scholarly journals EMPIRE-BUILDING AND FRONTIER OF SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET TIMES

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 88-96
Author(s):  
Paul R. Josephson ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Far East ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Socialist Economy ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Labor Camp ◽  
The Far East ◽  
Soviet Russia

The paper deals with the strategies of colonization and assimilation of frontier in Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia in relation to, Siberia and the Far East. These frontier spaces were disturbing the Soviet leadership for they were both vulnerable for an external invasion and unsupportive of the new socialist order. Thus, countryside of Soviet Russia was also seen as frontier of its own kind. The conquest of frontier and its integration into the socialist, industrial economy was implemented by Stalinist leadership through the violent collectivization, which was accompanied by colonization in the periphery strengthened by the flow of exiles and labor camp prisoners from the collectivized western areas. From the point of view of Soviet leaders, the frontier territories were both resource pantry and “empty spaces” to settle. To stimulate colonization Soviet government was establishing the “corridors of modernization”, a network of infrastructure, connecting the newly constructed “company towns”, the outposts of frontier conquest. Such politics was simultaneously integrating indigenous peoples of frontier into the socialist economy and destroying their way of life. In spite of efforts of Soviet rulers from Stalin to Brezhnev, the assimilation of frontier did not succeed. However, in the 21st century Russian leadership continues to treat Arctic, Siberia and the Far East along the Soviet lines, as frontier spaces of economic and symbolic conquest and military-political contestation. Unlike the Soviet era, though, nowadays the concept of frontier had found its way into Russian historical and political thought.

scholarly journals Declassified Documents of the GPU-OGPU of the 1920s as a Historical Source

2021 ◽  
pp. 405-417
Author(s):  
Olga N. Senyutkina ◽  
◽  
Vasily S. Khristoforov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Far East ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Special Services ◽  
The Far East ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Available Information

The article analyzes a documents complex of the GPU-OGPU deposited in the Central Archive of the Federal Security Service of Russia (TsA FSB Rossii) that have been recently declassified. Selected materials from the Eastern Department of the GPU-OGPU relate to the early Soviet period of the 1920s and the events that took place in Siberia and the Far East. The goals and objectives of the study include, first of all, assessment of the significance of the source material chosen by the authors for enriching our knowledge of the historical phenomena and processes that took place in the emerging Soviet state. In addition, the authors identify the mechanisms of creating “Surveys of the situation on the eastern outskirts of the USSR and in the neighboring countries,” which characterize the cause-and-effect relationships in the development of events in Siberia and the Far East. The materials of the sources demonstrate the level of knowledge about the ethno-confessional specifics of the aborigines and about the replenishment of the population in the region with new ethnic groups as a result of the change of government and the Civil War. The novelty of the research lies in identifying criteria for assessing the population groups of the region, primarily from the point of view of their possible actions against the Soviet regime. Integrated approach to assessing the source material of special services allows a comprehensive approach to their activities and rejects the stereotype persisting since the 1990s that everything done by the GPU-OGPU was aimed at terror against local residents. Since the article also deals with the factor of external influence (USA, Japan, France) on the mood of the aborigines, it can be argued that information about anti-Soviet efforts of other states, as analyzed by intelligence analysts, justifies in the eyes of modern reader the GPU-OGPU activities in order to stabilize the situation in Soviet Russia and the USSR beyond the Urals. The authors come to the conclusion that materials of the Eastern Department of the GPU-OGPU are a valuable source of information on the role of the Russian special services in ensuring stability in the Far East and Siberia in the first half of the 1920s. The point is that this information not only complements the available information on what was happening in the region, but also confirms the importance of collecting and analyzing data for making more effective decisions by the Soviet political elite.

scholarly journals SOVIET RESETTLEMENT’S PROGRAM FOR THE UKRAINIAN PEASANCE IN 1921–1925

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 67-72
Author(s):  
Olesia Rozovyk
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Far East ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
The Urals ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
The Far East ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government

