Siberia: Worlds Apart

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Westview Series on the Post-Soviet Republics Alexander 1. MotyI, Series Editor Siberia: WorEcls A ~ a r tVictor , I:,. Mote The CPntml Asian Stntes: Discoueri~zgItzdependence, Gregory GIeason Lilhzta~~iil: Tlie Rebel Natiou, V, S t d e y Vardys and fudith B. Scdaitis

Belam?;:A t a Cmssroad?;in Wistn-ry, Jan Zaprudnik

Estonia: Xeizdrn to fndependen~e~ Rein Taagepera

ds Apart

VICTOR L. MOTE University of F-foustm, tlnivcrsity Park

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A Member of the 1"erseus Books vetskayaRossiya, 1978], p. 31). 8. f o h Friedmann, Regi;t)t~afBeriel~pmet~ t Policy: A Case of Vetzeaucl~(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, l f366), pp, 77-83, 9. 2997 World Pop~rlnliortData Sheet (Washington, I3.C.: Population Reference Bureau, 1997). 40. Gary Elausladen, ""Siberian Urbanization Since Stalin,"T~erc>x (Washington, B.C.: National Council for Soviet and East European Research, A u p s t 1990). 11. The situation has worsened since 1991. Even in %>viettimes, these necessities had to be arduously imported across thousands of kilmeters. Vakutia ranked last in the supply of consumer goods and services: Tn some places people waited months or ""years"9i~rthe delivery cjf soap and toothpaste. L d i e Dienes, Suvief Ask: Econi?micDevelapnfenl.and National Poliq C1zoices (Boulder: Westview Press, 498;/), p. 245. 12. A. Granberg and A. Rubensteyn, ""Uchastiye Sibiri vo vneshneekonomicheskoy deyatelhosti: prctblemy i perspektivy," V~*nes/r~zynya turgovfyn, No. 8 (1983), pp. 25-29,

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GREATER SIBERIA: A RESOURCE FROHTIEK

43. M, 5, Bradsbw, Siberia at a E~neof Cfmngc, Ecc~nomistIntelligence Unit, Special 1;leporZ:No.2171 (London: EXU, 199[;2),p. 81. 14. The population of Novosibirsk grew by 95 percent beween 1959 and 1985 (Hausfaden, Siberian Urbnnizatimr). 15.,IERGX~C? Dienes, "Ecconumjc and Strategic Position of the Soviet Far East," %viet Ecorzomy, V C ~4, .N o . 1 (4985), p. 453. 16. An average of eight instead of three (A. G. Aganbegyan and V. E Mt>zhjn, eds., BAM stroitd3fvo: K!zozp~yslve~z r2uye osvoyc~ziye [Moscow: Ekonclmika, 19843, p, 217). 4'7. The scarcity of money has led to a catch-22: Government ministries cannot pay the mining companies, The mining companies cannot pay the freight rates, The railroad c=anno>tpay far the electriciq on the electrified lines, and the energy companies, out of sheer fmtration, will not CftSXiver the power, which shuts down mo>vementon the rails ("TraneSiberian Railroad Traffic Halted," W R / R L Newsline, No, 74, Part 4 111 July 199175, on-line posting at "F), the consistently cool-to-cold weathgr actually preserws the potential humus. Combined with a high water table perched above permafrost, the climatic pattern results in bog-type earths and mchilnically weathered rock matdals.

The People On Januay 1,1993, Western Siberia =corded a population of 45.2 mftlion, 10.8 million (71 percent) of whom lived in crjties and 4.4 milljon (29 per-

GREATER SIBERIA: THE LAND AND ITS PEOFLP;

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cent) of wham lived in ruraf areas. Clne of six persons resided in two cities: No~rosibirsk(2.4 million) and Omsk (1.2 million). m e rest of the population was unevenly distributed ammg the region"s five &lasts (Kemerovo, Tyumen', Novosibin;k, Omsk, and Tomsk), the Altay republic and hay, and thc autononnnus okrugs of I(:hantia-Mmsia and Vamalia. The most populous of these territorial units, Kemerovo &last, had lost residents since 1991, as had Tyumenband Tornsk crblasts. The declines were associated wif-;hthe ecmomic stagnation that had occz~rredin the extractive sectors of those provixlces.7 No fewer than twenty of Greater Siberia" fforty-five or more ethnic groups may be found in Wester11 Siberia (see Map 2.2). Only seven of tl-tese gruups-the Siberian Tatars, the Altay, the n a n t s , the Nentsy, the Shors, the Mansi, and the Sel'kups-were natiw to the mgi~n.These people were vastly outnurnbexd by prishlbi?, or nonnatives, such as Russians, nonnative Tatars, tlkrainians, Germans, anit so on. In 1"39,85 pmcent of the population of Western Siberia war; Russian, and natiwe Siberians constituted only 2 percent.

The L L Z I and . Z ~ Its Resozlrces 'The physiographic platform of Eastern Siberia is the Central Siberian Upland. A low north-south undulation divides the watersheds of Western Siberia from that af the Uenisey fiver and simultaneously defines the boundary of the latter with Eastern Siiberia, For almost 2,000 Morneters (1,600 mi) the mighty Veniseq;. which is a mre 2UO kilslneters (160 mi) east of that boundav cuts a steep escarpment into the Central Siberian Upand. Representalive of: the Yenisefs right bank, the cliff reaches its highest elevations near where it m d the river e m r g c from the Western Saym Mountains in the Tyva Republic. Consisting of some of the planet's oldest rock, the upland is delimikd ixl the north by the Nyrranga Mowtains, which form the Taymyr PenjnsuXa, whese barcly 1,500 Samoyedic N8"nasans and b t s y survive in their age-old way. In the south, a winding, linear b a s h separates the upland from l.he Western m d Easter11 Sayan Mountains. 1Phe Rans-Siberim Railroad runs within this natural trough between Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk. Finally, the uplartd is bounded in the east by the IJ&e Baykd ranges (Pre-Baykalia) and the ripplcd terrain of S a b a (Yakutia), The Central Siberian Upland is the source of several of the world% longest and most: powerful. tributaries: h the west, the t h e Tunguskasthe Upper Tunguska, or Angara; the Stony, or Mountah, Tunguska; and the Lower Tunguska-emde the plateau. In the north, the KotuyKhatanga system scours it. In the east the Idem,Chc Vilyuy, the Olenek,

MAP 2.2 Greater Sibcri~:Etlztric Gmtrys SOURCES: Tdeno'v, Afias SSSR, pp. 128-12% Forsytk, A History of fi'le Penptes c ~ JSiberia, pp. 3 "1" 24, 134, a d 205; and Fondahl, ""Siberia: Assirnifatic>na d Discontent," p 191.

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and the Anabar rivers attack it. Although the upIand averages only 500 tcr 7C10 m t e r s (l,li-00-2,300 ft) above sea level, the cumulative hydTaelectric potential of these strems represents me-thi.rd of IZussia" reserves, ranking first in the country." 717e upland is also home to some of the earth's most haccessible humans. The Kets, for instance, who exist h scattered clusters in the basins of the Mountain "Tirnguska and Lower Tunguska rivers and on the Ycnisey floodplain, barely exceed 2,000 hdividuds m d speak a language as strange and as singular as they are. They live aloqside the widely scattered Evenk people, whose autonomous okrug. Evenkia, dominates the upland. IronicaUy, fewer than 3,500 of the estjnnated 30,000 Evel-tks, who speak a variant of Tungus-Manchu, reside in Evenkia, More than half of them dwell in Sakha (Vakutia) and Buryatia. A nort.lneastern extelzsion of the West Siberim Z,owlmd, the North Siberian Lowlmd, divides the Putoran Plateau from Taymyrids Byrranga Mormtains. The Putorm, which reaches elevations of 1,7011 meters (5,528 ft), is an abruptly elevated mass that represe~ztsthe last segment of the Yenisey escarpment. From its apex, rivers radiate outward like spokes of a wheel, including the Pywino, the Kureyka, the Kotuy, and the Kheta, a lek-bank trjbwtay of the Khatanga. The Pyasino and Kheta basins of the North Siberian Lowland am home to about 4,800 of the 6,000 Dolgans, who, like the Safia-Uakuts, speak a Turkic dialect. The western edge of the Putoran Plateau fronts on the balelul settlement of Noril%sk, a city of 170,000 situated at 69' N, The uniortunate residents of Noril"sk, a former Stafinist slave-lahor camp, mine and smelt copper, nickel, cobalt, platinum, and precions metals from Che Putoran. These deposits, in cormbination with nearby coal fields (only 20 miles distant), spurred the developent of the world% most isolated industrial complex, including not only Noril%k, but also nearby Talnab and the Yenisey River port of Dudhka. fn terms of per capita eznissions, Noril%sk is also the planet%most polluted place, easily outdistanc% thr statistics for smog-choked Mexico City m d SBo Paula. Mareover, shce most of Noril'skfs atmospheric excreta is sulfur dioxide, the city is far deadlier than others." In terms of raw materials, Eastern Siberia is a ""seepkg lmd.'"etween the Kuzbas and h k e Baykal along the 7"rans-Siberian Railroad, in the Kansk-hchinsk md Irkutsk basins, are active strip mirres that yield lowquality soft coals. Nor& of these accessible deposits, however, lie the Tungus, Xngmka, and Taymyr basjns, which contain more than hdf of Russia"~undeveloped coal msources. When, a d if, the world"s fossil fuels arc exfiausted, the last to go will be the coal of t k Tungus Basin. Re.hngara watershed is loaded with mostly undeveloped ferrous, nonferrous, and precious metais. h a n g e d like beads along the river artl iron ore and

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GREATER SIBERIA: THE LARD ARD ITS PEOPLE

alumha-bearing deposits. Oil and ga"have been discovered north of Irkutsk, in the Bratsk area, along the Saountain Tunguha, and in the North Siberian Lowland, but few of these fields arc actually produchg. Unlike Western Siberia, which is literally m a s h in 1ak.s and marsfies, Eastern Siberia is a massive, efficiently drahed tableland that is void of major lakes, save one. That single exception is, by volume, the greatest freshwater lake in the world. It is also unequivocally thr deepest and oldest. Lake Raykal, which, is no younger than 20 million years-an average lake" life span is 15 Hlillion-is at its deepest 2,063 meters (5,715 ft) and contains more potable water than atZ five North American Grcilat takes combined. Belgiuzn-sized in area, the crescent-shaped Baykal is not particularly hpressive from a bird%-eyeview; but what it lacks in the horizontal plane it makes up in the vertical. This deep lake contains m m than 80 perccnt of Russja's, and 20 percent of the world"s, drinkable water. Similar to the lakes of East Africa, Baykal occupies a trench, or a rift in the earth's surface. This rift is currently inc~asingat the speed of a fingernail's growth; thus, Baykal is gradually becoming even wider and cleepe~ Hydrologists estimate that if Baykal's cup were empty, it would take all the world's rivers an entire year to refill it. Raykal is not empty however: It cmthuausly receives the waters of 336 streams m d is drairred by only one, thc Angara. If the tap we= ever turned off, the Angara would empty Baykal h305 years. fn other words, had this hypothetical process begun during Che reign of Peter the Great (1fi89-1725)' the lake wnuld be d r y now.lVhat would be a s h m e , for BaykaYs water is so unusually pure that under sunny skies, a visitor can espy a silver coin at a depth of 40 mea l y the Sargasso Sea boasts grea.t.er ters (120 ft) b e l w t-he lake's s~~rface. translucency. As l m g as it is not covered by snow, the lake is just as transhcent in early January. It remains soijdly frozen until Nay and obtains a maximm ice thickness of 2 meters (6 ft). The great tkichess of Baykal's ice has inspired myths surrounding the lake's cap"bility of supporting early TransSiberian Railroad trains*bfore the construction of the first railway loop around the lake" southern tip (1901-1904), passengers and mlllixlg stock were krrit.d across Baykal by two British-built icebreahg train ferries. In the severest of winters, the icebreakers became ice-bound. Such was the wlnter of 1903-1904, when in Febrzlary the Japanese laranched their suvriise attack on the Russian fleet at Part Arthw. For several years before the outbreak of the Russo-Japancse War (1804-19115), the Russian railway ministry toyed with the idea of laying a temporary track across the ice of Baykal, MIkich that wirrter was at maximum thickness. Using long deepers to spread the load, t-he toying finalfy bccme reali,ty: The snldiers cautiously rolled a test locomotive onto the track, when suddenly, the popped, ice-wealiened by a warm spring beneath the surface-reaked,

GREATER SIBERIA: THE LAND AND ITS PEOFLP;

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and violently cracked. The test engine plullged to t-he bottom, leaving in its wake a jagged, 2-meter rift in the ice that ultimately spread mare than 22 kilometers (14 mi) across thc. otherwise frozen lake. Theseafter, engines were dismantled, and together with the compcment parts, were loaded onto flatcars, which "were dragged across the ice by teams of men and horses."ll What a way to win a war! (Needless to say, t h y did not,) The Pre-Baykal and Tmsbaykal ranges manifest steep shomlines west and east of the lake, respectively. Dt~ringthe 1,970s and 1981)s' in association with the planning and construction of the Raykal-Amur Main Line rail system, or B M , which passes through them, these ranges became veritable household words in the Soviet Union. h addition to their scenic and recreational value, the highlands cmtairr rich depnsib of titanium, lead, zinc, graphite, and nephelite, many of which were exposed and polished by glaciation in the past 2 million years. Lake Baykal and its ranges are the hornelands of the Buryat nation, a Mongol-speaking Buddhist people who live both west and east of the lake. Tl~e largest Siberian native minority, numbering more than 4011,000, t k Ruryats proclaimed their ASSR a fulMedged republic in 1991. They and the Evcnks are longtime neighbors. The mountains of the south (Westan and Eastern Sayans, Ta~nu-C)la, and Yablonovyy) are older and higher than the Ra)lkal ranges, In the west, t-he Sayans trap a series of steppe basins. Because of their isolation and singularity, the basins were appealkg sites for early settlement (see Chapter 3). In addition to the strategic value of the basins, being steppes, their soils were suitable for Neolithic faming. The most krtile of the lowlands is the Minusinsk Basin. Triangularshaped and.hemmed in by the Western and Eastern Sayans, the basin is noted for its rich, black, loamy soils. WiiGhin its fertile confhes live the Khakass, a group of northeastern Turks, who estabhshed a rclpublic &ere in 1991. East of Khakassia, in the Biryusa-Uda valleys, exists another ?itrkic tribe, the 'lbfalars, Mtho rank among Siberia" smallest ethnic groups. I:,,ikcwise,sou& of the Minushsk, Basin, the Tyvan people occupy three iriolated lowlands between the Sayms to the north and the TmnuOlas to t-he south. The Tyvans (formerIy Tuvans), L\rhn represent one of d y two groups of native Siberians to boast a clear majoriity within their homelad (the other being the Aga-Buryats), are the titular population of the Tyva RepuZllic. ?'heir semiarid capital, Kyzyl, proudly lays claim to ol:Asia."lz Mere the Tyvans mine coal, asbestos, and cobalt. the "ce~~fer South and east of Lake Bqkal is the Vabhovyy Rmge, which forms a watershed between Litke Baylvietp c ~ I-ential. 9. Victor 1,. Mote, Arz Trzduslrial Aflns c$ the Sovkl Szrccessor States (Houston, Texas: Industrial Information Resources, 19841, p, 1-4. 10. C. Rossolimo, Bay& l (Irkutsk: Vostocho-Sibirskoye knizhnoye izd,, 2 971)' p. 63; and Uu. B. Kkrclmov and V. A. KLyushin, Org~~liznfsipa zott otdyklm i tzrriz~~fn na poberezlz 5 e Bnyhla (Moscow: Stroyizdat, 1976), p. 3, 11. Newby, The Big Red Pbzirz Ride, pp. 183-184. 12. Harmon Tupper, 'E the Crmt Oceart (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 2965), p. 221. 43. Theodore Shabad and Victor L, Mote, G n f e w y lu Siberian Resozirces ( f h c BAMi (New York: John Wiiey & Sons, 193[7), p. '71; and Victor 1,. Mote, "The Baikal-Amur Mainline and Its Implications for the Pacific Basin," in Soviet Matur~l R e s o u ~ e sin the World Econo~rty,ed. Robert G. Jensen, Theodore Shabad, and Artktur W. Wright (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19831, p. 149. 14. Goskamstat Rossii, Ross?'ysluayafcderatsiyn v 3 992 godu, pp. 92-95, 45.,N. I. Mikhaytov, Puimda Sibiri (MIIXOW:Myslb,1936), pp. 3-4.

THREE

The Litt e Siberians: On the P anet's Periphery

The spokert m r d willpceze in Ik air. -Xfux_yat saying

Why did p z a dismver i f , ttiis czirsed t a ~ dof Siberin, Vcnnak? -Nikolay Nekrasov

Like provi"cial minorities everywhese, the '"ittle Siberians" are wary of interlopers-a reactim kindled by centuries of untoward ercpericnces m the marghs of the eath. Outsiders have disrupted, if: not crushed, thcir fey existence, Before the arrival of' the Russians, more than 200 native tribes vied for territory in Greater Siberia. Il-ttertribal warfare, based on the use of simple weapolls (spears, hives, bows and arrows, and so on), took place. Occasionallli, large confederations, such as those oi the Huns, Avars, and Mongol-Tatars, rose up, expanding the territozies mder dispute and raising the stakes.. Chly the Russians, however, came to stay: The Russians exploited the intertribal animosities to their advantage, reorganized life in Greater Siheria, and began a four-hundred-year-long process of subjugation and assimilatjon.

THE PEOBLXMG OF SIBERIA Most archeologists contend. that the people of the Middle Palcolithic era (IC)O,OW-,U3,llt)O years before the prltscmt iB.rs.0 strove to avoid the harsh continental climates of n u r t k n Asia.1 .hlehou$h they left no physicai evidence east of Uzbekistan, a few Neanderthal bmds may have roamed across southern Siberia, whieh during the last glacia adIliance was a

partly wooded tmdra instead of taiga, as much of it is t d a y Ahead of them, both north m d east, were bustling herds of horses, bison, asld woolly mammoths, which might have lured Neanderthal hunters to the thresfiold of Nor& America, if not onto the continent groper. Despite the absence of physical evide~~ce of Neandertf\als in Siberia, they seem to have left '"cultural" vestiges. Modern Vukagiss, for instance, hunt reindeer in Neanderthal-sized bands by staiking them for mies cm end. After the men kill the animal, the women carry the carcass back to the base camp-an assumed Neanderthal trait, The Yukagirs and other Siberian natives eat h z e n berries in p r e s u e d Neanderthal fashion. 'I'he s h a n i s t i c worship of the bear, which may have originated with Neanderthal adoration of the cave bear, remains popular among the Ugrians, Ainu, and other native e t h i c groups" Athough h w ~ a n (f-foma s e ~ c l n smay ) have been present in the Russian Far East as early as 3a0,OW the oldest remahs hmd to date hGreater Siberia we= uncovered in the mrhg-Yuryakh G q e , located 145 kilometers (90 mi) south of Yakutslk, h the Lena River bash. The earliest accurately dated physical evidence for humm settlement there does not predate 35,C)W U.P. (Upper Paledithic)."~~, Neander&als, who reached a dead end circa 30,080 B.P., would have had five mittemia to work their magic in Siberia, The only other evidence of early humans in the region before 20,fX10 B.P. is associated with Homo sapilrzs sapirns, or modem mm*This includes discoveries at Ruhtsovsk, in the Kdunda Steppe (see Chapter 2); in caves in the neighhoring Allay Momtains; m d near Vladivostok." Most of the human evidence in Greater Siberia dates from times more recent than 20,000 R.11. Cro-Magnons, not N'eanderthals, crosscd the Bering Strait into North America and into Japan via Sakhalin and Hokkaido because the sea level was so low (-mm) that it ercposed dry "land bsjdges.'Tl)ysical evidence of human settiernemt in Greater Siberia before the Mesolitkric (12,000-10,000 B.12,) includes whole settlements (Mal'ta and Buret' in the Angara Basin), Venus figurines, weapons, leat-hercraft t d s , c m art and petroglyphs, food storage vaults, graves, and funerary gifts, The clothing a.nd domiciles were very sirnilar to those used by eighteenth- and nineteenth-cmtury Chukchi and Eskimos.Uccordingly, at the end of the last glacial advance (IC),C)WR.p,), the roots of culture had taken hold in faraway, frigid Siberia.

ETHfiIOOMPHU BEFORE THE RUSSfAHS The MesOlitjtic: The Dawlz of "'Race'" h r i n g the Mesolithic era (12,080-10,000 B.I?), the climate changed. The weathcr became warmer m d wetter. 'l'he mtreating ice sheets permitted

the expansion of new vegetational zcmes: m e r e there had been tundra and grass, nekv forests emerged. The new vegetation attracted fresh species of smaller animals, It was a tirnely event. Paleolillsric hunters had placed many of the gimt species of the tundra on the brink of extinction; now nature conspired with them to finish the task. The great woolly mammoth, rhinoceros, cave bear, and Eurasian bison were lost Iforever, m d with their extinction, stocks of meat reacl-red an all-time low. fn the new environments, Mesolithic Siberians adopted a nomadic way of life, hunting the smaller, often quicker, wildife (reindeer, horses, and wild. men). fn glace of semipemanmt pit houses, they =sorted to collapsible wigwms sianilas to those of the d e r n Ttzngus and Nentsy, not to w n tjon the Canadian and Phi- Indians, ""VilIages" became fleeting base camps. The Upper Pa1eolithic and Mesoli&ic ems we= the setthgs for the emer.. gence of the basic racial stocks worldwide. Paleolithic Siberians might have been in contact with Eumpeans, or might even have had European mats. The thousands of years and mites, however, must have been instmentat in the eventual development of the physidogical traits that came to differMltiate European Caucasoids from Asiatic Mongoloids.6 Physical anthropdogists note that human physical distb~ctions,includjng aspects characterized. as "macc"'as racial subvpe, are the products of genetic evolution fixed. over lftng pericrds of time by m a n s of geographical isolatjon, social selection, and natural selectim. Among these factors, isolation was most illstrumental in shaping the physidogy af Mesolithie Siberians. Mongdoid physical types arose in eastern and central Asia as early as 21,000 B.P. By the Mesolithic era, a Mongoloid physiological realm that eventually would be identified with the Altaic cultural-linguistic group stretched from the Middle Yenisey fiver to Lake Baykal, inclusive of Mongolia. Ironically, the Altay Mountains themselves, along with the proximal Minusinsk Basin (see Chapter 2), were distinguished by the dominmce of Europoid, not Mongoloid, anthropological types. The Siberian Neolz'fhic

'The Agric~dturalRevol~zfioncame late to Greater Siberia. The domesticatjon of plants and animals, which characterizes the NeoliChic, or New Stone Age, did nobrrivc there until 3001)B.C. Apart from the domestication of the dog and widtsprcad fishing with harpoons and hooks, "Nealithic" Siberians contirrued to subsist an hmting and gathering for five millennia after the beg ing cJf the Middle Eastem Nedithic (1(1,01)1 B.P*). ) 'The ve~lerableharyoon, used by Eskimos to spear fish and seagoing mammaIs well into the twentieth century, was also emphyed by the ancestors d the Evens, Evenks, Nentsy, and KoryaE;s.

