, or kulaks living in Moscow be killed in part fulfillment of the quota. In any event, only two weeks after receiving the Politburo order, Khrushchev was able to report to Stalin that 41,305 "criminal and kulak elements" had been arrested. Of the arrestees, according to Khrushchev, 8,500 deserved execution.[43]
Khrushchev had no reason to think himself immune from the purges, and in 1937, confessed his own 1923 dalliance with Trotskyism to Kaganovich, who, according to Khrushchev, "blanched" (for his protégé's sins could affect his own standing) and advised him to tell Stalin. The dictator took the confession in his stride, and, after initially advising Khrushchev to keep it quiet, suggested that Khrushchev tell his tale to the Moscow party conference. Khrushchev did so, to applause, and was immediately reelected to his post.[44] Khrushchev related in his memoirs that he was also denounced by an arrested colleague. Stalin told Khrushchev of the accusation personally, looking him in the eye and awaiting his response. Khrushchev speculated in his memoirs that had Stalin doubted his reaction, he would have been categorized as an enemy of the people then and there.[45] Nonetheless, Khrushchev became a candidate member of the Politburo on 14 January 1938 and a full member in March 1939.[46]
External video
Khrushchev speech in 1937
In late 1937, Stalin appointed Khrushchev as head of the Communist Party in Ukraine, and Khrushchev duly left Moscow for Kiev, again the Ukrainian capital, in January 1938.[47] Ukraine had been the site of extensive purges, with the murdered including professors in Stalino whom Khrushchev greatly respected. The high ranks of the Party were not immune; the Central Committee of Ukraine was so devastated that it could not convene a quorum. After Khrushchev's arrival, the pace of arrests accelerated.[48] All but one member of the Ukrainian Politburo Organizational Bureau and Secretariat were arrested. Almost all government officials and Red Army commanders were replaced.[49] During the first few months after Khrushchev's arrival, almost everyone arrested received the death penalty.[50]
Biographer William Taubman suggested that because Khrushchev was again unsuccessfully denounced while in Kiev, he must have known that some of the denunciations were not true and that innocent people were suffering.[49] In 1939, Khrushchev addressed the Fourteenth Ukrainian Party Congress, saying "Comrades, we must unmask and relentlessly destroy all enemies of the people. But we must not allow a single honest Bolshevik to be harmed. We must conduct a struggle against slanderers."[49]
World War II
Occupation of Polish territory
When Soviet troops, pursuant to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, invaded the eastern portion of Poland on 17 September 1939, Khrushchev accompanied the troops at Stalin's direction. A large number of ethnic Ukrainians lived in the invaded area, much of which today forms the western portion of Ukraine. Many inhabitants therefore initially welcomed the invasion, though they hoped that they would eventually become independent. Khrushchev's role was to ensure that the occupied areas voted for union with the USSR. Through a combination of propaganda, deception as to what was being voted for, and outright fraud, the Soviets ensured that the assemblies elected in the new territories would unanimously petition for union with the USSR. When the new assemblies did so, their petitions were granted by the USSR Supreme Soviet, and Western Ukraine became a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR) on 1 November 1939.[51] Clumsy actions by the Soviets, such as staffing Western Ukrainian organizations with Eastern Ukrainians, and giving confiscated land to collective farms (kolkhozes) rather than to peasants, soon alienated Western Ukrainians, damaging Khrushchev's efforts to achieve unity.[52]
War against Germany
When Nazi Germany invaded the USSR, in June 1941, Khrushchev was still at his post in Kiev.[53] Stalin appointed him a political commissar, and Khrushchev served on a number of fronts as an intermediary between the local military commanders and the political rulers in Moscow. Stalin used Khrushchev to keep commanders on a tight leash, while the commanders sought to have him influence Stalin.[54] As the Germans advanced, Khrushchev worked with the military in an attempt to defend and save Kiev. Handicapped by orders from Stalin that under no circumstances should the city be abandoned, the Red Army was soon encircled by the Germans. While the Germans stated they took 655,000 prisoners, according to the Soviets, 150,541 men out of 677,085 escaped the trap.[55] Primary sources differ on Khrushchev's involvement at this point. According to Marshal Georgi Zhukov, writing some years after Khrushchev fired and disgraced him in 1957, Khrushchev persuaded Stalin not to evacuate troops from Kiev.[56] However, Khrushchev noted in his memoirs that he and Marshal Semyon Budyonny proposed redeploying Soviet forces to avoid the encirclement until Marshal Semyon Timoshenko arrived from Moscow with orders for the troops to hold their positions.[57] Early Khrushchev biographer Mark Frankland suggested that Khrushchev's faith in his leader was first shaken by the Red Army's setbacks.[30] Khrushchev stated in his memoirs:
But let me return to the enemy breakthrough in the Kiev area, the encirclement of our group, and the destruction of the 37th Army. Later, the Fifth Army also perished ... All of this was senseless, and from the military point of view, a display of ignorance, incompetence, and illiteracy. ... There you have the result of not taking a step backward. We were unable to save these troops because we didn't withdraw them, and as a result we simply lost them. ... And yet it was possible to allow this not to happen.[58]
In 1942, Khrushchev was on the Southwest Front, and he and Timoshenko proposed a massive counteroffensive in the Kharkov area. Stalin approved only part of the plan, but 640,000 Red Army soldiers would still become involved in the offensive. The Germans, however, had deduced that the Soviets were likely to attack at Kharkov, and set a trap. Beginning on 12 May 1942, the Soviet offensive initially appeared successful, but within five days the Germans had driven deep into the Soviet flanks, and the Red Army troops were in danger of being cut off. Stalin refused to halt the offensive, and the Red Army divisions were soon encircled by the Germans. The USSR lost about 267,000 soldiers, including more than 200,000 men captured, and Stalin demoted Timoshenko and recalled Khrushchev to Moscow. While Stalin hinted at arresting and executing Khrushchev, he allowed the commissar to return to the front by sending him to Stalingrad.[59]
Khrushchev (left) on the Stalingrad Front
Khrushchev reached the Stalingrad Front in August 1942, soon after the start of the battle for the city.[60] His role in the Stalingrad defense was not major—General Vasily Chuikov, who led the city's defense, mentions Khrushchev only briefly in a memoir published while Khrushchev was premier—but to the end of his life, he was proud of his role.[61] Though he visited Stalin in Moscow on occasion, he remained in Stalingrad for much of the battle, and was nearly killed at least once. He proposed a counterattack, only to find that Zhukov and other generals had already planned Operation Uranus, a plan to break out from Soviet positions and encircle and destroy the Germans; it was being kept secret. Before Uranus was launched, Khrushchev spent much time checking on troop readiness and morale, interrogating Nazi prisoners, and recruiting some for propaganda purposes.[60]
Soon after Stalingrad, Khrushchev met with personal tragedy, as his son Leonid, a fighter pilot, was apparently shot down and killed in action on 11 March 1943. The circumstances of Leonid's death remain obscure and controversial,[62] as none of his fellow fliers stated that they witnessed him being shot down, nor was his plane found or body recovered. As a result, Leonid's fate has been the subject of considerable speculation. One theory has Leonid surviving the crash and collaborating with the Germans, and when he was recaptured by the Soviets, Stalin ordering him shot despite Nikita Khrushchev pleading for his life.[62] This supposed killing is used to explain why Khrushchev later denounced Stalin in the Secret Speech.[62][63] While there is no supporting evidence for this account in Soviet files, some historians allege that Leonid Khrushchev's file was tampered with after the war.[64] In later years, Leonid Khrushchev's wingmate stated that he saw his plane disintegrate, but did not report it. Khrushchev biographer Taubman speculates that this omission was most likely to avoid the possibility of being seen as complicit in the death of the son of a Politburo member.[65] In mid-1943, Leonid's wife, Liuba Khrushcheva, was arrested on accusations of spying and sentenced to five years in a labor camp, and her son (by another relationship), Tolya, was placed in a series of orphanages. Leonid's daughter, Yulia, was raised by Nikita Khrushchev and his wife.[66]
After Uranus forced the Germans into retreat, Khrushchev served in other fronts of the war. He was attached to Soviet troops at the Battle of Kursk, in July 1943, which turned back the last major German offensive on Soviet soil.[67] Khrushchev related that he interrogated an SS defector, learning that the Germans intended an attack—a claim dismissed by his biographer Taubman as "almost certainly exaggerated".[68] He accompanied Soviet troops as they took Kiev in November 1943, entering the shattered city as Soviet forces drove out German troops.[68] As Soviet forces met with greater success, driving the Nazis westwards towards Germany, Nikita Khrushchev became increasingly involved in reconstruction work in Ukraine. He was appointed Premier of the Ukrainian SSR in addition to his earlier party post, one of the rare instances in which the Ukrainian party and civil leader posts were held by one person.[69]
According to Khrushchev biographer William Tompson, it is difficult to assess Khrushchev's war record, since he most often acted as part of a military council, and it is not possible to know the extent to which he influenced decisions, rather than signing off on the orders of military officers. However, Tompson points to the fact that the few mentions of Khrushchev in military memoirs published during the Brezhnev era were generally favorable, at a time when it was "barely possible to mention Khrushchev in print in any context".[70] Tompson suggests that these favorable mentions indicate that military officers held Khrushchev in high regard.[70]
Rise to power
Return to Ukraine
Almost all of Ukraine had been occupied by the Germans, and Khrushchev returned to his domain in late 1943 to find devastation. Ukraine's industry had been destroyed, and agriculture faced critical shortages. Even though millions of Ukrainians had been taken to Germany as workers or prisoners of war, there was insufficient housing for those who remained.[71] One out of every six Ukrainians was killed in World War II.[72]
Khrushchev sought to reconstruct Ukraine, but also desired to complete the interrupted work of imposing the Soviet system on it, though he hoped that the purges of the 1930s would not recur.[73] As Ukraine was recovered militarily, conscription was imposed, and 750,000 men aged between nineteen and fifty were given minimal military training and sent to join the Red Army.[74] Other Ukrainians joined partisan forces, seeking an independent Ukraine.[74] Khrushchev rushed from district to district through Ukraine, urging the depleted labor force to greater efforts. He made a short visit to his birthplace of Kalinovka, finding a starving population, with only a third of the men who had joined the Red Army having returned. Khrushchev did what he could to assist his hometown.[75] Despite Khrushchev's efforts, in 1945, Ukrainian industry was at only a quarter of pre-war levels, and the harvest actually dropped from that of 1944, when the entire territory of Ukraine had not yet been retaken.[71]
In an effort to increase agricultural production, the kolkhozes (collective farms) were empowered to expel residents who were not pulling their weight. Kolkhoz leaders used this as an excuse to expel their personal enemies, invalids, and the elderly, and nearly 12,000 people were sent to the eastern parts of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev viewed this policy as very effective, and recommended its adoption elsewhere to Stalin.[71] He also worked to impose collectivization on Western Ukraine. While Khrushchev hoped to accomplish this by 1947, lack of resources and armed resistance by partisans slowed the process.[76] The partisans, many of whom fought as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), were gradually defeated, as Soviet police and military reported killing 110,825 "bandits" and capturing a quarter million more between 1944 and 1946.[77] About 600,000 Western Ukrainians were arrested between 1944 and 1952, with one-third executed and the remainder imprisoned or exiled to the east.[77]
The war years of 1944 and 1945 had seen poor harvests, and 1946 saw intense drought strike Ukraine and Western Russia. Despite this, collective and state farms were required to turn over 52% of the harvest to the government.[78] The Soviet government sought to collect as much grain as possible to supply communist allies in Eastern Europe.[79] Khrushchev set the quotas at a high level, leading Stalin to expect an unrealistically large quantity of grain from Ukraine.[80] Food was rationed—but non-agricultural rural workers throughout the USSR were given no ration cards. The inevitable starvation was largely confined to remote rural regions, and was little noticed outside the USSR.[78] Khrushchev, realizing the desperate situation in late 1946, repeatedly appealed to Stalin for aid, to be met with anger and resistance on the part of the leader. When letters to Stalin had no effect, Khrushchev flew to Moscow and made his case in person. Stalin finally gave Ukraine limited food aid, and money to set up free soup kitchens.[81] However, Khrushchev's political standing had been damaged, and in February 1947, Stalin suggested that Lazar Kaganovich be sent to Ukraine to "help" Khrushchev.[82] The following month, the Ukrainian Central Committee removed Khrushchev as party leader in favor of Kaganovich, while retaining him as premier.[83]
Soon after Kaganovich arrived in Kiev, Khrushchev fell ill, and was barely seen until September 1947. In his memoirs, Khrushchev indicates he had pneumonia; some biographers have theorized that Khrushchev's illness was entirely political, out of fear that his loss of position was the first step towards downfall and demise.[84] However, Khrushchev's children remembered their father as having been seriously ill. Once Khrushchev was able to get out of bed, he and his family took their first vacation since before the war, to a beachfront resort in Latvia.[83] Khrushchev, though, soon broke the beach routine with duck-hunting trips, and a visit to newly Soviet Kaliningrad, where he toured factories and quarries.[85] By the end of 1947, Kaganovich had been recalled to Moscow and the recovered Khrushchev had been restored to the First Secretaryship. He then resigned the Ukrainian premiership in favour of Demyan Korotchenko, Khrushchev's protégé.[84]
Khrushchev's final years in Ukraine were generally peaceful, with industry recovering,[86] Soviet forces overcoming the partisans, and 1947 and 1948 seeing better-than-expected harvests.[87] Collectivization advanced in Western Ukraine, and Khrushchev implemented more policies that encouraged collectivization and discouraged private farms. These sometimes backfired, however: a tax on private livestock holdings led to peasants slaughtering their stock.[88] With the idea of eliminating differences in attitude between town and countryside and transforming the peasantry into a "rural proletariat", Khrushchev conceived the idea of the "agro-town".[89] Rather than agricultural workers living in villages close to farms, they would live further away in larger towns which would offer municipal services such as utilities and libraries, which were not present in villages. He completed only one such town before his December 1949 return to Moscow; he dedicated it to Stalin as a 70th birthday present.[89]
In his memoirs, Khrushchev spoke highly of Ukraine, where he governed for over a decade:
I'll say that the Ukrainian people treated me well. I recall warmly the years I spent there. This was a period full of responsibilities, but pleasant because it brought satisfaction ... But far be it from me to inflate my significance. The entire Ukrainian people was exerting great efforts ... I attribute Ukraine's successes to the Ukrainian people as a whole. I won't elaborate further on this theme, but in principle it's very easy to demonstrate. I'm Russian myself, and I don't want to offend the Russians.[90]
Stalin's final years
Khrushchev attributed his recall to Moscow to mental disorder on the part of Stalin, who feared conspiracies in Moscow matching those which the ruler believed to have occurred in the fabricated Leningrad case, in which many of that city's Party officials had been falsely accused of treason.[91] Khrushchev again served as head of the Party in Moscow city and province. Khrushchev biographer Taubman suggests that Stalin most likely recalled Khrushchev to Moscow to balance the influence of Georgy Malenkov and security chief Lavrentiy Beria, who were widely seen as Stalin's heirs.[92]
At this time, the ageing leader rarely called Politburo meetings. Instead, much of the high-level work of government took place at dinners hosted by Stalin. These sessions, which Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, Kaganovich, Kliment Voroshilov, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Nikolai Bulganin, who comprised Stalin's inner circle, attended, began with showings of cowboy movies favoured by Stalin.[93] Stolen from the West, they lacked subtitles.[93] The dictator had the meal served at around 1 am, and insisted that his subordinates stay with him and drink until dawn. On one occasion, Stalin had Khrushchev, then aged almost sixty, dance a traditional Ukrainian dance. Khrushchev did so, later stating, "When Stalin says dance, a wise man dances."[93] Khrushchev attempted to nap at lunch so that he would not fall asleep in Stalin's presence; he noted in his memoirs, "Things went badly for those who dozed off at Stalin's table."[94]
In 1950, Khrushchev began a large-scale housing program for Moscow. A large part of the housing was in the form of five- or six-story apartment buildings, which became ubiquitous throughout the Soviet Union; many remain in use today.[95] Khrushchev had prefabricated reinforced concrete used, greatly speeding up construction.[96] These structures were completed at triple the construction rate of Moscow housing from 1946 to 1950, lacked elevators or balconies, and were nicknamed Khrushchyovka by the public, but because of their shoddy workmanship sometimes disparagingly called Khrushchoba as a portmanteau combining Khrushchev's name with the Russian word trushchoba, meaning "slum".[97] In 1995, almost 60,000,000 residents of the former Soviet Union still lived in these buildings.[95]
In his new positions, Khrushchev continued his kolkhoz consolidation scheme, which decreased the number of collective farms in Moscow province by about 70%. This resulted in farms that were too large for one chairman to manage effectively.[98] Khrushchev also sought to implement his agro-town proposal, but when his lengthy speech on the subject was published in Pravda in March 1951, Stalin disapproved of it. The periodical quickly published a note stating that Khrushchev's speech was merely a proposal, not policy. In April, the Politburo disavowed the agro-town proposal. Khrushchev feared that Stalin would remove him from office, but the leader mocked Khrushchev, then allowed the episode to pass.[99]
On 1 March 1953, Stalin suffered a massive stroke, apparently on rising after sleep. Stalin had left orders not to be disturbed, and it was twelve hours until his condition was discovered. Even as terrified doctors attempted treatment, Khrushchev and his colleagues engaged in intense discussion as to the new government. On 5 March, Stalin died. As Khrushchev and other high officials stood weeping by Stalin's bedside, Beria raced from the room, shouting for his car.[100]
Khrushchev reflected on Stalin in his memoirs:
Stalin called everyone who didn't agree with him an "enemy of the people." He said that they wanted to restore the old order, and for this purpose, "the enemies of the people" had linked up with the forces of reaction internationally. As a result, several hundred thousand honest people perished. Everyone lived in fear in those days. Everyone expected that at any moment there would be a knock on the door in the middle of the night and that knock on the door would prove fatal ... [P]eople not to Stalin's liking were annihilated, honest party members, irreproachable people, loyal and hard workers for our cause who had gone through the school of revolutionary struggle under Lenin's leadership. This was utter and complete arbitrariness. And now is all this to be forgiven and forgotten? Never! [101]
Struggle for control
On 6 March 1953, Stalin's death was announced, as was the new leadership. Malenkov was the new Chairman of the Council of Ministers, with Beria (who consolidated his hold over the security agencies), Kaganovich, Bulganin, and former Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov as first vice-chairmen. Stalin's funeral was conducted on 9 March. Those members of the Presidium of the Central Committee who had been recently promoted by Stalin were demoted. Khrushchev was relieved of his duties as Party head for Moscow to concentrate on unspecified duties in the Party's Central Committee.[102] The New York Times listed Malenkov and Beria first and second among the ten-man Presidium—and Khrushchev last.[103]
However, on 14 March, Malenkov resigned from the secretariat of the Central Committee.[104] This came due to concerns that he was acquiring too much power. The major beneficiary was Khrushchev. His name appeared atop a revised list of secretaries—indicating that he was now in charge of the party.[105] The Central Committee formally elected him First Secretary in September.[106]
Even before Stalin had been laid to rest, Beria launched a lengthy series of reforms which rivalled those of Khrushchev during his period of power and even those of Mikhail Gorbachev a third of a century later.[104] Beria's proposals were designed to denigrate Stalin and pass the blame for Beria's own crimes to the late leader.[104] One proposal, which was adopted, was an amnesty which eventually led to the freeing of over a million prisoners.[107] Another, which was not adopted, was to release East Germany into a united, neutral Germany in exchange for compensation from the West[108]—a proposal considered by Khrushchev to be anti-communist.[109] Khrushchev allied with Malenkov to block many of Beria's proposals, while the two slowly picked up support from other Presidium members. Their campaign against Beria was aided by fears that Beria was planning a military coup,[110] and, according to Khrushchev in his memoirs, by the conviction that "Beria is getting his knives ready for us."[111] The key move by Khrushchev and Malenkov was to lure two of Beria's most powerful deputy ministers, Sergei Kruglov and Ivan Serov, to betray their boss. This allowed Khrushchev and Malenkov to arrest Beria as Beria belatedly discovered he had lost control of Ministry of Interior troops and the troops of the Kremlin guard.[112] On 26 June 1953 Beria was arrested at a Presidium meeting, following extensive military preparations by Khrushchev and his allies. Beria was tried in secret, and executed in December 1953 with five of his close associates. The execution of Beria proved to be the last time the loser of a top-level Soviet power struggle paid with his life.[113]
The power struggle in the Presidium was not resolved by the elimination of Beria. Malenkov's power was in the central state apparatus, which he sought to extend through reorganizing the government, giving it additional power at the expense of the Party. He also sought public support by lowering retail prices and lowering the level of bond sales to citizens, which had long been effectively obligatory. Khrushchev, on the other hand, with his power base in the Party, sought to both strengthen the Party and his position within it. While, under the Soviet system, the Party was to be preeminent, it had been greatly drained of power by Stalin, who had given much of that power to himself and to the Politburo (later, to the Presidium). Khrushchev saw that with the Presidium in conflict, the Party and its Central Committee might again become powerful.[114] Khrushchev carefully cultivated high Party officials, and was able to appoint supporters as local Party bosses, who then took seats on the Central Committee.[115]
Khrushchev presented himself as a down-to-earth activist prepared to take up any challenge, contrasting with Malenkov who, though sophisticated, came across as colourless.[115] Khrushchev arranged for the Kremlin grounds to be opened to the public, an act with "great public resonance".[116] While both Malenkov and Khrushchev sought reforms to agriculture, Khrushchev's proposals were broader, and included the Virgin Lands Campaign, under which hundreds of thousands of young volunteers would settle and farm areas of Western Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan. While the scheme eventually became a tremendous disaster for Soviet agriculture, it was initially successful.[117] In addition, Khrushchev possessed incriminating information on Malenkov, taken from Beria's secret files. As Soviet prosecutors investigated the atrocities of Stalin's last years, including the Leningrad case, they came across evidence of Malenkov's involvement. Beginning in February 1954, Khrushchev replaced Malenkov in the seat of honour at Presidium meetings; in June, Malenkov ceased to head the list of Presidium members, which was thereafter organized in alphabetical order. Khrushchev's influence continued to increase, winning the allegiance of local party heads, and with his nominee heading the KGB.[118]