The article, based on little-known sources, deals with the process of forming the policy of the Soviet government to solve such a problem as agrarian overpopulation of the USSR. The article presents data on overpopulation in some districts of the Ukrainian SSR, such as Kyiv, Chernihiv and Volyn districts, where such a phenomenon as scarcity of land and low-yielding soils was presented. An Emergency Resettlement Commission was established within the People’s Commissariat of Land Affairs by the decision of the Council of People’ Commissars (CPC). This Commission solved all issues related to the resettlement of peasants within the republic and abroad. Similar commissions were also formed in all provincial and county centers of the Ukrainian SSR. These commissions began active work on the registration of landless peasants and the search for vacant lands, primarily in the republic for their resettlement, beginning in the spring of 1921. Commissions were also carried out with the All-Russian (later All-Union) Resettlement Commission on the provision of land in uninhabited areas of the RSFSR, such as the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia, Kazakhstan, the Far East, Kuban, Stavropol, North Caucasus to the settlers from Ukraine. In February 1923, the CPC of the Ukrainian SSR took measures to ensure the planned resettlement of the rural population of the republic in Ukraine and abroad. In the autumn of 1923, the VIII All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets approved the main directions of resettlement policy in the republic. It was reduced to the following measures: first – the resettlement of Ukrainians in the free lands of the Ukrainian SSR; second – resettlement, first of all, of the poor population, which included assistance in farming; third – the resettlement of part of the population from rural areas to cities; fourth – the resettlement of small peasant families in the All-Union Colonization Fund in the Urals, Siberia, Kazakhstan, the Far East. In April 1924, CPC of the Soviet Union, supporting the resettlement movement, adopted a resolution “On the benefits of migrants”. It determined the level of material assistance to the families who settled in new lands. Thus, during 1921–1925, the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee and the CPC of the Ukrainian SSR developed a program of resettlement of the Ukrainian population within its ethnic lands and the Union Colonization Fund. This was the first five-year cycle of resettlement policy of the government of the USSR, and in 1926 a new resettlement program was approved, designed first for seven and then for ten years.

Yoshizawa Kenkichi and the Soviet—Japanese Non-aggression Pact Proposal

1980 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Bridges
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Far East ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
International Military Tribunal ◽  
The Far East ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Military Tribunal ◽  
Legal Expert ◽  
Soviet Russia

While the developments leading up to the signature of the Soviet—Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941 have received considerable attention from scholars, the antecedents of this pact, the discussions between Japan and Soviet Russia over non-aggression or neutrality agreements from the mid-1920s onwards, are less widely known. The most significant of the earlier initiatives came in December 1931, when Soviet Foreign Commissar, Maxim Litvinov, proposed a pact of non-aggression to the Japanese Foreign Minister designate, Yoshizawa Kenkichi. Subsequently, at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, a Soviet legal expert was to argue that the Japanese refusal to accept this proposal was proof of their aggressive plans for war on the Soviet Union.

scholarly journals “Honeymoon” of the Russian Empire and the United States during WWI

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-292
Author(s):  
Victoria I. Zhuravleva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
The United States ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Liberal Internationalism ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
The Russian Empire

The article focuses on the debatable issues of Russian-American relations from 1914 until the fall of Tsarism, such as the degree of the two countries’ rapprochement, ethnic questions, the positive dynamics of mutual images and the intensified process of Russians and Americans studying each other. Based on primary and secondary sources, this work intends to emphasize that the conflict element in bilateral relations did not hamper cooperation between the two states. The author’s multipronged and interdisciplinary approach allowed her to conclude that the United Sates was ready to engage in wide-ranging interaction with the Russian Empire regardless of their ideological differences. From the author’s point of view, it was the pragmatic agenda that aided the states’ mutual interest in destroying the stereotypes of their counterpart and stimulated Russian Studies in the US and American Studies in Russia. Therefore, the “honeymoon” between the two states had started long before the 1917 February Revolution. However, Wilson strove to turn Russia not so much into an object of US’ “dollar diplomacy”, but into a destination of its “crusade” for democracy. The collapse of the monarchy provided an additional impetus for liberal internationalism by integrating the Russian “Other” into US foreign policy. Ultimately, an ideological (value-based) approach emerged as a stable trend in structuring America’s attitude toward Russia (be it the Soviet Union or post-Soviet Russia).

‘An Ambiguous Area’: Mongolia in Soviet-Japanese relations in the mid-1930s

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 730-758
Author(s):  
BRIAN BRIDGES
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Far East ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Mutual Assistance ◽  
Intense Competition ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Japanese Military

AbstractThe Mongolian People's Republic (MPR) became the focus of intense competition between the Soviet Union and Japan in the 1930s, when it was more commonly known as Outer Mongolia. The Soviet Union viewed the MPR as an ideological and strategic ally, and was determined to defend that state against the increasingly adventurist actions of the Japanese military based in northern China. Japanese ambitions to solve the so-called ‘Manmo’ (Manchuria-Mongolia) problem led the Soviets to initiate ever-closer links with the MPR, culminating in the 1936 pact of mutual assistance which was intended to constrain Japanese pressure. Using unpublished Japanese materials as well as Russian and Mongolian sources, this article demonstrates how the Soviet leadership increasingly viewed the MPR as strategically crucial to the defence of the Soviet Far East.