The first manifestation of agriculture in Greater Siberia, pastoralism, was associated with the introduction of copper tools at the end of Europe" Chalcolithic, or Cupric %one Age. Around 5,000 B.P., the first major Siberian civitizatim, the Afanas'yevo cul-ktre, arose in the Kuznetsk and Niinusksk basi.as,.'The Afanas'yyevans hvere not only Siberia's first coppersmi"chs but also the region" earliest true pastoralists, herding sheep, horses, and cows. Rarially Europoid, they traded actively with the peoples of Central Asia and those as far west as thc Volga River, Approximately 3,500 B.12.., the Andronovim culture supplanted the Afanas"yevan. The Andronovians mined not only copper and gold but also tin along the upper Irtysh River, Copper and tin, at a IQ:1ratio, are the primary ingredients inbronze.

The Bmnze Age With the manufacture of bronze, Siberians finally caught up with the techoXogical advances that had prevailed h Southwest Asia and Europe for several millennia, The Andronovians, who ranged from the 7"Rbol fiver in the west to the Minusksk Basin in fie east, were farmers as well as pastoralists. EJiving in woad-sod houses, they were sedentary wheat famers who used bronze scythes to barvest t k i r crops. They bartered with the Ural-Valga people in the west and the Chinese h the southeast (Photo 3.1). The Andrmovians survived. peacefully until 1200 B.C., when their homeland ir-t the Minusin& Basin was invaded by haif-caste Karasuk nomadjc warriors. The Karasuks were classic pastoralists who raised calncls as well as horses, cows, sfntep, and goats. Extremely mobile, the Karasuks roamed the vast countryside between the Urals and Uakutia*Like itkerm t peddlers, wherever they went, they exchanged capper and bronze artifacts for local raw materials and folk art, Kasasuk art, itself, reflected the influence of the Chinese, who had rningled with. the Afmas'yevans and Andronovians in the Minusink Bat;in for several thousand years. To modem Buryatia, the Karasuks difiused goods that the Chinese had acquired from places as far away as Japan and the Moluccas. 'They also introduced Chhese calligraphy and bronze metallurgy to the Mongoloid peoples of Lake Baykal and Yakutia. By 1000 &C., the racial compositim of Siberia consisted of Andronovian Europoids in the steppes of Western Siberia and h the Altay; halfcaste Kasasuks, who wmdered far and wide from their Minusbsk homelmd; and purely Mongoloid peoples in Eastern Siberia a d t_he Russian Far East, The peoples of the 017' Basin, who rclsided byetweell Chc swantps and th steppe-dwellin.g Andrmwians, already bore the ornamentation that is still worn by modern Khmts and Mansi. The natives of Trans-

baykalia resembled modem Tmgus and YukagiTs, who hverc? f"ar mores nummus and widespread than they are today. Paleo-Asiatic peoplehincluding Yukagirs, Itelhen! Chukchi, Chuvms, Koryaks, a d so on, lived in what is now Sa&a (Vakutia). And the h u r Rver cultures, the mcestors of the contemporary :r\liv&i (another Paleo-Asiatic group), Nanays, Udegeys, and so forth, were stmngly irrfluenced by the Cbese.7 Approximately 3,0110 Dell, Dgarian pastoralists began to supplmt the migratory Karasuks in bath the Minushsk and Ob' regions. Srdentary Tagarian farmers built permanent log houses, used sophisticated irriPHOTO 3.1 Br~skof Andronovian wotnnrz gation canals, a d tilled the land ca. 2000 B,C. SOURCE: G,S.Mr-rrfynoxta,curawith hoes.. The Tagariaas of the tor cf the M u s c z o~f ~Clze ~ ~Torftskaya Pisa~titsa, Kulunda Steppes were in con- in F(e~~wrozlrr. tact with Iranian Scythians who lived nearby; in Turkestm. mrough them, other Sfierian groups learned to domesticate the horse, and later, to rnold iron." Eventually, the powerhl Scythims, who are far better h o w n for their e in Asia, established an empire of "vast steppeactivities in ~ k r a k than land and wooded steppe that s t ~ t c h e dfrom the Amur and the h a n g He (Yellow River) in the east to the Caspian a d Black seas in the west."g Scythian influence in Siberia is less known; but recently unearthed tombs in the AItay Mountains indicate it was once a force to be reckoned, vvith.10 As natural ~frigerators,the graves preserved the rc-rmains of Scythian chieftains as well as their horses, chariots, and material wealth, including humankjnd's oldest surviving tapestries. Although the majority of individuds buried in the Scythian tombs were of Eumpoid stock, a few were Mongoloid, indicating that they perpetuated the Karasuk tradition of mahtainhg contact with the Chinese. At tl-te s m e t h e that Scythian dominance was weakening in the west and was being replaced by that of the kkestan-dwellhg Sarmati.ans, in the east the Scythians gradually werc superseded by the Huns. Around the timc. of Christ, dual-race Gshtyks inhabited the Minushsk Basin cm-

temporaneously with the Uemisey Kyrgya, direct ancestors of the modern Kyrgyz people who live in the TyanyShan' Mountains far to the southwest. Mixing farming with pastoralism, like the Andronovians and Karasuks before them, the Tfashtyks diversified. their occupance by breecJing domesticated reindeer, They also diffused into the Kuznetsk Basin. In contact with the Chinese m d Hum, the Tashtyks were fond of silk fabrics, dwelled in Chinese-style structures supported by massive beams, and cremated their dead.1' The AltaySayan crossraads at the time, therefore, PHOTO 3.2 Man of m i x c Bnmbla consisted of Scythians and SarSrepp, ~ c n the r lime of Cfzrisf,S O ~ C G. E :S. matims in the west and southMndyrzozjn, ctarator of ttre Museum of the Tomwest, Huns in the east, and s k y a Pisanifsn, itz Xemcrovo. Chkese in the south. The vestigial art, techncrlogy, m d physiology of the people reflect this cultural mosaic. 'Their artf in fact, in modified form,, persists to this day as the folk art of the Kyqyz of Central Asia, the Kazakhs, and the Altays (Photo 3.2).

Irun Age Htrrls and Amus. The Huns are intriguing not only because of their notoriously hawkish history, but also because of Cheir place as middlemen between Mongol and Turkic ethnicity. The few H u m k phrases that survive closely resemZlle their ccrmterparts in the Turkic language. Uet, the name "Hunyfis a Mongol word ( I C ~ ~ ~ E PChat Z ) means ""man." This skengthens the pan-fickic contention that Turks, Huns, Mongols, and even Iranians are all "Turks." tong associated with Attila's invasion of Europe in the fifth century A.& the Hsiung-nu peaple, or Hms, were the bane of Chinese existence. The bulk of the Great Mi'alf. was built and rebuilt (300-100 B.C.) to discousage tbr invasions of barbarian Huns.1' The Hrlns were primarily pastoral nomads, but they aiso learned (from Che Chinese) to raise millet. ALong with millet, they consumed meat, mare" milk, and chees cal liiet of their nomadic p g m y today Even before Attila's outbufst, the

Huns ranged as far north as Transbaykalia, forcing northward migrations of Mongol Buryats and Turkic Uygurs. Athough the Chinese ultimately routed the eastern Huns, the main body moved inexorably westward like a plague of locusts, provoking mass migrations all over the Eurasian plaim, Wthin 100 years after Attila's famous assault on the Roman Empire, Avars split the unified Turkic empiT(3into two large confederacies. One of these was established sou& of Lake BaykaL Consisting of Kyrgyz and Uygurs, the Baykal, confederacy traded with the ancestors of the forcstdwelling Tofalars and Sakhalars. The descendmts of the S a a l a r s were driven later by the Buryats northward ktto the Lens River valley, where ultimtely they would become Sakha-Vakuts. In the process, the once widespread Yukagirs were f m e d by the Sakhatars into their now isolated hom&nd betwee11the mouths of the Indigirka and Kolyma rivers. I f the proto-Koryaks and Eskimos were isolated. from ail this in the northeast, then so wem the Clb' River peoples. Huns, Aciars, and Kipchak Turks could ravage the steppes on horseback but not the hsyugan swamps, It was to the Vasyugan that the fomer occupants of th steppes retreated during Attila"s assault on Europe. Protected Zly the Vasyugan moat, the Ostyaks ( m m t s ) and VogzJls (Mansi) developed a mostly hunting and fishing culture. Left behind by the mants and Mansi were t h i r e the soutbem tlrals, 1ingui"ic relatives, the Magyars, whcr took ~ f u g in and later, the middle Volga region. In. A.r>. 874, the Magyars borrowed some of the Kipchaks3aslike proclivities and maraudcd their way onto the Hungarim Plain, At the end of the first millelmium A.(:).,the Mid.& Ob' regilln had become the homeland of UraSic Ugrians. Not long afterward, Uralic 5amoyed.s (Nentsy Entsiv, Sel'kups, and Ngmasans) diffused across the West Siberian Lowland from the Altay-Sayan rcg-i,o~~It was thcse peapes who htmduced rehdeer herding to the tmdras of the Far North. The origi" of the Tungus language, a third branch of r"rlt&c, is less certain, A plausible argunrre~~t asserts that the Tungus elnerged from Heilsngjiang (Manchuria), where a number of them still live, in approximately 4,000 &P. Once in Siberia, they learned rctindeer breeeting horn their Uralic and Turkic neighbors, They dispersed gradually and randomly across the Central Siberian Upland. and.into the Arnur Basin. The Last Migmtions: The Mangal-Tatars Genghis IKhan, who was born around 1167 in the Greater a i n g a n Mountaisls of contemporary Inner Mongolia, did not live to see his Mongol army" greatest triumphs in China and Europe, including most of what wlruld become Russia. That glory wodd accrue to his grandson, Batu,

son of his eldest son, Juchi. Before he died in 1222, the patriartlh divided his conquests among his four sons. The lands west Clf the C)bf-Xrtyshsystem and north of morczxn were to go to Juchi, who dso died before he could benefit from the ifiheritance..Batu" expanded version cJf the territory wndd b e c m h o w n as the Golden, or Gcat, Fl0rdc.S From the time that Batu and his 150,000 Mongols, %tars, and. other subgroups invaded it in 1236, Western Siberia became associated with the Great Horde, With the passage of time the huge territory became rife with mismanagement, In 1307, it was subdivided into the Kak, or Blue, Horde west of tl-te W g a and the Ak, or White, Horde in Siberia.l"ereafter, w ~ c k e dby po:[itics, invasions, Mtlscovite ascension, and the coiilapse of the Silk Route, the Great Horde fissiparated, into the Crimean, Astrabanff Kazm" and Siberian khanates,

The Siberian T~tnrs

Before the Mongol. invasion, virtual1y the only permment inhitbitmts of the later Siberian a m a t e were Ugrians and.Samoyeds who lived in the swamps or forests. Kigchak Turks occupied the steppes. The Mongols set the Kipchaks in motion. n o s e caught UP in the moveme~~t, ranghg from natives to newcomers, ultimately were Turkicized. A few of the Tatars who arrived with Batu occupkd the Tura fiver valley, coexisting there with the U'grians. Thc mnjority dwelled in the West Sfierian asld Turkestani steppes along the Tobol, fshixn, and frtysh rivers, Racially .mixed, as Tatars are today' all of these people became h o r n as the ""Siberian Tatars." A:lt%loughmany becam sedentay farmers, all remained equestrians. They werc skilled in bandicrafs and actively traded with the Central Asians and Chit7ese.lWfter 148%these peoplenomads, far~xers,and merchants-became sub~ectsof the Siberian nanate.16 The first capital of the Siberian Khanate, indeed of Siberia, was a small settle~xenton the Tura River near what is hewn today as Tyumen" Same twenty years later, fsker, later named Sibjr' (Sibda), became the capital Zly virtue of its better site, atop one of the highest prommtories along the lrCysh River, Approxintately 15 Itilmeters (110 mi) north of the site is the modern city of Tobol%sk, For more than a century the Siberian :Khanate had tc:,contend with the growi,ng infiucnce of the grand prhces of Muscovy, who aspimd to collect Ihe y s a k (fur tribute) from the Siberian Tatars much as they werc doing from the ldgrians and Samyeds. For a while, the Muscovites wert? successful; but in 1571, the tax came to an abrupt end. Tl~erepudiation came on the oders of a fiery new leader, who as if to mock the first "tsar of all the Rlassias," Ivan IV, proclaimed himself

Kuchum Khan, ""Lord of the Tura, Irtysh, Tobsl, and Baraba Tatarsaf'17 lvan I\i: or lvan the Terrible, in fact, was more inl.erested i,n subjugating the Baltic Livonians (coastal Estonia) than the peoples of the Si:berian Khanate. Encourraged by Ivan" disinterest, the precocious Kuchum roukd the army of the military governor of Perm' Province. Kuchum" victory naturally struck fear into the hearts of the residents of the province, especially those of the Stroganov family, Ivan l-rad granted the Skoganovs, who:had m d e their fortune as merchants and industrialists, vast tracts of land,newly acquired from the vanquished KazanTatars, just west of the Ural Mountains. The family in turn had settlers-a privilege that afforded the leased their land to brave pio~~eer pioneers freedom from taxation and tariffs.. During the early part oi ban's r e i p t_he pioneers advanced the frontier acmss the Kama, which eniibled the Stmganov family to begin to mine the salt of Berezniki and Solikamsk. Each time the fmntier was peeled back, m w garrisons of Muscovitc;,troops had to be summmed tc:,maintain a new skirmish h e . Gradually this process placed a strain on the reserves of the Muscovite army Until Kuchum" sviolent acts in 1572 and 1573, the relationship between the family and the Siberian Tatars had been cordial, Sensitive to Ivanfs needs on the weskrn front, the Stroganovs beseeched the tsar to permit them to hire Cossack mercenaries to protect them h m Kuchum's raiders, The tsar granted their request wi&out hesitation.

Between 1582 and 1953, the name Siberia was synonymous with the decimation of native populations and their cultures, At the time of the Russian cclnyuest, tbe regim was homeland to an estimated 230,000 people. 'These included 50,000 Turks, more thm half of whom were Saha-Yakuts; 37,000 Mongols, 7'5 per& of whom were Buryats; 36,000 northern Tungus (Evens and Evenks); 35,000 northeastern Paleo-Asiatics (Chukchi, Chuvans, Koryaks, ltcl'men, Nivfii, and 5,0W k'ukagiss); 4,0W EskimoAleuts; 18,000 Ugrians; 14,000 northern Samoyeds; 5,600 Kets; and several thousand southern Tungus, Manchus, and Ainus. In their subsequent: centwy-long march to the Pacific, the Russians encountered no fewer than 120 ""tanguages" and. dozens more dialects.1"~ modern Siberia, there may be as many as 35 extant native languages and 34 to 18 dialects. Since the 160Qs,nine Samayedic m d Kettic ""languages" h v e become extinct. The 75 or more other ethnicities have vmished without a trace. Russians first crossed the Llrals in the ninth cmtury. 'f'hey came from Novgorod in search of fish, salt, freshwater pearls, w&us tusks, m d furs for European consumers. The quest for "soft gold," or furs, drove the Novgoroefians to plunder one regim after another, until in Uugra, near

the mouth of the Ob', they c a m into contact with the Nentsy and Ostyaks (Khants) in 1,079.1"y the fifteenth cent-ury, the Manseaticl League, of which Novgomd was part, begm to fiounder, and Novgorod"~ ecmomic strength waned with it. Uugra was there for the taking. Novgorod'descent was conntered by the ascent of the Muscovites, who established their own trade relations with the hJentsy and Ugrians as early as 1465, six years before they subdued the Hansa parher.zWy 11502, Muscovy firmly grasped the lmds of the faowesOb', m d the U'grian.~began to pay a fur tribute to '"the Center"-80 years before the formal '"cmquest of Siberia.ffzl

The Co~zques t of Sib~pria Motivated by fur fever, Russians reached the Sea of"Okhotsk m d the Bering 5trait.s wi"tlnin sevent). years afier their initial bvstile engagement with the Siberian Tatars (1581-1648). Economic historian Peter Lyashchenko described the process of mlling back the Siberian frontier in four stages. The point men in the pmcess we= Cossacks (who were often brigmds), fur traders, and other advmbrers, who randomly and sometknes mwitthgly gathered h~farmatio~~ about the new region. They fou@t the natives, but often with native assistance: Cossacks and mants subdued the Nentsy and Mansi; Yukagirs and Cossacks battled the Chukchi; and the newcomers m d Evenks together subjugated the Bt~xyats.The seco~~d stage included the actions of troop c o m m d e r s , soldiers, and other Cossacks, who built struckres for t-he proper administration of the frontier (blocfiouses, prisons, and so on);exact4 fur tribute from the native population; and regularly patrolled the fortified lines that determined the leading edge of settlemat. After the area was s e c u ~ dmilitarilj~civilian (jovemors and t-heir assistants awivcd to admnimister and consolidak it for the Muscovite tsar. They also hid chim to any known important mineral deposits in the namc. of the autocrat. During this third stage, also, merchants and traders ventured in to barter peaceully with the h d i g e ~ ~ o u s tribes, Lyashchenko's last stage was characterized,by detailed exploration, cansolida.tion of t-he holdings, and assimilation of the natives. C;ljoled with gifts, promises, and vodka, the indjgencs not only co~~veyed .fur tribute but also declared themselves loyal subjects of the tsar.22 The First h1'1zt M l l f ~ Y,ymuk. : During the reign of Xvan IV (1,430-15%), thousands of refugees fled to the frontier from Muscovy and the variolls steppe hordes. They soon formed multiehic b d s of freemen k n w n as Cossacks. After Ivan's armies defeated the Astrafim' Tatars in 1556, the hssians tried to consolidate their lands along the Volga to preserve the valuable horse trade betwem Central Asia and Muscowy Swearing alie-

giance to no living authority, some of the Cossacks raided Volga riverboats that were ladell with horses desthed for Livonia. Clne of the raiders was a celebrated iugitive named. Vasile Timofeyevich Alienixr, who had been born on a tributary of the Kama Ever in the Ural Mountains. A fur trapper turned brigand, Alenin soon attracted a loyd brand of Don and Volga Cossacks, who in classic fat;hion rechristened him ""Vermlak," or "mfflstcme."" A kind of Robin Hood, %rmak soon had a heavy price on his head. The Stroganws maintained friendly rcllatiosls with the Volga Cossacks because oE their extensive hatryledge of the Kama watershcJd.24 h the late Isms, with Ihe tsar's troops in hot pzxrsuit, Yermak and his band of500 took refuge in the Kama River forests owned by the Stroganovs. The family hircd him to fight Kuchum a a n , 2 " In 1581 or 1582, Uermak" bbad, now swollen to 1,650 well-armed Cassacks, descended into the Tura River cowtry to confront the memy Equipped with muskets and armor, they easily outgumed a ragtag arn?y of Tatars, C)sty&s, and Voguls armed with swords, lances, and bows and amws, near Tyurnen" By midsummer, at the cost of peshaps one-third of his men, Uermak had routed Kuchum%armies no fewer &an three times, but: never the b a n hhself. Finally on C)ctober 23, k r m a k faced K u c f i m dimctly, in the Battle of Sibir"(the settlement, not the region), Uerlnak won a Pyrrl-ric victory, losing 100 more men, but Kuchurn m d thr remnants of his garrison escaped to the southern steppes. The tsar was delighted, granting full amnesty to ksmak and his vestigial army He sent gifts, one of them a heavy breastplate bearing the impmial coat of arms, for Ytzrmak. For the next two years, the Cossacks collected tribute in sable skins, As he consolidated and administered :Kuchum%b m a t e , \iermak had to cope with the disaffection of the bcals and incessant raids by the remnant Tatars. Finally; in August 1584 (or 1585), the Cossack leader learned that Muchum had raided a caravan from Rukhara and was hiding upriwer cm the Irtysh. :Kuchum watched as Y e m k ' s party floated up the Irtysh asld encmped on a m a l l island. Muchum" army fell upon the sleeping Cossacks, killing all but me. Legend has it that Yermak tried to swim for shore but was drovvned by the weight of the very breastplate that he had received from Ivan. Ironicalfy, the tsar h h s e l l had died five months earlier, littlie retalking that Yermak had opened the way to a ~ g i o that n would become the richest ewer won hRussim history (Map 3.1).

Fmnz Yerl~akto Pefer: Prtirzt Men u z d Administmtom. 'I'he collapse of the Siberim manate u~llockedthe doars to the rest of Greater Siberia, The rapidity with which the Russians traversed. it is astounding, A mere 66 years separated Uermak" capbre of Sibir' (ca. 1582) and Dezhnev's navi-

FRONTIER SETTLEMENTS

Major Sibenzln clticas, more m n t l y slskisd Tmn*yk~/ COSSBI~S

MAP 3.1 Cni~zquesfr?f Siberia, 11584186Q SOURCES: F~rliyth(19921, A Histoy ctftlzct Peoples of Siberia, p. 102; and Gibsc>n(19691, Feeding Ilte Rzrssiatz FIU Trade, pp. 6-7.

gation of the Rering Strait (1648). Trappermd traders led tbr way along a rentarkable interlocki,ng system of rivers and portages. In the early 16005, the Russims consolidated their w ings in the m'-lrtysh basin. :111 the 3620s, they tocrk the Uenisey and the TungusZtas. In the 3M11s, they had navigated the lengths of the Lena, Anur, fndigirka, Kolyma, and Anadyr' systems, And by 1650, they had crisscrossed the Lake Baykal region. They had met surpris%ly little resistmce along the way. The fortified Lines erected in the wake of the trailblazizlg explorers and venturesome fur trappers msured the safety of the Russian advance from the drtzaded steppe nomads of Mongd and Turkic descent. For this reason atso, Russian settlements remained confi.ncd to the hrests houghout the Ib00se2hWhether it was the enduring memories of Attila and Batu that kept the fCussians at bay or sowthing entirely different, the decisicm was good for the .fur trade, The taiga, of thc 1600s teemed with, fox, squirrel, ermine, and the soitest gold of all-sable, the most prized commodity at the Leipzig fur market. fn the forests the newcomers met only occasitmal resistmce to thcis tribute-taking, the most noteworthy of kvhich c m e from the Nentsy and Mansi. The Russians strove to avoid the grasslands, whrw the few skjmishes they had with the %&ass, Ruryats, a d :Kyrgyz were mnre violent; thus, they selected a nortl-rward and eastward path, the path of least resistance, Along the way only the Evenks and Evens dared to defy the Russians, until they reached the far northeast in the 171)Os. 'There t-hey encountered surprisingly fierce htransigence fmm the Itelhen and Chukchi, the latter of whom persisted as an hdependent nation until the 1800s.27 Stiffest of all was the opposition exerted by the Annr River peapies, Nevertheless, replicating the four-stage Lyashchenfico modd, by 1662, Greater Siheria had a Russian population of 70,(>(10, out of a total of 288,000 people.2" Intense lonelhess, hunger, disease, and the occasional hostilities wore on the exglorcrs, They were lonely not only because there was d y one native per 40 sq?lam kilc,meters (E.4m i z ) but: also because their own num,bers were uszlally fewer than 100 mm." D ~ ~ r i nhis g 164StM6 expedition to the Amur, the nefarious Vasiliy Poyarkovt "a man too c m l even for Cossacks,'3hegm with 132 followers and =turned with 60. He lost 40 to starvation m d sichess-with mmy of the survivor^ resorting to cmnibalism-and. another 32 to battles with the hostile Tungus-Manchus. Poyarkov, like many of his contemporaries, departed with the mistaken notion that he would gather provisions atong the way; and e11ded up eating "pass and roots."= Eventually, the demand for plowland became as important as the desire for furs in the Russians' crcpansion to the Pacific. Despite Chese associat-ed hazards, by 17(lO, no fewer than thirtqr-sczven significant Siberian expeditions had been carried out by simple, often illiterate men, some of whom were wen criminats. In the process, they

proved &emselves both saints and sinners, Having, as saints, uncovered a wcalth of knowledge &out geogaphy, flora, faul-ra, and crude ethographies, as sinners, they hunted furbearing animals to near extinction and practiced genocide on the i11digenes.31 Following the Cossack point wn, the ;voyevady (military governors) mrived to administer the regions in the name of the tsar. Most governed with h o r n The exceptions, so-cafied Siberian satraps, defibrrately set out to get as rich as possible by whatever means necessary. h short order, they became very powerful within their fiefs, setting a precedent that is true of a few of tadayls Siberian governors. The satraps took native leaders hostage to guarantee paysnel-rt of trihute. Khabarw in Axnuria and Pavlutskiy in Chukotka used excessive, cruel methods to subjugate and eventually devastate the indigenes. Natives who rose up in anger suffered wholesale pogroms. Only two far eastern powers, China and Japan, were strong enough to have comtered the Russian advance into Greater Siberia; but in the early f40(3s, both mintained passive foreign policies. In fact, until mabarov set up house in Amuria (ca. 1650), the Chinese were more worried about domestic matters than they werl, about a f e w ""Russian barbarian^.^' Even barbarians clan venture too far, however. With memories of Poyarkov's cruelties fresh ixr their mhds, the Amur tribes did not roll out the red carpet fnr his fellow Cossack, 'Pclroky mabarov. Zn response, Khabarov destroyed, looted, m d murdered, in exploits so heinous that they were not iorgottm for 200 years, In one of many ixrstances, be seized 350 lkestock, 243 women, and 118 children, atlegecJly roasting the childrm "on gsidimns formed by the bodies of their parents.""" These horrors forced Chha and Russia to the "dagger" edge." The Treaty of Nerchhsk ixr IS89 fhally solved the borderlands issue, forcing the Russians to withdraw from the lands east of the Stanovoy Mountains and north ol the h u r Rver, The treaty created a buffer zone between the two rivals that successfu%iy safeguarded their interrelationship along the Amur for 170 years.