At a Central Committee meeting in January 1955, Malenkov was accused of involvement in atrocities, and the committee passed a resolution accusing him of involvement in the Leningrad case, and of facilitating Beria's climb to power. At a meeting of the mostly ceremonial Supreme Soviet the following month, Malenkov was demoted in favour of Bulganin, to the surprise of Western observers.[119] Malenkov remained in the Presidium as Minister of Electric Power Stations. According to Khrushchev biographer William Tompson, "Khrushchev's position as first among the members of the collective leadership was now beyond any reasonable doubt."[120]
The post-Stalin battle for political control reshaped foreign-policy. There was more realism and less ideological abstraction when confronted by the European and Middle Eastern situations. Khrushchev's "secret speech" attack on Stalin in 1956 was a signal for abandoning Stalinist precepts, and looking at new options, including more involvement in the Middle East. Khrushchev in power did not moderate his personality—he remained unpredictable, and was emboldened by the spectacular successes in space. He thought that would give the USSR world prestige, leading to quick Communist advances in the Third World. Khrushchev's policy was still restrained by the need to retain the support of the Presidium and to placate the inarticulate but restive Soviet masses who were thrilled by Sputnik, but demanded a higher standard of living on the ground as well.[121]
Leader (1953–1964)
Domestic policies
Consolidation of power; Secret Speech
Main article: Secret Speech
After the demotion of Malenkov, Khrushchev and Molotov initially worked together well, and the longtime foreign minister even proposed that Khrushchev, not Bulganin, replace Malenkov as premier.[122] However, Khrushchev and Molotov increasingly differed on policy. Molotov opposed the Virgin Lands policy, instead proposing heavy investment to increase yields in developed agricultural areas, which Khrushchev felt was not feasible due to a lack of resources and a lack of a sophisticated farm labor force.[123] The two differed on foreign policy as well; soon after Khrushchev took power, he sought a peace treaty with Austria, which would allow Soviet troops then in occupation of part of the country to leave. Molotov was resistant, but Khrushchev arranged for an Austrian delegation to come to Moscow and negotiate the treaty.[124] Although Khrushchev and other Presidium members attacked Molotov at a Central Committee meeting in mid-1955, accusing him of conducting a foreign policy which turned the world against the USSR, Molotov remained in his position.[125]
By the end of 1955, thousands of political prisoners had returned home, and told their experiences of the Gulag labor camps.[126] Continuing investigation into the abuses brought home the full breadth of Stalin's crimes to his successors. Khrushchev believed that once the stain of Stalinism was removed, the Party would inspire loyalty among the people.[127] Beginning in October 1955, Khrushchev fought to tell the delegates to the upcoming 20th Party Congress about Stalin's crimes. Some of his colleagues, including Molotov and Malenkov, opposed the disclosure, and managed to persuade him to make his remarks in a closed session.[128]
The 20th Party Congress opened on 14 February 1956. In his opening words in his initial address, Khrushchev denigrated Stalin by asking delegates to rise in honour of the communist leaders who had died since the last congress, whom he named, equating Stalin with Klement Gottwald and the little-known Kyuichi Tokuda.[129] In the early morning hours of 25 February, Khrushchev delivered what became known as the "Secret Speech" to a closed session of the Congress limited to Soviet delegates. In four hours, he demolished Stalin's reputation. Khrushchev noted in his memoirs that the "congress listened to me in silence. As the saying goes, you could have heard a pin drop. It was all so sudden and unexpected."[130] Khrushchev told the delegates:
It is here that Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality, and his abuse of power ... he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the party or the Soviet Government.[131]
The Secret Speech, while it did not fundamentally change Soviet society, had wide-ranging effects. The speech was a factor in unrest in Poland and revolution in Hungary later in 1956, and Stalin defenders led four days of rioting in his native Georgia in June, calling for Khrushchev to resign and Molotov to take over.[132] In meetings where the Secret Speech was read, communists would make even more severe condemnations of Stalin (and of Khrushchev), and even call for multi-party elections. However, Stalin was not publicly denounced, and his portrait remained widespread through the USSR, from airports to Khrushchev's Kremlin office. Mikhail Gorbachev, then a Komsomol official, recalled that though young and well-educated Soviets in his district were excited by the speech, many others decried it, either defending Stalin or seeing little point in digging up the past.[132] Forty years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev applauded Khrushchev for his courage in taking a huge political risk and showing himself to be "a moral man after all".[133]
The term "Secret Speech" proved to be an utter misnomer. While the attendees at the Speech were all Soviet, Eastern European delegates were allowed to hear it the following night, read slowly to allow them to take notes. By 5 March, copies were being mailed throughout the Soviet Union, marked "not for the press" rather than "top secret". An official translation appeared within a month in Poland; the Poles printed 12,000 extra copies, one of which soon reached the West.[128] Khrushchev's son, Sergei, later wrote, "[C]learly, Father tried to ensure it would reach as many ears as possible. It was soon read at Komsomol meetings; that meant another eighteen million listeners. If you include their relatives, friends, and acquaintances, you could say that the entire country became familiar with the speech ... Spring had barely begun when the speech began circulating around the world."[134]
The anti-Khrushchev minority in the Presidium was augmented by those opposed to Khrushchev's proposals to decentralize authority over industry, which struck at the heart of Malenkov's power base. During the first half of 1957, Malenkov, Molotov, and Kaganovich worked to quietly build support to dismiss Khrushchev. At an 18 June Presidium meeting at which two Khrushchev supporters were absent, the plotters moved that Bulganin, who had joined the scheme, take the chair, and proposed other moves which would effectively demote Khrushchev and put themselves in control. Khrushchev objected on the grounds that not all Presidium members had been notified, an objection which would have been quickly dismissed had Khrushchev not held firm control over the military, through Minister of Defense Marshal Zhukov, and the security departments. Lengthy Presidium meetings took place, continuing over several days. As word leaked of the power struggle, members of the Central Committee, which Khrushchev controlled, streamed to Moscow, many flown there aboard military planes, and demanded to be admitted to the meeting. While they were not admitted, there were soon enough Central Committee members in Moscow to call an emergency Party Congress, which effectively forced the leadership to allow a session of the Central Committee. At that meeting, the three main conspirators were dubbed the Anti-Party Group, accused of factionalism and complicity in Stalin's crimes. The three were expelled from the Central Committee and Presidium, as was former Foreign Minister and Khrushchev client Dmitri Shepilov who joined them in the plot. Molotov was sent as Ambassador to Mongolia; the others were sent to head industrial facilities and institutes far from Moscow.[135]
Marshal Zhukov was rewarded for his support with full membership in the Presidium, but Khrushchev feared his popularity and power. In October, the defense minister was sent on a tour of the Balkans, as Khrushchev arranged a Presidium meeting to dismiss him. Zhukov learned what was happening, and hurried back to Moscow, only to be formally notified of his dismissal. At a Central Committee meeting several weeks later, not a word was said in Zhukov's defense.[136] Khrushchev completed the consolidation of power by arranging for Bulganin's dismissal as premier in favor of himself (Bulganin was appointed to head the Gosbank) and by establishing a USSR Defense Council, led by himself, effectively making him commander in chief.[137] Though Khrushchev was now preeminent, he did not enjoy Stalin's absolute power.[137]
Liberalization and the arts
Main article: Khrushchev Thaw
Nina Khrushcheva, Mamie Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and Dwight Eisenhower at a state dinner in 1959
Khrushchev, his wife, his son Sergei (far right) and his daughter Rada during their trip to USA in 1959
After assuming power, Khrushchev allowed a modest amount of freedom in the arts. Vladimir Dudintsev's Not by Bread Alone,[138] about an idealistic engineer opposed by rigid bureaucrats, was allowed to be published in 1956, though Khrushchev called the novel "false at its base".[139] In 1958, however, Khrushchev ordered a fierce attack on Boris Pasternak after his novel Doctor Zhivago was published abroad (he was denied permission to publish it in the Soviet Union). Pravda described the novel as "low-grade reactionary hackwork", and the author was expelled from the Writer's Union.[140] Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but under heavy pressure he declined it. Once he did so, Khrushchev ordered a halt to the attacks on Pasternak. In his memoirs, Khrushchev stated that he agonized over the novel, very nearly allowed it to be published, and later regretted not doing so.[140] After his fall from power, Khrushchev obtained a copy of the novel and read it (he had earlier read only excerpts) and stated, "We shouldn't have banned it. I should have read it myself. There's nothing anti-Soviet in it."[141]
Khrushchev believed that the USSR could match the West's living standards,[142] and was not afraid to allow Soviet citizens to see Western achievements.[143] Stalin had permitted few tourists to the Soviet Union, and had allowed few Soviets to travel.[144] Khrushchev let Soviets travel (over two million Soviet citizens travelled abroad between 1957 and 1961, 700,000 of whom visited the West) and allowed foreigners to visit the Soviet Union, where tourists became subjects of immense curiosity.[144] In 1957, Khrushchev authorized the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students to be held in Moscow that summer. He instructed Komsomol officials to "smother foreign guests in our embrace".[145] The resulting "socialist carnival" involved over three million Moscovites, who joined with 30,000 young foreign visitors in events that ranged from discussion groups throughout the city to events at the Kremlin itself.[146] According to historian Vladislav Zubok, the festival "shattered propagandist clichés" about Westerners by allowing Moscovites to see them for themselves.[143]
In 1962, Khrushchev, impressed by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, persuaded the Presidium to allow publication.[147] That renewed thaw ended on 1 December 1962, when Khrushchev was taken to the Manezh Gallery to view an exhibit which included a number of avant-garde works. On seeing them, Khrushchev exploded with anger, an episode known as the Manege Affair, describing the artwork as "dog shit",[148] and proclaiming that "a donkey could smear better art with its tail".[149] A week later, Pravda issued a call for artistic purity. When writers and filmmakers defended the painters, Khrushchev extended his anger to them. However, despite the premier's rage, none of the artists were arrested or exiled. The Manezh Gallery exhibit remained open for some time after Khrushchev's visit, and experienced a considerable rise in attendance after the article in Pravda.[148]
Political reform
Under Khrushchev, the special tribunals operated by security agencies were abolished. These tribunals (known as troikas), had often ignored laws and procedures. Under the reforms, no prosecution for a political crime could be brought even in the regular courts unless approved by the local Party committee. This rarely happened; there were no major political trials under Khrushchev, and at most several hundred political prosecutions overall. Instead, other sanctions were imposed on Soviet dissidents, including loss of job or university position, or expulsion from the Party. During Khrushchev's rule, forced hospitalization for the "socially dangerous" was introduced.[150] According to author Roy Medvedev, who wrote an early analysis of Khrushchev's years in power, "political terror as an everyday method of government was replaced under Khrushchev by administrative means of repression".[150]
Nikita Khrushchev, Time Magazine's Man of the Year for 1957
In 1958, Khrushchev opened a Central Committee meeting to hundreds of Soviet officials; some were even allowed to address the meeting. For the first time, the proceedings of the Committee were made public in book form, a practice which was continued at subsequent meetings. This openness, however, actually allowed Khrushchev greater control over the Committee, since any dissenters would have to make their case in front of a large, disapproving crowd.[151]
In 1962, Khrushchev divided oblast level Party committees (obkoms) into two parallel structures, one for industry and one for agriculture. This was unpopular among Party apparatchiks, and led to confusions in the chain of command, as neither committee secretary had precedence over the other. As there were limited numbers of Central Committee seats from each oblast, the division set up the possibility of rivalry for office between factions, and, according to Medvedev, had the potential for beginning a two-party system.[152] Khrushchev also ordered that one-third of the membership of each committee, from low-level councils to the Central Committee itself, be replaced at each election. This decree created tension between Khrushchev and the Central Committee,[153] and upset the party leaders upon whose support Khrushchev had risen to power.[30]
Agricultural policy
Since the 1940s, Khrushchev had advocated the cultivation of corn (maize) in the Soviet Union.[154] He established a corn institute in Ukraine and ordered thousands of acres to be planted with corn in the Virgin Lands.[155] In February 1955, Khrushchev gave a speech in which he advocated an Iowa-style corn belt in the Soviet Union, and a Soviet delegation visited the U.S. state that summer. While their intent was to visit only small farms, the delegation chief was approached by farmer and corn salesman Roswell Garst, who persuaded him to insist on visiting Garst's large farm.[156] The Iowan visited the Soviet Union in September, where he became great friends with Khrushchev, and Garst sold the USSR 5,000 short tons (4,500 t) of seed corn.[157] Garst warned the Soviets to grow the corn in the southern part of the country, and to ensure there were sufficient stocks of fertilizer, insecticides, and herbicides.[158] This, however, was not done, as Khrushchev sought to plant corn even in Siberia, and without the necessary chemicals. While Khrushchev warned against those who "would have us plant the whole planet with corn", he displayed a great passion for corn, so much so that when he visited a Latvian kolkhoz, he stated that some in his audience were probably wondering, "Will Khrushchev say something about corn or won't he?"[158] He did, rebuking the farmers for not planting more corn.[158] The corn experiment was not a great success, and he later wrote that overenthusiastic officials, wanting to please him, had overplanted without laying the proper groundwork, and "as a result corn was discredited as a silage crop—and so was I".[158]
Khrushchev sought to abolish the Machine-Tractor Stations (MTS) which not only owned most large agricultural machines such as combines and tractors, but also provided services such as plowing, and transfer their equipment and functions to the kolkhozes and sovkhozes (state farms).[159] After a successful test involving MTS which served one large kolkhoz each, Khrushchev ordered a gradual transition—but then ordered that the change take place with great speed.[160] Within three months, over half of the MTS facilities had been closed, and kolkhozes were being required to buy the equipment, with no discount given for older or dilapidated machines.[161] MTS employees, unwilling to bind themselves to kolkhozes and lose their state employee benefits and the right to change their jobs, fled to the cities, creating a shortage of skilled operators.[162] The costs of the machinery, plus the costs of building storage sheds and fuel tanks for the equipment, impoverished many kolkhozes. Inadequate provisions were made for repair stations.[163] Without the MTS, the market for Soviet agricultural equipment fell apart, as the kolkhozes now had neither the money nor skilled buyers to purchase new equipment.[164]
One adviser to Khrushchev was Trofim Lysenko, who promised greatly increased production with minimal investment. Such schemes were attractive to Khrushchev, who ordered them implemented. Lysenko managed to maintain his influence under Khrushchev despite repeated failures; as each proposal failed, he advocated another. Lysenko's influence greatly retarded the development of genetic science in the Soviet Union.[165] In 1959, Khrushchev announced a goal of overtaking the United States in production of milk, meat, and butter. Local officials, with Khrushchev's encouragement, made unrealistic pledges of production. These goals were met by forcing farmers to slaughter their breeding herds and by purchasing meat at state stores, then reselling it back to the government, artificially increasing recorded production.[166]
In June 1962, food prices were raised, particularly on meat and butter (by 25–30%). This caused public discontent. In the southern Russian city of Novocherkassk (Rostov Region), this discontent escalated to a strike and a revolt against the authorities. The revolt was put down by the military. According to Soviet official accounts, 22 people were killed and 87 wounded. In addition, 116 demonstrators were convicted of involvement and seven of them executed. Information about the revolt was completely suppressed in the USSR, but spread through Samizdat and damaged Khrushchev's reputation in the West.[167]
Drought struck the Soviet Union in 1963; the harvest of 107,500,000 short tons (97,500,000 t) of grain was down from a peak of 134,700,000 short tons (122,200,000 t) in 1958.[168] The shortages resulted in bread lines, a fact at first kept from Khrushchev.[168] Reluctant to purchase food in the West,[168] but faced with the alternative of widespread hunger, Khrushchev exhausted the nation's hard currency reserves and expended part of its gold stockpile in the purchase of grain and other foodstuffs.[169]
Education
Khrushchev (right) with cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin, Pavel Popovich and Valentina Tereshkova, 1963
While visiting the United States in 1959, Khrushchev was greatly impressed by the agricultural education program at Iowa State University, and sought to imitate it in the Soviet Union. At the time, the main agricultural college in the USSR was in Moscow, and students did not do the manual labor of farming. Khrushchev proposed to move the programs to rural areas. He was unsuccessful, due to resistance from professors and students, who never actually disagreed with the premier, but who did not carry out his proposals.[170] Khrushchev recalled in his memoirs, "It's nice to live in Moscow and work at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy. It's a venerable old institution, a large economic unit, with skilled instructors, but it's in the city! Its students aren't yearning to work on the collective farms because to do that they'd have to go out in the provinces and live in the sticks."[171]
Khrushchev founded several academic towns, such as Akademgorodok. The premier believed that Western science flourished because many scientists lived in university towns such as Oxford, isolated from big city distractions, and had pleasant living conditions and good pay. He sought to duplicate those conditions in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev's attempt was generally successful, though his new towns and scientific centres tended to attract younger scientists, with older ones unwilling to leave Moscow or Leningrad.[172]
Khrushchev also proposed to restructure Soviet high schools. While the high schools provided a college preparatory curriculum, in fact few Soviet youths went on to university. Khrushchev wanted to shift the focus of secondary schools to vocational training: students would spend much of their time at factory jobs or in apprenticeships and only a small part at the schools.[173] In practice, what occurred is that schools developed links with nearby enterprises, and students went to work for only one or two days a week; the factories and other works disliked having to teach, while students and their families complained that they had little choice in what trade to learn.[174]
While the vocational proposal would not survive Khrushchev's downfall, a longer-lasting change was a related establishment of specialized high schools for gifted students or those wishing to study a specific subject.[175] These schools were modeled after the foreign-language schools that had been established in Moscow and Leningrad beginning in 1949.[176] In 1962, a special summer school was established in Novosibirsk to prepare students for a Siberian math and science Olympiad. The following year, the Novosibirsk Maths and Science Boarding-School became the first permanent residential school specializing in math and science. Other such schools were soon established in Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev. By the early 1970s, over 100 specialized schools had been established, in mathematics, the sciences, art, music, and sport.[175] Preschool education was increased as part of Khrushchev's reforms, and by the time he left office, about 22% of Soviet children attended preschool—about half of urban children, but only about 12% of rural children.[177]
Anti-religious campaign
The anti-religious campaign of the Khrushchev era began in 1959, coinciding with the 21st Party Congress in the same year. It was carried out by mass closures of churches[178][179] (reducing the number from 22,000 in 1959[180] to 13,008 in 1960 and to 7,873 by 1965[181]), monasteries, and convents, as well as of the still-existing seminaries (pastoral courses would be banned in general). The campaign also included a restriction of parental rights for teaching religion to their children, a ban on the presence of children at church services (beginning in 1961 with the Baptists and then extended to the Orthodox in 1963), and a ban on administration of the Eucharist to children over the age of four. Khrushchev additionally banned all services held outside of church walls, renewed enforcement of the 1929 legislation banning pilgrimages, and recorded the personal identities of all adults requesting church baptisms, weddings, or funerals.[182] He also disallowed the ringing of church bells and services in daytime in some rural settings from May to the end of October under the pretext of field work requirements. Non-fulfillment of these regulations by clergy would lead to disallowance of state registration for them (which meant they could no longer do any pastoral work or liturgy at all, without special state permission). According to Dimitry Pospielovsky, the state carried out forced retirement, arrests, and prison sentences on clergymen for "trumped up charges", but he writes that it was in reality for resisting the closure of churches and for giving sermons attacking atheism or the anti-religious campaign, or who conducted Christian charity or who made religion popular by personal example.[183]
Foreign and defense policies
Khrushchev (rowing the boat) with the Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander, 1964
When Khrushchev took control, the outside world still knew little of him, and initially was not impressed by him. Short, heavyset, and wearing ill-fitting suits, he "radiated energy but not intellect", and was dismissed by many as a buffoon who would not last long.[184] British Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan wondered, "How can this fat, vulgar man with his pig eyes and ceaseless flow of talk be the head—the aspirant Tsar for all those millions of people?"[185]
Khrushchev biographer Tompson described the mercurial leader:
He could be charming or vulgar, ebullient or sullen, he was given to public displays of rage (often contrived) and to soaring hyperbole in his rhetoric. But whatever he was, however he came across, he was more human than his predecessor or even than most of his foreign counterparts, and for much of the world that was enough to make the USSR seem less mysterious or menacing.[186]
United States and allies
Early relations and U.S. visit (1957–1960)
A middle-aged man and an older one confer with each other.