Natural Hazards Governance in Russia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Badina ◽  
Boris Porfiriev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Far East ◽  
Civil Defense ◽  
The Far East ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Russian Federation

A major implication of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 involved the radical transformation of the national security system. Its fundamentally militaristic paradigm focused on civil defense to prepare and protect communities against the strikes of conventional and nuclear warheads. It called for a more comprehensive and balanced civil protection policy oriented primarily to the communities’ and facilities’ preparedness and response to natural hazards impact and disasters. This change in policy was further catalyzed by the catastrophic results of the major disasters in the late 1980s, such as the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion of 1986 and the Armenian earthquake of 1988. As a result, in 1989, a specialized body was organized, the State Emergency Commission at the USSR Council of Ministers. A year later in the Russian Federation (at that time a part of the Soviet Union), an analogous commission was established. In 1991, it was reorganized into the State Committee for Civil Defense, Emergency Management, and Natural Disasters Response at the request of the president of the Russian Federation (EMERCOM). In 1994, this was replaced by the much more powerful Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defense, Emergency Management, and Natural Disasters Response (which kept the abbreviation EMERCOM). In the early 21st century, this ministry is the key government body responsible for (a) development and implementation of the policy for civil defense and the regions’ protection from natural and technological hazards and disasters, and (b) leading and coordinating activities of the federal executive bodies in disaster policy areas within the Russian Federation’s Integrated State System for Emergency Prevention and Response (EPARIS). In addition, as well as in the former Soviet Union, the scientific and research organizations’ efforts to collect relevant data, monitor events, and conduct field and in-house studies to reduce the risk of disasters is crucially important. The nature of EPARIS is mainly a function of the geographic characteristics of the Russian Federation. These include the world’s largest national territory, which is vastly extended both longitudinally and latitudinally, a relatively populous Arctic region, large mountain systems, and other characteristics that create high diversity in the natural environment and combinations of natural hazards. Meanwhile, along with the natural conditions of significant size and a multiethnic composition of the population, distinctive features of a historical development path and institutional factors also contribute to diversity of settlement patterns, a high degree of economic development, and a level and quality of human life both within and between the regions of Russia. For instance, even within one of the region’s urbanized areas with a high-quality urban environment and developed socioeconomic institutions, neighboring communities exist with a traditional lifestyle and economic relations, primitive technological tools, and so on (e.g., indigenous small ethnic groups of the Russian North, Siberia, and the Far East). The massive spatial disparity of Russia creates different conditions for exposure and vulnerability of the regions to natural hazards’ impacts on communities and facilities, which has to be considered while preparing, responding to, and recovering from disasters. For this reason, EMERCOM’s organizational structure includes a central (federal) headquarters as well as Central, Northwestern, Siberian, Southern, and Moscow regional territorial branches and control centers for emergency management in all of the 85 administrative entities (subjects) of the Russian Federation. Specific features of both the EMERCOM territorial units and ministries and EPARIS as a whole coping with disasters are considered using the 2013 catastrophic flood in the Amur River basin in the Far East of Russia as a case study.

FAR EASTERN POLICY OF THE POST-SOVIET RUSSIA IN THE END OF THE XX CENTURY AND THE BEGINNING OF THE 21st CENTURY: CONCEPTS, EXPERT OPINIONS AND PUBLICISTS’ VIEWPOINTS

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3/1) ◽  
pp. 30-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. S. VASHCHUK
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Far East ◽  
Eastern Region ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Expert Opinions ◽  
The Far East ◽  
The Government ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Far Eastern ◽  
The Early 21St Century

Investigation of Russia’s turnabout to the East is a bright feature of  the national humanitarian space of the early 21st century.  Publications on this topic include the works of economists,  geographers, sociologists and historians. It contains various  viewpoints on the part that the Far Eastern region played in the  social and economic development of Russia, as well as different  genres (varying from publicism to scientific research), and expert  assessments and recommendations to the government. The article  deals with historiographic review of the emerging scientific trend and complements it with the methodology of social and political  history. Humanitarians are considered to be part of the transformed  “society-government” system. The analytics covers a variety of  opinions on the two transformation stages of the post-Soviet history: the Far East during the 1990s and the first fifteen years of the 21st  century. That allows tracing the interrelation between the regional  policy and the intellectuals’ reflection on it. The author comes to the  following conclusion: in 1990s speaking about the Far Eastern policy the experts’ society is rather unanimous in characterizing the  consequences of the reforms as disastrous; but regarding the  “turnabout to the East” the opinions become more varied; optimistic  and pessimistic experts present extreme poles. The role of the Far  East the Russian history of the early 21st century is rather  controversial: on the one hand the region is a kind of problem for  the Centre, and on the other hand, active development of the east is an essential part of the new stage in the development of Russia.

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