Posf-Pefrine Sz'berh: Colonization and Consolidafioit.2, The reign of Peter the Great (l682-1725) was a period of further expnnsjon. Imperial Russia began with Peter, even though most of the eznpire was already under Russian cmtrol when he came to pwer. Best known for his accclmplishments in Europe, the tsar also m d e strides in Asia. h r i n g his ~ i g nRussja , acquircd the Kamchatka and the Altay-Sayan region and lald. the foundations for Bering" expeditions to North America." "me importantly, Petrine Russia m r k e d the beginning of the settlement of Great.er Siberia, although the mass migrations of prishliye (newcomers) would not occur until the 1880s.

Mdtvay through Peter" reign (1710), the total Russian population included more than 300,000 persons, with 247,000 k Western Siberia and 661000in Eastern Siberia, The Nerchinsk Treaty" restrictions ruled out settlement hthe Russian Far East, where the few newcomers m d natives were no more than SO,CfOO,.Nhety percent of the migrants had come v&untarily, even though the Romanov Code of: Laws, permitting compulsory settlement or banishment to Siberia, had been in effect for sixty yeizrs.JWy 1719, the ratio of"Russians to natilie Siberians had reached i"0:30, which represented a 230-percent Russian increase in only 57' years. &ring the ewteenth century, Greater Siberia" ppctpulation expanded two and a half times.. By 1795, there were 1.2 millioln people, 7&3,000 ol whom were Russians, including a m a x h u m of 35,000 exiles and their famiiies. Approximately 56 percent resided in Western Siberia and 44 percent in Eastern Siberia. Again, the Nerchinslc Treaty stiRed development of the Russian Far East, allhough the popuhtion of the region was pmbaZlly between 50,000 and 100,000. Migration continued to be slow, and most of the groWth c m e .from nat.urall increase m o n g both nekvcomcrs and indigenes; the ratio of kssians to natives, in fact, remained the same throughout the cenh;lry (7&30).35 Through 1858,nat-ud hcrcase conti,nued to power Siberian population growth, which was proportionally greater than &at anywherc else in the empi2". From 1795 to 1K58, almost three-fourths of the growth came as a ~ s ~ tofl enatural increase. Thc relatively hjgh birth rates and low death rates have been explajned as a cmsewenee of the absence of serfdom, abundant l m d a d msources, lack of suffering during the Napolemic wars, and the infrequency crl crop fail,ure?sand epidentics." "us, of the 7001009 persons added to the Siberian population betwerrn 1795 and 1815, only 5 percent accrued from migration tmechanical increase), m d all of the new migrants were exiles. The scarcest commodi.ty in Si:beria"s rapidly growirtg frontier was labor, and mechanical increase became more impodmt between 18fi and 1834, accounting for one-third of the popdation growth. Cornpuisory ntigration was the most expedient means of satisfyjng the shortage, and during this period, ertiles oubumbered voluntary n-tigrantsby seven to one." Between 1835 and 1850-md for the first time since the 1600s-mechanical increase exceeded natural irzcrease, fn that period, 140,000 individuals, or 60 percent of all migrants, were exiled to Siberia, Practically atl Of them traversed the 2,000- to 3,000-Klometer distmce to the royal gold m d silver mhes in the Sayan and Uablmovyy ranges on foot and in leg irons, The gmwing number of voluntary and runaway rrtigrants settled in the steppe lmds of Western Siberia. Before the Treaty oi Pekhg f1.860), rander the terms of which :Russia acquirc"c3t Amuria and Primor "ye, the popdation of the Russian Far East re-

mained small, By 4858, 3 miltion people lived in Sihaia: 4.7 rnillion in Western Siberia, and 1.3 million i,n Eastern Siberia, Several, intportant demographic changes had occurred. First, natural hcrease had reasserted itself, accounting f o r two-thirds of the population grcrwth. Second, the 1,1I),OWO in-migrants were about eqztalfy divided betweer.?compulsory and voluntary migrants. n i r d , Siberia surpassed. New Russia and the North Caucasus at; the empiT(3's most impmtant Irontier of settlement. Fourth, in vi,olation of the Treaty of Nerchinsk, Russiasls once again penetrated huria,

Mzim.il'yez-1: A Man Narrred Anzurskiy. The Treaty of N'erchinsk worked because the Manchus mahtained absolute dominion over Amuria, decay>iZati~.~g any Russian whom they caught trespassing. n o s e who chose this fate were usually desperate runaway exiles, compulsive adventurers, or idealistic naturalists. The Opium W r s (1839-1842) between Great Britain and China revealed considerable administrative weahess in the ~ preceded the Crimean War Manchu Dynasty Moreover, the j h g o i s ~that (1853--1855)irtfected Russians and British alike. Suspicious of British and French intentiom in China, including the hmur-Ussuri Basin, Nicholas I appointed a 38-year-old general, N. N. Murav'yev; to serve as goverlnorgeneral of Eastern Siberia. Keenly aware of the tsarist rc-.gime%dread of potentiai geopolitical dedinc and dismemberment, Murav"yev began to toy with St.. Fetersburg's fear of Siberian separatism as soon as he arrived in Zrkutsk, in 1847. The decline of the Russian-America Compmy, which at cme time had staked claims to Alaska, Hawaii, m d much of the Pacific Coast of Nor& America, forced the r e g h e to reorient its ggeopoiitical inkrests to its own backyard." 1x1 that baeicyard was long neglected Xmuria. Muravfyev contended that wjtl-rnut command of the Amur, Russian devel,opment of Eastern Siberia w d d remain at an impasse; m d that unless Russia annexed hmuria, Eastern Siberims might have to absorb the mgion on their own, lest the British and French take it. Not without his critics, who argued that the opening up of Amuria would only expose Siberia115 to g ~ a t ecmtact r with fortripers and themfore with separatist ideas, Murav'yev ordered i n m e a t e exploratim ol the Sea of Omotsik and the mouth of the Arnur. He hhself set sail for Petrrrpavlovsk-Kamchatskiy. Around the same time, Admiral Nevel '&cry discovered that Sakhalin was an island, not a peninsula. When they unfurled a ICussim Bag at the mouth of the Arnur and christened the site Niklrlayevsk in the tsar's honor, Nevel%koyand Murav"yev aroused a storm, o( protest from critics cvho mguecd. that the act flagrantly vioiated the Treaty of Neschinsk. A possible war with China, they feared, would lead to the loss of Siberia and a disirrtegration of the empire. Count

Nesselrode, the Russian minister of defense, feared that this stunt would disrupt the lucrative Russo-Chinese border trade and demanded an irnmediate closure of the base; but Muravyye had Ihe total support of the militant tsar, who dectared, "Where mce the Russian flag is hoisted, it must never be lowered."sg Royal sanction in pocket, Murav'yev established military posts at a number of strategic locations between Lake Baykal and Sakhalin Islmd; built an ironworks at Petrovsk-Zabaykal'skiy; developed m Arnur militia; and agreed to the 7"reaty of Shimoda, which gave Japan the Kuriles south of Urup (the Northem "Territories)in exchange for joint administration of Sakhaljn. After 1850, Russians h d t blockhouses, trading posts, m d whole settlements in Amuria. The Petrovsk 'factory (Petrovskiy zavod) built the first Russian stemer in Siberia, t-he Argun". Wth the outbreak oE the Crimean War, Murav'yev boldly sailed down the Amw at the head of a, mighty Russian flotilla-a show of force against a potentiai Anglo-French attack. Under his charismatic leadership, Russian forces warded off the enemy at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy and quelled a would-be invasion near the mouth of the Amur Rver, Thus, while tsarist troops lost the Crimean War, they celebrated victory in the Far East. Mter the war, at Murav'yev's hinsistenee, Russians and their livestock spilled into Amuria. Sakhalin" coal deposits were geologically established. Khabarovsk and Blagcrveshchensk were founded. Inspired by the ideas of an American businessman, M~rra~r'yw even urged Nichalas to build a steam railway from Chita to frkutsk.40 Finally, in spring 1858, with no further room to manewer, the Chinese sit;ned the Treaty of Aigun; wfiich gave the Russians all, territories north of a linc drawn between Khabarovsk and the Tatar Strait, A genuine hero in a defeated nation craving heroes, Wlura\lfyevfscrowning moment c m e when the tsar hcmo ~ him d witfi the title of Count of Arnu,ria (therclby adding the descriptive ""Amurskiy" to tourav"ev% last name). In 1859, the British and French again thrlratcned to attack the Manchus. Russians served as mediators and ""saved"Che dynnsty .from edarrassmmt, if not defeat. Some wodd say "in gratitude," 'the Chinese signed the Treaty of Peking in Novernber 1861). Not only did the pact vatidate the Treaty of Ptigtm, it also c d e d Primor 'ye to Russia. With Primor 'ye, Russians acquil-ed the excellent hilrbor of Vladivostok, a port that Murav'yev claimed h the cmwn that summer. With the exception of some fine tuning inChe extreme southeast (Safiatljn, the Kuriles, and dong the Mongolian border), the Russian Far East took the shape that it has today. Count Murav'yev-Amurskiy fell h m grace in 3863. Because he had dared to muse about a "United Skates of Siberia, federated with the United States of America," ruxnors flew that he was ready to proclaim himself a ""Siberian tsar.'" Suffering from liver disease, he retired to St. Fe-

tersburg, where hc. was often criticized for his liberal views about the emancipat-ion of the peasantry. Me emigrated to Paris and died there in 1883. Origindly interred in Montmartre, Murav"yev-Amrskiy's ashes were returned to Vladivostok in 1991.41

The Creut Siberim Migraticrrr a ~ the d Tram-Sib~?riu~z Railroad Tsarist migration policies did not crihange abruptly after the emancipatio~~ of the serfs (3.861).Until 1867, peasants could not leave the commune until they had liquidated their mortgages. After that year, they could migrate at their okvn expense, hut only if t h y owned land at their destination, The policy hardly encouraged migration to Greater Sjbda: Between 1@9 and 1870, only 130,000 immigrants, 55 percent of whom wem exiles, senled in any part of the region. The Russim Far East was a separate issue. Alexander tt hoped to quicfcly consolidate his new holdings, and he appoved a law that gave far eastern migrants the right to free homestead on state land for temporary use or private ownership. The tsar even agreed to grant parcels on the right bank of the Ussuri to groups of fifteen or mow families "in perpetuity" Additionally; far easterners were exelnpt from military service and taxes. There was one drawback: Peasants had to arraxzge to the regim, which was 10,1101) kilometers (6,000 mi) away, without state assistance. Consequently of those who tried between 1,866 and 1,871, less than me-third ever arrhed. Most gave up and stayed in Western or Eastern Siberia. l;t;arist migration poliey continued to h u n d e s through 1,1390. Between 1870 and 1879, only 14,000 hardy souls reached the Russian Far East. Many of these wercl. gold miners. A mere 135,000 migrated to Western and Eastern Siberia. Of the 135,000 who went to those regions, only 30,000 moved voluntarily. AIthougtn the 1880s saw iurther action to encourage the migratim of peasants with and without means, the long, hazardous journey discoutaged the movement. 011the advice of Primor'ye's governor-general, after 1883, poor peasants from Uksaine were allowed to migrate to the Russian Far East by sea for the first time. In the first two years, howevcr, only 5,000 bravely weathered the long voyage from Odessa to Vladjvostok, Ail told, exdusive of 100,000exiles, 200,000 peasants mit;rated to Greater Siberia between 1882 and 1B0.42 By the end of the 1880s, officids recognized that manipdation of migration policy alone, without improving transportation to the frontier of settlement, would fail to increase the numbers of migmnts.

The Oxfl~krnceof the Trans-Sihr.rian Railroad. The consh.uctim of the E r n s Siberia1Railroad came at the end of the era of great trmscontinental rail-

way building, which began in North h e r i c a in the 3860s. The delay was the resulhol the late arrival of the Industrial Revolution in Russia, the fiscal conservatism of tsarist officids, the lack of entrepreneurial spirit among the tsar% subjects, and Siberia" sassiwe size and physical constraints. Between the time Muravyev urged Alexander II to lay tracks between Chita and Irkutsk (1857) and 3893, foreigners a d Russians alike pmposed dozens of alternative routes h r a trans-Siberian trunk line. A few of these proposals came from Siberian provincial authorities who hoped the iron horse would bring prosperity to their newly settled provinces and hinterlands, but the majority originated in the halls of government. The latter were fueled by exaggerated fears of the Chinese, who were rumorcrd to be buitding a trans-mnchurian railway, in collusion with the British and othcrs, that would be used to reannex h u r i a and I'rj,n?ortyye. Tsarist military officers increasingly saw Manchuria as an extension of Russia, and any trans-Siberian raiiway had tcr have a strategic thrust tcr counter not only the Manchus but also the JapnnesePs Tn t i m , arguxnents boiled, down to the ideas of two hi&-ranking men: A. A. Abaza, Millister of Finance, and Konstantin t"osfyet, Minister of Communications. hbaza W= agai,nst state deficit spending and contended that any and all railway schemes should be assured of financial. success. Ile favortrd building trunk lines in European Russia rather than in Siberia. X,osryetdefended the transcontinelrtal h e because railroads m a t e capitaf, eventually pay for themselves, and stimulate sociopolitical and ecommic bemfits. 'This dichotomy between perwndfavoring westm d those supportkg easter11investment would conthue ern investme~~t well into the next centuv Ironjcally, Alexander Ill-who was gmerally a reactionary ruler-ultimately approved t"crs"yet%nations and his choice of the route of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, on. March 29,1891.

The Cololz%zr?rs:Wlr?and Kulorrrzi~2. Interestingly, except for a small gulf and town in south\.vestern Primorrye named in his honnr, Podyet is mostly forgotten. In fact, one of his supporters, Sergey Witte (18.329-1915), is now recopized as "the leading spirit and force behind the constmction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad."' C)ne ol Ihe true giants of his age, Witte was a maelstrom of contradictions, .An instinctive entrepreneur who no doubt would have nowished as a capitalist, he was a pragmatist and patriot who desired to strengthen Russia, to preserve the autocracyf and to glorify the mmarch. As finance minister (1892-1903) he upposed private aterprise, entrepreneurship in general, and the privatization of Russian railroads in particular*Yet, during his tenure, Russim capitalism experienced unprecedented growth. Superficially a pm-Western "Atlanticist,'" in his soul Witte was a zealous Slavophile and an "Orientalist," who saw

the Trans-Siberim hilroad as a means for Russia to repudiate its '"colonial" association with Europe and to tie itself comet-cialfy to Asia, To Wtte, landlocked Russia could. rely on its railways in the same way that maritilne Europe depended upon navies. Geopolitics entered into the picture in mo.trher way; Russia's demoralizing defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) undermined the autocracy and forced it to accede to democratic reforms, Witte, as prime minister, represented Rrlssia in negotiating the Reaty of Portsmouth, hvhich formally ended, the cmflict, The nationalist pmss demanded revenge and raised the specter of the k l l w Perif. Until then, Primorye and 'Ti.ansbaykalia had bee11 lin.ked by the Chinese Eastern Railway, which ran across Manchuria, from Chita to Vladivostok, As a consequence of the Japanese victorl~,Russia lost thc. southern branch of this railway, Port .Arthzlr and Dal'niy i,n China, and the southern half of Safialin. At t-he insistence of the nationalists and against the fixally sound advice (and oriental sympathies) of Wittr-?,fie Amur branch of the Trans-Siberian Railroad was built entirely on Russim soil around the great bend of the river. Thj, created a bu&r between Russia and Manchuria, and accodingly, the Cl~ineseand Japanese. IS Witte was the "spirit,'"natoliy Kulomzin (1838-1924) was the ""seat and blood" hbehhd the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and subsequent Siberian coloTlizatim. In 1892, Witte appointed :Kulomzin to lead the Committee of the Siberian Railroad, but this task drew him into a host oi secondary activities: inland waterways, industrial development, and most important, peasant rttscrttlement. Historian Steven Marks in Greater Siberia give him the believes that Kulomzln's accomplislhme~~ts same stature as Lord Curzon, viceroy of India, and Cecil %odes in South Africa, as one of the great colonizas of the past two centuries.@Althougl~ KuLarnzk had mmy obligations, his p r h a r y purpose was to stre~~gthesz the core" cmtml over the periphery, To do this, he aspired to facilitate the mass migration of millions of land-starved European Russians to "civilize" land-rich, people-poor Geater Siberia. Ait-hough he failed in homogenizhg Siberian society to the favor of European Russians, Kulomzh managed to lay the basis for future Siberian regional development.

The Cunseqtlr~cesof fhe Xnilulny. From the tirne the Tsarevicl-2 Nicholas christetned it in Vladivostok in 4891 tc:,fie campletion of the Amur River Bridge at mabarovsk in 1N6, the Trans-Siberim Railroad was mired in controversy,A technological marvel at the time, the raihay was criticized blatantly as a "monument to hungling.'%?:Its critics had a point. l'he rails and sleepers werc too light, inducing frequent deraihents. The wooden, bridges were h y . What the workers, many of them unskilled prisoners, lacked in knowledge about ballast- and track-laying they made up

for in their ken of sabotage (after all, they were mostly prisoners!). The total cost of th,e project in 1916 U.S. dollas is estima.t.ed to have been between $770 million and $1 billion, or approximately one-fifh of the existing h s s i a n national debt. During its canstmctim, there can be no doubt that the Trms-Siberian Railroad was a serious drain on the tsarist ecmomy, and later, the war effort, Despite the criticism, the Eans-Siberian mom than paid for itself during the sutnsequmt century*Indeed, it would be hard to imagine Greater Siberia without it. It has becme the veritable syxnbol (and unifier) of the rcgim. The effects of the railway we^ immediate: The average annual number of migrants to Greater Siberia was 46,1100 betweern 1871 and 1K96; the number soared to 88,000 per annum between 1896 and. 1904, and to 1"i"4,000between 1905 and 1914.6 Between 1897 and 1916, a total of 2.5 million. peasants migrated to Greater Sfieria, or 57 percent of everyone who had immigrated to the region after 1796. Of these 2.5 million settlers, t w out: of thme ended up in Western Siberia-tbe vast majority, or 1.5 millio~n,in Tomsk provhce al~n.e.4~

After three centuries of perpetual h s s i a n advance, the frontier of tsarist settkment had attained its "manifest: desthy'? the Pacific and Arctic oceans m d some of their islands; m d the curre~ntborders of the United States, Japan, China, and Mongolia-that is, the whole of Greater Siberia." By tthe beginning of the twentieth century, the region was overwhelmingly Russian, 78 percent- The native population was the next largest group, accountilrg for slightly less than 10 percent of Siberians. ldkrainians (primarily in the Russian Far East) came next, with 4 percent. 'The remaining 8 percent was composed of other groups, including Belorussims finEastern S;itseria),Germans, T'tars, Chuvash?and Mordvins. At the t k e of the Bolshevik Revolut;im, 10.7 million peopk resided in Greater Siberia. 'This population was the yomngest and the fastest growkg in the Russim Empirc, Between 1896 and 1917, Greater Siberia" ppopulation climbed Zly 85 percmt, compared to a 40 percent increase in the empire as a \zrhole. 'Thmfcs to the plowing of virgin chemoze~nsin Wr;.si:er~~ Sikberia, it had become one of the country's major agricultural amas. Overail, its sown area h d mom than doubled since 1895. Its butter in$ustry, which, by 1917, comprised more than 4,000 individual creameries, provided exports to forcign markets that were second only to those of Denmark.@Flour mills had blossomed in Omsk, Novonikolayevsk (Novosibirsk), Barnau1, Biysk, and Blagoveshche~nsEk.Western Siberian railheads often had stockyards and slaughterhuuses. Almost every major town on the Trans-Siberian R d r m d had its own sawmills. Yet despite this

progress, only 13.3percent of the ~ g i o n "papuulaticm was urban,and as of 1,908, a mere 0.2 percent of the people worked in Si:beri,anfactories-from which, in 1917, c m e only about 2 percent of the empire" ggross industrial product. Grain processing contributed more than 75 percmt of that fritrtion. Meat processing provided 4 percent, metallurgy (at PetrovskZabaykal'skiy) added 6 percent, and sawmilling produced 3