Khrushchev (right) with U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon, 1959
A group of middle-aged men at a farm. A man in a white suit in the centre is caressing a cow.
Khrushchev with Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson (left of Khrushchev) and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge (far left) during his visit on 16 September 1959 to the Agricultural Research Service Center
Khrushchev sought to find a lasting solution to the problem of a divided Germany and of the enclave of West Berlin deep within East German territory. In November 1958, calling West Berlin a "malignant tumor", he gave the United States, United Kingdom and France six months to conclude a peace treaty with both German states and the Soviet Union. If one was not signed, Khrushchev stated, the Soviet Union would conclude a peace treaty with East Germany. This would leave East Germany, which was not a party to treaties giving the Western Powers access to Berlin, in control of the routes to the city.[187] This ultimatum caused dissent among the Western Allies, who were reluctant to go to war over the issue.[188] Khrushchev, however, repeatedly extended the deadline.
Khrushchev sought to sharply reduce levels of conventional weapons, and to defend the Soviet Union with missiles.[189] He believed that without this transition, the huge Soviet military would continue to eat up resources, making Khrushchev's goals of improving Soviet life difficult to achieve.[190] He abandoned Stalin's plans for a large navy in 1955, believing that the new ships would be too vulnerable to either conventional or nuclear attack.[191] In January 1960, he took advantage of improved relations with the U.S. to order a reduction of one-third in the size of Soviet armed forces, alleging that advanced weapons would make up for the lost troops.[192] While conscription of Soviet youth remained in force, exemptions from military service became more and more common, especially for students.[193]
The Soviets had few operable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM); in spite of this, Khrushchev publicly boasted of the Soviets' missile programs, stating that Soviet weapons were varied and numerous. The First Secretary hoped that public perception that the Soviets were ahead would put psychological pressure on the West resulting in political concessions.[194] The Soviet space program, which Khrushchev firmly supported, appeared to confirm his claims when the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 into orbit, a launch many westerners, including U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon, were convinced was a hoax.[194] When it became clear that the launch was real, and Sputnik 1 was in orbit, Western governments concluded that the Soviet ICBM program was further along than it actually was. Khrushchev added to this misapprehension by stating in an October 1957 interview that the USSR had all the rockets, of whatever capacity, that it needed.[189] For years, Khrushchev would make a point of preceding a major foreign trip with a rocket launch, to the discomfiture of his hosts.[189] In January 1960 Khrushchev told the Presidium that Soviet ICBMs made an agreement with the U.S. possible because "main-street Americans have begun to shake from fear for the first times in their lives".[195] The United States had learned of the primitive state of the Soviet missile program from overflights in the late 1950s, but only high U.S. officials knew of the deception.[194] The general U.S. and public perception of a "missile gap" led to a considerable defense buildup on the part of the United States.[194]
During Vice President Nixon's visit to the Soviet Union in 1959[196] he and Khrushchev took part in what later became known as the Kitchen Debate. Nixon and Khrushchev had an impassioned argument in a model kitchen at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, with each defending the economic system of his country.[30] Khrushchev was invited to visit the United States, and did so, his first visit to the United States, arriving in Washington, DC on 15 September 1959 and spending thirteen days in the country. This first visit by a Soviet premier to the United States resulted in an extended media circus.[197] Khrushchev brought his wife, Nina Petrovna, and adult children with him, though it was not usual for Soviet officials to travel with their families.[198] The peripatetic premier visited New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco (visiting a supermarket), Coon Rapids, Iowa (visiting Roswell Garst's farm), Pittsburgh, and Washington,[199] concluding with a meeting with U.S. President Eisenhower at Camp David.[200] During luncheon at the Twentieth Century-Fox Studio in Los Angeles Khrushchev engaged in an improvised yet jovial debate with his host Spyros Skouras over the respective merits of capitalism and communism.[201] Khrushchev was also to visit Disneyland, but the visit was canceled for security reasons, much to his disgruntlement.[202][203] He did, however, visit Eleanor Roosevelt at her home in Hyde Park, New York.[204] While visiting IBM's new research campus in San Jose, California, Khrushchev expressed little interest in computer technology, but he greatly admired the self-service cafeteria, and, on his return, introduced self-service in the Soviet Union.[205]
This visit resulted in an informal agreement with U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower that there would be no firm deadline over Berlin, but that there would be a four-power summit to try to resolve the issue, and the premier left the U.S. to general good feelings. He returned from the U.S. convinced that he had achieved a strong personal relationship with Eisenhower (who in fact was unimpressed by the Soviet leader) and that he could achieve détente with the Americans.[206] He pushed for an immediate summit, but was frustrated by French President Charles de Gaulle, who postponed it until 1960, a year in which Eisenhower was scheduled to pay a return visit to the Soviet Union.[207]
U-2 and Berlin crisis (1960–1961)
An older man sits among United Nations delegation tables, looking at the camera.
Khrushchev and head of USSR delegation Zoya Mironova at the United Nations, September 1960
A constant irritant in Soviet–U.S. relations was the overflight of the Soviet Union by American U-2 spy aircraft. On 9 April 1960, the U.S. resumed such flights after a lengthy break. The Soviets had protested the flights in the past, but had been ignored by Washington. Content in what he thought was a strong personal relationship with Eisenhower, Khrushchev was confused and angered by the flights' resumption, and concluded that they had been ordered by CIA Director Allen Dulles without the U.S. President's knowledge. Nikita Khrushchev planned to visit the U.S. to meet President Eisenhower, however the visit was canceled when Soviet Air Defence Forces brought down the U.S. U-2.[208] On 1 May, a U-2 was shot down, its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, captured alive.[209] Believing Powers to have been killed, the U.S. announced that a weather plane had been lost near the Turkish-Soviet border. Khrushchev risked destroying the summit, due to start on 16 May in Paris, if he announced the shootdown, but would look weak in the eyes of his military and security forces if he did nothing.[209] Finally, on 5 May, Khrushchev announced the shootdown and Powers' capture, blaming the overflight on "imperialist circles and militarists, whose stronghold is the Pentagon", and suggesting the plane had been sent without Eisenhower's knowledge.[210] Eisenhower could not have it thought that there were rogue elements in the Pentagon operating without his knowledge, and admitted that he had ordered the flights, calling them "a distasteful necessity".[211] The admission stunned Khrushchev, and turned the U-2 affair from a possible triumph to a disaster for him, and he even appealed to U.S. Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson for help.[212]
Khrushchev was undecided what to do at the summit even as he boarded his flight to Paris. He finally decided, in consultation with his advisers on the plane and Presidium members in Moscow, to demand an apology from Eisenhower and a promise that there would be no further U-2 flights in Soviet airspace.[212] Neither Eisenhower nor Khrushchev communicated with the other in the days before the summit, and at the summit, Khrushchev made his demands and stated that there was no purpose in the summit, which should be postponed for six to eight months, that is until after the 1960 United States presidential election. The U.S. President offered no apology, but stated that the flights had been suspended and would not resume, and renewed his Open Skies proposal for mutual overflight rights. This was not enough for Khrushchev, who left the summit.[209] Eisenhower accused Khrushchev "of sabotaging this meeting, on which so much of the hopes of the world have rested".[213] Eisenhower's visit to the Soviet Union, for which the premier had even built a golf course so the U.S. President could enjoy his favourite sport,[214] was cancelled by Khrushchev.[215]
Khrushchev made his second and final visit to the United States in September 1960. He had no invitation, but had appointed himself as head of the USSR's UN delegation.[216] He spent much of his time wooing the new Third World states which had recently become independent.[217] The U.S. restricted him to the island of Manhattan, with visits to an estate owned by the USSR on Long Island. The notorious shoe-banging incident occurred during a debate on 12 October over a Soviet resolution decrying colonialism. Khrushchev was infuriated by a statement of the Filipino delegate Lorenzo Sumulong charging the Soviets with employing a double standard by decrying colonialism while dominating Eastern Europe. Khrushchev demanded the right to reply immediately and accused Sumulong of being "a fawning lackey of the American imperialists". Sumulong resumed his speech and accused the Soviets of hypocrisy. Khrushchev yanked off his shoe and began banging it on his desk.[218] This behavior by Khrushchev scandalized his delegation.[219]
A younger man and an older one confer together.
Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy, Vienna, June 1961
Khrushchev considered U.S. Vice President Nixon a hardliner, and was delighted by his defeat in the 1960 presidential election. He considered the victor, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, as a far more likely partner for détente, but was taken aback by the newly inaugurated U.S. President's tough talk and actions in the early days of his administration.[220] Khrushchev achieved a propaganda victory in April 1961 with the first manned spaceflight, while Kennedy suffered a defeat with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. While Khrushchev had threatened to defend Cuba with Soviet missiles, the premier contented himself with after-the-fact aggressive remarks. The failure in Cuba led to Kennedy's determination to make no concessions at the Vienna summit scheduled for 3 June 1961. Both Kennedy and Khrushchev took a hard line, with Khrushchev demanding a treaty that would recognize the two German states and refusing to yield on the remaining issues obstructing a test-ban treaty. Kennedy, on the other hand, had been led to believe that the test-ban treaty could be concluded at the summit, and felt that a deal on Berlin had to await easing of East–West tensions. Kennedy described negotiating with Khrushchev to his brother Robert as "like dealing with Dad. All give and no take."[221]
The maximum territorial extent of countries in the world under Soviet influence, after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and before the official Sino-Soviet split of 1961
An indefinite postponement of action over Berlin was unacceptable to Khrushchev, if for no other reason than that East Germany was suffering a continuous "brain drain" as highly educated East Germans fled west through Berlin. While the boundary between the two German states had elsewhere been fortified, Berlin, administered by the four Allied powers, remained open. Emboldened by statements from former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Charles E. Bohlen and United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman J. William Fulbright that East Germany had every right to close its borders, which were not disavowed by the Kennedy Administration, Khrushchev authorized East German leader Walter Ulbricht to begin construction of what became known as the Berlin Wall, which would surround West Berlin. Construction preparations were made in great secrecy, and the border was sealed off in the early hours of Sunday, 13 August 1961, when most East German workers who earned hard currency by working in West Berlin would be at their homes. The wall was a propaganda disaster, and marked the end of Khrushchev's attempts to conclude a peace treaty among the Four Powers and the two German states.[222] That treaty would not be signed until September 1990, as an immediate prelude to German reunification.
Cuban Missile Crisis and the test ban treaty (1962–1964)
Superpower tensions culminated in the Cuban Missile Crisis (in the USSR, the "Caribbean crisis") of October 1962, as the Soviet Union sought to install medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, about 90 miles (140 km) from the U.S. coast.[30] Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro was reluctant to accept the missiles, and, once he was persuaded, warned Khrushchev against transporting the missiles in secret. Castro stated, thirty years later, "We had a sovereign right to accept the missiles. We were not violating international law. Why do it secretly—as if we had no right to do it? I warned Nikita that secrecy would give the imperialists the advantage."[223]
On 16 October, Kennedy was informed that U-2 flights over Cuba had discovered what were most likely medium-range missile sites, and though he and his advisors considered approaching Khrushchev through diplomatic channels, could come up with no way of doing this that would not appear weak.[224] On 22 October, Kennedy addressed his nation by television, revealing the missiles' presence and announcing a blockade of Cuba. Informed in advance of the speech but not (until one hour before) the content, Khrushchev and his advisors feared an invasion of Cuba. Even before Kennedy's speech, they ordered Soviet commanders in Cuba that they could use all weapons against an attack—except atomic weapons.[225]
As the crisis unfolded, tensions were high in the U.S.; less so in the Soviet Union, where Khrushchev made several public appearances, and went to the Bolshoi Theatre to hear American opera singer Jerome Hines, who was then performing in Moscow.[30][226] By 25 October, with the Soviets unclear about Kennedy's full intentions, Khrushchev decided that the missiles would have to be withdrawn from Cuba. Two days later, he offered Kennedy terms for the withdrawal.[227] Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange for a U.S. promise not to invade Cuba and a secret promise that the U.S. would withdraw missiles from Turkey, near the Soviet heartland.[228] As the last term was not publicly announced at the request of the U.S., and was not known until just before Khrushchev's death in 1971,[30] the resolution was seen as a great defeat for the Soviets, and contributed to Khrushchev's fall less than two years later.[30] Castro had urged Khrushchev to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on the U.S. in the event of any invasion of Cuba,[229] and was angered by the outcome, referring to Khrushchev in profane terms.[230]
After the crisis, superpower relations improved, as Kennedy gave a conciliatory speech at American University on 10 June 1963, recognizing the Soviet people's suffering during World War II, and paying tribute to their achievements.[231] Khrushchev called the speech the best by a U.S. president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, and, in July, negotiated a test ban treaty with U.S. negotiator Averell Harriman and with Lord Hailsham of the United Kingdom.[232] Plans for a second Khrushchev-Kennedy summit were dashed by the U.S. President's assassination in November 1963. The new U.S. President, Lyndon Johnson, hoped for continued improved relations but was distracted by other issues and had little opportunity to develop a relationship with Khrushchev before the premier was ousted.[233]
Eastern Europe
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Khrushchev at Bucharest's Băneasa Airport in June 1960. Nicolae Ceaușescu can be seen at Gheorghiu-Dej's right hand side.
Two smiling men raise bouquets of flowers over their heads.
Khrushchev (left) and East German leader Walter Ulbricht, 1963
Khrushchev (holding the teddy bear) on his visit to East Germany with Nikolai Podgorny (clapping his hands)
The Secret Speech, combined with the death of Polish communist leader Bolesław Bierut, who suffered a heart attack while reading the Speech, sparked considerable liberalization in Poland and Hungary. In Poland, a worker's strike in Poznań developed into disturbances which left more than 50 dead in October 1956.[234] When Moscow blamed the disturbances on Western agitators, Polish leaders ignored the claim, and instead made concessions to the workers. With anti-Soviet displays becoming more common in Poland, and crucial Polish leadership elections upcoming, Khrushchev and other Presidium members flew to Warsaw. While the Soviets were refused entry to the Polish Central Committee plenum where the election was taking place, they met with the Polish Presidium. The Soviets agreed to allow the new Polish leadership to take office, on the assurance there would be no change to the Soviet-Polish relationship.[234]
The Polish settlement emboldened the Hungarians, who decided that Moscow could be defied.[235] A mass demonstration in Budapest on 23 October turned into a popular uprising. In response to the uprising, Hungarian Party leaders installed reformist Premier Imre Nagy.[236] Soviet forces in the city clashed with Hungarians and even fired on demonstrators, with hundreds of both Hungarians and Soviets killed. Nagy called for a cease-fire and a withdrawal of Soviet troops, which a Khrushchev-led majority in the Presidium decided to obey, choosing to give the new Hungarian government a chance.[237] Khrushchev assumed that if Moscow announced liberalization in how it dealt with its allies, Nagy would adhere to the alliance with the Soviet Union. However, on 30 October Nagy announced multiparty elections, and the next morning that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact.[238] On 3 November, two members of the Nagy government appeared in Ukraine as the self-proclaimed heads of a provisional government and demanded Soviet intervention, which was forthcoming. The next day, Soviet troops crushed the Hungarian uprising, with a death toll of 4,000 Hungarians and several hundred Soviet troops. Nagy was arrested, and was later executed. Despite the international outrage over the intervention, Khrushchev defended his actions for the rest of his life. Damage to Soviet foreign relations was severe, and would have been greater were it not for the fortuitous timing of the Suez crisis, which distracted world attention.[236]
In the aftermath of these crises, Khrushchev made the statement for which he became well-remembered, "We will bury you" (in Russian, "Мы вас похороним!" (My vas pokhoronim!)). While many in the West took this statement as a literal threat, Khrushchev made the statement in a speech on peaceful coexistence with the West.[239] When questioned about the statement during his 1959 U.S. visit, Khrushchev stated that he was not referring to a literal burial, but that, through inexorable historical development, communism would replace capitalism and "bury" it.[240]
Khrushchev greatly improved relations with Yugoslavia, which had been entirely sundered in 1948 when Stalin realized he could not control Yugoslav leader Josip Tito. Khrushchev led a Soviet delegation to Belgrade in 1955. Though a hostile Tito did everything he could to make the Soviets look foolish (including getting them drunk in public), Khrushchev was successful in warming relations, ending the Informbiro period in Soviet-Yugoslav relations.[241] During the Hungarian crisis, Tito initially supported Nagy, but Khrushchev persuaded him of the need for intervention.[242] Still, the intervention in Hungary damaged Moscow's relationship with Belgrade, which Khrushchev spent several years trying to repair. He was hampered by the fact that China disapproved of Yugoslavia's liberal version of communism, and attempts to conciliate Belgrade resulted in an angry Beijing.[137]
China
A balding man and a younger Chinese man sit and smile, the balding man holding a fan
Khrushchev with Mao Zedong, 1958
After completing his takeover of mainland China in 1949, Mao Zedong sought material assistance from the USSR, and also called for the return to China of territories taken from it under the Tsars.[30] As Khrushchev took control of the USSR, he increased aid to China, even sending a small corps of experts to help develop the new communist country.[243] This assistance was described by historian William C. Kirby as "the greatest transfer of technology in world history".[244] The Soviet Union spent 7% of its national income between 1954 and 1959 on aid to China.[245] On his 1954 visit to China, Khrushchev agreed to return Port Arthur and Dalian to China, though Khrushchev was annoyed by Mao's insistence that the Soviets leave their artillery as they departed.[246]
Mao bitterly opposed Khrushchev's attempts to reach a rapprochement with more liberal Eastern European states such as Yugoslavia. Khrushchev's government, on the other hand, was reluctant to endorse Mao's desires for an assertive worldwide revolutionary movement, preferring to conquer capitalism through raising the standard of living in communist-bloc countries.[30]
Relations between the two nations began to cool in 1956, with Mao angered both by the Secret Speech and by the fact that the Chinese had not been consulted in advance about it.[247] Mao believed that de-Stalinization was a mistake, and a possible threat to his own authority.[248] When Khrushchev visited Beijing in 1958, Mao refused proposals for military cooperation.[249] Hoping to torpedo Khrushchev's efforts at détente with the U.S., Mao soon thereafter provoked the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, describing the Taiwanese islands shelled in the crisis as "batons that keep Eisenhower and Khrushchev dancing, scurrying this way and that. Don't you see how wonderful they are?"[250]
The Soviets had planned to provide China with an atomic bomb complete with full documentation, but in 1959, amid cooler relations, the Soviets destroyed the device and papers instead.[251] When Khrushchev paid a visit to China in September, shortly after his successful U.S. visit, he met a chilly reception, and Khrushchev left the country on the third day of a planned seven-day visit.[252] Relations continued to deteriorate in 1960, as both the USSR and China used a Romanian Communist Party congress as an opportunity to attack the other. After Khrushchev attacked China in his speech to the congress, Chinese leader Peng Zhen mocked Khrushchev, stating that the premier's foreign policy was to blow hot and cold towards the West. Khrushchev responded by pulling Soviet experts out of China.[253]
Removal
Nikita Khrushchev with Anastas Mikoyan (far right) in Berlin
File:1964-10-15 Khrushchev Resigns.ogv
Universal Newsreel about Khrushchev's resignation
Beginning in March 1964, Supreme Soviet presidium chairman and nominal head of state Leonid Brezhnev began discussing Khrushchev's removal with his colleagues.[254] While Brezhnev considered having Khrushchev arrested as he returned from a trip to Scandinavia in June, he instead spent time persuading members of the Central Committee to support the ousting of Khrushchev, remembering how crucial the Committee's support had been to Khrushchev in defeating the Anti-Party Group plot.[254] Brezhnev was given ample time for his conspiracy; Khrushchev was absent from Moscow for a total of five months between January and September 1964.[255]
The conspirators, led by Brezhnev, First Deputy Premier Alexander Shelepin, and KGB chairman Vladimir Semichastny, struck in October 1964, while Khrushchev was on vacation at Pitsunda, Abkhaz ASSR with his close ally Anastas Mikoyan. On 12 October, Brezhnev called Khrushchev to notify him of a special Presidium meeting to be held the following day, ostensibly on the subject of agriculture.[256] Even though Khrushchev suspected the real reason for the meeting,[257] he flew to Moscow, accompanied by the head of the Georgian KGB, General Aleksi Inauri, but otherwise taking no precautions.[258]
Khrushchev arrived at the VIP hall of Vnukovo Airport; KGB chairman Semichastny waited for him there, flanked by KGB security guards. Semichastny informed Khrushchev of his ouster and told him not to resist. Khrushchev did not resist, and the plotters' coup went off smoothly; Khrushchev felt betrayed by Semichastny, as he considered him a friend and ally until that very moment, not suspecting that he had joined his enemies within the Party.[259] Khrushchev was then taken to the Kremlin, to be verbally attacked by Brezhnev, Suslov and Shelepin. He had no stomach for a fight, and put up little resistance. Semichastny was careful not to create the appearance of a coup:
I didn't even close the Kremlin to visitors. People were strolling around outside, while in the room the Presidium was meeting. I deployed my men around the Kremlin. Everything that was necessary was done. Brezhnev and Shelepin were nervous. I told them: Let's not do anything that isn't necessary. Let's not create the appearance of a coup.[260]
That night, after his ouster, Khrushchev called his friend and Presidium colleague Anastas Mikoyan, and told him:
I'm old and tired. Let them cope by themselves. I've done the main thing. Could anyone have dreamed of telling Stalin that he didn't suit us anymore and suggesting he retire? Not even a wet spot would have remained where we had been standing. Now everything is different. The fear is gone, and we can talk as equals. That's my contribution. I won't put up a fight.[261]
On 14 October 1964, the Presidium and the Central Committee each voted to accept Khrushchev's "voluntary" request to retire from his offices for reasons of "advanced age and ill health." Brezhnev was elected First Secretary (later General Secretary), while Alexei Kosygin succeeded Khrushchev as premier.[262][263]
Life in retirement
Khrushchev was granted a pension of 500 rubles per month and was assured that his house and dacha were his for life.[264] Following his removal from power, he fell into deep depression.[265] He received few visitors, especially since his security guards kept track of all guests and reported their comings and goings.[266] In the autumn of 1965, he and his wife were ordered to leave their house and dacha to move to an apartment and to a smaller dacha in Petrovo-Dalneye. His pension was reduced to 400 rubles per month, though his retirement remained comfortable by Soviet standards.[267][268] The depression continued, and his doctor prescribed sleeping pills and tranquillizers. One of his grandsons was asked what the ex-premier was doing in retirement, and the boy replied, "Grandfather cries."[269] He was made a non-person to such an extent that the thirty-volume Great Soviet Encyclopedia omitted his name from the list of prominent political commissars during the Great Patriotic War.[30]
As the new rulers made known their conservatism in artistic matters, Khrushchev came to be more favourably viewed by artists and writers, some of whom visited him. One visitor whom Khrushchev regretted not seeing was former U.S. Vice President Nixon, then in his "wilderness years" before his election to the presidency, who went to Khrushchev's Moscow apartment while the former premier was at his dacha.[270]
Beginning in 1966, Khrushchev began his memoirs. He dictated them into a tape recorder and recorded indoors, after attempts failed to record outdoors due to background noise, knowing that every word would be heard by the KGB. However, the security agency made no attempt to interfere until 1968, when Khrushchev was ordered to hand over his tapes, which he refused to do.[271] While Khrushchev was hospitalized with heart ailments, his son Sergei was approached by the KGB in July 1970 and told that there was a plot afoot by foreign agents to steal the memoirs.[272] Sergei Khrushchev handed over the materials to the KGB since the KGB could steal the originals anyway, but copies had been made, some of which had been transmitted to a Western publisher. Sergei instructed that the smuggled memoirs should be published, which they were in 1970 under the title Khrushchev Remembers. Under some pressure, Nikita Khrushchev signed a statement that he had not given the materials to any publisher, and his son was transferred to a less desirable job.[273] Upon publication of the memoirs in the West, Izvestia denounced them as a fraud.[274] Soviet state radio carried the announcement of Khrushchev's statement, and it was the first time in six years that he had been mentioned in that medium.[30] In the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Khrushchev was given a short characterization: "In his activities, there were elements of subjectivism and voluntarism".
In his final days, Khrushchev visited his son-in-law and former aide Alexei Adzhubei (1924–1993[275]) and told him, "Never regret that you lived in stormy times and worked with me in the Central Committee. We will yet be remembered!"[276]
Death
Khrushchev died of a heart attack in a hospital near his home in Moscow on 11 September 1971, at the age of 77. He was denied a state funeral with interment in the Kremlin Wall and was instead buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Fearing demonstrations, the authorities did not announce Khrushchev's death until the hour of his wake and surrounded the cemetery with troops. Even so, some artists and writers joined the family at the graveside for the interment.[277]
Pravda ran a one-sentence announcement of the former premier's death; Western newspapers contained considerable coverage.[278] Veteran New York Times Moscow correspondent Harry Schwartz wrote of Khrushchev, "Mr. Khrushchev opened the doors and windows of a petrified structure. He let in fresh air and fresh ideas, producing changes which time already has shown are irreversible and fundamental."[279]
Legacy
The remains of a low rise building are seen between two high rises
A khrushchyovka is destroyed, Moscow, January 2008
Many of Khrushchev's innovations were reversed after his fall. The requirement that one-third of officials be replaced at each election was overturned, as was the division in the Party structure between industrial and agricultural sectors. His vocational education program for high school students was also dropped, and his plan for sending existing agricultural institutions out to the land was ended. However, new agricultural or vocational institutions thereafter were located outside major cities. When new housing was built, much of it was in the form of high rises rather than Khrushchev's low-rise structures, which lacked elevators or balconies.[280]
Historian Robert Service summarizes Khrushchev's contradictory personality traits. According to him, Khrushchev was:
at once a Stalinist and an anti-Stalinist, a communist believer and a cynic, a self-publicizing poltroon and a crusty philanthropist, a trouble-maker and a peacemaker, a stimulating colleague and a domineering boor, a statesman and a politicker who was out of his intellectual depth.[281]
Some of Khrushchev's agricultural projects were also easily overturned. Corn became so unpopular in 1965 that its planting fell to the lowest level in the postwar period, as even kolkhozes which had been successful with it in Ukraine and other southern portions of the USSR refused to plant it.[282] Lysenko was stripped of his policy-making positions. However, the MTS stations remained closed, and the basic agricultural problems, which Khrushchev had tried to address, remained.[280] While the Soviet standard of living increased greatly in the ten years after Khrushchev's fall, much of the increase was due to industrial progress; agriculture continued to lag far behind, resulting in regular agricultural crises, especially in 1972 and 1975.[283] Brezhnev and his successors continued Khrushchev's precedent of buying grain from the West rather than suffer shortfalls and starvation.[280] Neither Brezhnev nor his colleagues were personally popular, and the new government relied on authoritarian power to assure its continuation. The KGB and Red Army were given increasing powers. The government's conservative tendencies would lead to the crushing of the "Prague Spring" of 1968.[284]
Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet "On the transfer of the Crimean Oblast". Khrushchev transferred Crimea from Russian SFSR to Ukrainian SSR.
Though Khrushchev's strategy failed to achieve the major goals he sought, Aleksandr Fursenko, who wrote a book analyzing Khrushchev's foreign and military policies, argued that the strategy did coerce the West in a limited manner. The agreement that the United States would not invade Cuba has been adhered to. The refusal of the western world to acknowledge East Germany was gradually eroded, and, in 1975, the United States and other NATO members signed the Helsinki Agreement with the USSR and Warsaw Pact nations, including East Germany, setting human rights standards in Europe.[285]
The Russian public's view of Khrushchev remains mixed.[286] According to a major Russian pollster, the only eras of the 20th century that Russians evaluate positively are those under Nicholas II, and under Khrushchev.[286] A poll in 2003 of young Russians found that they felt Nicholas II had done more good than harm, and all other 20th-century Russian leaders more harm than good—except Khrushchev, about whom they were evenly divided.[286] Subsequent polls, however, have found Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev the most popular Russian leaders of the century.[287] Khrushchev biographer William Tompson related the former premier's reforms to those which occurred later:
Throughout the Brezhnev years and the lengthy interregnum that followed, the generation which had come of age during the 'first Russian spring' of the 1950s awaited its turn in power. As Brezhnev and his colleagues died or were pensioned off, they were replaced by men and women for whom the Secret Speech and the first wave of de-Stalinization had been a formative experience, and these 'Children of Twentieth Congress' took up the reins of power under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev and his colleagues. The Khrushchev era provided this second generation of reformers with both an inspiration and a cautionary tale.[288]
Media portrayals
Russian actor Rolan Bykov portrayed Khushchev in the 1993 Russian film The Gray Wolves ( Russian: Серые волки ), which focuses on the displacement of Khrushchev by Brezhnev.
British actor Bob Hoskins portrayed Khrushchev in the 2001 film Enemy at the Gates, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and co-written by Annaud and Alain Godard. It was based on William Craig's 1973 book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad.
American actor Steve Buscemi played Khrushchev in the 2017 satirical film The Death of Stalin, directed and co-written by Armando Iannucci. It was adapted from the French graphic novel La Mort de Staline written by Fabien Nury [fr] and Thierry Robin [fr].[289]
See also
1954 transfer of Crimea
History of the Soviet Union (1953–64)
Notes
Russia (Russian: Россия, romanized: Rossiya, [rɐˈsʲijə]), or the Russian Federation,[c] is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world by area, its vast landmass stretching over the easternmost part of Europe and the northernmost part of Asia. Russia extends across eleven time zones and shares land boundaries with fourteen countries.[d] It is the world's ninth-most populous country and Europe's most populous country. The country's capital and largest city is Moscow. Saint Petersburg is Russia's cultural centre and second-largest city. Other major urban areas in the country include Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Kazan.
The East Slavs emerged as a recognisable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries CE. The first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus', arose in the 9th century, and in 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Rus' ultimately disintegrated, with the Grand Duchy of Moscow growing to become the Tsardom of Russia. By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers, developing into the Russian Empire, which remains the third-largest empire in history. However, with the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia's monarchic rule was abolished and eventually replaced by the Russian SFSR—the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Following the Russian Civil War, the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union with three other Soviet republics, within which it was the largest and principal constituent. At the expense of millions of lives, the Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialisation in the 1930s, and later played a decisive role for the Allies of World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front. With the onset of the Cold War, it competed with the United States for global ideological influence; the Soviet era of the 20th century saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements, including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space.
In 1991, the Russian SFSR emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the independent Russian Federation. A new constitution was adopted, which established a federal semi-presidential system. Since the turn of the century, Russia's political system has been dominated by Vladimir Putin, under whom the country has experienced democratic backsliding and a shift towards authoritarianism. Russia has been involved militarily in a number of post-Soviet conflicts, which has included the internationally unrecognised annexations of Crimea in 2014 from neighbouring Ukraine, followed by the further annexation of four other regions in 2022 during an ongoing invasion.