NOTES 1. Richard G. Klein, The Hzrnznn Career. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 4989), p. 388; and Andrew Sherrat, eb,, Tbc Cambl-z'dgeElncycluped-En of Ar.clseott7gy (New York: Crown Pubtishers, 198Q),p. 94. An interesting counterargument was proposed in 1 9 0 by Siberian anthrc~pctlagistUuriy Mochanoc: who believes that humans have occupied Siberia for at least two million years ( M ~ t l k av Sihiri, No, 12 [March 49911). 2, Marjarie Mandetstarn Balzer, Rzass-in~Tmditiolzal Culture: Religioion, Gezder, and Guslourfnty Law (Armonk, N.% M. E. Sharpe, 19921, pp. 48-70; and Ceorge Constable, The Neatzdertrfials (New York: Time-Life Books, "t"374),pp. 58,753, and 132.1wish to thank Dr. Bafze~who kindly made me aware vred., Sibii.3~soshvefesdalirzoy Rossii' Vd. 2 of Jstoriyn Sibiri, ed. A. P! Qkfadnikov (5 vols.; Leningrad: Nauka, 49681, pp. 55-56. The language estimates come from James Forsyth, A Histay of tlte Peoples of Siberia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 10. 19. games R, Gibson, "The Rush to Meet the Sun: An Essay on Russian Eastward Expansion," Siberim, Vol. 4, Ncj, 1 (Summer IggO), p, 70; ALan Wood, ed., Siberia: Pwblenzs alzd Prospects for RegiolzaE Development (London: Croom Helm, 198'7), p. 317; D-R.R-T. Gavelka, '"%verevostc~chnyymorsko>ygut' k kbaseynu C%'Irtysha," V1li7l"nayilSibirr,No. 1 (1926), p. 221; S. V. Bakhrushin, Ocizerk p isfo"i kolonizalsii Sibel-i v XI"! i XVII vv., Vcjt. 3 of Ri~uelrnyyeknrdy (Moscow: Akademjya nauk SSSR, 1955), p. 74; and L. N. Yegorova, et al., eds., Aflas istorii SSSR, Pt. 1 (3 gtti.; Msscow: Min. Gea1ogi.i i okhrany nedr SSSR, 1960), pp. 8-9. ""Siberian Lands" are first mentioned in the Russian chronicles of 1407. 20. Muscovy conquered Navgorod in 1471. (L. Ye, Tofa, Gorodcl Umln [Muscow: Akademiya nauk SSSR, 19513, p. 47). Fondahl notes that hostile acts by the Nentsy drove the Russians muthward, into Ostyak-Vogul (Ganty-Mantii) territory, at the

end of the fif eenth century (see Cail Fctndahl, "Siberia: Native P e v l e s and Newcomers in Collision," in inatio$ns n ~ Polifics d iin the Soviet Successas States, eds. Ian Bremrner and Ray Taras [London: Cambridge Univeniiq Press, 19931, p. 481). 21. V. M. Andreyevich, IsXstoriya Sibiri (St. Petersburg: TireV. V, Kornarova, 1889), p. 2. of Russi~Xost ttic 1917 22, Peter I, Lyashchenko, klkfory of the Matitjiznl Econ~~my Rezlolzllion (New York: Macmillan, 1949), pp. 237-241; and V. V. Sapozhnl"ko>vand N. A, Gavritov, ""ZemLi Kabineta Yego W;elichestva,"YinA z i ~ t s h y aXossiyn Vid, 1 (3 vols.; St. Petersburg: Izd, Pereselencheskogo upravleniya glavnogo upravleniya zernleustrsystva i zededeliya [hereafter PUCUZZ], 3.414), pp. 388439, Quoting George Lantzeff, Fondahl has described how Russians used intertribal rivalries to assist them in turning back the frontier (see Fondahl, "Siberia: Native Pec>plesst' p, 481). 23. A. Br~ronikhin,"K bioografii Yermaka," Voprcjtsy istauii, Nct. 10 (October 1946), p. 99;and Edward Louis Keenan, ""Muxovy and Kazan? Some Introductory Remarks on the Patterns of Steppe Diplomacy," "~lavicRezliew, Vol. 26, No. 4 (December 4967, p. 552. During this time, Muscctvy typically bought 30,000 to 40,000 Nogay horses per year for use in its wars against the Swedes. 24. S. M. Seredonin, "Zavoyevaniye Aziatskoy Rr>ssii,"YinAzinfskayn Rossiya, Vol. 1 (3vols.; St. Petersbu5.g: PUGUZZ, 1924), p. 7, They had hiding places in the Kama Basin. 25, V. I. Sergeyev, ""K vogrosu o pvkhode v Sibir-rmhiny Yermaka," Vt~prosy isforiE,MO. 1 Uanuary 1959), pp. 122-1 24; R. G. Skrynniikc>v,""ldgotovka i nachalo Sibirskoy ekspeditsii Yermaka," Voprosy istorii, No. 8 (August 19799),pp. 4456; and Sibirskayn gazeka, December 10-16, 1990. These citations ciearty reveal the broad disagreement over dates, placesf and ts-ue identities associated with the Yermak legend* 26. Basil Dmytsyshin, ""Russian Expansion to the Pacific, 1580-3.700: A Historiographical Reviw," Sibirica, Vol. 1, No. 1 ( S u m m r 199Q),p. 7; and Jarnes 13, Gibson, Feediq flze Rwsskn Fur Trade (Madition: Universiq of Wsconsin Press, 1969), p. 8. 27. P. A. Slovtso.ir, "Istc>riicfieskc,ye o>bozrentye Siblri," "Sibirskiye ogni, No. 1 (1991), p. 102; and Fondahl, ""Siberia: Native Pe.oples,;," p. 481. 28.1Eyashchmkoh History cfflze National Economy, p. 242. 29. G, A. Leontyyeva, Zemlqrokhodets Yerofey Pautoviclr. KJzabnrov (Moscow: Prosveshcheniye, 1991), pp. 3-15, Vasilyev explored the Vilyuy with 50 men; Perfil'yye, the Angara and Lena with 36; Maskvitirt, the %a of Bkhotsk with 24; and Bafityarov, the Vitirn with 55, 30.16id., p. 14. The description is Newby's. Poyarko?~""pundered and betrayed to an unspeakable degree, with the result that the natives Bed at the approach of other Russians" (see Eric Newby The Big Red %@inRide [New York: St. Martin's, 3.972383,p. 162). 31. Dmytqshyn, "Russian Expansion to the Pacific," p. 9. 32. Harmon Tupper, To the Great Ocenrz (Boston: Little, Brotzrn & Clcjrnpany 1965>,p. 29. Soviet Geogm33. Gary Elausladen, "Russian Siberia: An Integrative AppmachfE," phy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), p. 234.

34. Shrmkov, Sibir' v soslave, p. 55; and Alan Wmd, ""Siberian Exile in the Eighteenth CenturyrfYibirica,Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer 1990), p. 42, 35. V. M. Kabuzan, "The Settlement of Siberia and the Far East from the Idate 18th to the Early 20th Century (1795-1917)," "voure'f Geagrapl~y,Vol. 32, No. 9 (November 19911, p. 617; and V. Z. Drc>bizhev, I. L). Kovalkl~enko,and A. V. Muravfyye.l;$Isfarickeskaya geografiyn SSSR (Moscow: Vysshaya shkc~la, 49"3"3), pp. 186-1 93. 36. Kabuzan, "The Sttlement of Siberia," p. 617, 37. Ibid,, pp- 620-621. 38, Mark Bassin, ""'fhe Russian Geographical Society, the "mur Epoch,%nd the Great Siberian Expedition, 1855-2 863,'Y~nnalsI?( flze Associafion c?fAfrrericauCeograpllers, Vole 73, No. 2 (March 19831, pp. 240-256; and N. Bolkhc>vitincjv,"Kak prodali Alyasku," Mn'reahdunnrodnnya zhizn" No. 7 (1988)' pp. 220-131. 39. Tupper, To k l Great ~ Ocmn, p. 33. 40. The promoter was 11. M. Coltins, who visited Amuria in 1857 (Steven G. Marks, Rond do I""oz~.ler: The Tr~~ts-SiberUZn Railroad nlzd the Colonization of Asian Rzissia, 185&1927 [lihaca, N.V.: Cornell University Press, 49911, p. 32). 41. John J, Stephan, T?zeRussl;nn Far East: A History (Sianlord: Stadord University Press, 1995), p, 327. Historical geographer Mark Bassin views Murav"yev much less as a hero than as a pragmatic opportunist whose ideas shifted with the l with Mark Bassin, January 22, 1992). In political winds ( p e r ~ m a cunversation 1M7-1850, the Count was against separatism; yet, on the eve of the curonaticm of refc~rmistTsar Alexander IT, Muravyev Eat~oreddecentra;tizatittxlnand openly ente&ained the idea of an independent Siberia (Peter Krc->patkin,lCTfmoirs ufa Reztotukionist, Vol. 1 [2 vols.; New York: Houghton, MiMin & Cct., 1635393, g. 198). 42. Kabuzan, "The Settlement of Siberia," pp. 623-625, and "Sibirskaya zheleznaya doroga,'" E~zt-siklopedicIzesk2'y slouar" Vol. 58 (1900), p. 738. The government was especially generous to peasants with means (later to be called kzrinkr'),After 1889, such male migrants to Western Siberia obtained $1 acres of state land in exchange for the payment of prc>pertytaxes, Those who did this were exempt from other taxes and military service far three years. They also received reduced railway and steamer fares, cheap food, medical c a r , and a loan of between 30 and 400 rubles that tzrorald be repaid without interest over the next decade (Donaiid W. Treadgold, Tke Great Siberian Migrafion [Princetc~n:Princeton University Press, 49571, p. 277. 43. Marks, Road to Poruer, pp. 35-46; Bavid N. Collins, "Plans for Railway Development in Siberia, 1857-1890, and Tsarist Colonialism," Siben'm Vot. 1, No. 2 (Winter 1990-1991), pp, 228-150; and V. P. Smenov-Tyant-Shanskiy, Znpadnaga Sibir', V01. 16 of hinoye geogr.aficIzeskoyeopisnniye naslrego otecllclslvc) (19 vols.; St. Petersburg: Izd, A, F, Bevriyena, 1907), pp. 36-370. One of the proposals urged the laying of track north of Lake BaykaX over the route of the Baykal-Amur Mainline (197&1985), which is a shorter rc~rateto the Pacific; but the presence of perrnafmst in that region uttimately defeated that alternative (see Akademiya Nauk SSSR, Komissiya po prc~blemamSvera, Letupis' Severa [Moscl-rw: Gectgrafgiz, 19573, p. 202). 44. For excellent coverage of Witte's career, see Marks, The Rund tu Powrl; pp. 117-143. For his examinatian of Kufomin, see Stevtzn G. Marks, ""Conqueringthe

Great East," in Xediscomritzg Xussh in A s i ~ Siberia : a ~ fhe d Russian Far East, eds. Stephen Motkin and David WoXEf (Armonk, N.V.: M. E, Sharpe, 1995), pp. 2S39. For circumstances surrounding the Russc~JapaneseWar and the Chinese Eastern Railway, see E A, Kudryavtsev, ed., Sibir' zj epokfzu kapitnlizma, Vot. 3 of Xstoriya SibBi, ed. A. P. OklaCfnPtilCov (5 vols.; Leningrad: Nauka, 19@), p. 2%; V. N. Vartanov et al., Kt~~tJikf nra KVZjzD (Khabarovsk: Khabarovskc~yeknizhnoye izdatef%s.t-rso,1989), pp. 5-16; and Paul Gc~bfe" remarks in 'Tanel on Siberia: Ecu'Vol. 32, No. G (June 499l>,p. 369. ncrmic and Territorial Issrreg"3mvicf:Geogmpl~y~ 45. Marks, Tke Road to hwer, p. 191; and Kudryavtsev, Sibir' v q o k l ~ up. , 177, 46, L. F. Sklyarov, Percuselenhc i zemlcuslroysfvr~v Sibiri v gody Stulypinskoy refarf~ly(Leningrad: Tnstitut imeni Gertsena, 1962), pp.45W53. 47. Kabuzan, "The %t-tlement of Siberia," p. 629. 48. S u t h e r n Sakhalin and the still controversial southern Murileq or "Northern Territories," were added in 1945. For an encapsulatittn, see Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I a p n ~ SNt>rfh~r~z Territories (Tokyo: Foreign Office, 1987). Tuva (nc>wT y a ) became a protectorate in 1911 and a part of the USSR in 1944. 49. Victor L. Mote, ""Te CheLyabinsk Grain Tariff and the Rise of the Siberian Butter Xndwtry," SSlauic Review,Vol. 35, No. 2 (Summer 2976), pp.306317. See also A. A, Kalantar" "Molctchoye Uc~zyaystvo,"in Azialshya Xossiyn, b l . 2 (3 vols; St. Petersburg: PUGUZZ, 1914), p. 332; and L. M. Garyushkin, Sibirskoyr krest' yanslao na nrbezlge dvzdklt vekov (Novosibirsk: Nauka, 19671, p. 162. 50. M. B, Vol'f, Ceogra~el~eskoyr? razmesshdteniye russkoy prul*rtyshlennosti(MuscowLeningrad: Gosudarstvennoye izdatelfshro, 1927), g. 21; and R. S. Livshit~~ Ocllerkz' pu razmeskct~e~zy promystztmtzosfi SSSR (Mcwcow-Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoye izdatel%shropoliticheskr)y Eiteratur)~,1954), g. 88.

FOUR

Regiona ism, Separatism, and Russification Before the Revo Noflzifqon enrElz cnmpnres to Siberia. She problably could exisf as n pfaneE Itas eve~ayffzi~~g fJmt a planet ~zeeds. . . on land, iilzderground, and irz the air. Her z ~ r existence y is SO om~~$ariou~ and mzclffgceted that. it is impossibje to epitomize Itcr wifJz kl-zown co~zcqts. O P her ~ O Z U ~ She .

-Valentin Raspatin, Siberian writer

THE BIRTH OF A RECirXQr"3 Historical geographer Mark Bassin has observed that "Russim views of Siberia were examples of the same sort of 'imaginative geography-hat resulted from European attempts to depict and uderstartd the n m Ewropean world as a whale." $Siberia as a region, in Bassin's view, was '"invented"9n the njneteenth century as a focus of four endurirrg themes: (1) Siberia as a typicd colony, or as a source of furs and prczcious metals and a desolate repository for "undesiri\bles"; (2) Siberia as a fount of democratic and egalitarian idealism; (3) Siberia as a romantic, inspirational ideal for the Russian nation as a h o l e ; m d (4) Siberia as m indep e ~ ~ d epolitical nt entity'

Until t h twentieth century, Grcater Siberia was not commonly regarded as an organic part of Russia. &ring the 16(10s,Muscaviaes subdivided the territory into competin.g ntilitary fjefdonts to discourage unity and the possibility of a challenge to the tsar from a charismatic Slberian viceroy :In his mle as Siberian governor-general between 1819 and 1821, political

reformer Mikhail Spermsky aspired to make the mgion an integral part of Russia. Yet this did little to allay the fears of tsarist offidals: Even as late as 1.861, officials in St. Petersburg suspected :Murav"yev-Amurskiyof sedition (see Chapter 3). I h r o w o u t the ~ m a i n d eof r the nineteenth century, authorities treated Greater Sjberia as Russja's by-blow,

Crenter Sibcrin and '"Soft Cold." When someune writes the ultirnate economic hislmy of Siberia, "gold"ki1l hold a prominent plac gold (furs), solid. gold (metals), dry gold (grain), cl.earnery gold (butter), and black and blue gold (oil and gas). Without question, mercantilism pmfused Che region between 1600 and 1tZC30T . From the standpoint of those in the h s s i a n core, the Siberian periphery existed to fill the coifers of Moscow or St. Pekrsburg. W-te&er soft or solid gold, the weaith of the periphery was extracted to enrich the autocrat either as domestic product or as a source of foreip exchange. Ii-t the IfiQQs,one-tenth of Russia" state income came from sales of fur fsoan Greater Sjberia.3 Accordi,mg to Fisher, two biaek, fox skj,ns in the 1620s could ""fetch" 50 acres of land, a cabin, 5 horses, 10 head of cattle, 20 sheep, several dozen fowl, and still leave change.4 Such incentiwes enconraged the depletion of Western Siberia's stock of furbearing animals by 1650, and that of Eastern Siberia by 1700, By the latter date, threefourths of Greater Siberia" total fur resources wem gone. Bassin has argued that the tsars approvcd Ihe Reaty of N'erchinsk primarily because they deemed Amaria barren of fur (and f ~ o d ) , V o200 r years, under the treaty, Russians cleverly substituted otter pelts fmm North America for the sable skins of Amuria, and i,n the process, salvaged Sino-Russian commercial relations,

Greater Siberia and Solid Gold. As the fur trade dhinished, the relative importance of mtals ascended. As early as the 1600s, Muscovy ordered its expeditions to be on the lookout not only for sable skins but also far sottrces of silver, gold, copper, and had. By 17Cf0, large silver mines and smlters were on stream at Kolyvan in the Altay region and Nerchinsk in the Yablonovyy district. Between 1728 m d 1745, the Altay enterprises belonged to the De17nidov family, the patriarch of which had made his fortune at Russia" svery first iron works, in Tda. 111 1702, Peter the Great gave the Uemidow rights to develop a new metaSlu,rgical combhe in the WTal Mowntains. The family dtimately owned 40 iron and copper smlters in the Urals alone. A yuarter century later, the Demidows obtained the rights to the silver and gold mines at Kolyvan, Zmeinogorsk, and Salair in the Altay-Salair ranges. When the patriarch died in 1745, the fmily" Altay holdings reverted to the irnperial family."

Gold fever nourished the Rood of exiles into Eastern Siberia, Shnultaneously the tsars begm to show much mare interest in the Greater Siberia region. Authorities began to refer to the region as "El Dmado," ""California," or more prosaically, a ""gold mine.""Apart from the Demidovsf hcrldings, other aristoaatic families also owned gold mines, and thcir aggregate investments in Siberh decidedly influenced the development of g o w e m n t policy7 As a token of gratit-ude, the tsar allowed the aristcrmats to employ iinperjal factory scrfs in t k i r mines fand factories), until Murav "ye 1I;iberatedthese serfs in the 1850s." Between 1830 and 1850, gold output from Greater Siberia increased EO-fold. Accounting for 11percerlt of Russia"s gold production in the former year, the region" sshare rose to 71 percent by the end of the period. WO-thirds came from Yerrisey River placer deposits. Later, the focus would shift to the Lena Basin, and later st-i,ll,to the notorious Kolynta,' By midcentury only 9 percent of Siberia" prduction came from the old metat mhes in the ALtay and at Nerchinsk. Revenucs from gdd mining, however, never equaled those from sales of "soft gold" dduring its heyday.

Creamerr, Cold fir Dry Gold, From 1894 to 1917, Siberia became rclnowned for a most unlikely product: but.ter. Wjth the tsar's approval of constmction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the commercial estate owners in European Russia prewaifed on the crown to protect them Irom what they feared would be a flood of grain from Western Siberia. 'The government respunded, with the imposition of the ""Chelyabinsk Tariff Break8'' wbereby Siberian grain would be penalized by a second accekration of the freig:hl:rate strwture, whieh, normlly decreased with distance. h t e s would rise in.itiallp on shipments from eastern points of origin to Chelyabinsk, and would rise a g a h on shipments from Chelyabinsic to western destinations. SiXaeria's "dry gold'kould no longer compete on. the domestic market, because of the excessive transportation costs. The p o k y of regional protectior.lism compelled Siberians to find new sources of eaming power, They found it in their dairy cows, a ul-riquebreed that yielded high-fat milk. wth the arrival of the Trans-Siberian Railrcrad, buttermaking diffused from a shgle cclramery established in the Kurgm Steppe in 1894 to more than 2,000 h 1913. Soon, because of the high butterfat content of the milk and the relatively low labor costs, Siberim butter became the cheapest competitor on the international market. This was true even after the addition of the costs of transportation to the commodity" principal buyers in Rritah and Gemany It was said to be the only butter tbat fie European working man codd afford. 'The success of the ind~lstrywas so great that Prin?e M k ister Stolypin was quoted as saying, '"Sjberian butter production yjelds twice as rnwh gold as the whole of the Siberian gold industryf"O

The gradual Wing of the Cl~elyabinskTariff Break (1910-1913) encoufaged a twofdd j m p in Siberian grain shjpments to the west. Much of the produce, especiallp durum wheat, was destined for foreign markets, where it was pmcesed into pasta. fnterrupted by thr war, revoluticm, and civil disturbancesfthe trade was renewed dusing the New Economjc Policy (NEP), which was in 'force between 1921. and 1928, Under the NEP, Siberians produced huge, nationally important grain surpluses, threefourths of which was spring wfieat. At the peak of its hard cursency earning potential (1926--1927), Siberian "dry gold" "presented 35 pescmt of all Soviet wheat exports and 23 percent of tbe value of the exports of ail grain. It also accounkd br half of the totd increase oE foreign exchange earnings in 1927.1"1~hus, tqether with ~ v i v e dbutter shipents, Siberian grain exports became an important s ~ u r c eof hard currency for the Bolsheviks, predsely at the time they intended t~ launcfn their policies of collectivization and hdustrialization,

Black and Blue Cold. More will be said about this subject i,n later chapters. Mere I simply want to indcate that the exploitation of Siberian oil and gas as primary sollrces of h r e i p exchange income since the 1960s perpetuates the tong-est;xblished traditim of using Siberia as a resource ffmtier and colmy Because of the rapid increase of oil and gas extraction in the Mddle and Lower Ob",Greater Siberia's share of Soviet exports exploded from less Chm 20 percent i,n f 970 to more than 50 percel~tin 1985, the first year of Gorbachev" tenure. Oil and gas exports atone accounted for K7 percent of Greater Siberia's contributicm, Residents of thr periphery, both then and now typicnlly contplain that the benefits accrued from the sales of their hydrocarbons are radically skewed in favor of the core, That is, very little of the hard currency accumulated from the trade of these commodities returns to the regions of origh. Note that this is not a novel complaint: It has been registered throughout the ""clmial" period--the pericrd of Russian and Soviet domiz~aticm.

Crenter Siberin as an Orifbuckand Fozkn t q f Deinctcmcy 'The title of this section may seeln paradoxical; yet it: is precisely the h&it of usixrg Siberia as a place oi exile, particularly political exile, that cmgcndered the democratic baditions of the region. During the early nineteenth cenbry, the colonial perception of G ~ a t e Siberia r was supplemented by an irnage that unfortunately has been more endurjng. A region that had been variously described as ''our Peru," "our Mexico," a '"Russian Bra2;ilfffor even "our East India" was now identified as Count Nesselrode's '"dcep net" h r crimhals.12 The i;ibulous bounties of soft and solid gold could not dampm the grwing sympathy for the notion that Greata Sibe-

ria was a frozen outlnack suitablc for habitation by none but the dregs of society. Among Westerners, this perceptlion of Greater Siberia has prevaiIed, As we have seen, however, t.he majority of Siberians-even before the g ~ a t migration associated with the completion of the Tram-Siberian Wailroad-were not exiles, In, fact, between 1867 and 1896, mechanical increase was 1.2 million persons, the majority of w h m were exiles; but these were more than offset by the 1.6 mill.ion people who accrued to the populaticm by natural mems. The number of exiles, 99 percent of whom were criminals rather than political prisoners, only occasionally exceedied 10 percclrt of the total pogulaticm.'" The image of Siberia as an oufhack for exiles survkes despite the facts, because of the notcrriety attached to the ~ g i o by n the memoirs of politicai prisoners, including disgraced courtiers, high-ranking officials, rebct militiamen, religious dissenters (Old Believers), national mhorities, and prisoners of war. Among the best known was Archpriest Avvakum, whose vivid descrQtion of his ten-year exile (145s11664) remains a Russian literary classic; Abram Hannibal, Pushkin" AAaican ancestor, who was exiled to Siberia behueen 172-d 1731; and Alexmder Radishchew, who was scmtenced to a tem-year exile, beginning in 11790, for writing his scandalous tale of A @zlnzeyfiolra St. Petersbar8 to Mosco?n? This image also was fostered in part by the Decembrist Revolt of December 14, 1825, and its after1~ai-h.The participants h the insurrection we= primarily young Russian and Polish intelZectuals of the imperial. officer cmps who had been expclsed to the democratic rewoluticms of the radical.Whigs of Europe m d the United States. To the Decembrists, autocracy was arbitrary, capricious, and cruel, and it had to be changed. Of the 126 who were arraiped for sedition, five were hmged and the remainder of the banished, like were banished for life to Greater Siberia.'"ome N. V. Basargin and Artamon Muragyev, believed their lives were over."" As they plunged into the deep net, the Derembrkts not only maintained their convictions but als greatly impressed by the singularity of Siberia and the Siberians-began actkely to propagate those convictions, To the Decembrists, the Siberians were freer, cleverer, better educated, more humane, and more egalitarian than other Russim peasants. They likened Siberia to the United States hthat it had become a safe haven lfor religious and political dissenters, s w e of whom-like the Old klievers and Dubobors-had precedcd the Decentbrists into exileWherever they were or went in Greater Siberia, the Decembrists and their wives serwed as intellectual mapets in their ct, they were so kvidely dispersed-the senior officers to the '"ore interczsting" sites in southern Siberia and the junior officers to the '"wildest and most remote comersf"-thry could fmpart a cullural catechism to the

Siberian population that belied the possibilities i n h a a t in their numbers alone, Gradmally, Siberia beeme for the Decemt?rists a second motkrland. Forbidden to engage in politics, they rallied to cultural and economic causes. 'They ta@t school, practiced agronomy, and introduced the rudiments of medical care. In the towns and cities, such as Irkutsk, they created social circles, set up libraries, and gave public lectures. They founded some of the first Siberian newspapers and even tinkered with the mechanjcs of public administrati.nn. These and o&er activities were carried out in a Greater Siberia with a population of between 2 and 3 million persons during the Decembrists' three decades of banishment. Few Siberims, if my; were ignorant of their presence. The Deccmbrists were not separatists, nor did they urge Siberians to follow the example of m y other world cutture, including that of the U'nited States. Although they had suffered terribly at the hands of the autocrat, they majsled faithful to Russia even as an imperial, entity. That mtiity, in their view, included Siberia, 'They wmted to trmsfsrm all of Russia, ernbracing Siberia too, into a democratic redm in which afl cilizens would have equal opportunity to experience freedom and tiberty*Condone, the Decembrists hoped for the destruc"cicm ceming G ~ a t e Siberia r of the colonial yoke, Che establishme~ntof sclf-governance, the reorganization of the adrniniskative framework, and the creation of a responsible judiciary- They argued fctr a continuation of the culh;lral and economfc improvements that they themselves had begun. They contended that a Siberim industrial, revolution would occur only when both Russims and Siberians appreciated the value of the natufal resome base..In support of s~tehan economy, they envi,si.oned a network of rdways and a great 1%cific commercial fleet,

Siberia as a Romantic 1nspirafl;aur While the Decembrists were accepthg their various fates in Nesselrodefs deep net, yet another percreption of Siberia emerged on the kvin.gs of Russian nationaljsm. In the first half of the nineteenth century, a plurality if not a majority of Russian intellectuals rejected the Westernization (W Eurveanjzatiorl) of their c m t r y and stressed "Russian national exclushity hdependent of Europe."lh Glorification of Russia naturally meant the glorification of its regions, by far the most conspicuous of which was G ~ a t e Silneria. r Soon Yermaks conquest of the Siberian Tatars was being comparcld to the European discovery of the New Mlorld. Territorial expmsion and all the attendant events were vaullted as sacred acts carried out by self-sacrilicing, patriotic so~nsof the motherlmd. Pulig novels and short stories glorified the heroic exploits of the righteous Orthodox Cossacks agaitlst the pagan Siberian savages. Even Pushkin aspired to write a

Siberian epic based on his correspondence with his Decembrist friend, V, K, Kyukhel'bekker ("Kyulkhlya"). As S1avop"nilisrn gathered steam nathwide, the perception of Siberia as a bmoding, frozen wasteland unfit for civilized people g r a d d y shifted to an almost Elysian image, Siberia as outback became Siberia the bountiful, the beautiful, the wise, After more than two centuries, Siberia fhally was also Russian land (see t-he epigraph to Chapter 1). Xn assocktion with this el-cange of opiniorx possibly trhe loftiest of eneamia came from someone who never came closer to Siberia than Vyatka (Kirov), several hundred miles west, not east, of the Urals. Alexmder Herzen (1812-1 870) extolled the virhes of the "mspoiled" c Siberi.a: a new peopk, a healthy peopfe, a free and q u a l people, filled. with "the mergy dynamism, and plasticity of youth.'" Et was Herzen who envisioned Siberia as Russia's ffuture and the Pacific Ocean as the future Mediterrmem, The settlement of Siberia, he said, was the Russian version of the settlement of nor^ America, and he praised the 'kivitizing'bspects of both great movema~ts.In the end, from his cat-bird's seat- h Europe, he dared, to m d o n e P. A. Slovtsovk nxloon of a liberated, hdepmdent Siberia, a territory inten~allycohesive m d disthct from the Russian core.17

'The reactionary Tsar Alexmder 111 (1881-1894) took the throne durhg the tricentennial of Yemali" conquest. Siberian oblast~zie/zesfvo(regionalism) was in full bloom, and, Siberian development was a major public issue.18 In full flower as wcll was the debate over the filnancistg of the TransSiberian Railroad and overall migration policy (see Chapter 3). All of the key players h-t the struggle wew aware of the hnplications of Siberian mginnalism,, even if they misw~derstoodits true jntentio~~s, Time and distance are the hmdmaidens of cultural distinction. This fact was not lost on Siberia's governors and petty officials, who often acted as independent viceroys. Even the autocrat got into the act in the 1760s, when Catherine the Great established the Sibirskoye tsarsfvo (Siberian kingdom). The "'enlightened" Catherine looked upon Siberia as a selfsupporting dorninion of Russia,, eomplete with its own czlrrency The "kingdom" was repudiated in 11781, however, and thereafter no tsar ever again officially entertained the concept of an inkpendent 5iberia.. The intellecttaal wllspring of Siberian regionaljsm was the notion of "Siberian patriotism" espoused by an Orthodox priest narmed P. A. Slovttiov (l%7-1841). The voluntary migratim of hmdes of oppressed masses from the injustices of tsarist tyrmny to Greater Siberia was the source of S10vtsov"s ideas. His message of an exclusive Sibcria and Siberians sent shivers up the spines of ccmservatiwe authorities in St. Peters-

burg, Mlho Zly 1K59 were well awartr of the Siberian studmt movement in the capitd itself. Colored by their fears of communism and other revolutionary m o v m n t s in hssia, Siberian regionalism seemed to them only the latest variant of radicai separatist cmspiracy. Adding fuel to the fire, the radicals Mikhail Bakunin and M. V. Butashevich-Petrashevskiy openly supported liberation and total self-goverment in Siberh: The moderate philosophies of Slovtsov, the D e c d r i s t s , and Herzen were m e t-hing; the wilder notions of Rakmin m d Bzltashcvich-Petrashevskiy were quite anothrrr! :In 1860, for example, Bakunin wrote a letter to Herzen from Irkutsk in which he declared that Siberia" secession from Russia was then just a matter of time.19 ~~ From its beginnirtgs in the late 1850s to its demise in the 1 9 2 0 Siberian regionalism was also fostered by the intellects and scholmhip of two other men: N, M. Uadrintsev (1M2-1894) and G. N. Potmh (1835-l"320). They, in turn, had been inspired in part bp the federalist ideas of A. P. Shchapov, a M-Buryat native of Irkutsk province. Until his death, Yadrjntsev was the leading aut.hority on Siheria. In, his best known work, Sihir-k kolorziy~(Siberia as a Colony), kdrintsev depicted Siberians as colonistti with interests worlds apart from those of Russians living in the Europem Russian core. In his ophio~n,Siberims were disthctive enough to m r i t consideration as a separate ethicity: one of mixed Russim and native heritage that wap; much better adapted to cope with austere physical conditions. Siberians were liberty-loving "ind.ividuals'\vrho could barely mexriber their h s s i a n pasts, and most of them ~ g a r d e dEuropean Russians as contemptible foreigners. Of course, many m i g r d s to Sibwia, and all of t.hc indigernes, were non-Russians. bdrintsev" SSiheria was singular and pure, an isolated agricultural colony that in many ways was closer to the Amerkas and Asia than to the Russian core. It had the potential to become a new nation. Yadrintsev disdained St*Petcrsburg" s p t m a t i c "fleechgPfof Siberids resources and mourned thr periphery's total dependme on thr gratuity of European Russian mmufacturers.20 Merdding nnodern conservation movexnents, Uadrintsev characterized the crown's colonial policies as a ""pundering oi our natural wealth and the destruc.tion of our f~rests.'~21 Yadrhtsev's criticism also extended to the omnipresent political corruption and the violation of civil liberties and rights: The strongly centralized administrative hierarchy, in his opinion, was deliberately desiped to stifie local initiati.ve and sel,f-government.Yadsintsev died before the Russian zemstvo (local council) reached Sibe;t-ia(18137));and the variant that eventually arrived, unlike its counterparts elsewhert~in the empire, lacked the power to conduct trial by jury. Meanwl.rile, the rcgion was being run by bribe takers and embezzlers (Slovtsov" '""Siberian satraps"") If and when such specufators were caught reci-haneied, they werl, merely

slapped cm the wrist: and ~ a s s i p e to d perpetuate their malfeasmce elsewhere in Greater Siberia. Embittered by the widespread corruption in the "cohy,,""Vadrintsev and Potanin beseeehed Siberian patriots to consider tbr estalnlishrnent of m economically independent democratic republic. In the 186Qs,the seholars demanded m end to the region's ecmomic dependence on European Russia; the abrogatim of the exile system, which was nothing more than glossed-over serfdom; the creatio~~ and eAmcemtmt of a Siberian intelligentsia to serve as the cultural cynosure of the new democratic republic; and the founding of a Siberian university. (Of these demands, only the last was fdfilled: Tom& Wniversity was fomded in 1888.) About the same t h e , the pair teamd up with historian S, S. Shashkov to charter the "Siberian Independence $ociety.'"e trio called for the innmediate "segaration of Siheria from Russia and its establjsbntelrt as a republic cornposed of federated states similar to those of Nor& Americaef'22 The tsarist government did not take these wards kindly. h 1865, Uadrhtsev and Potmh, among other regionalists from Omsk m d Tomsk, we= jailed as ""separatists" who had plotted to crc3ate an American-style republic in Siberia. The fears were further augmented in 1866, during a futile uprising of Puljsh political exiles near Cake Baykal. 'The insurgents hoped to free the exiled pampt-ileteer N. G. Chernyshevskiy author of Chto Ik?lat? (What Is to Rt3 Done?), and to make him pmsident of a Siberian Rephlic tentatively named Suclbadosluviya (Freedom's Glory). The rebellion had little popular support and died ~abornil7g~z-i and so did. the modest radicalism of intellectuals like Yadrhtsev and Potanin. At his trial, like Sirnon. Peter, Pstmin dellied at least three times that political separatism was ever a part of the regionalistst pIatform.24 Even though it was a politically limited intcflectual movemmt and not very dangerous, Siberim regionalism thus received negative publicity as early as 1865. Not all Siberian intellectuals, in fact, and virtuall?/ none of the masses, supported Wrintsev and Potanin. h motky assortment of pro-Russian cmservative intellectuals, populists, local bureaucrats, and Marxist revolutionaries stifled the regiondish well into the twentieth century*These individuals, whom AIliljon has referred to as "cmtralistsff' vilifjed bdrintsev" newspaper Klstochrzqe vbozrerziye (Eastern Review) as the voice of separatists and revolutionaries. Ehmcing the cause of the centralists were mmors of Russian Siberians beginning to eat iike Eskimos and CI:hukchis learning to speak Englsh from their encotrnters with Americm whalers.25

liegionulistrr in the Rl~ssiunFar E a t . Regional consciolrsl~essin the Russian Far East was distinct horn that in the rest oi Greater Siberia. Its acquisition was both belatred and prolonged. Between 1884) and 9917, the re-

gion was an "ethnic bazaar'kccrntaining immigrants, mostly from Ukrahe; old settler descendants of Murav'yev's Trmsbaykal, Amur, m d Ussuri Cossack Hosts; Koreans; Japanese; religious dissenters; and myriad travelers. F w people in this ernpori of strangers ever identified strongly wilh Mother Russia. Whm in 7.885 a Chinese traveler observed that far easterners w d d rather surrender St. Petersburg than relinqujsh Vtaeiiuostok, he was merely acknowledging that half of Vtadivostok's civilian residents were Chinese. Stephan has identified three factors that i n s p i ~ dfar eastern regionalism: distinctive n-tigrants of Russian, m a i n i a n , and Baltic heritage; its own. administrative identity after 18&; and the establishment of intellectual circles in the larger far eastern cities.26 Helping to mold the regional consciousness in the Russian Far East was the fear not only of the fformidable Japancse miljtarists but also of the d u d e r i n g Chinese millions. The crown" putative dearth of concern for the region also proffered little comfort to resilient$: After 1909, the regilne appeared to be more interested in taxing goods sent through Siberia's p r t s t h a ~ in the welfare of Siberians. The fact that the region had little or no voice in the national &ma was =miniscent of colonial America" '%mationwithout reprltscmtation." ktwee11 1917 m d 1922, the same inhabitmts were either cut off or veritably autonomous frm the center, and further original experiences were engendwd by the short-lived Far Eastern &publie (see Chapter 5).

RUSSXF"lCATXOr'3AMD THE SXBERXAMS BEFORE X 9 X 7 No .friend of liberals, ALexander X I 1 strove to nip "separatism" and fnrcig~~ influences in the bud by reorgmizing the administrative structure of Greater Siheria. 'The reorganization was carried out in accorcjance with the rigid administrative hierarchy of European Russia; thus, Siberia was to be integrated into the realm, and hssified, '"By 1887, the very n m e of Siberia was no longer used as an administrative tt.nn."'7 The pdicy of ""divide and conquer," which Stalin used so effectively a half century later, had a precedent in the tsar" ddealirrgs with the periphery. The crown's instmmmt of integration and Russification was to be the Trans-Sfierian Railroad, and the taskisasters were Witte and KuZ~mzh. The majority of Siberian regionalists wanted to develop their economy slowly wi&out the diseconomies of rapid p g r e s s . They understood the benefits of the railway tout hvere suspirious of what it might do to Siberian unity and traditional culture. Potanin, for exmple, believed that Grcater . and civil rights before it needed a rail%er& needed more p e ~ l cfactories, road, Ironically, conservatives in St. Petersburg who previously had ''railed'' against the Tram-Siberian Railroad suddenly became chan-tpions of the

iron horse when confronted with the prospect of Siberian ""separatism.'""" Kdomzin, for example, hoped to quash thc centrifugal hrccs by fillbg Gscrater Siberia's huge voids with hordes of peasants from European Russia, thereby creating a Russian "'melting pot." Accordil~gto Mark, despite his altruism in other matters, Kulomzln was, like Witte, a Russian patriot, and showed obvious disdain for Greater Si:beria"s '"motley mixture"' of et.hnicities and beliefs. The saimagundi that he hoped to transform into a puree of: b b d , blue-eyed Russians included Orthodox hssians; sectarims, comprising Old Believers, Skoptsy, and &Wl.ObOrMolokans; Muslim Kazakhs and Tatars; Bud&ist Buryats; and shammist U'grians, Tu17igtxs-Manchus, m d Paleo-Asians.2WTh.e f-rontogenization of the Siberim population would, crcate the iounbations for more effective socioeconomic relations and counter the Yellow Peril that lay to the south and east, in China and Japan. The Rassinn Siberiuns: E u ~ e a 1 .Born, 1 Siberiafs by Choice

Many iactors conspired to attract migrants to Gmater Siberia. The majority of settlers were gushed. out: of the west by werrrowding and a lack of land and pdled eastward, by trhe promise of land and ljberty. As T~adgoldobserved in 3957, settlers in Siberia found '"mosc of both [of the latter pair] than they had ever known.90 Abandonkg the security of the peasmt commmne in which they had been burn and bred to risk everythhg for an unh o w n land thousands of miles away was the most important decision potentid migrmts would ever m a k . The new Siberims soon learned that Bog yscth,, u tsar-aleko (Cod is on high, and the tsar is far away); that they could bend the law and local officials to suit their needs; and that they ent altogefier. Having successhlly ~ @ even t evade the h n d of gov szxrvived the Siberian migration, could they feel infcrior to anyone eves again? How could they not be proud to be Siberimsl Many wem proud enough to intermarry with other Siberian peoples and groups. From the beginning of S;\berian settlement, Russim women were in short supply. .A few were imported for the specific purpose of marriage. Most Russian male settlers, however, had either to content themselves with celibacy or to wed indigernous women. Conditions at XI were enslaved or purtjlnes became so desperate that native ,Ugrian women were the clhased as concubhes or wives, 11%the be most vul~nerableto these practices, du. r proximity, Half-breeds we= common throughout Greater Siberia.. By 1900, a large proportion of the "f3ussian" popdation of Westem Siberia was actualiy made up of bybsid Slavs and Tatars*h Eastern Siberia, Russian i igrants readily married Buryats and bore swarthy children with dark eyes (with or without the epicanthic fold). The half-caste offspring were rrun-terousenougb to be

given the e t h i c distincticm b y m y . Likewise, the unions of f\tussians and M u t s ofkm resulted in children who spoke Yakut but cvho were Rwssjan in almnst every other way" Miscegenation was not unique to Russians and natives: Eastern Slavs (Russians, Belomssians, and Ukrainians) from various Ewropean provinces lived side by side and ofkm intermarried. The cohabitation disturbed Kulomzin, who called Siberian viilages "veritable ethnografnhic exhibitions." Native and Russian vitiages were never far fnlm one another, but sometimes they were a proverbial et-hnic mosaic.32 fn a single settlement in Tobol%skprovince, Kulomzin found an ethnic farrago of Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, RcTaris, Komis, and Chum*. He worried that such mixtrlrcs would lead to problems of tax collection and other admhistrative difficulties. The ethnic diversity of the Siberian village nah;lraily led to peculiar Russian dialects, inctuding different words and pronunciations, idiosyncratic slang, and shiftbg emphases, for example, doch-fOl\ in lieu of DOCH-kn (daughter). Mthourgh Kulomzin did not condone the Russification of venerable cultures such as those of the Poles, Finns, and A r ~ ~ e n i a nhe s , had no qualms about the assimilation of undesjra.bles, such as Muslim Kazaktns and Tatars and Buddhist Buryats. His settlement policy, therefore, was aimed at overwhelmhg ethnic groups such as these with waves of Russian immigrants.

Secfarians and Jezus: Bufsid~?us in fhe Bufhck The Great Schism that occurred with the introduction cJf new liturgical forms into the Russian Orthodox service in the 1650s divided the faithful into two groups: the loyal majmity! who agreed with the changes, and a rninrlrity of "'Old Believers,"' or "sectarians," who wished to maintain the old rites. Severely persecuted by the Muscovite government-particularly in Arkhaqcl%sk province, where the tsars had imprisoned their leader and martyr, Arcbriest Awakum, ammg the Samoyeds-the Old Relievers fhal1y crossed thc Uralls into Siberia, Oz~egrotlp was deported to t:he Altay, to provide labor and.agricultural sulppo" for the Kolyvan rnines (see Ghapter 3). Another group migrated to the Central Siberian Upland and Transbaykalia and dwelt peacefully there, hunting, gathering, m d fishing among the Tungus and Buryats. Nthough the Old Beiievers kept strict& to themsefves through the 1905 Revdution, a feMi 'Iimgus adm,ired the sect enough to beonne adherents.33 Rp 1880, Old Believers formed the majoriq oi the population of Amuria, '"which had mnre reiigirrus sectarians than any other provir-tce in Russia."x a h e r s lived in the Sifiote-Alin Motmtains and on the Lake manka plain in southern Primorye, German Mennonites and Baptists also wisely settkd in the mlatively fertile Zeya-Bureya Plain.

In the 17(10s, other religious dissenters, such as the Skoptsy and hkhobors, were dqorted to Siberia. The S k o p t ~ ((froma word meaning '"eunuch"') wwho practieed sexual abstinence and self-castration, were bmished to Yakutia, where, despite the harsh climate, they developed homesteads that becalne models for the native peoples, The Dukhobors, or ""soul stmgglers," stressed the supreme authority of inner experience and believed that their leaders embodied the spirit of God. The D~~khobors and their offshoot, the Molokans, who drank milk during Lent, had farms in the vicinity of Blagoveshchensk, in Amurh. The Molokans led sober, abstinent lives similar to those of the Mormons of Utah. meis orderly hoLtses and fields cont.rasted sharply with those of their Cossack neighbors, By the end of the nineteenth century, they had moro farm machinery per capita than any other people in the Russian E~apire.Frugal and savvy in business as well as in agriculture, the Molokans eventually owned, flour milk and steamship lines h the Russim Far East.35 Before lB0, Jews came to Greater Siberia o ~ ~as l yc o ~ ~ v i and d s exiles., For a short time, during the reign of Nicholas :I, they were allowed to homestead in the region, but Iater the policy was reversed as they were increaskgly confined to thc S3de of Sttlcmemt in western liussia. Despite these constraints, by 1900, approxixnately 35,000 Jews lived in Siberja, the majority employed as merchants in t w n s and cities such as Tobol'sk, &sk, Tomsk, Zrkutsk, m d Chits-36

Muslims, Budhisfs, and Shaunankts The nineteenth century was a disaster for the hdigenous peoples of Grc-raterSiheria. Noma$.ic groups and shifting bands wem sedentarized in Russim-style communes. As newly settled people, e t h i c groups such as the Khakass, Buryats, Evens, and Kets we= now subject to the poll tax, which represented as much as a tenfold increase over tbeir previous tribute ill furs. TriM headxze~zor chiefs, whom trhe Russjms had bribed, hvere o11:ly toa willj978 to collect the taxes, which steadily impoveriskd and demoralized. their sLtbjects until the poll tax was abolished in 191X)s.Wi& the spread of poverty their mMo11s became vuherilble to commmicable m d ~renereal diseases: Syphilis, for example, plagued the Samoyeds, Ugrians, and.Yuka" girs. Typhus, sclarvy, and tuberculosis also abounded m o n g them. :lt~digenes who had not been Russimized ("chat is, exposed to Russian ways) were extremcrly rare by 1900. The 1800s proved to be a cenbry of pmipitous decline, if not extinction, for mmy Siberim native groups, including the Yukagirs, Itelken, Kets, Sel%ups, m d Ngmasms. By 1917, the populations of the Ugrians, Evenks, and Pdivlays had. fallen by more than methird since their first contact with the Russians. h contrast, the Buryats,