Internationally, Russia ranks amongst the lowest in measurements of democracy, human rights and freedom of the press; the country also has high levels of perceived corruption. The Russian economy ranks 11th by nominal GDP, relying heavily upon its abundant natural resources. Its mineral and energy sources are the world's largest, and its figures for oil production and natural gas production rank high globally. The Russian GDP ranks 65th by per capita, Russia possesses the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and has the third-highest military expenditure. The country is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council; a member state of the G20, the SCO, BRICS, the APEC, the OSCE, and the WTO; and is the leading member state of post-Soviet organizations such as the CIS, the CSTO, and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Russia is home to 30 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Etymology
Main article: Names of Rus', Russia and Ruthenia
The name Russia comes from a Medieval Latin name for Rus', a medieval state populated primarily by the East Slavs.[20][21] In modern historiography, this state is usually denoted as Kievan Rus' after its capital city.[22] The name Rus' itself comes from the early medieval Rus' people, who were originally a group of Norse merchants and warriors who relocated from across the Baltic Sea and first settled in the northern region of Novgorod, and later founded a state centred on Kiev.[23] Another Medieval Latin name for Rus' was Ruthenia.[24]
In Russian, the current name of the country, Россия (Rossiya), comes from the Byzantine Greek name for Rus', Ρωσία (Rosía).[25] A new form of the name Rus', Росия (Rosiya), was borrowed from the Greek term and first attested in 1387,[26] before coming into official use by the 15th century, though the country was still often referred to by its inhabitants as Rus' or the Russian land until the end of the 17th century.[27][28] There are two words in Russian which translate to "Russians" in English – русские (russkiye), which refers to ethnic Russians, and россияне (rossiyane), which refers to Russian citizens, regardless of ethnicity.[28][29]
History
Main article: History of Russia
Early history
Further information: Ancient Greek colonies, Early Slavs, Huns, Turkic expansion, and Prehistory of Siberia
See also: Proto-Indo-Europeans and Proto-Uralic homeland
The first human settlement on Russia dates back to the Oldowan period in the early Lower Paleolithic. About 2 million years ago, representatives of Homo erectus migrated to the Taman Peninsula in southern Russia.[30] Flint tools, some 1.5 million years old, have been discovered in the North Caucasus.[31] Radiocarbon dated specimens from Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains estimate the oldest Denisovan specimen lived 195–122,700 years ago.[32] Fossils of Denny, an archaic human hybrid that was half Neanderthal and half Denisovan, and lived some 90,000 years ago, was also found within the latter cave.[33] Russia was home to some of the last surviving Neanderthals, from about 45,000 years ago, found in Mezmaiskaya cave.[34]
The first trace of an early modern human in Russia dates back to 45,000 years, in Western Siberia.[35] The discovery of high concentration cultural remains of anatomically modern humans, from at least 40,000 years ago, was found at Kostyonki–Borshchyovo,[36] and at Sungir, dating back to 34,600 years ago—both in western Russia.[37] Humans reached Arctic Russia at least 40,000 years ago, in Mamontovaya Kurya.[38] Ancient North Eurasian populations from Siberia genetically similar to Mal'ta–Buret' culture and Afontova Gora were an important genetic contributor to Ancient Native Americans and Eastern Hunter-Gatherers.[39]
Bronze Age spread of Yamnaya Steppe pastoralist ancestry between 3300 and 1500 BC,[40] including the Afanasievo culture of southern Siberia
The Kurgan hypothesis places the Volga-Dnieper region of southern Russia and Ukraine as the urheimat of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.[41] Early Indo-European migrations from the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Ukraine and Russia spread Yamnaya ancestry and Indo-European languages across large parts of Eurasia.[42][43] Nomadic pastoralism developed in the Pontic–Caspian steppe beginning in the Chalcolithic.[44] Remnants of these steppe civilizations were discovered in places such as Ipatovo,[44] Sintashta,[45] Arkaim,[46] and Pazyryk,[47] which bear the earliest known traces of horses in warfare.[45] The genetic makeup of speakers of the Uralic language family in northern Europe was shaped by migration from Siberia that began at least 3,500 years ago.[48]
In the 3rd to 4th centuries CE, the Gothic kingdom of Oium existed in southern Russia, which was later overrun by Huns.[49][failed verification] Between the 3rd and 6th centuries CE, the Bosporan Kingdom, which was a Hellenistic polity that succeeded the Greek colonies,[50] was also overwhelmed by nomadic invasions led by warlike tribes such as the Huns and Eurasian Avars.[51] The Khazars, who were of Turkic origin, ruled the steppes between the Caucasus in the south, to the east past the Volga river basin, and west as far as Kyiv on the Dnieper river until the 10th century.[52] After them came the Pechenegs who created a large confederacy, which was subsequently taken over by the Cumans and the Kipchaks.[53]
The ancestors of Russians are among the Slavic tribes that separated from the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who appeared in the northeastern part of Europe c. 1500 years ago.[54] The East Slavs gradually settled western Russia in two waves: one moving from Kiev towards present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk towards Novgorod and Rostov. From the 7th century onwards, the East Slavs constituted the bulk of the population in western Russia,[55] and slowly but peacefully assimilated the native Finnic peoples.[49]
Kievan Rus'
Main articles: Rus' Khaganate; Kievan Rus'; and List of tribes and states in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine
Kievan Rus' after the Council of Liubech in 1097
The establishment of the first East Slavic states in the 9th century coincided with the arrival of Varangians, the Vikings who ventured along the waterways extending from the eastern Baltic to the Black and Caspian Seas.[56][failed verification] According to the Primary Chronicle, a Varangian from the Rus' people, named Rurik, was elected ruler of Novgorod in 862. In 882, his successor Oleg ventured south and conquered Kiev, which had been previously paying tribute to the Khazars.[49] Rurik's son Igor and Igor's son Sviatoslav subsequently subdued all local East Slavic tribes to Kievan rule, destroyed the Khazar Khaganate,[57] and launched several military expeditions to Byzantium and Persia.[58][59]
In the 10th to 11th centuries, Kievan Rus' became one of the largest and most prosperous states in Europe. The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980–1015) and his son Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054) constitute the Golden Age of Kiev, which saw the acceptance of Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium, and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda.[49] The age of feudalism and decentralisation had come, marked by constant in-fighting between members of the Rurik dynasty that ruled Kievan Rus' collectively. Kiev's dominance waned, to the benefit of Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east, the Novgorod Republic in the north, and Galicia-Volhynia in the south-west.[49] By the 12th century, Kiev lost its pre-eminence and Kievan Rus' had fragmented into different principalities.[60] Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky sacked Kiev in 1169 and made Vladimir his base,[60] leading to political power being shifted to the north-east.[49]
Led by Prince Alexander Nevsky, Novgorodians repelled the invading Swedes in the Battle of the Neva in 1240,[61] as well as the Germanic crusaders in the Battle on the Ice in 1242.[62]
Kievan Rus' finally fell to the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240, which resulted in the sacking of Kiev and other cities, as well as the death of a major part of the population.[49] The invaders, later known as Tatars, formed the state of the Golden Horde, which ruled over Russia for the next two centuries.[63] Only the Novgorod Republic escaped foreign occupation after it surrendered and agreed to pay tribute to the Mongols.[49] Galicia-Volhynia would later be absorbed by Lithuania and Poland, while the Novgorod Republic continued to prosper in the north. In the northeast, the Byzantine-Slavic traditions of Kievan Rus' were adapted to form the Russian autocratic state.[49]
Grand Duchy of Moscow
Main article: Grand Duchy of Moscow
Sergius of Radonezh blessing Dmitry Donskoy in Trinity Sergius Lavra, before the Battle of Kulikovo, depicted in a painting by Ernst Lissner
The destruction of Kievan Rus' saw the eventual rise of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, initially a part of Vladimir-Suzdal.[64]: 11–20 While still under the domain of the Mongol-Tatars and with their connivance, Moscow began to assert its influence in the region in the early 14th century,[65] gradually becoming the leading force in the "gathering of the Russian lands".[66] When the seat of the Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church moved to Moscow in 1325, its influence increased.[67] Moscow's last rival, the Novgorod Republic, prospered as the chief fur trade centre and the easternmost port of the Hanseatic League.[68]
Led by Prince Dmitry Donskoy of Moscow, the united army of Russian principalities inflicted a milestone defeat on the Mongol-Tatars in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380.[49] Moscow gradually absorbed its parent duchy and surrounding principalities, including formerly strong rivals such as Tver and Novgorod.[66]
Ivan III ("the Great") threw off the control of the Golden Horde and consolidated the whole of northern Rus' under Moscow's dominion, and was the first Russian ruler to take the title "Grand Duke of all Rus'". After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Moscow claimed succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire. Ivan III married Sophia Palaiologina, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI, and made the Byzantine double-headed eagle his own, and eventually Russia's, coat-of-arms.[66] Vasili III united all of Russia by annexing the last few independent Russian states in the early 16th century.[69]
Tsardom of Russia
Main article: Tsardom of Russia
See also: Moscow, third Rome
Ivan IV was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547, then Tsar of Russia until his death in 1584.
In development of the Third Rome ideas, the grand duke Ivan IV ("the Terrible") was officially crowned the first tsar of Russia in 1547. The tsar promulgated a new code of laws (Sudebnik of 1550), established the first Russian feudal representative body (the Zemsky Sobor), revamped the military, curbed the influence of the clergy, and reorganised local government.[66] During his long reign, Ivan nearly doubled the already large Russian territory by annexing the three Tatar khanates: Kazan and Astrakhan along the Volga,[70] and the Khanate of Sibir in southwestern Siberia. Ultimately, by the end of the 16th century, Russia expanded east of the Ural Mountains.[71] However, the Tsardom was weakened by the long and unsuccessful Livonian War against the coalition of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (later the united Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth), the Kingdom of Sweden, and Denmark–Norway for access to the Baltic coast and sea trade.[72] In 1572, an invading army of Crimean Tatars were thoroughly defeated in the crucial Battle of Molodi.[73]
The death of Ivan's sons marked the end of the ancient Rurik dynasty in 1598, and in combination with the disastrous famine of 1601–1603, led to a civil war, the rule of pretenders, and foreign intervention during the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century.[74] The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, taking advantage, occupied parts of Russia, extending into the capital Moscow.[75] In 1612, the Poles were forced to retreat by the Russian volunteer corps, led by merchant Kuzma Minin and prince Dmitry Pozharsky.[76] The Romanov dynasty acceded to the throne in 1613 by the decision of the Zemsky Sobor, and the country started its gradual recovery from the crisis.[77]
Russia continued its territorial growth through the 17th century, which was the age of the Cossacks.[78] In 1654, the Ukrainian leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Russian tsar, Alexis; whose acceptance of this offer led to another Russo-Polish War. Ultimately, Ukraine was split along the Dnieper, leaving the eastern part, (Left-bank Ukraine and Kiev) under Russian rule.[79] In the east, the rapid Russian exploration and colonisation of vast Siberia continued, hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers pushed eastward primarily along the Siberian River Routes, and by the mid-17th century, there were Russian settlements in eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula, along the Amur River, and on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.[78] In 1648, Semyon Dezhnyov became the first European to navigate through the Bering Strait.[80]
Imperial Russia
Main article: Russian Empire
Expansion and territorial evolution of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire between the 14th and 20th centuries
Under Peter the Great, Russia was proclaimed an empire in 1721, and established itself as one of the European great powers. Ruling from 1682 to 1725, Peter defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War (1700–1721), securing Russia's access to the sea and sea trade. In 1703, on the Baltic Sea, Peter founded Saint Petersburg as Russia's new capital. Throughout his rule, sweeping reforms were made, which brought significant Western European cultural influences to Russia.[81] The reign of Peter I's daughter Elizabeth in 1741–1762 saw Russia's participation in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). During the conflict, Russian troops overran East Prussia, reaching Berlin.[82] However, upon Elizabeth's death, all these conquests were returned to the Kingdom of Prussia by pro-Prussian Peter III of Russia.[83]
Catherine II ("the Great"), who ruled in 1762–1796, presided over the Russian Age of Enlightenment. She extended Russian political control over the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and annexed most of its territories into Russia, making it the most populous country in Europe.[84] In the south, after the successful Russo-Turkish Wars against the Ottoman Empire, Catherine advanced Russia's boundary to the Black Sea, by dissolving the Crimean Khanate, and annexing Crimea.[85] As a result of victories over Qajar Iran through the Russo-Persian Wars, by the first half of the 19th century, Russia also conquered the Caucasus.[86] Catherine's successor, her son Paul, was unstable and focused predominantly on domestic issues.[87] Following his short reign, Catherine's strategy was continued with Alexander I's (1801–1825) wresting of Finland from the weakened Sweden in 1809,[88] and of Bessarabia from the Ottomans in 1812.[89] In North America, the Russians became the first Europeans to reach and colonise Alaska.[90] In 1803–1806, the first Russian circumnavigation was made.[91] In 1820, a Russian expedition discovered the continent of Antarctica.[92]
Great power and development of society, sciences and arts
During the Napoleonic Wars, Russia joined alliances with various European powers, and fought against France. The French invasion of Russia at the height of Napoleon's power in 1812 reached Moscow, but eventually failed as the obstinate resistance in combination with the bitterly cold Russian winter led to a disastrous defeat of invaders, in which the pan-European Grande Armée faced utter destruction. Led by Mikhail Kutuzov and Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, the Imperial Russian Army ousted Napoleon and drove throughout Europe in the War of the Sixth Coalition, ultimately entering Paris.[93] Alexander I controlled Russia's delegation at the Congress of Vienna, which defined the map of post-Napoleonic Europe.[94]
Napoleon's retreat from Moscow by Albrecht Adam (1851)
The officers who pursued Napoleon into Western Europe brought ideas of liberalism back to Russia, and attempted to curtail the tsar's powers during the abortive Decembrist revolt of 1825.[95] At the end of the conservative reign of Nicholas I (1825–1855), a zenith period of Russia's power and influence in Europe, was disrupted by defeat in the Crimean War.[96]
Great liberal reforms and capitalism
Nicholas's successor Alexander II (1855–1881) enacted significant changes throughout the country, including the emancipation reform of 1861.[97] These reforms spurred industrialisation, and modernised the Imperial Russian Army, which liberated much of the Balkans from Ottoman rule in the aftermath of the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War.[98] During most of the 19th and early 20th century, Russia and Britain colluded over Afghanistan and its neighbouring territories in Central and South Asia; the rivalry between the two major European empires came to be known as the Great Game.[99]
The late 19th century saw the rise of various socialist movements in Russia. Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 by revolutionary terrorists.[100] The reign of his son Alexander III (1881–1894) was less liberal but more peaceful.[101]
Constitutional monarchy and World War
Under last Russian emperor, Nicholas II (1894–1917), the Revolution of 1905 was triggered by the failure of the humiliating Russo-Japanese War.[102] The uprising was put down, but the government was forced to concede major reforms (Russian Constitution of 1906), including granting freedoms of speech and assembly, the legalisation of political parties, and the creation of an elected legislative body, the State Duma.[103]
Revolution and civil war
Main articles: Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War
Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and the Romanovs were executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
In 1914, Russia entered World War I in response to Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Russia's ally Serbia,[104] and fought across multiple fronts while isolated from its Triple Entente allies.[105] In 1916, the Brusilov Offensive of the Imperial Russian Army almost completely destroyed the Austro-Hungarian Army.[106] However, the already-existing public distrust of the regime was deepened by the rising costs of war, high casualties, and rumors of corruption and treason. All this formed the climate for the Russian Revolution of 1917, carried out in two major acts.[107] In early 1917, Nicholas II was forced to abdicate; he and his family were imprisoned and later executed during the Russian Civil War.[108] The monarchy was replaced by a shaky coalition of political parties that declared itself the Provisional Government,[109] and proclaimed the Russian Republic. On 19 January [O.S. 6 January], 1918, the Russian Constituent Assembly declared Russia a democratic federal republic (thus ratifying the Provisional Government's decision). The next day the Constituent Assembly was dissolved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.[107]
An alternative socialist establishment co-existed, the Petrograd Soviet, wielding power through the democratically elected councils of workers and peasants, called soviets. The rule of the new authorities only aggravated the crisis in the country instead of resolving it, and eventually, the October Revolution, led by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government and gave full governing power to the soviets, leading to the creation of the world's first socialist state.[107] The Russian Civil War broke out between the anti-communist White movement and the Bolsheviks with its Red Army.[110] In the aftermath of signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that concluded hostilities with the Central Powers of World War I; Bolshevist Russia surrendered most of its western territories, which hosted 34% of its population, 54% of its industries, 32% of its agricultural land, and roughly 90% of its coal mines.[111]
Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky during a 1920 speech in Moscow
The Allied powers launched an unsuccessful military intervention in support of anti-communist forces.[112] In the meantime, both the Bolsheviks and White movement carried out campaigns of deportations and executions against each other, known respectively as the Red Terror and White Terror.[113] By the end of the violent civil war, Russia's economy and infrastructure were heavily damaged, and as many as 10 million perished during the war, mostly civilians.[114] Millions became White émigrés,[115] and the Russian famine of 1921–1922 claimed up to five million victims.[116]
Soviet Union
Main article: History of the Soviet Union
Location of the Russian SFSR (red) within the Soviet Union in 1936
Command economy and Soviet society
On 30 December 1922, Lenin and his aides formed the Soviet Union, by joining the Russian SFSR into a single state with the Byelorussian, Transcaucasian, and Ukrainian republics.[117] Eventually internal border changes and annexations during World War II created a union of 15 republics; the largest in size and population being the Russian SFSR, which dominated the union for its entire history politically, culturally, and economically.[118][failed verification]
Following Lenin's death in 1924, a troika was designated to take charge. Eventually Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, managed to suppress all opposition factions and consolidate power in his hands to become the country's dictator by the 1930s.[119] Leon Trotsky, the main proponent of world revolution, was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929,[120] and Stalin's idea of Socialism in One Country became the official line.[121] The continued internal struggle in the Bolshevik party culminated in the Great Purge.[122]
Stalinism and violent modernization
Under Stalin's leadership, the government launched a command economy, industrialisation of the largely rural country, and collectivisation of its agriculture. During this period of rapid economic and social change, millions of people were sent to penal labour camps, including many political convicts for their suspected or real opposition to Stalin's rule;[123] and millions were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.[124] The transitional disorganisation of the country's agriculture, combined with the harsh state policies and a drought,[125] led to the Soviet famine of 1932–1933; which killed up to 8.7 million, 3.3 million of them in the Russian SFSR.[126] The Soviet Union, ultimately, made the costly transformation from a largely agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse within a short span of time.[127]
World War II and United Nations
Main article: Soviet Union in World War II
The Battle of Stalingrad, the largest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare, ended in 1943 with a decisive Soviet victory against the German army.