Y:;tkuts, :Nentsy, and b t s y experienced substantial growth. W ~ i l ein 18(X) the natke peoples totakd 200,000 persons, in 1,90(3,they n u m b e ~ d800,000, trmio-t3-tirds of whom were eifier Buvat or Yakrxt. With the exceptim of a forty-two-ycar period of religious tolerance under Cafierine the Great and Alexancler 1 (1773-1,815), t-hc alltocsacy aspired to convert alf of these people to the ""onetrue faith," Russian Orthudoxy. Virtually all Siberian minorities, at one time or another, were exposed to missionaries. To m m y among them the Ugrians, Buryats, m d Uakuts, the effects of Orthodox baptism were evanescent or s y n c ~ t i c : These individuais were superficially Orthdox but internally shamanist. Clther cult-ural differences also remained: For example, Buryats spoke h s s i a n in the street but Buryat in the yurt, Alahough they had been mder Russian rule since the 163Os, YakLlts likeYet, nursing the arn:bitinn of: jailling wise wcre (ahristims "in name the Russim gmtsy-m aspiration that was unique among Siberian mjnoritks-Yakuts preferred h s s i a n n m e s m d patronymics to their native Turklc ones. As lmg as Chey d e l j v e ~ dthe tsar's fur tribukz on tirntl, they usually were Left to their own devices, Through the turn of the century, the Russification effort was weak irm Uaikutia. h fact, the few Russim colonists wh.o settled there commo~llyspoke Yakut, oftell to the extent &at they forgot their native l a n g u ~ e Despite . their seemkg liberty, however, the Vakuts were a conqwred people. In 1906, the M u t Union, a national front orgmization, chaltel~gedt-hc Russians to rehm all the Yakut lands in their possession and exhorted them to appoint mly Yi\kuts to local lawmbrcrernmt agmries. ?:.;arkit authorities smn arrested. the ringlea$ers, but the Yak& peopk perpetuated their rcvolzltionary rnoverne~~t until 1923.37 Islam had. come to Siberia and the Middle Volga region via Central Asia in the tenth century*After the Mongol invasitm, Russims tended to call all Muslims Tatars.38 The vmquished Siberian Tatars were Muslhs, as we= their admixture, the Caucasoid Volga Bulgars from Kazan~rovisrce. By 1900, a l m s t 70,000 Tatars dwelled in Greater Siberia. Approximately 30,1.)00of them were Volga Tatars, the sons and daughters of exiles or voluntary migrants who had setded, in the region since the 1600s. Because they were coreligionists, Tatars readily i~~termarried with their Siberian compatriots and the northern Kazabs, who were b a w n as "the K y r a z of the steppes." After 1755, the tsars actually condoned :Islam among these peoples, even permitting the comtmctim of mosques, The greatest concentration of practicing Muslims resided h small, strictly segregated villages in iTbbol%kprovince, Those who lived together with the Russians, however, were Russified, even to the point. of losing their native tongue. Although most Tatars were destitute by IOW, the more s~~ecessful worked as h k d laborers, carters, craftsmen, and mrchants specjaliz,ing in grait-t and salt processillg or leathercraft. Like the Jews, %tars wem

chiefly tovvnsfslk, rmiding not only in Tobol%sk,but also Tyumenf,Tomsk, and frkutsk provinces. Others livcd in the Baraba Steppe, Transbaykdia, m d in rural Yakutia. Shamhsm, the idea that nah;lral spirits can possess human beings and that tribai h d y meln (shamans) can control thcm, was the hundatim on which rested, the beliefs of vil-tual:lyall the tribes of Greater Siberia until the arrival of Orthodoxy, Buryats, both west and east of Lake Baykai, were shamanists until 2720, wkeln they feu prey to Tibetan and Mongolian Suddhist nnissionaries of the Yellow Hat sect, The naturd spirits of the shamans now became Lamaist pmtectcrr dei~es.Lamaism enjoyed. momous papalarity among Buryats, and until 2825, the crown tolerated it in order to curry favor with clan rulers, or nqons. Thus, Russian ~ l i g i o u tolame s was more duplicitous than altmistic. :ill the 17605, to discourage Buryat cs~ntactswith foreign undesirables in MongOIia and Tibet, Russian au&orities condoned an autonomous Lamaist church in Buryatia. Tsarist oificials gave some of tl-te noyolzs gentry status, Mlhe~upcmthe clan kaders began to copy their corrupt Ixussian exemflars by greedify arrogating the best lmds of their subjects, C)ccasi.maXIS/;the duplci-ty went the other way when particularly cofmpt Ruryat cl~iclfsbecame Christims less to prove their loyalty to the tsars than to mahtain their considerable wealth, Unlike their brothers west of Lake Baykat, who took up sedentary farmfng under Russim influence in the early 18C)Os,the Buryats of Transbaykalia retained a purely pastoral economy through the 1 9 2 0 ~Before ~ 1850, they remained nomads, rearing cattle, sheep, goats, and Bactrian camels, and drivhg or fctllowing their herds over vast distances, Llnder Russian influence, thcir nomadjc ways becme more systematic, and bp 19W, the migrations occurred only twice yearly, from winter camps to summer carnps and back again. By the 1830s, Buddhism was practically universal throughout Buryatia. Although Russian authorities became increasingly intolerant of Buddhism, one in five Buryat males was a Buddhist lama. 111midcentury, Muravyyev placed limits on the number d l m a s and forbade the co~nstnlction of new monasteries. Miholesale hssification was pursued during the reign of Alexander 111, when monasteries were burned and Buddhists were caned by Russian police until they converted to Orthodoxy. After 1905, religious tolerance was reimposed, and the new converts became Buddhists again. By then, Buryat intellectuats were permitted to make regu2ar pilgrimages to Mongolia, where they picked up the idea of creating a ""Pan-Mmgolian"' state. By 1917, Buqat Buddhism was clearly intematicmal in orientation, and the intelligent Buryats were the only Siberian indi,genes with their own wr2ten language.39 Despite his avowed aim of Russifying the Buryats, Kulmzin had to adlnit that they were a ""likable and attractive" "ople, whose penchant

for beauty and sobriety cmtrasted sharply with the cmdity and drunkenness of his Russian compatriots. He openly wondercd whether "Mongolian civilization would prove sturdier than SI;-wic.""""

GEXANCiES IN THE fRBXCiENOIJS PEBBLE ON THE EVE OF THE SOVIET BERIBD Durhg the expansionist period, tsars demanded that thek hezzchen do nothing more than guarantee the uninterrupted flow of revenue f r m Siberia to the core..The crown frequmtIy denounced the explcritation of native peoples and the use of .force against them. Though ""far away" the autocrats desired to protect the indigenes. They tried to achive this by aut)-torizil^lgl w s to keep native peoples and Russians separate from each other, but the laws were unenforcehle and abortive. in Siberia, the tsarfs '"Siberian satraps" "often simply ignored such decrees, and Cossacks and military men continued to rape and pitlage the autochthonous peoples. By 1,917, the Ijkstylcs of almost all native Siberiaxls, particularly those who were h constant contact with the prishliye, had undergme sipifi:cant chmges. Virtually all of them, except a share of the Siberian Tatars, had qualifi,ed as nomads beforra the advelnt of Yermak. fn the early f;9C)Os, those who had been nomadic were at least semhomadic, and those who had been seminomadic were sedentary Previously nomadic peoplesf such as the Khakass (who loathed the Russians), Buryats, and Vakuts, were quite sedentary for the reasons given above. The Russians living nearZly used the a i g e n e s as hired hands. 'They aiso adopted indigenes" styles of drcss, learned their mcthods of survival, and incorporated m n y of their words in everyday Russian speech. En turn, the natkes began to wear Russian dothing, to use Russian tools, and to speak the Russian hnguage, albeit with mistakes and an accent" Yet, large numbers of people still. pursued traditional ways of life: nomadism or wandering' suppkmented with fishing m d hunting. Reinker herdi,ng was (and still is) a major occupation for at Icast: eighteen of the nutritious meat, for &aft, and groups, The animnal was raised for its hi.@@ for human transport. b e n groups a c b l l y saddtc?d and rode reindwr, the m~sC.famous being the Tungus (Evaks, Evens, and Negidals). The TurEc ?irvans and Rfalars, like One Evenks, also rode and packed their animals. r Yukagim, Eight other g r o u p e & e Evens, Negidals, Orokti, ~ h d e eUaZtuts, Chukhis, Koryak' and Dolgans-not only rode and packed but alsa harnessed their rczindeer to deds of various shapes and, sizes, The Uralic and Ket peoples used refndeer exclusively for drawing sleds. Most. of the same gmups wme also skitled with dogsleds, In Western Siberia, the Nentsy and the Ugrims ( m m t s and Mansi) were joined in this practice by the Old Russian settlers who lived in the vicinity of the k m d , Cydan, and Taymyr peninsulas, fn tlre Russian Far East, Old Rus-

sian settlers living in the Arctic and almg the Sea of C)khcrtsk learned dogsledding from neigMoring IteYmen, Koryaks, coastd Chukchj, and Eskimos. SIed dogs also were used among the Udegcys, Nivkhi, and Nmays in the Amur Ever Basin. Still others rai,sed horses for riding and draft purposes. The ordinarily hardy Vaht horse became famous during Robert Falcon Scott" ill-fated expeditbn to Antmtica, where. all of the horses froze to death (as did Scott). In Sakha (Vakutia), however, the animal can remain unsheltered even during the dead of wintel; scratching out mager pasturage beneath the shallcrw snow cove^. Horses we= husbanded m d expertly ridden by the Transbaykalian Buryats, the northern Kazakhs, the Mtays, the C)ld Settler Cossacks, and the Horse Tungus of the Amur Basin, Many early tourrkts traveling m the Trms-Siberian Railroad recalted being entertained by the innocent "raidsfkhounted northern Kazakhs, wham, they called '6Kyrgyz.f' Apart from draft animais, transportation was typical of subarctic pecrpies found elsewhere in the northern he~nispS-ierc3.AlX the nat-ive groups skied or used snowshoes in winter. These varied in style among the irtdigenes, so that an experienced ethograyher codd associate the artifact wiIh the maker, Living domg rivers, oceans, or seas, practically all oE the Siberian natives made their own boats: kayaks among the Chukchi, the Eskjmos, and the Itel'men; sailing craft among the Chukchi and the Evenks; m d dugouts and canoes of all sizes and shapes among the others. Native housillg and clothing were simple, practical, and made from natural materials. Twelve groups, prilnarily the reindeer herders, used portable modified wigwams, the most notable of which were those of the Samoyeds, Ugfians, Turks, and Tungus. As Mongols, the Aga-Buryats lived in yurts until Ihc 1,95C)s,but: the westem and Bansbaykalian Buryats inc~asinglybuilt: mctanguilar log cabins, usually with a sod roof, Earth houses, both sunken and semi-sunken, were favortrd among the Khants, the Scl'kups, t-he Kcts, t-he Evenks, the Nanays, and Ihc Nivkhj, whereas the Baraba Tatars and Dolgans preferred sodhouses, The dwelllings took many shapes-A-frames, multiangutar, circular, arched, and so forthand groups typially had m r e lhan one characteristi.~style. Yakuts, for example, lived in, adobe b u s e s , square frame houses, wigwams, A-frames, log houses, and lean-tos. At the time of the Revolution, typicd native clothilng was nnade of hides, furs, down, or even fishskh. Xn winter, the irtdigmes wore seamless, buttonless, wrapover fur coats of reindeer hide, often lined with squirrel or rabbit fur or the down of dwks, geese, or loons*No part of the hunter" or trapper" skill was discarded, The Amur River peopIek who made their living by fishing m hunting sea mammals, even w r e cured fishskins as thek outer garments.41

Like t:he American West, with its images of abundance, plains, deserts, cowboys, and hostile Indians, the name ""Siberia" engenders a phantasmagoria of perceptions. As a rcsoucce-laden periphery, it began as a colony, but it soon became a vast prison for criminal and political cast& of the core. ktmicaily, the exile system helped to create still another image of Siberia: a foullt of hope and insfiratinn for freedm-loving doers and thinkers, who ranged from landlordless peasants to intellectual DecemZlrists. From here, it was a quick inteliectual jump to the romantic idealization of Siberia as the wild, rugged, and beautiful East, 6Ued with glorious legends of brave or f d e n Russim heroes. Finally, on the heels of the Decembrists, the Sibaian regionalists took the pcxeption one step further, contemdjng that Siberia, becarnse of the distinctiveness of the land and its peopEc, was a prime candidate for regional autonomy. At almost every trrm, the autcmomy movements of the periphrry were countervailed by the power of the c m , Nevertheless, the Siberians of 1917 were different from those of 1717. Irrespective of their grcater numbers, they reflected greater indiviciuality. Having e n d w d the throes of migrali.on, the shackles of exile, t-he dfects of miscegenat.im, and the Russification efforts, new and old Siberians defied, and sometimes even mocked, the conformity of European Russia. 'I'he native minorities struggled to maintain their traditjnns in the face of an avalanhe of Slavic settlers, while within a generation after their arrival in the periphery newcomers learned to appmciate their new tives fn isolation from the care, By the relatio~~ship between core and periphery the time of the Revol~~fio~~, had become an "us versus them" "situation. Yetl few Siberians were true separatists; rather, t h y hoped to maintain, trYithin a toierant h s s i a n motherland, the things that made them disthctiv their free, pioneering spirit, their hodgepodge ethnicity, their idiosyncratic bekavior and speech, and their love of nature. 'Tb the extent that there was any democracy in the Russim Empire, it existed in Greater Siberia.

ROTES 4. Mark Bassin, ""tventing Siberia: Visions of the Russian East in the Early Nineteenth Century," Amen'ctan Historical Review, Vol. 96, No. 3 (June 1991), p. 792. The Brst part of this chapter is modeled on concepts and ideas previously explored by Professor Bassin. Accordingly, 1 am deeply indebted to him for his support and encouragement. 2. See Bassin's commentary in ""Panet on Siberia: Economic and Territorial Issues," "viet Cee?gr~plly,Vol. 32, No. 6 (June 1991), p. 366. Mercantilism encouraged the maintenance of trade surpluses and the hoarding of precious metals such as gold and silver.

3. lames R, Gibson, Fcdi~rgthe Rzdssin~tFur Trade (Madiscm: University of Wisconsin Press, 19692, p. 25. In the 1640s alone, the share was one-third (Bassin, "Inventing Siberia," p. 1767). 4. Raymond H. Fisher, Tht Russian Fur Trade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1943), p. 29. 5. Mark Bassin, "&pansion and Colonialism on the Eastern Frontier: Views of Vol. Siberia and the Far East in Pre-Pest-rine Russia," "~ozimlalc$Historiml Ce~gmpFsy~ 44, N o . 1 (19881, p. 44. 6. "Demidovy," BoE'shaya Sowtshya e~ztsiklopediya,2 972, Vol. 8, p. 72. The Bemidovs maintained their Urals possessions, albeit in greatly diminished form, until the early twentieth century. 7. Steven G. Mark, The Road to Pozwr: Tke Tra~ts-SiberianRailroad nlzd rlze Colonization ofiisial.2 Rzassia, 3850-291 7 (Xthaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 48. 8. The Demidovs, for instance, employed 38,000 male factory serfs at one time ("Demidovy" g. 72). Fc>rmerserfs in Greater Siberia woutd become the Transbaykal Cossacks, and still later, the Amur and Ussuri Cossacks. 9, Wobert Conquest, FColymn (London: Macmillan, 2"37), pp. 38-39, Gold in the Kc~lymaBasin appears to have been discovered by a fugitive convict named Boriska in 2 920. 10. Jarnes Hughes, Stalin, Siberia, and llze New Econontic PoIiq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2 991)' pp. 2 9-20. The best coverage of the Siberian butter industry to date is L. M. Goryuskkin, Sibl'rskoye kresf'yanstvo rzn rubmite dvz-lkftz~ekov (Movosibirsk: Nauka, 1967). 11. Hughes, Stalin, Siberia and NEF g. 23. 42. Bassin, "Inventing Siberia," pp. 770 and 77'4. 13. George Kennan, Siberia land the Exile Syste~rz:(2d ed, abridged; Chicago: University of Chicago Press 49581, p. 26; F. A. Kudryavtsev, ed,, Sibz'r" et.pok/~ukapitnlizmn, Vol. 3 of Istctriya Sibiri, ed. A. P+Okladnikov (5 vols.; Leningrad: Mauka, 19681, p. 175; and AXan Wocjd, "Settlement and Unseglement: Massive Criminal Exile to Siberia in Tsarist Russia" [(payer presrzntd at the coderence on "The Bevelopment of Siberian Territories: Historical and Economic Aspects," Kemerovc), USSIP, Sptember 1991), p. 4. Elsewhere, Woc~dhas cdorfully noted that the habit of sending undesirables to Siberia began in 1582, almost seventr)r years befc~reofficial tsarist sanction in 4(-;4"r)xe ""Sex and Violence in Siberia: Aspects of the Tsarist Exile System," in Siberia: Two Historical Perspectives [London: Schaol of Slavonic and East Eurc~peanStudies, 19841, p, 23). The 1662 cemus revealed that exiles accounted for about 2 0 percent of the population (p. 25). 14. Glynn Barrat, Voices in Exile: Tlze Decetnbrisf Mentoirs (Montreal and London: McGill-Quwn's University Press, 1974), p. 2; and Michael T. Florinsky, Russ-in: A Hislo~yand lnfer;t?reCationin Tzuo Vi?lzal.rzw, Vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan, 1964), g.

7551. 15.,Ana tale Mazour, The First Russkn Rezlofzrtion, 1825 (Stanford: Stan fc~rdUniversity Press, 1197";7),p. 222. 16. Bassin, "hventing Siberia,'" p. 7753; see also Mark Bassin, "Russia Between Etxrc~peand Asia: The Ideological Construction of Geographical Space," Slnvic Review, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Spring 1991),pp. 9-13.

47. Bassin, "Inventing Siberia," pp. "i"84-"1"7, "i"O-"l"c)q.""Sberian historian" Stovtsov is considered "the Brst patriot of Siberia'" (Valentin Raljputin, Sibir', Sibir" . . . [Mcxscc~w:Ms1c)day.a gvardiiya, 19913, p. 53). 18. Marks, Tlre Road to I")ot~xl; p. $9. Siberian regionalism was primarily an intetlectual mc>vernent.According to Pereira, who quc~tesBaron A. P. Btldberg? dated November 40, 1930: ""l is doubtful whether genuine Siberia- ever heard much about the inf ated "Siberian separatism."Hc>wever,] they hated the Metrc3polis [or Core] but did not go beyond the hating. All the higher-flown variatic~nstzrere produced in intellectual circles, infinitely remote from the real life of the peoplef' (N.G.0, Pereira, ""Regional Consciousness in Siberia Before and After October 1917," Canadian Slntzjonic kpers, Vol. 30, No. I [March 19881, pp. 128-129). 19*L. M. Gory-ushkin, "Late-Nineteen&- and Early-Tw-entieth-Century Siberian RegionalistsTViews on the Economic Independence of Siberia,'" Siberica, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter 19963--39911,pp. 80-81; Anthony I"). Allison, ""Siberian Regionalism in Kevdution and Civil War, 1917-4920," Sibin'ca, VOL. 4, Nc). 1 (Summer 1990), p. 79. The Bakunin reference is in John J. Stephan, "Far Eastern Conspiracies? Russian Separatism on the Pacific," Azisfralian Slavonic a~zdEast E~ircrpe~tz Sfzrdies, Vol, 4, Nos. 1 -2 (l990), p- 137, 20, Goryushkin, "Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Centrrry . . . ," pp, 155-1 57. 21. Ibid., p. 160. Yadrintsev was a contemporary of Americans George Perkins Marsh and John Muir, who today are looked upon as founders of the preservationist rno>vernent. 22, Ibid,, pp. 461-462; and Pereira, "hgional Consciousness in Siberia,"". 112. (Lon23. Alan Wood, ed ., Siberia: Probknzs and Prospectsfor Regl'onnf D~uefopntenE. don: Crctc~mHelm, 1983, p. 54. 24. Kudryavtsev, Sibir' v epokhli, p. 142. Between 1883 and 1886, one last revolutimary outburst took place among a group af regionalists, which estabfished the fleeting, quasi-independent Zhetuginskiy Republic near the border with China (Paul Gcjble, in "Panel on Siberia," p. 3369). 25. Allison, ""Siberian Regionalism,'". 80; Marks, Road fo Powcl; p- 52, 26. Stephan, "Far Eastern Conspirades?" ppgp, 137-139. 27. Ibid,, p. 53. For tharnugh treatments of Siberian administrative-territcjrial history see ""Asfrninjstrativnc>yedeleniyeff~ibirsknyn Sovefskayn entsiklopediya, 1929, Vid, I, pp.2&22; and Treadgold, The Great Siberian Migmfiotz, pp.19-23,26%265. 28, Marks, Road fo Poruer, pp. 8&92. 29, Marks, "Conquering the Great East," p. 52. 30. Eeadgafd, Tke Grmt Siberinl.2 Migration, p. 239, 31. Ibid., g. 241; and Jarnes Fcyrsyth, A Histoly of tlte Peoples ~fSiberia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19921, pp- 1 (43,198,Chekhov did not even recognize the settjers of the Arnur Basin as Russians. In his wordsf he might just as well have been in "htagonia a r Texas" "(c-juoted in Forsyth, ibid., p. 498). For an explicit description of the female shortage, read Wmd, "Sex and Vicdlence," ppgp. 38-42. 32. Marks, "Conquering the Great East," p 34; and Gail FcmdaN, ""Siberia: Native Peoples and Newcomers in Cotlisian," 'in Nations and Politics iin the Soviet SUGcc.ssor Sfnles, eds. Ian Brernmer and Kay Taras (Lr3ndrtn: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 483,

33. Frrrsyth, A Histufy of t k Peoples of Siberia, pp. 44 and 250; and Boris Ivanov, ""Sberian Old f-ielievers,;,"T~ovl'et No. 6 (June 1991>,pp. 24-19. After 2 907, Old Believers were allc~wedto obsexve their hoiidays and to establish religious communities. They were severely persecuted under Stalin, and many were sent into forced labsr. Others Red deeper into the Siiberian taiga, or to the Americas. In the 3.950~~ they w e l permitted ~ to return to their native uilages. 34. John J. Stephan, 7"ke Russian &r Easf: A Hisfc;ty (Stanfc~rd:Stanfc?rd University Press, 19941, pp. 6748. 35. Xbid, 36. Frrrsyth, A kll'slory of ttw Peoples of Sibel-ia, p. 196. 37. Nikolay Ushakav, "The Origins of the Vakuts," Y~cdkgjtia:Frozen Genz of the USSR, 19178. Available on-line at ~ h t t p/:/www.maxirnc~v.cum/Rus~ia/Sakha/ yakutia-past,html#originsr (28 September 2 997). 38. Richard V* Weekes, ed., M~asli~rt. Peoples: A World Ethnagrapllic Sum% Vcd. 1 (2 vols.; Westport, Corn.: Green\voc~d,1984), p,758. 39. Forsyth, A History c$ti"le Peoples of Siberia, pp, 150, 156, and 16&--1X;see also PeapIes," pp. 477-540; and Carofine Humphrey, "Bury Fcmdahl, ""Siberia: 1"IJatir~e ats," in The izlafianalitz'esQ ~ e s f l o if? n fhe Soviet Unl'a.tz,ed. Graham Smith. (London: tongman, 3.9921, pp. 230-303. 40. Marks, "Conquering the Great East," pp. 34. 41. This section is based primarily on material from M. G. Levln and L. I"". Potayov, eds., Xsforiko-etlzograficlteskiy atlas SiFiri (Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiya nauk SSSR, 1961), numerous gages; and Fc~ndahl,"Siberia: Native Peoples," pp. 480484. Far infclrmatictn on the "Fishskin &tars," see Forsyth, A History of the Peoples of Siber&, g. 21 0.