The Soviet Union entered World War II on 17 September 1939 with its invasion of Poland,[128] in accordance with a secret protocol within the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany.[129] The Soviet Union later invaded Finland,[130] and occupied and annexed the Baltic states,[131] as well as parts of Romania.[132]: 91–95 On 22 June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union,[133] opening the Eastern Front, the largest theater of World War II.[134]: 7
Eventually, some 5 million Red Army troops were captured by the Nazis;[135]: 272 the latter deliberately starved to death or otherwise killed 3.3 million Soviet POWs, and a vast number of civilians, as the "Hunger Plan" sought to fulfil Generalplan Ost.[136]: 175–186 Although the Wehrmacht had considerable early success, their attack was halted in the Battle of Moscow.[137] Subsequently, the Germans were dealt major defeats first at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–1943,[138] and then in the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943.[139] Another German failure was the Siege of Leningrad, in which the city was fully blockaded on land between 1941 and 1944 by German and Finnish forces, and suffered starvation and more than a million deaths, but never surrendered.[140] Soviet forces steamrolled through Eastern and Central Europe in 1944–1945 and captured Berlin in May 1945.[141] In August 1945, the Red Army invaded Manchuria and ousted the Japanese from Northeast Asia, contributing to the Allied victory over Japan.[142]
The 1941–1945 period of World War II is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War.[143] The Soviet Union, along with the United States, the United Kingdom and China were considered the Big Four of Allied powers in World War II, and later became the Four Policemen, which was the foundation of the United Nations Security Council.[144]: 27 During the war, Soviet civilian and military death were about 26–27 million,[145] accounting for about half of all World War II casualties.[146]: 295 The Soviet economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation, which caused the Soviet famine of 1946–1947.[147] However, at the expense of a large sacrifice, the Soviet Union emerged as a global superpower.[148]
Superpower and Cold War
The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin
After World War II, parts of Eastern and Central Europe, including East Germany and eastern parts of Austria were occupied by Red Army according to the Potsdam Conference.[149] Dependent communist governments were installed in the Eastern Bloc satellite states.[150] After becoming the world's second nuclear power,[151] the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact alliance,[152] and entered into a struggle for global dominance, known as the Cold War, with the rivalling United States and NATO.[153]
Khrushchev Thaw reforms and economic development
After Stalin's death in 1953 and a short period of collective rule, the new leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin and launched the policy of de-Stalinization, releasing many political prisoners from the Gulag labour camps.[154] The general easement of repressive policies became known later as the Khrushchev Thaw.[155] At the same time, Cold War tensions reached its peak when the two rivals clashed over the deployment of the United States Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Soviet missiles in Cuba.[156]
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, thus starting the Space Age.[157] Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth, aboard the Vostok 1 crewed spacecraft on 12 April 1961.[158]
Period of developed socialism or Era of Stagnation
Following the ousting of Khrushchev in 1964, another period of collective rule ensued, until Leonid Brezhnev became the leader. The era of the 1970s and the early 1980s was later designated as the Era of Stagnation. The 1965 Kosygin reform aimed for partial decentralisation of the Soviet economy.[159] In 1979, after a communist-led revolution in Afghanistan, Soviet forces invaded the country, ultimately starting the Soviet–Afghan War.[160] In May 1988, the Soviets started to withdraw from Afghanistan, due to international opposition, persistent anti-Soviet guerrilla warfare, and a lack of support by Soviet citizens.[161]
Mikhail Gorbachev in one-to-one discussions with Ronald Reagan in the Reykjavík Summit, 1986
Perestroika, democratization and Russian sovereignty
From 1985 onwards, the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who sought to enact liberal reforms in the Soviet system, introduced the policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to end the period of economic stagnation and to democratise the government.[162] This, however, led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements across the country.[163] Prior to 1991, the Soviet economy was the world's second-largest, but during its final years, it went into a crisis.[164]
By 1991, economic and political turmoil began to boil over as the Baltic states chose to secede from the Soviet Union.[165] On 17 March, a referendum was held, in which the vast majority of participating citizens voted in favour of changing the Soviet Union into a renewed federation.[166] In June 1991, Boris Yeltsin became the first directly elected president in Russian history when he was elected president of the Russian SFSR.[167] In August 1991, a coup d'état attempt by members of Gorbachev's government, directed against Gorbachev and aimed at preserving the Soviet Union, instead led to the end of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[168] On 25 December 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, along with contemporary Russia, fourteen other post-Soviet states emerged.[169]
Independent Russian Federation
Main article: History of Russia (1991–present)
Further information: Presidency of Boris Yeltsin, Russia under Vladimir Putin, and Presidency of Dmitry Medvedev
Vladimir Putin takes the oath of office as president on his first inauguration, with Boris Yeltsin looking over, 2000.
Transition to a market economy and political crises
The economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union led Russia into a deep and prolonged depression. During and after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, wide-ranging reforms including privatisation and market and trade liberalisation were undertaken, including radical changes along the lines of "shock therapy".[170] The privatisation largely shifted control of enterprises from state agencies to individuals with inside connections in the government, which led to the rise of the infamous Russian oligarchs.[171] Many of the newly rich moved billions in cash and assets outside of the country in an enormous capital flight.[172] The depression of the economy led to the collapse of social services—the birth rate plummeted while the death rate skyrocketed,[173][174] and millions plunged into poverty;[175] while extreme corruption,[176] as well as criminal gangs and organised crime rose significantly.[177]
In late 1993, tensions between Yeltsin and the Russian parliament culminated in a constitutional crisis which ended violently through military force. During the crisis, Yeltsin was backed by Western governments, and over 100 people were killed.[178]
Modern liberal constitution, international cooperation and economic stabilization
In December, a referendum was held and approved, which introduced a new constitution, giving the president enormous powers.[179] The 1990s were plagued by armed conflicts in the North Caucasus, both local ethnic skirmishes and separatist Islamist insurrections.[180] From the time Chechen separatists declared independence in the early 1990s, an intermittent guerrilla war was fought between the rebel groups and Russian forces.[181] Terrorist attacks against civilians were carried out by Chechen separatists, claiming the lives of thousands of Russian civilians.[e][182]
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia assumed responsibility for settling the latter's external debts.[183] In 1992, most consumer price controls were eliminated, causing extreme inflation and significantly devaluing the rouble.[184] High budget deficits coupled with increasing capital flight and inability to pay back debts, caused the 1998 Russian financial crisis, which resulted in a further GDP decline.[185]
Movement towards a modernized economy, political centralization and democratic backsliding
On 31 December 1999, president Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned,[186] handing the post to the recently appointed prime minister and his chosen successor, Vladimir Putin.[187] Putin then won the 2000 presidential election,[188] and defeated the Chechen insurgency in the Second Chechen War.[189]
Putin won a second presidential term in 2004.[190] High oil prices and a rise in foreign investment saw the Russian economy and living standards improve significantly.[191] Putin's rule increased stability, while transforming Russia into an authoritarian state.[192] In 2008, Putin took the post of prime minister, while Dmitry Medvedev was elected president for one term, to hold onto power despite legal term limits;[193] this period has been described as a "tandemocracy".[194]
Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine as of 30 September 2022 at the time their annexation was declared
Following a diplomatic crisis with neighbouring Georgia, the Russo-Georgian War took place during 1–12 August 2008, resulting in Russia recognising two separatist states in the territories that it occupies in Georgia.[195] It was the first European war of the 21st century.[196]
Invasion of Ukraine
In early 2014, following a revolution in Ukraine, Russia occupied and annexed Crimea from neighbouring Ukraine following a disputed referendum,[197] with Russian troops later participating in a war in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops.[198] In a major escalation of the conflict, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.[199] The invasion marked the largest conventional war in Europe since World War II,[200] and was met with international condemnation,[201] as well as expanded sanctions against Russia.[202] As a result, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe in March,[203] and was suspended from the United Nations Human Rights Council in April.[204] In September, following successful Ukrainian counteroffensives,[205] Putin announced a "partial mobilisation", Russia's first mobilisation since World War II.[206] By the end of September, Putin proclaimed the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, the largest annexation in Europe since World War II.[207] Putin and Russian-installed leaders signed treaties of accession, internationally unrecognized and widely denounced as illegal, despite the fact that Russian forces have been unable to fully occupy any of the four regions.[207] A number of supranational and national parliaments passed resolutions declaring Russia to be a state sponsor of terrorism.[208] In addition, Russia was declared a terrorist state by Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.[209] Tens of thousands are estimated to have been killed as a result of the invasion.[210][211] The war in Ukraine has further exacerbated Russia's demographic crisis.[212]
In June 2023, the Wagner Group, a private military contractor fighting for Russia in Ukraine, declared an open rebellion against the Russian Ministry of Defense, capturing Rostov-on-Don, before beginning a march on Moscow. However, after negotiations between Wagner and the Belarusian government, the rebellion was called off.[213][214]
Geography
Main article: Geography of Russia
Topographic map of Russia
Russia's vast landmass stretches over the easternmost part of Europe and the northernmost part of Asia.[215] It spans the northernmost edge of Eurasia; and has the world's fourth-longest coastline, of over 37,653 km (23,396 mi).[f][217] Russia lies between latitudes 41° and 82° N, and longitudes 19° E and 169° W, extending some 9,000 km (5,600 mi) east to west, and 2,500 to 4,000 km (1,600 to 2,500 mi) north to south.[218] Russia, by landmass, is larger than three continents,[g] and has the same surface area as Pluto.[219]
Russia has nine major mountain ranges, and they are found along the southernmost regions, which share a significant portion of the Caucasus Mountains (containing Mount Elbrus, which at 5,642 m (18,510 ft) is the highest peak in Russia and Europe);[10] the Altai and Sayan Mountains in Siberia; and in the East Siberian Mountains and the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East (containing Klyuchevskaya Sopka, which at 4,750 m (15,584 ft) is the highest active volcano in Eurasia).[220][221] The Ural Mountains, running north to south through the country's west, are rich in mineral resources, and form the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia.[222] The lowest point in Russia and Europe, is situated at the head of the Caspian Sea, where the Caspian Depression reaches some 29 metres (95.1 ft) below sea level.[223]
Russia, as one of the world's only three countries bordering three oceans,[215] has links with a great number of seas.[h][224] Its major islands and archipelagos include Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land, Severnaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands, Wrangel Island, the Kuril Islands (four of which are disputed with Japan), and Sakhalin.[225][226] The Diomede Islands, administered by Russia and the United States, are just 3.8 km (2.4 mi) apart;[227] and Kunashir Island of the Kuril Islands is merely 20 km (12.4 mi) from Hokkaido, Japan.[2]
Russia, home of over 100,000 rivers,[215] has one of the world's largest surface water resources, with its lakes containing approximately one-quarter of the world's liquid fresh water.[221] Lake Baikal, the largest and most prominent among Russia's fresh water bodies, is the world's deepest, purest, oldest and most capacious fresh water lake, containing over one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water.[228] Ladoga and Onega in northwestern Russia are two of the largest lakes in Europe.[215] Russia is second only to Brazil by total renewable water resources.[229] The Volga in western Russia, widely regarded as Russia's national river, is the longest river in Europe; and forms the Volga Delta, the largest river delta in the continent.[230] The Siberian rivers of Ob, Yenisey, Lena, and Amur are among the world's longest rivers.[231]
Climate
Main article: Climate of Russia
Köppen climate classification of Russia
The size of Russia and the remoteness of many of its areas from the sea result in the dominance of the humid continental climate throughout most of the country, except for the tundra and the extreme southwest. Mountain ranges in the south and east obstruct the flow of warm air masses from the Indian and Pacific oceans, while the European Plain spanning its west and north opens it to influence from the Atlantic and Arctic oceans.[232] Most of northwest Russia and Siberia have a subarctic climate, with extremely severe winters in the inner regions of northeast Siberia (mostly Sakha, where the Northern Pole of Cold is located with the record low temperature of −71.2 °C or −96.2 °F),[225] and more moderate winters elsewhere. Russia's vast coastline along the Arctic Ocean and the Russian Arctic islands have a polar climate.[232]
The coastal part of Krasnodar Krai on the Black Sea, most notably Sochi, and some coastal and interior strips of the North Caucasus possess a humid subtropical climate with mild and wet winters.[232] In many regions of East Siberia and the Russian Far East, winter is dry compared to summer; while other parts of the country experience more even precipitation across seasons. Winter precipitation in most parts of the country usually falls as snow. The westernmost parts of Kaliningrad Oblast and some parts in the south of Krasnodar Krai and the North Caucasus have an oceanic climate.[232] The region along the Lower Volga and Caspian Sea coast, as well as some southernmost slivers of Siberia, possess a semi-arid climate.[233]
Throughout much of the territory, there are only two distinct seasons, winter and summer; as spring and autumn are usually brief periods of change between extremely low and extremely high temperatures.[232] The coldest month is January (February on the coastline); the warmest is usually July. Great ranges of temperature are typical. In winter, temperatures get colder both from south to north and from west to east. Summers can be quite hot, even in Siberia.[234] Climate change in Russia is causing more frequent wildfires,[235] and thawing the country's large expanse of permafrost.[236]
Biodiversity
Main article: Wildlife of Russia
See also: List of ecoregions in Russia
Yugyd Va National Park in the Komi Republic is the largest national park in Europe.[222]
Russia, owing to its gigantic size, has diverse ecosystems, including polar deserts, tundra, forest tundra, taiga, mixed and broadleaf forest, forest steppe, steppe, semi-desert, and subtropics.[237] About half of Russia's territory is forested,[10] and it has the world's largest area of forest,[238] which sequester some of the world's highest amounts of carbon dioxide.[238][239]
Russian biodiversity includes 12,500 species of vascular plants, 2,200 species of bryophytes, about 3,000 species of lichens, 7,000–9,000 species of algae, and 20,000–25,000 species of fungi. Russian fauna is composed of 320 species of mammals, over 732 species of birds, 75 species of reptiles, about 30 species of amphibians, 343 species of freshwater fish (high endemism), approximately 1,500 species of saltwater fishes, 9 species of cyclostomata, and approximately 100–150,000 invertebrates (high endemism).[237][240] Approximately 1,100 rare and endangered plant and animal species are included in the Russian Red Data Book.[237]
Russia's entirely natural ecosystems are conserved in nearly 15,000 specially protected natural territories of various statuses, occupying more than 10% of the country's total area.[237] They include 45 biosphere reserves,[241] 64 national parks, and 101 nature reserves.[242] Although in decline, the country still has many ecosystems which are still considered intact forest; mainly in the northern taiga areas, and the subarctic tundra of Siberia.[243] Russia had a Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 9.02 in 2019, ranking 10th out of 172 countries; and the first ranked major nation globally.[244]
Government and politics
Main article: Politics of Russia
Vladimir Putin
President
Mikhail Mishustin
Prime Minister
A chart of the Russian political system
Russia, by 1993 constitution, is a symmetric federal republic with a semi-presidential system, wherein the president is the head of state,[245] and the prime minister is the head of government.[10] It is structured as a multi-party representative democracy, with the federal government composed of three branches:[246]
Legislative: The bicameral Federal Assembly of Russia, made up of the 450-member State Duma and the 170-member Federation Council,[246] adopts federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse and the power of impeachment of the president.[247]
Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, and appoints the Government of Russia (Cabinet) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.[245] The president may issue decrees of unlimited scope, so long as they do not contradict the constitution or federal law.[248]
Judiciary: The Constitutional Court, Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the Federation Council on the recommendation of the president,[246] interpret laws and can overturn laws they deem unconstitutional.[249]
The president is elected by popular vote for a six-year term and may be elected no more than twice.[250][i] Ministries of the government are composed of the premier and his deputies, ministers, and selected other individuals; all are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the prime minister (whereas the appointment of the latter requires the consent of the State Duma). United Russia is the dominant political party in Russia, and has been described as "big tent" and the "party of power".[252][253] Under the administrations of Vladimir Putin, Russia has experienced democratic backsliding,[254][255] and has become an authoritarian state[11] under a dictatorship,[8][256] with Putin's policies being referred to as Putinism.[257]
Political divisions
Main article: Political divisions of Russia
Russia, by 1993 constitution, is a symmetric (with the possibility of an asymmetric configuration) federation. Unlike the Soviet asymmetric model of the RSFSR, where only republics were "subjects of the federation", the current constitution raised the status of other regions to the level of republics and made all regions equal with the title "subject of the federation". The regions of Russia have reserved areas of competence, but no regions have sovereignty, do not have the status of a sovereign state, do not have the right to indicate any sovereignty in their constitutions and do not have the right to secede from the country. The laws of the regions cannot contradict federal laws.[258]
The federal subjects[j] have equal representation—two delegates each—in the Federation Council, the upper house of the Federal Assembly.[259] They do, however, differ in the degree of autonomy they enjoy.[260] The federal districts of Russia were established by Putin in 2000 to facilitate central government control of the federal subjects.[261] Originally seven, currently there are eight federal districts, each headed by an envoy appointed by the president.[262]
Federal subjects Governance
46 oblasts
The most common type of federal subject with a governor and locally elected legislature. Commonly named after their administrative centres.[263]
22 republics
Each is nominally autonomous—home to a specific ethnic minority, and has its own constitution, language, and legislature, but is represented by the federal government in international affairs.[264]
9 krais
For all intents and purposes, krais are legally identical to oblasts. The title "krai" ("frontier" or "territory") is historic, related to geographic (frontier) position in a certain period of history. The current krais are not related to frontiers.[265]
4 autonomous okrugs
Occasionally referred to as "autonomous district", "autonomous area", and "autonomous region", each with a substantial or predominant ethnic minority.[266]
3 federal cities
Major cities that function as separate regions (Moscow and Saint Petersburg, as well as Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Ukraine).[267]
1 autonomous oblast
The only autonomous oblast is the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.[268]
Foreign relations
Main article: Foreign relations of Russia
Putin with G20 counterparts in Osaka, 2019
Russia had the world's fifth-largest diplomatic network in 2019. It maintains diplomatic relations with 190 United Nations member states, four partially-recognised states, and three United Nations observer states; along with 144 embassies.[269] Russia is one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. It has historically been a great power,[270] and a former superpower as the leading constituent of the former Soviet Union.[148] Russia is a member of the G20, the OSCE, and the APEC. Russia also takes a leading role in organisations such as the CIS,[271] the EAEU,[272] the CSTO,[273] the SCO,[274] and BRICS.[275]
Russia maintains close relations with neighbouring Belarus, which is a part of the Union State, a supranational confederation of the two states.[276] Serbia has been a historically close ally of Russia, as both countries share a strong mutual cultural, ethnic, and religious affinity.[277] India is the largest customer of Russian military equipment, and the two countries share a strong strategic and diplomatic relationship since the Soviet era.[278] Russia wields influence across the geopolitically important South Caucasus and Central Asia; and the two regions have been described as Russia's "backyard".[279][280]