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FIVE

ution, Civi War, and m in Greater Siberia Siberiatzs lmve a dzflerent spirit tjlm12 do the EItiropean Russians. TIzq very muclz prize tfieir irzdivl'dunlity and zuilljglzt I2al.d to keep it, -Mark Seqey, Siberian poet

We zu~ntBolshevism, but not Carrtnzunisnz. -Anonymous Siberims (early 1920r;)

After Yadrintsw" death in 1894, Potanifi became the undisputed leader of Sibcrian rclgionalisrn. Tvvenv years later, in the last decade of his life (1910-192Q), he was widely described as the ""fat-herof Siberia" m d as an "otherworldly fellowf"bozI.~i;ychefovirkf. But Potanififsshhi27-g hour came when he was already past seventy and the forces of RLtssian history were clearly at odds with the abiljties of any individual-even one thought to pcwsess special wisdom. In the words of Anthony Allison: "Befort. 1917, the debate between centralists and regionalists was carried out in newspapers, intellectual circles, and duma committees. During the Russian Revolution and Civil War, this debate became an outrit;ht politicd and militiilry strugg)e for the control of Siberia, Thus, the final and most dramatic chapter in the history of Siberian ~gionalismbegan in the gathering chaos of early 1417."1 The evelzts of 1917 were rooted in those of 1905. The Russo-Japanese War-to that tirne, the bloodiest in history-had, unmasked Russia" inability to supply artd defend its massive eastern flank.Altklzugh members of the royal family and the nationalist press demanded revenge, llrban Russians showed indifference to the loss. The usually compliaint rural folk, however, whom the revolutionaries had been wooing for more than

50 years, took advantage of the aristocracy's melancholy by burning the estates of absentee landow~zers.In Siberia, armed revolts occurred in Krasnoyarsk, Chita, Vladivostok, and other towns. I'hese events persuaded the Siberian regionalists to proclaim their support for a constitutional democracy and Chr! observance of basic hunan rights at the national level, and the establishment of their own Siberian durna at the local level."eir noticms were openly cmfederative: The mgional government would be stro~zgand the national one would be weak. They envisioned their Siberian duma in control of the regional economy, the budget, educaticm, social programs, property rights, and resourile use. In mirror image to the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, all powers not vested in the Siberim durna werc to be reserved for the national gwernment. These sentiments were reinforced by a declaration that the new Siberia would be a separate, sclf-governing c o r n u n i t y zrtithilz Russia, Thus, in 1905, Siberim regionalists cleariIy desired a Russian dominim similar to fiat of Canada, in which the pmvinces (or mgions) were politically powerful. The confederation was stillborn: With the establishment of the AllRussian Duma in St. Petersburg and without a p a r y of their own, the Siberian regionalists became loosely allied with Kerenskifs Constitutional Iaernncrats (Kadets), Like the Kadets, they were neither very numemus nor well orgmized, which was not the case with Siberia's Social Revol~xtio~zaries (SRs). The SRs, who far outnumbered the Bolsheviks in every province of Greater Siberia except Krasnoyarsk, dominated the countryside, the towns and cities, and the local econorny. tinlike the Kadcts, w:ho telrded to favor a unitary state, Ihe SRs szxpported the eoncept of U.5.-style federalism for :Russia. Alfiough the majority of Si.berim regiondists still favored a ""loser lead," in the heady days of 1917, they shifted thek loyalty to the SIRS" In M a y 3917, the Siberian regionalists osmized a Prczvincial People's Assembb that met in Tamsk. The delegates unanimously apprwed a deckraion stipulakg the right to self-government, the ereatim of a Siberian durna, and the subordination of Siberia to Russim laws in affairs of state. They appohted m executi ee tc:,organize a c o n g r e s s i d assennhty that: would c m e ~ z th e later. 'The delegates approved a white-and-green Siberian flag, representing the region's snows and forests. Finally, the executive committee selected the octogenarian C;. N. I'otanin to be its congressional leadcc st ""cngress'" met again in Tomsk and was so poorly attended downgraded it to the status of "conferare." A confermce was wh.at it was, serving maj_nly as a podium, for the delivery of reports on the status of the Siberian economy The most impmtant outcome of the meting was the pmclamation to hold still ano&er meeting in October.

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With Lenll;'~BolShevik Revolution less than one week away, thr First Siberian Regional Congress attracted twice as many delegates from all over Greater Siberia, including the representatives of e t h i c minurities. More than hatf of the KZ delegates were SRS a d S1': sympathizers, 25 were Social Democrats (SDs), 3 were Kadets, m d 20 were nonpartisans. Factionalism destroyed the congress, the specific duty oi which was to set up the framework and standing committees of the regional government. 'The SDs hvalked out because the cadre of congressiond dekgates was '"too bourgeois" b r them, The trio of Kadets also departed, because the congress was ""to lleftist" for them. The remaining delegation was so unruly that by the time the colngress aqourned, only 25 loyal SRs and regionalists retmahed. When the Bolshevik Revolution did occur, the Siberian regionalists were divided into two camps: one headed by Potmin, who believed that the regional goverment shuuId recognize the suffrage of all social. classes, and another led by Odessa-horn SR Peter t)erb.er, who wanted s~~ffrage to cowrise socia,lists d y -With the Solsl?evi,ks in power in St. Petersburg, Potanin" Tomsk-based executive committee called for the convocation of the long-awaited Siberian Regional Uurna fn January 1938. In reaction, the more numerous SR regionafists, supporting Derber's notions, forced the resignation of Potanin, who accused them of exclusivism.3 The Siberian duma never m t in full session. In late January 7,633,8, as duma members tried. to convme their legislatuse in Rmsk, the Bolsheviks arrested Cif) of the 101)would-be representatives. The 48 who escaped formed a new executive commit-tee, swearing allegiance to the ""Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia" and to Derber as head of state-"Shortly afterward, Derber and a motley crew oE 20 loyalists fled to Hahin, where he was "haugurated" in a railway car s~~pplied by General D. L. Horvath, the General Manager of the Chinese Eastern RaiIway (CEK), who also aspired to Siberian leadersbip.

SIBERIA IM THE CIVIL, WAK By Fdruary 1918, the Bolshevik were prese~ntin almost every Siberim pmvince. This did not mem, however, that they had a broad hase of support in the ~ g i o nLenin-smctioned . land seizures were not a high priority for the cmpt?~ativelypmspero~s,lmdordless Siberim peasmt.' Although Siberians would later mact violently to Bolshevik leveling and forced requisition policies, they we= initially apathetic to the takeover. Lenin's party was not yet strong enough to mal.ter in the regiorn. The treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which brought m end to Russids involvement fn World W r I on March 3,49lt3, inspirt3d three, possibly four, anti-

ts in Siberia: those of Derber, Horvath, a cruel m d d Grigoriy Smenov, and-waiting in the wiulgsAdmiral Alexander Koltchak. The half-Bur)iat Semenov ruled Irkutsk and Chita provinces as quasi-chieftain of a band cJf bloodthirsty Cossacks, Mongols, and Serbian prisoners-of-kvar until 1920. 'The issue at stake was which of t:he anti-Rolsfnevik groups could survive? Shoal$ it consist of Derberfs S&? Horvath" conservative monarchists'! Or Semenov" cruel opportunists? After the example set by KeretnsEy"s Provisional Government, a coalition was out of the question. The leadership quandary was further complicated by the prc.sence of erstwhile tsarist and Pmvisional Government officials, together with mercenary allied elements from Japan, Britain, and France, Moreoverf in early spring 1918, another ingrt3dicnt was injected into the brew: Admiral Kolchak.6 The son of an arn?y ofticer, Kolchak (1873-1920) was in his own right a highly respected career naval officer. In the service of the Russian Provisional Gove he was on his way bark from a missim to the tJnited States via Japan when the Bolsheviks took power, Dtlring the Bolshevik Revolution, the infamous Czcch Legion was still operak~gin Ukraine. The Czechs declared themselves neutral, their memies hehg Ihe Axis pokvers, not the Bolsheviks. ARer Brest-Litovsk, twn divisjons of the "autmornous Czechoslovak army" hand. themselves awkwarcily positioned in a country that had made peace with their sworn enemies"To be reunited with the Allied powers, they would have to cross Siberia on the Transl-SiberianRailroad, for which they obtahed the reluctant permission of the Bolskviks. Along the way, they experienced an ufioward inddent in Chelyabinsk, whieil provoked the Bolshevi,ks to arrest some of their compatriots. The Czechs rose in revolt, seized the local arsenal, and freed the prisoners. By May, the Czech Legion "owned""the Trans-S;lberian Railroad between Penza m d Irkutsk. Omsk, Tomsk, and virtuaXly every city and town between the Volga and Vladkostok fell into mti-Bolshevik hands.

Regirmnlism: The Lnsf Gasp Two very different tretnds in government elnerged in the Silneria of 1918: The Regional h m a , based in Tomsk, was composed of fgftists and SRs; the Siberim provisional Gove ent, based in Qmsk, was more moderate asld essential,:ty nonpartisan. Paralleling the two governxnental group" two difiFerent Vpes of regimlal.ism began to evolve: one i n c r e a ~ ingly associated with the ambitions of the national 51.: Party, and one favorhg Siberim autonomy for anti-Bolshevik purposes. Such a divided house could not stand for long. A magnet for White Russims, in its first official act, the Omsk government declared itself in-

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dependent of Russia. The "Ti,mskgave ent, memwhile, focused an the selection of delegates to Chelyabinsk, for a series oE negotiations over the mation of a united anti-Bolshevik government that would stmtch from the b l g a to the Pacific. ias dways, the duma was cmspicuous for the prolixity of its speeches and bitter disputes among the SRs and moderates. The hullabaloo alienated Siberhns, especially the h s k government. The govemxnents became further divided over the incipient war wit-,h the Rolsl.leviks, Conservative Whites strongly supported the On?sk government and made Kolchak their minister of war. The Regional b m a , one of the repsentatives of which was Derber, codd rely only on the now much-dispersed mrnbers of the Czech Legion, who had no ,wish to become mired in a Russian civil war. it appeared that Siberia" hause soan w o d d c w e crashing down, wfien in September 11918, a coaiition govemmer~t,called the Directory, was famed in the Urds city of Ufa. Under its aegis, the Siberian Provisional Government and the egional Ouma were dissolved, and the Directory was relocated in Chnsk. A bastion of conservative jingoism, the Directory itself had. been proposed as a temporary institution, pcndjng the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. Its membership clamored for a strong military dictatorship to fight the rapidly approaching Red Army. The Directory had little domestic support, and none at all from the Al" lies-especially the British, Mlho strongly sanctioned Kolchak. On Novelnber 18, 1918, a military coup occurred in Qnnsk, the Directory was overthrown, and Admiral Kolcbak was declarrzd "Supmme Ruler of All the Russias."7

hferuetzficnra ~ fhe d Far Eastem Repttblic 'The zenifih of Kolchak" career came in summer 1919, ,when the Allies rec0gni.zt.d him as de fclcto ruier of h s s i a , The other White Army generals, including Semcmov and Horvath, who was now '"igh f.'lenipt-ttentiaryf' in t-he Russian Far East, officially accepted his aulhority. His ragtag army had been surprisingly successful, having taken Ufa and Permyin the Idrals and being poised to retake Samara m the Volga ICiver. Lenin was so concerned about. lhis course of events that he seriousty contemplated an ediate armistice and the recognition of an independent Siberia," The &clatwas Reethg, however. Between summer and fall, as a result incon?geterzt offiof peasant revolts, broke11 szxpply lines, bad equipsne~~t, cers, and betrayals by the ALfies, Kolchak's army began to =treat and to dishtegrate. The climax came when the peripatetic Czechs renounced ail further Siberim action and dernmded immediate evacuatio11. Shortly aftern&, Kalchak abrogated his lofty title and left Siberia in the charge of Semenov. As he fled eastward an the Trans-Siberian, Kslchak was

stopped by the pariah Czechs and turned over to the Red Guard. Behre dawn on February 7,1920, he was shot by a Bolshevik firing sqmd outside Irkutsk. The chaos and treachery associated with the intervention of representatives of fcturteen other countries seaXcd Kolchak's fate, U'ndcr the guise ol pmtecthg the Czech Legion, the Japanese sent in a conthgent of 80,000 trcrops to gain exchxsive control not only of Eastern Si:iberia but also of northern Mmchuria. Originall5 the destiny of the 5Ur0(3(fCzechs-15,000 of whom eventually Bed Siberia through Vladivostok-was the primary reascm for the presence of all the inf;erventionists. Britain and fiance had deployed 30,000 to 40,000 troops in Russia, most..lyin the European part* Those in Greater Siberia we= supposed to aid and advise Kolchak. The United States had dispatched an expc~diticmaryforce of more than 10,000 to protect the Ems-Siberian XCailroad between Lake Baykd m d Vladivostok. Nine other countries also sent token contingents that spent th bulk of their tour millirrg around in thr vodka a d flesh parlors of Vladivostcrk and Marbin: Uadivostok was a major arsemal, and the Allies djd not kvmt it to fall into German or Bolshevik hands, Harbin, a strategic railway locomotive depot and the headquarters of the CEM, was also home to a growing population of 35,000 Russian expatrialese9Mowever, by summer 7920, o d y the Japanese remavled to face the Bolsheviks in Greater Siberia, Neither side wanted a confrontation. Poland was menacing Lenin in the west, m d the last t:hing he wanted was a secol~df"mnt.The Pfnkyo government became dlvidcd on the issue of continued occupation of the Russian Far East. The notion of a buffer state between Japnn and Russia, whjch arose around this time, may have originated with a Siberian Bolshevik named A, M. Krasnoshchekov. 0 f tlkrainim 'Jewish heritage, Krasnoshchekov was a veteran revolutionmy who had served with Trotsky and Martov and had spent sixteen years in North America, working with the labor movernent (1901-1917). In the ldnited States, he befriended ammg others Emrna Goldntan, "Kig Bill'' Haywood, and Vladimir ("'KilIff) Shato\i.'" Upon his return to Russia, in 1917, :Kras.nosh&ekov spent the next two t gcrvemments, in hiding, years serwk~galternately in d i f f e ~ n temporary and in jail. In. the city of Urn-U&, on April 6' 19201he organized a constituent assembly comprising the likes of Shatuv, who also had returned to his native Russia. Krasnoshchekow declmd himself both prime minister and foreip n?inister of the Far Easkrn Itepublic (FER)- Wtt?Trotsky's and Lenin's blessings, the Bolshevik government officially recognized "the haEway house between Bolshevism and the bourgeois wcrrldf"on May 14. The Japanese were less than etnchanted with the new gover FER cmsisted of modern Buryatia, Chita province, Amuria, soutbernmost Khabarovsk kray, Primorrye, and Sakhalin-a region t h e times

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larger than France. It had a popdation of two d i m people, cclmprising more than one miltio~~ Russians, SOQ,QOBUkrainians h Arnuria m d Primorye, 60,000 Koseans, and the Japanese expeditionary force, which remailled on fie mainland until October 3922 as a result of hostilities in Nikolayevsk.. Became of the bloody "'Nikola~vskIncident," in hvhich hundreds of Japanese were kilkd, Japmex ttsoops in KaraEuto (southern Sakhalin) were ordered to occupy h s s i a n (northern) Sakhaiin, where they stayed until 1925.11 The buffer republic was needed only as lmg as Japanese soldiers were on mainland soil. Ocrtober 25,1922, as the last of thc;Japanese hterwmtionists boarded ships boulrd for Yokohama at one end of Vladivostok, several mits of the People's Revolutionary Arrny and Prirnorskiy partisans marched into the city at the other end. Three weeks later, on N o v d e r 35, repubfic ~ was eradicated m d asshilated h t a the RSFSR. the w h i l o ~ Despite its brief duratim, the FER did set a "symbolic" precedent. It had a mixed economy and a superficially demcrcratic pditicai framework, It was autonomous: Day-to-day decisjms were made locally.= This was ironi.c, because the republican leaders were Bolsheviks or members of the Peasant Majority Party. In 1920, spokesmen for the leadership assured ce because all but outsiders that the FER would never e ~ ~ b r acommunism a few of its peopk were private landowners who opposed the fundamental tenets of Marxism-Leninism. They were heard to say, "We want Bolshevism, but not cmmunism. It may be all right for Russia but we don't want it here." Within a decade, however, communism is exactly what the Siberian hrmers woulLi be forced to accept.1"

THE MEP AMD QREATER SIBERIA In the wake of the m n u l ~ ~ eofn tthe FER, the Bolsheviks tried to erase all traces of regionalism from Greater Siberia. While Lenin was still alive, in 1923-1924, his henchmen held show trials of Siberian autonomists in Chita, the erstwhile capital of the FER. 'These and other actions dismayed the majority of Siberian peasants, many of whom previously bad admired the Bolsheviks. Mcl-cgully, Folanin died in 1920, before su& indignitks could be foi,sted upon bim.l"Flis legacy outlived.him, hwever, in the fom of the ind.ividualisrn m d self-reliance of Siberian peasants. fn contrast, resiped submit;sivaless w s the cachet o.E their rel&ives inEuropean Russia. Wi& the insulation of distmce and poor communications between them and the core, Russian Siberians, like the English migrants to North h e r i c a , quickly shed their European roots m d developed a quasi-bourgeois ethos, But even self-relimt individualists needed leaders, and civil war and intervention had taken their toll on such persons. Ko1chak"s White Army

had execuf;edhalf of the leading Bolsheviks. Ill January 1921, an uprising of up to 60,000 peasants in Western Siberia, including the cities of. Tobol%k and the 'Sibdan Krmstadt," Krasnoyarsk, also decimated communist ranks. When after three months the smoke finally cleared, more than 5,000 Siberim Bolsheviks m d provincial leaders lay dead.15 Between 1920 and 1922, Greater Siberia was not immune from the chaos that ill-atlvised, compulsory ~quisitionhgof produw wreaked in Russia. Quite the contrary, because average Siberian settlers had " m r e than tripled" their worth in a single decade and were clearly better off than their cousins in Europem Russia, they had to end- the bmnt of the forced procurement of grairt. According to James Htaghes, between 1920 and 1.322, the Bolsheviks procured at least one-fourth of their grain in Western Siberia alone, which had a mew 6 percent of Russia's popdation." Despite the ostensihle ncccssity of"such actions-rural fantine in European Russia and widespread starvation in the cities-they placed a terrible burden cm Siberian peasmts and provided yet another example Russia's resen.t.ed colon.ial p&cy Moreover, in the aftermdh ol of ce~~tral forced procurement, Siberians suffered their own f a d n e in 1922 and 1923, which caused a temporary zuestzuurd mit;ration. Ironically, the Siberiasl famine corresponded with the first year of Lenixr" NW Economic Poiicy (NEP), 1922, durQ which capitalism was permitted to return to the coufiryside to stimulate more food for the cities. During the NEPf the Central Committee appointed experienced Bolsheviks of nm-Siberian origin to carry out the policjes of the core ixr its trms-Uralim periphery. The NEP was slow to take root in Siberia. Between 1921 and 1922-5,the peasants in the region practiccd subsistence farming, Authorities accused them of hoarding grain, but the farmers were merely responding to market indicators, Grain prices remained .low, a d purchasabk mmufactures we= so scant that richer peasants b h o m the Bolsheviks dubbed kzilslks) chose to feed their su'1plus grain to their livestock instead of selfir~gthe prnducc at or below cost, The long-stmding distrust that Siberim peasants had for authority also nurtured their antipathy toward, the NEt! This was not helped by the Bolsheviks' callous disregard for the needs of Sfierims. Thus, as Carnmm~istParty (CP521) membership tripled in Russia as a whole behnieen 19% and 1928, it merely doubled in Greater Siberia." Siberian Cnrnmunists were young, rural, poorly educated males, who were easily bribed by the kulaks. Greater Siberian kulaks were indomitable in spirit and action, In the 1925 eiertictn campaign, they stubbornly resisted the Bolsheviks by fomelnting u ~ ~ r eamong st their poorer peers, m d called for "sovkts [local council4 without communists." They controlled turnout and even rigged several of the elections in their favor: In the Altay, they won 10 percent of

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seats in the local councils." Tlie Party"s only =course was to dismfranchise the kufaks. This it did in the 1,922 elections, which amounted to a Communist Party sweep. The NW's purpose was to increase the marketing of "dry gold" (see Chapter 41, which i,n 1925 w s both the staple food and the rnajn earner of hard currency for industrializatiosl. In the mid-1920~~ the Bolshevik boss of Siberian kray (Sibkray)lg was an ultra-NEPist Ukrainian named S. I. Syrtsov. Syrtsav believed that grain acquisitions coufd be i n c ~ a s e dby lowering taxes, hiring surplus farm labor, liberally leasing land, and raising pmcurc.ment prices. ial: the time, Sibkray's ecommic base was 81 percent agricuftufal and 19 percent il-tdustrial, one-third of rhe fatter being food processing. Syrtsov urged the inchoate manufacturing base to increase its output of farm machinery, half of which was then impmted from European Russia, A. Bumarinite supporter of Stalin, Syrtsov was convinced that Siberian industry should serve the purposes of Siberian agriculture. At the NEPrs peak, he exfiorted the Siberian peasantry to ""accumulate'bnd get rich, concepts much admired by Siberians but. clisdained by future leader Joseph Stalin, 11% 1926, the NEP finally gained success in Siberia, and grain flooded the USSR. Sibkray's collections were 54 percent greater than those of 1,925. Pmcurcments were aided by the fact that the weather was good, the dirt roads were dry, taxes wew low, a d the grain that had been s t m d the year before was fhally mrketed. The happy coincidences of 15426 would not be duyticated in 1927. 131; January 1928, Soviet grain collections were cmly 71 percent Of the previous fanumy. In Siberia, they were dd~wnby half. Because procurements were lower, hard-currency-earning grain exports also were defident. Everyone and everything was to blame, but S t a l k was cminced that the kulaks wcre the nnost guilty. Despite evidence to the contrary, he was adamant that the richer peasants had orchestrated a mass conspjracy against Moscow"~centrd authority-and Sibkray had the richest and most defiant peasants of all. Between 1,925and 1,927, Siberia's kulaks became ever more politicalXy hostile to the Soviet regixne. Although Si$kray accounted for only 5.9 percent of the pcrpdation, in that three-year span, it contributed 29 percent of: a i terrorist acts t?$ainstParty and local cowcif officials, including murder, assault, arson, and other crimes, Making matters worse, mmors flew that the Chinese, with whom the Bolsheviks peasant were on poor terms, had talccm the Kwnctsk Basin. Con~re~~tional logic posits that in tirnes of hstabjlity (war, famine, political crisis, and so on), it is wise to hoard as much of your grain as posible. Although they b~dictedthe richer peaismtry. for incithg the mirest that stimulated the hoarding, Sibkray authorities, including Syrtsovt dld not contemplate "liquidation of the kutaks.'Tiis was true, even thcrugli

tbmughout 1927a continuous skeam of orders from Moscow a$jttred &em to "get tou&'%ith the accused offenders. Few of: them to& the llkases seriously; because Stalin still had rivals in MoscowI m d he had not yet revealed his truly nefarious side. Moreover, &ere were few indications that the NE% which had been SO S U C C ~ Swas S~U about ~ , to be reversed. The End of the n"EP: Shlilz %sits Sibkray