Russia
Countries on Russia's "Unfriendly Countries List". The list includes countries that have imposed sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
In the 21st century Russia has pursued an aggressive foreign policy aimed at securing regional dominance and international influence, as well as increasing domestic support for the government. Military intervention in the post-soviet states include a war with Georgia in 2008, and the invasion and destabilisation of Ukraine beginning in 2014. Russia has also sought to increase its influence in the Middle East, most significantly through military intervention in the Syrian civil war. Cyberwarfare and airspace violations, along with electoral interference, have been used to increase perceptions of Russian power.[281] Russia's relations with neighbouring Ukraine and the Western world—especially the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and NATO—have collapsed; especially following the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014 and the consequent escalation in 2022.[282][283] Relations between Russia and China have significantly strengthened bilaterally and economically; due to shared political interests.[284] Turkey and Russia share a complex strategic, energy, and defence relationship.[285] Russia maintains cordial relations with Iran, as it is a strategic and economic ally.[286] Russia has also increasingly pushed to expand its influence across the Arctic,[287] Asia-Pacific,[288] Africa,[289] the Middle East,[290] and Latin America.[291] According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, two-thirds of the world’s population live in countries such as China or India that are neutral or leaning towards Russia.[292]
Military
Main article: Russian Armed Forces
Sukhoi Su-57, a fifth-generation fighter of the Russian Air Force[293]
The Russian Armed Forces are divided into the Ground Forces, the Navy, and the Aerospace Forces—and there are also two independent arms of service: the Strategic Missile Troops and the Airborne Troops.[10] As of 2021, the military have around a million active-duty personnel, which is the world's fifth-largest, and about 2–20 million reserve personnel.[294][295] It is mandatory for all male citizens aged 18–27 to be drafted for a year of service in the Armed Forces.[10]
Russia is among the five recognised nuclear-weapons states, with the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons; over half of the world's nuclear weapons are owned by Russia.[296] Russia possesses the second-largest fleet of ballistic missile submarines,[297] and is one of the only three countries operating strategic bombers.[298] Russia maintains the world's third-highest military expenditure, spending $86.4 billion in 2022, corresponding to around 4.1% of its GDP.[299] In 2021 it was the world's second-largest arms exporter, and had a large and entirely indigenous defence industry, producing most of its own military equipment.[300]
Human rights and corruption
Main articles: Human rights in Russia and Corruption in Russia
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, anti-war protests broke out across Russia. The protests have been met with widespread repression, leading to about 15,000 people being arrested.[301]
Violations of human rights in Russia have been increasingly criticised by leading democracy and human rights groups. In particular, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say that Russia is not democratic and allows few political rights and civil liberties to its citizens.[302][303]
Since 2004, Freedom House has ranked Russia as "not free" in its Freedom in the World survey.[304] Since 2011, the Economist Intelligence Unit has ranked Russia as an "authoritarian regime" in its Democracy Index, ranking it 146th out of 167 countries in 2022.[305] In regards to media freedom, Russia was ranked 155th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom Index for 2022.[306] The Russian government has been widely criticised by political dissidents and human rights activists for unfair elections,[307] crackdowns on opposition political parties and protests,[308][309] persecution of non-governmental organisations and enforced suppression and killings of independent journalists,[310][311][312] and censorship of mass media and internet.[313]
Russia's autocratic[314] political system has been variously described as a kleptocracy,[315] an oligarchy,[316] and a plutocracy.[317] It was the lowest rated European country in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2021, ranking 136th out of 180 countries.[318] Russia has a long history of corruption, which is seen as a significant problem.[319] It impacts various sectors, including the economy,[320] business,[321] public administration,[322] law enforcement,[323] healthcare,[324][325] education,[326] and the military.[327]
Muslims, especially Salafis, have faced persecution in Russia.[328][329] To quash the insurgency in the North Caucasus, Russian authorities have been accused of indiscriminate killings,[330] arrests, forced disappearances, and torture of civilians.[331][332] In Dagestan, some Salafis along with facing government harassment based on their appearance, have had their homes blown up in counterinsurgency operations.[333][334] Chechens and Ingush in Russian prisons reportedly take more abuse than other ethnic groups.[335] During the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia has set up filtration camps where many Ukrainians are subjected to abuses and forcibly sent to Russia; the camps have been compared to those used in the Chechen Wars.[336][337]
Law and crime
Main articles: Law of Russia and Crime in Russia
The primary and fundamental statement of laws in Russia is the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Statutes, like the Russian Civil Code and the Russian Criminal Code, are the predominant legal sources of Russian law.[338][339][340]
Russia has the world's second largest illegal arms trade market, after the United States, is ranked first in Europe and 32nd globally in the Global Organized Crime Index, and is among the countries with the highest number of people in prison.[341][342][343]
Economy
Main article: Economy of Russia
Further information: Economic history of the Russian Federation and Taxation in Russia
The Moscow International Business Centre in Moscow. The city has one of the world's largest urban economies.[344]
Russia has a market economy, with enormous natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas.[345] It has the world's ninth-largest economy by nominal GDP and the sixth-largest by PPP. The large service sector accounts for 62% of total GDP, followed by the industrial sector (32%), while the agricultural sector is the smallest, making up only 5% of total GDP.[10] Russia has a low official unemployment rate of 4.1%.[346] Its foreign exchange reserves are the world's fifth-largest, worth $540 billion.[347] It has a labour force of roughly 70 million, which is the world's sixth-largest.[348]
Russia is the world's thirteenth-largest exporter and the 21st-largest importer.[349][350] It relies heavily on revenues from oil and gas-related taxes and export tariffs, which accounted for 45% of Russia's federal budget revenues in January 2022,[351] and up to 60% of its exports in 2019.[352] Russia has one of the lowest levels of external debt among major economies,[353] although its inequality of household income and wealth is one of the highest among developed countries.[354] High regional disparity is also an issue.[355][356]
After over a decade of post-Soviet rapid economic growth, backed by high oil-prices and a surge in foreign exchange reserves and investment,[191] Russia's economy was damaged following the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, due to the first wave of Western sanctions being imposed.[357] In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the country has faced revamped sanctions and corporate boycotts,[358] becoming the most sanctioned country in the world,[359] in a move described as an "all-out economic and financial war" to isolate the Russian economy from the Western financial system.[202] Due to the impact, the Russian government has stopped publishing a raft of economic data since April 2022.[360] Economists suggest the sanctions will have a long-term effect over the Russian economy.[361]
Transport and energy
Main articles: Transport in Russia and Energy in Russia
The Trans-Siberian Railway is the longest railway line in the world, connecting Moscow to Vladivostok.[362]
Railway transport in Russia is mostly under the control of the state-run Russian Railways. The total length of common-used railway tracks is the world's third-longest, and exceeds 87,000 km (54,100 mi).[363] As of 2016, Russia has the world's fifth-largest road network, with 1.5 million km of roads,[364] while its road density is among the world's lowest.[365] Russia's inland waterways are the world's longest, and total 102,000 km (63,380 mi).[366] Among Russia's 1,218 airports,[367] the busiest is Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. Russia's largest port is the Port of Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai along the Black Sea.[368]
Russia was widely described as an energy superpower.[369] It has the world's largest proven gas reserves,[370] the second-largest coal reserves,[371] the eighth-largest oil reserves,[372] and the largest oil shale reserves in Europe.[373] Russia is also the world's leading natural gas exporter,[374] the second-largest natural gas producer,[375] and the second-largest oil producer and exporter.[376][377] Russia's oil and gas production led to deep economic relationships with the European Union, China, and former Soviet and Eastern Bloc states.[378][379] For example, over the last decade, Russia's share of supplies to total European Union (including the United Kingdom) gas demand increased from 25% in 2009 to 32% in the weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.[379]
In the mid-2000s, the share of the oil and gas sector in GDP was around 20%, and in 2013 it was 20–21% of GDP.[380] The share of oil and gas in Russia's exports (about 50%) and federal budget revenues (about 50%) is large, and the dynamics of Russia's GDP are highly dependent on oil and gas prices,[381] but the share in GDP is much less than 50%. According to the first such comprehensive assessment published by the Russian statistics agency Rosstat in 2021, the maximum total share of the oil and gas sector in Russia's GDP, including extraction, refining, transport, sale of oil and gas, all goods and services used, and all supporting activities, amounts to 19.2% in 2019 and 15.2% in 2020. This is comparable to the share of GDP in Norway and Kazakhstan. It is much lower than the share of GDP in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.[382][383][384][385][386]
Russia ratified the Paris Agreement in 2019.[387] Greenhouse gas emissions by Russia are the world's fourth-largest.[388] Russia is the world's fourth-largest electricity producer.[389] It was also the world's first country to develop civilian nuclear power, and to construct the world's first nuclear power plant.[390] Russia was also the world's fourth-largest nuclear energy producer in 2019,[391] and was the fifth-largest hydroelectric producer in 2021.[392]
Agriculture and fishery
Main articles: Agriculture in Russia and Fishing industry in Russia
Wheat in Tomsk Oblast, Siberia
Russia's agriculture sector contributes about 5% of the country's total GDP, although the sector employs about one-eighth of the total labour force.[393] It has the world's third-largest cultivated area, at 1,265,267 square kilometres (488,522 sq mi). However, due to the harshness of its environment, about 13.1% of its land is agricultural,[10] and only 7.4% of its land is arable.[394] The country's agricultural land is considered part of the "breadbasket" of Europe.[395] More than one-third of the sown area is devoted to fodder crops, and the remaining farmland is devoted to industrial crops, vegetables, and fruits.[393] The main product of Russian farming has always been grain, which occupies considerably more than half of the cropland.[393] Russia is the world's largest exporter of wheat,[396][397] the largest producer of barley and buckwheat, among the largest exporters of maize and sunflower oil, and the leading producer of fertilizer.[398]
Various analysts of climate change adaptation foresee large opportunities for Russian agriculture during the rest of the 21st century as arability increases in Siberia, which would lead to both internal and external migration to the region.[399] Owing to its large coastline along three oceans and twelve marginal seas, Russia maintains the world's sixth-largest fishing industry; capturing nearly 5 million tons of fish in 2018.[400] It is home to the world's finest caviar, the beluga; and produces about one-third of all canned fish, and some one-fourth of the world's total fresh and frozen fish.[393]
Science and technology
Main article: Science and technology in Russia
See also: Timeline of Russian innovation, List of Russian scientists, and List of Russian inventors
Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765), polymath scientist, inventor, poet and artist
Russia spent about 1% of its GDP on research and development in 2019, with the world's tenth-highest budget.[401] It also ranked tenth worldwide in the number of scientific publications in 2020, with roughly 1.3 million papers.[402] Since 1904, Nobel Prize were awarded to 26 Soviets and Russians in physics, chemistry, medicine, economy, literature and peace.[403] Russia ranked 45th in the Global Innovation Index in 2021.[404]
Since the times of Nikolay Lobachevsky, who pioneered the non-Euclidean geometry, and Pafnuty Chebyshev, a prominent tutor; Russian mathematicians became among the world's most influential.[405] Dmitry Mendeleev invented the Periodic table, the main framework of modern chemistry.[406] Nine Soviet and Russian mathematicians have been awarded with the Fields Medal. Grigori Perelman was offered the first ever Clay Millennium Prize Problems Award for his final proof of the Poincaré conjecture in 2002, as well as the Fields Medal in 2006.[407]
Alexander Popov was among the inventors of radio,[408] while Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were co-inventors of laser and maser.[409] Oleg Losev made crucial contributions in the field of semiconductor junctions, and discovered light-emitting diodes.[410] Vladimir Vernadsky is considered one of the founders of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and radiogeology.[411] Élie Metchnikoff is known for his groundbreaking research in immunology.[412] Ivan Pavlov is known chiefly for his work in classical conditioning.[413] Lev Landau made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics.[414]
Nikolai Vavilov was best known for having identified the centres of origin of cultivated plants.[415] Trofim Lysenko was known mainly for Lysenkoism.[416] Many famous Russian scientists and inventors were émigrés. Igor Sikorsky was an aviation pioneer.[417] Vladimir Zworykin was the inventor of the iconoscope and kinescope television systems.[418] Theodosius Dobzhansky was the central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern synthesis.[419] George Gamow was one of the foremost advocates of the Big Bang theory.[420]
Space exploration
Roscosmos is Russia's national space agency. The country's achievements in the field of space technology and space exploration can be traced back to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the father of theoretical astronautics, whose works had inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers, such as Sergey Korolyov, Valentin Glushko, and many others who contributed to the success of the Soviet space program in the early stages of the Space Race and beyond.[421]: 6–7, 333
In 1957, the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched. In 1961, the first human trip into space was successfully made by Yuri Gagarin. Many other Soviet and Russian space exploration records ensued. In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first and youngest woman in space, having flown a solo mission on Vostok 6.[422] In 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first human to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the space capsule during Voskhod 2.[423]
In 1957, Laika, a Soviet space dog, became the first animal to orbit the Earth, aboard Sputnik 2.[424] In 1966, Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to achieve a survivable landing on a celestial body, the Moon.[425] In 1968, Zond 5 brought the first Earthlings (two tortoises and other life forms) to circumnavigate the Moon.[426] In 1970, Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to land on another planet, Venus.[427] In 1971, Mars 3 became the first spacecraft to land on Mars.[428]: 34–60 During the same period, Lunokhod 1 became the first space exploration rover,[429] while Salyut 1 became the world's first space station.[430] Russia had 172 active satellites in space in April 2022, the world's third-highest.[431]
Tourism
Main article: Tourism in Russia
Peterhof Palace in Saint Petersburg, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
According to the World Tourism Organization, Russia was the sixteenth-most visited country in the world, and the tenth-most visited country in Europe, in 2018, with over 24.6 million visits.[432] According to Federal Agency for Tourism, the number of inbound trips of foreign citizens to Russia amounted to 24.4 million in 2019.[433] Russia's international tourism receipts in 2018 amounted to $11.6 billion.[432] In 2019, travel and tourism accounted for about 4.8% of country's total GDP.[434]
Major tourist routes in Russia include a journey around the Golden Ring of Russia, a theme route of ancient Russian cities, cruises on large rivers such as the Volga, hikes on mountain ranges such as the Caucasus Mountains,[435] and journeys on the famous Trans-Siberian Railway.[436] Russia's most visited and popular landmarks include Red Square, the Peterhof Palace, the Kazan Kremlin, the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and Lake Baikal.[437]
Moscow, the nation's cosmopolitan capital and historic core, is a bustling megacity. It retains its classical and Soviet-era architecture; while boasting high art, world class ballet, and modern skyscrapers.[438] Saint Petersburg, the Imperial capital, is famous for its classical architecture, cathedrals, museums and theatres, white nights, criss-crossing rivers and numerous canals.[439] Russia is famed worldwide for its rich museums, such as the State Russian, the State Hermitage, and the Tretyakov Gallery; and for theatres such as the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky. The Moscow Kremlin and the Saint Basil's Cathedral are among the cultural landmarks of Russia.[440]
Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of Russia, Russians, List of cities and towns in Russia, and List of cities and towns in Russia by population
Ethnic groups across Russia
Ethnic groups in Russia with a population of over 1 million according to the 2010 census
Percentage of ethnic Russians by region according to the 2010 census
Russia is one of the world's most sparsely populated and urbanised countries,[10] with the vast majority of its population concentrated within its western part.[441] It had a population of 142.8 million according to the 2010 census,[442] which rose to roughly 145.5 million as of 2022.[15][clarification needed] Russia is the most populous country in Europe, and the world's ninth most populous country, with a population density of 9 inhabitants per square kilometre (23 inhabitants/sq mi).[443]
Since the 1990s, Russia's death rate has exceeded its birth rate, which some analysts have called a demographic crisis.[444] In 2019, the total fertility rate across Russia was estimated to be 1.5 children born per woman,[445] which is below the replacement rate of 2.1, and is one of the world's lowest fertility rates.[446] Subsequently, the nation has one of the world's oldest populations, with a median age of 40.3 years.[10] In 2009, it recorded annual population growth for the first time in fifteen years, and subsequently experienced annual population growth due to declining death rates, increased birth rates, and increased immigration.[447]
However, since 2020, Russia's population gains have been reversed, as excessive deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in its largest peacetime decline in history.[448] Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the demographic crisis in the country has deepened,[449] as the country has reportedly suffered high military fatalities while facing renewed brain drain and human capital flight caused by Western mass-sanctions and boycotts.[450]
Russia is a multinational state with many subnational entities associated with different minorities.[451] There are over 193 ethnic groups nationwide. In the 2010 census, roughly 81% of the population were ethnic Russians, and the remaining 19% of the population were ethnic minorities;[452] while over four-fifths of Russia's population was of European descent—of whom the vast majority were Slavs,[453] with a substantial minority of Finnic and Germanic peoples.[454][455] According to the United Nations, Russia's immigrant population is the world's third-largest, numbering over 11.6 million;[456] most of which are from post-Soviet states, mainly from Central Asia.[457]
vte
Largest cities or towns in Russia
2021 Census[458]
Rank Name Federal subject Pop. Rank Name Federal subject Pop.
Moscow
Moscow
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg 1 Moscow Moscow 13,010,112 11 Rostov-on-Don Rostov Oblast 1,142,162 Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk
Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg
2 Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg 5,601,911 12 Omsk Omsk Oblast 1,125,695
3 Novosibirsk Novosibirsk Oblast 1,633,595 13 Krasnodar Krasnodar Krai 1,099,344
4 Yekaterinburg Sverdlovsk Oblast 1,544,376 14 Voronezh Voronezh Oblast 1,057,681
5 Kazan Tatarstan 1,308,660 15 Perm Perm Krai 1,034,002
6 Nizhny Novgorod Nizhny Novgorod Oblast 1,228,199 16 Volgograd Volgograd Oblast 1,028,036
7 Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk Oblast 1,189,525 17 Saratov Saratov Oblast 901,361
8 Krasnoyarsk Krasnoyarsk Krai 1,187,771 18 Tyumen Tyumen Oblast 847,488
9 Samara Samara Oblast 1,173,299 19 Tolyatti Samara Oblast 684,709
10 Ufa Bashkortostan 1,144,809 20 Barnaul Altai Krai 630,877
Language
Main articles: Russian language and Languages of Russia
Minority languages across Russia
Altaic and Uralic languages spoken across Russia
The North Caucasus is ethno-linguistically diverse.[459]
Russian is the official and the predominantly spoken language in Russia.[3] It is the most spoken native language in Europe, the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, as well as the world's most widely spoken Slavic language.[460] Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station,[461] as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations.[460]
Russia is a multilingual nation; approximately 100–150 minority languages are spoken across the country.[462][463] According to the Russian Census of 2010, 137.5 million across the country spoke Russian, 4.3 million spoke Tatar, and 1.1 million spoke Ukrainian.[464] The constitution gives the country's individual republics the right to establish their own state languages in addition to Russian, as well as guarantee its citizens the right to preserve their native language and to create conditions for its study and development.[465] However, various experts have claimed Russia's linguistic diversity is rapidly declining due to many languages becoming endangered.[466][467]
Religion
Main article: Religion in Russia
Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow is the most iconic religious architecture of Russia.
Russia is a secular state by constitution, and its largest religion is Eastern Orthodox Christianity, chiefly represented by the Russian Orthodox Church.[7] Orthodox Christianity, together with Islam, Buddhism, and Paganism (either preserved or revived), are recognised by Russian law as the traditional religions of the country, part of its "historical heritage".[468][469]
Islam is the second-largest religion in Russia, and is the traditional religion among the majority of the peoples of the North Caucasus, and among some Turkic peoples scattered along the Volga-Ural region.[7] Large populations of Buddhists are found in Kalmykia, Buryatia, Zabaykalsky Krai, and they are the vast majority of the population in Tuva.[7] Many Russians practise other religions, including Rodnovery (Slavic Neopaganism),[470] Assianism (Scythian Neopaganism),[471] other ethnic Paganisms, and inter-Pagan movements such as Ringing Cedars' Anastasianism,[472] various movements of Hinduism,[473] Siberian shamanism[474] and Tengrism, various Neo-Theosophical movements such as Roerichism, and other faiths.[475][476] Some religious minorities have faced oppression and some have been banned in the country;[477] notably, in 2017 the Jehovah's Witnesses were outlawed in Russia, facing persecution ever since, after having been declared an "extremist" and "nontraditional" faith.[478]
In 2012, the research organisation Sreda, in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, published the Arena Atlas, an adjunct to the 2010 census, enumerating in detail the religious populations and nationalities of Russia, based on a large-sample country-wide survey. The results showed that 47.3% of Russians declared themselves Christians—including 41% Russian Orthodox, 1.5% simply Orthodox or members of non-Russian Orthodox churches, 4.1% unaffiliated Christians, and less than 1% Old Believers, Catholics or Protestants—25% were believers without affiliation to any specific religion, 13% were atheists, 6.5% were Muslims,[b] 1.2% were followers of "traditional religions honouring gods and ancestors" (Rodnovery, other Paganisms, Siberian shamanism and Tengrism), 0.5% were Buddhists, 0.1% were religious Jews and 0.1% were Hindus.[7]
Education
Main article: Education in Russia
Moscow State University, the most prestigious educational institution in Russia[479]
Russia has an adult literacy rate of 100%,[480] and has compulsory education for a duration of 11 years, exclusively for children aged 7 to 17–18.[481] It grants free education to its citizens by constitution.[482] The Ministry of Education of Russia is responsible for primary and secondary education, as well as vocational education; while the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia is responsible for science and higher education.[481] Regional authorities regulate education within their jurisdictions within the prevailing framework of federal laws. Russia is among the world's most educated countries, and has the sixth-highest proportion of tertiary-level graduates in terms of percentage of population, at 62.1%.[483] It spent roughly 4.7% of its GDP on education in 2018.[484]
Russia's pre-school education system is highly developed and optional,[485] some four-fifths of children aged 3 to 6 attend day nurseries or kindergartens. Primary school is compulsory for eleven years, starting from age 6 to 7, and leads to a basic general education certificate.[481] An additional two or three years of schooling are required for the secondary-level certificate, and some seven-eighths of Russians continue their education past this level.[486]
Admission to an institute of higher education is selective and highly competitive:[482] first-degree courses usually take five years.[486] The oldest and largest universities in Russia are Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University.[487] There are ten highly prestigious federal universities across the country. Russia was the world's fifth-leading destination for international students in 2019, hosting roughly 300 thousand.[488]
Health
Main article: Healthcare in Russia
Metallurg, a Soviet-era sanatorium in Sochi[489]
Russia, by constitution, guarantees free, universal health care for all Russian citizens, through a compulsory state health insurance program.[490] The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation oversees the Russian public healthcare system, and the sector employs more than two million people. Federal regions also have their own departments of health that oversee local administration. A separate private health insurance plan is needed to access private healthcare in Russia.[491]
Russia spent 5.65% of its GDP on healthcare in 2019.[492] Its healthcare expenditure is notably lower than other developed nations.[493] Russia has one of the world's most female-biased sex ratios, with 0.859 males to every female,[10] due to its high male mortality rate.[494] In 2019, the overall life expectancy in Russia at birth was 73.2 years (68.2 years for males and 78.0 years for females),[495] and it had a very low infant mortality rate (5 per 1,000 live births).[496]
The principal cause of death in Russia are cardiovascular diseases.[497] Obesity is a prevalent health issue in Russia; most adults are overweight or obese.[498] However, Russia's historically high alcohol consumption rate is the biggest health issue in the country,[499] as it remains one of the world's highest, despite a stark decrease in the last decade.[500] Smoking is another health issue in the country.[501] The country's high suicide rate, although on the decline,[502] remains a significant social issue.[503]
Culture
Main article: Russian culture
The Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, at night
Russian culture has been formed by the nation's history, its geographical location and its vast expanse, religious and social traditions, and Western influence.[504] Russian writers and philosophers have played an important role in the development of European literature and thought.[505][506] The Russians have also greatly influenced classical music,[507] ballet,[508] sport,[509] painting,[510] and cinema.[511] The nation has also made pioneering contributions to science and technology and space exploration.[512][513]
Russia is home to 30 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, 19 out of which are cultural; while 27 more sites lie on the tentative list.[514] The large global Russian diaspora has also played a major role in spreading Russian culture throughout the world. Russia's national symbol, the double-headed eagle, dates back to the Tsardom period, and is featured in its coat of arms and heraldry.[66] The Russian Bear and Mother Russia are often used as national personifications of the country.[515][516] Matryoshka dolls are considered a cultural icon of Russia.[517]
Holidays
Main article: Public holidays in Russia
The Scarlet Sails being celebrated along the Neva in Saint Petersburg
Russia has eight—public, patriotic, and religious—official holidays.[518] The year starts with New Year's Day on 1 January, soon followed by Russian Orthodox Christmas on 7 January; the two are the country's most popular holidays.[519] Defender of the Fatherland Day, dedicated to men, is celebrated on 23 February.[520] International Women's Day on 8 March, gained momentum in Russia during the Soviet era. The annual celebration of women has become so popular, especially among Russian men, that Moscow's flower vendors often see profits of "15 times" more than other holidays.[521] Spring and Labour Day, originally a Soviet era holiday dedicated to workers, is celebrated on 1 May.[522]
Victory Day, which honours Soviet victory over Nazi Germany and the End of World War II in Europe, is celebrated as an annual large parade in Moscow's Red Square;[523] and marks the famous Immortal Regiment civil event.[524] Other patriotic holidays include Russia Day on 12 June, celebrated to commemorate Russia's declaration of sovereignty from the collapsing Soviet Union;[525] and Unity Day on 4 November, commemorating the 1612 uprising which marked the end of the Polish occupation of Moscow.[526]
There are many popular non-public holidays. Old New Year is celebrated on 14 January.[527] Maslenitsa is an ancient and popular East Slavic folk holiday.[528] Cosmonautics Day on 12 April, in tribute to the first human trip into space.[529] Two major Christian holidays are Easter and Trinity Sunday.[530]
Art and architecture
Main articles: Russian artists, Russian architecture, and List of Russian architects
Karl Bryullov, The Last Day of Pompeii (1833)
The Winter Palace served as the official residence of the Emperor of Russia.
Early Russian painting is represented in icons and vibrant frescos. In the early 15th-century, the master icon painter Andrei Rublev created some of Russia's most treasured religious art.[531] The Russian Academy of Arts, which was established in 1757, to train Russian artists, brought Western techniques of secular painting to Russia.[81] In the 18th century, academicians Ivan Argunov, Dmitry Levitzky, Vladimir Borovikovsky became influential.[532] The early 19th century saw many prominent paintings by Karl Briullov and Alexander Ivanov, both of whom were known for Romantic historical canvases.[533][534] Ivan Aivazovsky, another Romantic painter, is considered one of the greatest masters of marine art.[535]
In the 1860s, a group of critical realists (Peredvizhniki), led by Ivan Kramskoy, Ilya Repin and Vasiliy Perov broke with the academy, and portrayed the many-sided aspects of social life in paintings.[536] The turn of the 20th century saw the rise of symbolism; represented by Mikhail Vrubel and Nicholas Roerich.[537][538] The Russian avant-garde flourished from approximately 1890 to 1930; and globally influential artists from this era were El Lissitzky,[539] Kazimir Malevich, Natalia Goncharova, Wassily Kandinsky, and Marc Chagall.[540]
The history of Russian architecture begins with early woodcraft buildings of ancient Slavs, and the church architecture of Kievan Rus'.[541] Following the Christianization of Kievan Rus', for several centuries it was influenced predominantly by Byzantine architecture.[542] Aristotle Fioravanti and other Italian architects brought Renaissance trends into Russia.[543] The 16th-century saw the development of the unique tent-like churches; and the onion dome design, which is a distinctive feature of Russian architecture.[544] In the 17th-century, the "fiery style" of ornamentation flourished in Moscow and Yaroslavl, gradually paving the way for the Naryshkin baroque of the 1680s.[545]
After the reforms of Peter the Great, Russia's architecture became influenced by Western European styles. The 18th-century taste for Rococo architecture led to the splendid works of Bartolomeo Rastrelli and his followers. The most influential Russian architects of the eighteenth century; Vasily Bazhenov, Matvey Kazakov, and Ivan Starov, created lasting monuments in Moscow and Saint Petersburg and established a base for the more Russian forms that followed.[531] During the reign of Catherine the Great, Saint Petersburg was transformed into an outdoor museum of Neoclassical architecture.[546] Under Alexander I, Empire style became the de facto architectural style.[547] The second half of the 19th-century was dominated by the Neo-Byzantine and Russian Revival style.[548] In early 20th-century, Russian neoclassical revival became a trend.[549] Prevalent styles of the late 20th-century were Art Nouveau,[550] Constructivism,[551] and Socialist Classicism.[552]
Music
Main article: Music of Russia
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893), in a 1893 painting by Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kuznetsov
Until the 18th-century, music in Russia consisted mainly of church music and folk songs and dances.[553] In the 19th-century, it was defined by the tension between classical composer Mikhail Glinka along with other members of The Mighty Handful, who were later succeeded by the Belyayev circle,[554] and the Russian Musical Society led by composers Anton and Nikolay Rubinstein.[555] The later tradition of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era, was continued into the 20th century by Sergei Rachmaninoff. World-renowned composers of the 20th century include Alexander Scriabin, Alexander Glazunov,[553] Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, and later Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina,[556] Georgy Sviridov,[557] and Alfred Schnittke.[556]
During the Soviet era, popular music also produced a number of renowned figures, such as the two balladeers—Vladimir Vysotsky and Bulat Okudzhava,[556] and performers such as Alla Pugacheva.[558] Jazz, even with sanctions from Soviet authorities, flourished and evolved into one of the country's most popular musical forms.[556] By the 1980s, rock music became popular across Russia, and produced bands such as Aria, Aquarium,[559] DDT,[560] and Kino;[561] the latter's leader Viktor Tsoi, was in particular, a gigantic figure.[562] Pop music has continued to flourish in Russia since the 1960s, with globally famous acts such as t.A.T.u.[563]
Literature and philosophy
Main articles: Russian literature and Russian philosophy
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time, with works such as War and Peace.[564]
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881), one of the great novelists of all time, whose masterpieces include Crime and Punishment[565]
Russian literature is considered to be among the world's most influential and developed.[505] It can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were composed.[566] By the Age of Enlightenment, literature had grown in importance, with works from Mikhail Lomonosov, Denis Fonvizin, Gavrila Derzhavin, and Nikolay Karamzin.[567] From the early 1830s, during the Golden Age of Russian Poetry, literature underwent an astounding golden age in poetry, prose and drama.[568] Romanticism permitted a flowering of poetic talent: Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to the fore.[569] Following Pushkin's footsteps, a new generation of poets were born, including Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolay Nekrasov, Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Fyodor Tyutchev and Afanasy Fet.[567]
The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol.[570] Then came Ivan Turgenev, who mastered both short stories and novels.[571] Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy soon became internationally renowned. Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote prose satire,[572] while Nikolai Leskov is best remembered for his shorter fiction.[573] In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist.[574] Other important 19th-century developments included the fabulist Ivan Krylov,[575] non-fiction writers such as the critic Vissarion Belinsky,[576] and playwrights such as Aleksandr Griboyedov and Aleksandr Ostrovsky.[577][578] The beginning of the 20th century ranks as the Silver Age of Russian Poetry. This era had poets such as Alexander Blok, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, and Konstantin Balmont.[579] It also produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin, Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin, Leonid Andreyev, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely.[567]
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Russian literature split into Soviet and white émigré parts. In the 1930s, Socialist realism became the predominant trend in Russia. Its leading figure was Maxim Gorky, who laid the foundations of this style.[580] Mikhail Bulgakov was one of the leading writers of the Soviet era.[581] Nikolay Ostrovsky's novel How the Steel Was Tempered has been among the most successful works of Russian literature. Influential émigré writers include Vladimir Nabokov,[582] and Isaac Asimov; who was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers.[583] Some writers dared to oppose Soviet ideology, such as Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who wrote about life in the Gulag camps.[584]
Russian philosophy has been greatly influential. Alexander Herzen is known as one of the fathers of agrarian populism.[585] Mikhail Bakunin is referred to as the father of anarchism.[586] Peter Kropotkin was the most important theorist of anarcho-communism.[587] Mikhail Bakhtin's writings have significantly inspired scholars.[588] Helena Blavatsky gained international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy, and co-founded the Theosophical Society.[589] Vladimir Lenin, a major revolutionary, developed a variant of communism known as Leninism.[590] Leon Trotsky, on the other hand, founded Trotskyism.[591] Alexander Zinoviev was a prominent philosopher in the second half of the 20th century.[592] Aleksandr Dugin, known for his fascist views, has been regarded as the "guru of geopolitics".[593]
Cuisine
See also: Russian cuisine
Kvass is an ancient and traditional Russian beverage.
Russian cuisine has been formed by climate, cultural and religious traditions, and the vast geography of the nation; and it shares similarities with the cuisines of its neighbouring countries. Crops of rye, wheat, barley, and millet provide the ingredients for various breads, pancakes and cereals, as well as for many drinks. Bread, of many varieties,[594] is very popular across Russia.[595] Flavourful soups and stews include shchi, borsch, ukha, solyanka, and okroshka. Smetana (a heavy sour cream) and mayonnaise are often added to soups and salads.[596][597] Pirozhki,[598] blini,[599] and syrniki are native types of pancakes.[600] Beef Stroganoff,[601]: 266 Chicken Kiev,[601]: 320 pelmeni,[602] and shashlyk are popular meat dishes.[603] Other meat dishes include stuffed cabbage rolls (golubtsy) usually filled with meat.[604] Salads include Olivier salad,[605] vinegret,[606] and dressed herring.[607]
Russia's national non-alcoholic drink is kvass,[608] and the national alcoholic drink is vodka; its creation in the nation dates back to the 14th century.[609] The country has the world's highest vodka consumption,[610] while beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage.[611] Wine has become increasingly popular in Russia in the 21st century.[612] Tea has been popular in Russia for centuries.[613]
Mass media and cinema
Main articles: Media of Russia and Cinema of Russia
Ostankino Tower in Moscow, the tallest freestanding structure in Europe[614]
There are 400 news agencies in Russia, among which the largest internationally operating are TASS, RIA Novosti, Sputnik, and Interfax.[615] Television is the most popular medium in Russia.[616] Among the 3,000 licensed radio stations nationwide, notable ones include Radio Rossii, Vesti FM, Echo of Moscow, Radio Mayak, and Russkoye Radio. Of the 16,000 registered newspapers, Argumenty i Fakty, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Izvestia, and Moskovskij Komsomolets are popular. State-run Channel One and Russia-1 are the leading news channels, while RT is the flagship of Russia's international media operations.[616] Russia has the largest video gaming market in Europe, with over 65 million players nationwide.[617]
Russian and later Soviet cinema was a hotbed of invention, resulting in world-renowned films such as The Battleship Potemkin, which was named the greatest film of all time at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958.[618][619] Soviet-era filmmakers, most notably Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky, would go on to become among of the world's most innovative and influential directors.[620][621] Eisenstein was a student of Lev Kuleshov, who developed the groundbreaking Soviet montage theory of film editing at the world's first film school, the All-Union Institute of Cinematography.[622] Dziga Vertov's "Kino-Eye" theory had a huge impact on the development of documentary filmmaking and cinema realism.[623] Many Soviet socialist realism films were artistically successful, including Chapaev, The Cranes Are Flying, and Ballad of a Soldier.[511]
The 1960s and 1970s saw a greater variety of artistic styles in Soviet cinema.[511] The comedies of Eldar Ryazanov and Leonid Gaidai of that time were immensely popular, with many of the catchphrases still in use today.[624][625] In 1961–68 Sergey Bondarchuk directed an Oscar-winning film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace, which was the most expensive film made in the Soviet Union.[511] In 1969, Vladimir Motyl's White Sun of the Desert was released, a very popular film in a genre of ostern; the film is traditionally watched by cosmonauts before any trip into space.[626] After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian cinema industry suffered large losses—however, since the late 2000s, it has seen growth once again, and continues to expand.[627]
Sports
Main article: Sport in Russia
Maria Sharapova, former world No. 1 tennis player, was the world's highest-paid female athlete for 11 consecutive years.[628]
Football is the most popular sport in Russia.[629] The Soviet Union national football team became the first European champions by winning Euro 1960,[630] and reached the finals of Euro 1988.[631] Russian clubs CSKA Moscow and Zenit Saint Petersburg won the UEFA Cup in 2005 and 2008.[632][633] The Russian national football team reached the semi-finals of Euro 2008.[634] Russia was the host nation for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup,[635] and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.[636] However, Russian teams are currently suspended from FIFA and UEFA competitions.[637]
Ice hockey is very popular in Russia, and the Soviet national ice hockey team dominated the sport internationally throughout its existence.[509] Bandy is Russia's national sport, and it has historically been the highest-achieving country in the sport.[638] The Russian national basketball team won the EuroBasket 2007,[639] and the Russian basketball club PBC CSKA Moscow is among the most successful European basketball teams.[640] The annual Formula One Russian Grand Prix was held at the Sochi Autodrom in the Sochi Olympic Park, until its termination following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.[641][642]
Historically, Russian athletes have been one of the most successful contenders in the Olympic Games.[509] Russia is the leading nation in rhythmic gymnastics; and Russian synchronised swimming is considered to be the world's best.[643] Figure skating is another popular sport in Russia, especially pair skating and ice dancing.[644] Russia has produced numerous prominent tennis players.[645] Chess is also a widely popular pastime in the nation, with many of the world's top chess players being Russian for decades.[646] The 1980 Summer Olympic Games were held in Moscow,[647] and the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2014 Winter Paralympics were hosted in Sochi.[648][649] However, Russia has also had 43 Olympic medals stripped from its athletes due to doping violations, which is the most of any country, and nearly a third of the global total.[650]
See also
flag Russia portal
Outline of Russia
Notes
Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, remains internationally recognised as a part of Ukraine.[1] Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, which were annexed—though are only partially occupied—in 2022, also remain internationally recognised as a part of Ukraine. The southernmost Kuril Islands have been the subject of a territorial dispute with Japan since their occupation by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II.[2]
The Sreda Arena Atlas 2012 did not count the populations of two federal subjects of Russia where the majority of the population is Muslim, namely Chechnya and Ingushetia, which together had a population of nearly 2 million, thus the proportion of Muslims was possibly slightly underestimated.[7]
Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə]
Russia shares land borders with fourteen sovereign states:[19] Norway and Finland to the northwest; Estonia, Latvia, Belarus and Ukraine to the west, as well as Lithuania and Poland (with Kaliningrad Oblast); Georgia and Azerbaijan to the southwest; Kazakhstan and Mongolia to the south; China and North Korea to the southeast—as well as sharing maritime boundaries with Japan and the United States. Russia also shares borders with the two partially recognised breakaway states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia that it occupies in Georgia.
Most notably the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, the Russian apartment bombings, the Moscow theater hostage crisis, and the Beslan school siege
Russia has an additional 850 km (530 mi) of coastline along the Caspian Sea, which is the world's largest inland body of water, and has been variously classified as a sea or a lake.[216]
Russia, by land area, is larger than the continents of Australia, Antarctica, and Europe; although it covers a large part of the latter itself. Its land area could be roughly compared to that of South America.
Russia borders, clockwise, to its southwest: the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, to its west: the Baltic Sea, to its north: the Barents Sea (White Sea, Pechora Sea), the Kara Sea, the Laptev Sea, and the East Siberian Sea, to its northeast: the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Sea, and to its southeast: the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan.
In 2020, constitutional amendments were signed into law that limit the president to two terms overall rather than two consecutive terms, with this limit reset for current and previous presidents.[251]
Including bodies on territory disputed between Russia and Ukraine whose annexation has not been internationally recognised: the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol since the annexation of Crimea in 2014,[1] and territories set up following the Russian annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts in 2022.
Sources
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