Ch Januar). (4,1928,Stalin o r d e d the provincial governments to exercise "all means" necessary to pmcure grain surpluses believd to be in rural arcas. I:.,ocalauthorities would be held personally responsible for the suecess or failure of the mission. Wth their jobs and ultimately their lives on the line, m s t officials used excessive force to comply with the order,Nine days after the edict, during the lime that mernbers of the Left Opposition (Radek, Eotsky and others) were bQng forced. into exile, Stalin dccided to go on a fortnight" tour of Siberia. It would be the first and last t h e that he would ever visit a peasant illag age.^^ m a t StaUn saw stunmd him. First, although Syrtsw was a loyal servant and protcilgk, not all Siberian NEPmen wem so declicated. The leader, after all, had not yet turned against the Bukharinite Rght 0pposi.tion and was still in the process of consolidating his power, Having not yet learned to fear Stalin, many MEP supporters displayed open hcrstility to the new procurement poliries and voiced these opinions. Stalin interpreted this as insubordmatim, and this added fuel to the fires of his later purge of S&@rim Party members. Secclnd, Stalin was enraged by the sight of what he claimed were huge pi,les of marketable grain inopen-air shelter;-;on kztlak farms, When his Siberian hosts informed him that kulaks would sell. their surpluses when and if the regime raised the procurement price, Stalin spwulation." characterized such behavior by the kufakl; as "u~~bridled (Later, Staiin would recall fmal leaders' questioning of his orders as a sign that they supported the kdaks.) To Stalin, the kdak was the bogeyman, d kula,ks, the leader eoNinuously and since the NEP had s t ~ m g t h s ~ ethe and blatantly informed his Siberian hosts that the policy had run its course* Syrtsov and the other Siberim Bukharhites were horrified. 'This was a new StaXin, a Stalin whose decisions crystallized because of what he saw in Sibkray in January 3928. :Ele would end the NEI", resort to mass collectivization, and liqwidate the kulak. Thereafter, Sibkray and the Soviet Far East (SFE) would suffer the gravest of ir\dignities. The Wah.. Stalin apparently never forgot what: he saw in Sibkray, He concluded his sojourn l'with shouts of opposition to his instructions fmm local officials and peasants" "ging in his ears. To him, Siberians, espe-

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cialty the Siberim Party, were "degenerates": The kulaks had corrupted ail, of them. Shortly after his Siberim tour, Staljn pzlrged one out of every four rural Siberian members of the CPSU for alleged couaboration with the kulaks. Ry Febnrary 19229, the purge had ruined the careers of more than half the mennbers and candidates of Sibkray's central committee.^^ Srrtsov h h s d f was granted a, tmpmary reprieve; but in late 1930, he criticized the g w e ent's handling of collectivization and industriatization and spoke of lilniting Stalk's authoritarian powers"On December 1, 1930, after fewer than two years h Moscow#he was expelled from both the Politburo and the Central Committee. According to Robert Conquest, Syrtsov died in prison in 1938.As early as 1962, mrushchev restored him to favos within the Party In 1988, Gorbachev rejuvenated Bukharin to "good odor,'" an action that no douht enhanced the irnages of Syrtsov and many other NEPists-22

The SperinE Case q f fhe Swkt Far Ensf. Reliable control of the SFE evaded the grasp oE l-fie cel-ttral Party apparahas until the 1930s. Stalin never had any intentions of givilrg the region autonomy. Because he had to fight opponmts on the Party" right and on the left, however, he had to i p o r e the question of the SFE for the time beirrg. This was evidenced by the lack of enforcement of centrat policy decisions in the region: For example, the NEP did not end in the SFE until 1931.23 Moreover, between 1922 and 1938, it seemed that the core had little idea about what to do with its "priphery on the periphery," changing its designation no fewer than thme t i m s (to gubemiya, oblast, and kray). Accorcfingly, until 3938, the SFE was the fief of a small cohort. of Party activists and military officers, several of whom had become self-reliant, free thinkers as a result of their commm experiences in the civil war, the intervention, the FER, and so on. Under these individuals, the SFE e~~jc>y.ed almost total eco~~omic hdependencc, A11 manner of entreprenewial activitJi was permitted. Chinese merchmts controlled retailing hVladivostak; the British and Americms developed the regional resource base; and the Japanese held mastery over the fsheies. As a maritime region with outlets to the Pacific Basin, the hirrterland of the SFE was the whole of the developed world.2" The SFE of the 1920s and 1'330s was truly the ""Wild East." first, as a cmseyutmcc of the local,admhistration" live-and-let-live philosoyzhy, the region attracted an indiscriminate asscrrment of political disssents, outlaws, and Statin"~bureaucratic rejects. Second, whjle political pucges raged west of Lake Baykal., until 1937, the turnover of personnel in the 5FE was virtually nil, Third, until then, the fiefs usually made unilateral decisions that we= &ten at odds with the policies of Moscow: They not only exempted far eastern peasants from the draft in 1929 but also delayed collectivization until the 1930s. Four&, they could carry out these

renegade acts because the Special Far Eastern A m y rankczd among the best trahed and equipped fighthg forces in the USSR-25

GREATER SIBERIA UMBER. STALf R Gven Stalin" disaffhity for what he saw in Sibkrap in 1928, it is not surprising that Siberians suffewd during the quarter century of his d e . )?e used a three-pronged strategy Rsst, more? than ever before-., Geater Siberia becanne a "resource colony." "cond, the region became a '"net" that was far ""deeper" tJRm ever before: a terrible, macabre place where exiles languiskd, putrefied, and experielnced painful, anonymous death. Thisd, Stalin further dismembered. Sibei.ia"s past half-dozen provinces into more than twenty political-administrative units.

Irzdzcstrializaf iun Stalin's prirrcipal ecolnomic goal was to colnvert the USSR from m agrarian economy to an industrial one as quickIy as possible. %ward that end he instituted a series of five-year p h (FUP), in wkich underdevebped Greater Siberia would pfay a key role. The primary target of the first FIT, for example, was a second metallurgical combine that would provide backup for the fifty-year-old Donbas in eastern Llkraine. The UPalsKunetsk Contbine (U'KK), stripped of its debils, involved the cmstruction of two integrated iron-and-steel centers: one at Mapitogorsk, in the Urals, and anolther at Stalinsk (Navokuznetsk after 19611, in the Kuzbas. Each mill was dependent on a costly; 2,250-Elorneter (2,400-mi)exchange of CJraIs irm ore and Kuzbas coking coal. The Stalinsk plant alone consumed 44 percent of Western Siberian irtdustrial investment in the first FYP m d 25 percent of the m e in Ihe second." "rviving in tents, exilcd kulaks and idealiistic Soviet and foreign volunteers built the two steel mitls in just over three years. By 1938, they were the c o u n t v s leadhg iron and steel producers, yielding a cumulative output of 20 percent of all Soviet steel, Wtallurgy spawned related industrial activities. f\telyirmg on coking coal for fuel, the Steel rnills ignited an exflosioln of Siberian coal prodractio~n, t between 1928and 1932, and another 250 pexent e :Kuzbas became the second leading coal pmducer &er the Donbas, as its cokkt; coax. output. rose from 110 percat to 26 percent of local output by 19'10.Cokhg coal also served as raw mterjal for :Kemerovo%ccok-cbemjcal industry, trYhich with the help of shock teams from the United States, yielded sulfuric acid, krtilkers, dyes, and plastics. New coal-fired electrical power plants in Greater Siberia lifted electric& pmduction more &an 1,OO percent betwem 1928 and 1937.

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Although these novelties expanded the influence of Grclater Siberia's manufacturing sector, the region continued to be a resource fmntiet: Raw material development focused on valuable metals (gold, tin, tungsten, and molybdenum) and nonmetals (mica and fluorspar), which were not the core, not the periphery defound in Saviet Europe," Accordh~gXy~ manded these mjnerals. By 1940, Greater Siberia was contributing the lion's share of the USSR" gold, 95 pexent of its tin, 8t) percent of its tungsten, 70 percent of its dybdenunn, and allnost a,l of its fluorspar and mica, As m enterprise, the UKK was the Zliggest single p ~ w a invesment r in Greater Si&eria;but as a region, the SFE attracted the grcatest share of money Enthusiastic k u n g Cmmunists (Komsomul'tsy) built a new industrial cenfer on the Amur, aptly named Komsomol'sk, which had, m o n g other factories, an unintegrated steel mill. Both Komsomol'sk and the upstream city of Khabarovsk acquired refineries, in which they processed crude oil piped in from nor&ern SaZchalin. (Until the 1971fs, the rclfinecies m d the steel mill; satisfied 25 percclrt of the %E's consumption of both steel and petrolem.) Defense-refated industries, such as aircraft assembly and shipbuildkirrg, were also developed in the prewar period. 'fhrough the present day Greater Siberia has lagged in machine bnilding and metalwork. At the end of the second FVP, as a share of the Egion's gross industrial product, machine building and metahork mounted to o171Y 17 percent, compared to a 30 percent average for the USSR as a whole.28 Machhe tools, a crucial hdicator of metal fabrication, was cmly 2 percent of the SFE%hirrdustrial product at the tirne. This was not true of other industrim. Stirn,ulated by the need for new construction, cement output alone expanded elevenfold, to 8.8 percent of the Soviet total. liailways, too, experienced a miniboom because of the completion of inter~gionallines, such as the Turksih between Barnaul m d Tashkent. The Turksib carried romdwood to treeless Central Asia in exchange for cotton. The originai ""Little BAM" railway was laid perpendicular ta the Trms-Siberim between the Amur River and the little town of vndinskiy ( q n d a ) , pointing toward its projected destination, Uakutsk. Fillally, a short feeder was built between the Yenisey River port of h d i n k a m d the new town of Noril'sk (see Chapter 2). The need for building materials and railway ties spurred logging and wood processing, which even today are important Siberian industries. The authors of the third FYP (1938-1.942) achowkdged the growing militarism of Japan in th east and of Germany in the west: They recognized the weahess of their position in the Far East and the vulnerability of key industries 21Saviet Europe. Between 1938 and 1941, when the German invasion truncated the third FYlta, the share of hvestment in the SFE e p a l e d the total investment in Eastern and Western Siberia combined.

PHOTO 5.1 Novosz'birsk Railway Station, u ~ zthe Trans-Siberian Railrand. SOURCE: ITAX-TASS.

Between 1937 m d 1940, the SFE doubled its hdustsial output, while Eastern and Western Siberia witnessed gajns of 30 and. 50 percent, respectively As a result of the efforts of the slave labor force (see below), the $FE became the USSR" seader h gold produdion, a position it would hold until 1991. The goal was to ensure that the SFE was strong enough to withstand a Japanese assadt; the purpose was obviated in 1941, when Japan m d the USSR cosigned a neutrality pact, which remained in effect until August 191125. In the west, the goal was to disperse Soviet ind,sh.y d e q e r into the interior, includhg Siberia. This was a theliy decision. Nazi troops u1tbatel.y occupied one-fourth of Soviet Europe, comprifijng 45 percent of h e USSXl"s prclwar population and one-tbird of its total industrial capacity. The eastward evacmtinn of wh.ole factories m d Cheir employees, whicln had begun irr 1"3g8,only accelerated with the outbreak of hosaities, Between July m d November 1941, more than 1,500 factories were moved ta the Urals, Turkestm, m d Siberia: 244 to Western Siberia m d 78 to Eastern Siberia.29 The dismmtlements occurred often at a moment" snotice, just at-iead of the s the enterprises, advmcing Gemms. In Siberia, the primary ~ c i p i m t of b s k m d Novosibksk, becme boomtowns (Photo 5.1)" ~~ paid o f f durjng Although the UKK was a white elephant in the 1 9 3 0 it the war. Miith the Donbas occupied, the :Kuzbas became the leading coal producer, includhg almost half of the metallurgical variety With Soviet Europe" steel mills ixt enemy hands, the Kumetsk steel mill churned out one-third of the country%pig iron and one-fnurth of its steel. The ~ g i o n

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also produced h m i n u m and fermalloys from plants that had once been in Russia m d U'kraine. As a recipient of the Moxlchegorsk nickel slnelter durQ the war, Nonl'sk eventually wodd become world-famous for its production of that strategic metal. T'he manufacture of agriculturd machinay also shifted eastward, the principal bmeficiaries being Rubtsovsk in Mtay kray and Krasnoyarsk. tTntil 1.991, the former produced onethird of the USSR's tractor-drawn p l ~ w sand , the latter, one-fourth of the grain harvesters. D ~ ~ r i nthe g war, they produced mif itary equipment. Not all, the evacuation occurred from west to east, In 1942, during the height of Nazi occupation, the existing Little BAM railway was pulled up, evacuated westward, and relaid between Saratov and the besieged city of Stalingrad (Wlgograd), The war's influence on Soviet industrial patterns was dramatic. Compared to 1940, Soviet Europe" hdustrial product fell by at least 25 percent (80 percent in Belams). h cmtrast, Western SiE>eria%iindustsial production tripled, just as it doubled in the rest of Siberia." Growth of the machine-building and metalwork sector was especially dramatic, expanding elevmfotd between 1940 and M3, with the output of defense plants soar% by a filctor oE 34.By 1945, one of every four warplmes was assembf ed in Western Siberia. The glory was short-lived, however. Beheen 19116 and.1950, for exanpie, Siberia" share of Soviet capital investment =ached a na$ir of 9.6 percent. Hdping to predpiate the decline was the exigency of rebuilding Soviet Europe. Some of the wartime industries and their attendant la:bor forces returned to their original locations after the war; cansequently, the boomtowns of Omsk and Navosibirsk wihessed a declhe of four to five percent of their industrial output by 1950, Only the nonferrous metals and forest products sectors ercperienced growth rates that ertceeded the national average.

Despite the slowdown in the wake of the war, the industridization of Greater Siberia was an unbridled success. ,411 over the ~ g i o nmen , and w o m n responded to the ctnallenges of "socialist competition." Nu~nerous smalf-scale enterprises aspired to mimic larger vanguard industries. Grassroots heroes like Donbas coal miner A l e k q Stakhamv sprang from nowhere to everfasting fame. Soon Siberian ""Safianovites" mutinely broke production rccords by 400,500, and s m e t h e s 1,000 pescmt. The Statinist press praised tyro btue-cdar icons in mucl-r the s m e way as modern media treat sports heroes. M q of the heroes, however, were unsmg and are essentially lost to history, Under Stalin, Greater Siberia's reputation as the world's largest

outdoor prison camp and execution chamber reachrd its p knows their precise num:ber, ol conrse, but Alexander Solzhelritsyn inventoried approximately 225 c m p regions, of which 120 were Siberian50 in Western Siberia and 20 far&= east." EEach region may hawe contained dozens of full-scale operations. At its peak in the 1,940s, the Kolyma Basin in Magadan oblast, for example, comprised 120 forced labor camps." 2 e massive camp system, which Solzhenitsyn dubbed the Gulag archipelago, ""hused" an estimated 40 million persozzs at one time or anofier. Grcater Siberian locations hosted 17 million, hcluding 4 to 6 million in fie Kolyma camps alone.%Given Kcrlyma" peak capacity of 500,000, the Gulag might well have held a total popdation of betwea 3 m d 4 million at any given moment, I'he prisoners worked as btrilders, farmers, fishermen, loggers, tracklayers, tumelers, and miners. As in tsarist times, they were criminals and politicals from every corner of the realm, Accused of consorting with the Nazis during the war, entire nations were deported to Asiatic Russia. 'They comprised Crimean Tatars, Volga Germcrims, Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, hi(oldovans, Jews, and many other groups, During the war, POWs from Germany Poland, Hungary Italy, Romania, and Japan replenished the millions of domestic exiles who died in the camps. And die they did, like the Bies that fertilized the suppurating boils on their skin. Elizabeth Pond wrote fiat only one in fifty, or possibty one in a hundred, survived in Kolyma. From 1,937 until Statin's death, the main aim of the camps was less to m h e gold "than to kill off prisoners." To end an inmatefs life, it usuaily took only 211 to 30 days, working 32 to 16 hours a day on starvation rations. At Elgen, which in Sakha (Yakut) means '"dead," the typical harvest of such intensive lahor was a sixlgle kilogram of gold per prison laborer. Elgen was just one of 80 gold mines in the Kolyma system. The average number of miners at peak capacity was 5,000, although the nramher varied between 2,000 and. 10,000 per mine. They dug for gold in the open air with mly the most primitive of tools, and more often than not, with thejr hare hands. After tcvcnty years of operation, Kolyma" death toll was 2-3 million. Many died on fie way to the camps." Prisrmers were forced to stand silently, inadequately clothed in poorly vezztilated boxcars or open gondolas. If they were bound for Vfadivostoli, they suffered this way for 20 days or mcrrc.. With 80 priscmers per car, it was almost impcrssible to mach the two-inch holes that served as latrines. Their diet, when food was available, consisted of salted cabbage soup or herring and soggy black bread-a combination that Icft them with gum disease, skin lesions, and cor?junctivitis-h Vladivostok, the future inmates of K d y m a were herded on board prism ships, hlluding the U.5.-built Dallas and Ptigct Sound. At sea, guards gleefulty threw prisoners to the sharks. They boiled a few

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alive. Other prisoners werc. hosed with sewater and allowed to freeze. fn Kolyma, the rags they wore were often stolen, encouraghg ornnipresefi frostbite. The food was so bad in the camps that many resorkd to eating vehicular grease and moss. Although it r a n k m o n g the most etnvimnmentaSLy harsh regions on earth, Kolyma is hadly unhealthy to people who are well fed and decently clothed. Between 1932 and 1937, an unconventionally humane camp commander, E. I": Berzin, recognized these basic truths and chase not to overwork the inmates. hstead. they were wetl paid, permitted to send money to their families, and given shorter terms for good work and behavior. But a week before Christmas 19337, Berzin was arrested as a Yajpanese spy," and. such humane trcatrnent was abruptly curtailed.

Expz'ugifi@ar Eastern liegil:,nulis.)n. Ch7 the eve of Worfd War 11, the far y c m e under the direct control of R/loscow eastctm branch of the Red h for the first time sixlce the 1920s. Precipitating the maneuver was the gsowing Soviet fear of the Japanese, with \zrhom the Red Army etngaged in two little-known battles, near Lake Khasan In 1938 and at: Nomohon in 1939, The action at Lake n a s m ended in failure and embarrassment for Marshal V. K. Bliyuber, one of the most respected military commanders in the fied Army and a longtime regional spokesman for the Far Eastern Territory (later Khabarovsk kray and Primorrye). A short time after the dekat at Lake masr-m, Blyukher was falsely accused of being involved in the "xnilitary plot" against Stalin, In October, he was arrested and, one mmth later, he was beaten to death. Other prominent Red A m y military commanders w~txldmeet the same fate. A year later, an u n h o w n colsnel, Georgiy Zhukov, would gain his first majjor con-tbat experience as co ander of the $FE'S First Army Group against the Japanese at Nomohon, along the Soviet-Mongolian. border. Zhukov" inexperienced but brilfiantly led trooys routed the enemy an wcurrmce that may have played a rofe in the Japanese High Command's decision to accept the terms of the Neutrality Pact two years later." After the miliiary purge, Zhukov, who had been promoted to general because of the Nomcrhon affair, was one of the few experienced field commanders in Stalh" such-depleted ofticer corps. Blyukher" oustcr from the SFE was mly the tip of the iceberg. John 5tephan intoned that ""dath stalked party secretaries, chairmen of city and rural soviets, [Army and Navyl olficers, chekists, railway officials, factory managers, collective farm chairmen, engixteers, journalists, agronomists, scientists, wri(ers, and teachers.""""Beforcl! the purge, 35,1100 Chinese lived in the SFE. By 1939, most had been arrested atnd deported, or forcibly relocated.. SFE Koreans, who numbered 200,000 in 1937, were given six days to pack up and leave. Given the choice of deportation to

Manchukucl or Central Asia, up to 180,000 chose the htter. Among them were Kim Il-sung and his wife, who in 1942 gave birth to Kim Jclng-il on Soviet soil.37 Stalin's memories of Sibkray and knowledge of the up"tart SFE perszxaded hixn to expunge aX1 traces of regjomalism, Between 11936 and 1938, the G ~ aTerror t viciously took its toll on Siberim politims. Orchestrated Zly Stalin" police chief, Njkolay Yezhov, a m m low both in statum (he was described as a "bi,oodlhirsty dwarf") and in intelli,gence, thc "enemies of the people" were purged irrespective of fact or fiction, M m than half of the 2,000 voting delegates to the Seventeentl-r Party Cnngress (193) were arrested. None of the 32 delegates from the SFE, and virtually all of those mpresenting t:he rest of Siberia, returned to the Eighteenth Party Congress in 1939, By that year, almost 71 percent of the full and candidate members of the Cesztral Committee of the CPSU had been shot or '"had committed suicide," hduding all of the meHlbers from &c SFE. Citing a Japanese s o m e , Stephan has reporkd that more than one-bur& of the Comunists in the SFE werc purged in 19361938: ""No[SFE]first secretary between 1923 and 1938 escaped the juggernaut. Virtually all . . . were liquidated fbeforcr World War It]." Ultimately, 250,000 people were =pressed in the SFE-many salt to Kolyma, O f t-hese, up to 50,000 were simply shot. This rate of repression was four to five times h i g h than the rate for the USSR.%

Stalirzfs Last Hzkrrahs: "The Road to Nawhere'hnd "The Mortal Road." Stejphan has w i t t m that after the war (1945-1953) no other Soviet region had a higher concentration of prison laborers than the SFE. Labor always has been inshort supply inthe SFI^;,and Fsoners, together with Red A m p persomel (also in disproporGon to other Soviet regions), filled the sipificant void created by the lack of volwztary workers. In Stephan's w r d s , '"Camps ringed. Vladivostok, mabarovsk, Vanha, Namodka, Blagczveshchensk, and Nikolayevsk." Postwar camps in the SFE burgeoned with ""Vhsovitesf"the n m e the locals gave indiscrhinately ta inmates-and with Japanese P W s , most of whom were repatriated between 1947 and 1949 but a few of whom were incarcerated until 1958.39 SFE penal laborers mined coal, cut foresb, designed m d built new housing for free settlers, constructed ports and railways, and tried to &g a tunstel tmd.er the Nevel3koy Strait betwem the mainland and SaUalin Islmd. The 7-kilometer (4-mi) Nevel%skoy Strait is the narrowest breach between mainlad Khabarovsk kray and Sakhiiilin. It is only because of the strait that SaWlalin is an island. With maps in hand, Stalinists surely must have mused about the possibility of spannilzg this gap and linking S a h a l k with the Trms-Siberim Railroad, the center, and the rest of Soviet civilization. Why not dig a tunnel beneath the strait? However, the

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strait's looks wew deceiving. Northern Sakhalin is t-he former delta oE the Amw River, and deep, shifting sands fill the shallow N'evel'skoy Strait. As a 'former tmneles described the situation in 1989: "Raced before us was the daunting task of building as expeditiously as possible a tunnel so that Stalin himself could ride by rail between Moscow and Saklnalk. The project was totally useless."""Wevertheless, throughout the winter of 1952-1953, p~paralionswere made to dig the tunnel, using priscrn labor. A barrage was raised to protect the workforce, m d all the equipment was in place, whm Stalln died suddenly of a stroke in March 1953, Concomitmtly, all work ceased. &ring the spring, as always happens, the sea ice broke up. The dam, severd pieces of equipment, and virtually all &aces of the Sahalin Tmnel were swept away So far as anyone knows, no lives were lost on the ""Road to Nowhere." However, that was not the case with the "Mortal. Road*'' Tn the late 1940s, railway building was restricted. to the South Siberian trunk line and lesser lines associated with resource developmcmt. Terror m d departations had stymied construction of the BAM railway between Tayslhet and Sovetskaya Gavm" which would not receive fu.rther attention until the 197(ls. Anather railway pgect, however, was a product of Stalk's megalomania. On Lenin"s birthday (Apl-il22,1947),the CPSU approved the construction of the Trans-Polar Railway ( P R ) , the first: stage of which would stretcl-r from the I'echora Basin to Xgarka, south of NoriYsk, on the knisey River. Eventually t:he LaIzady grandiose project, part of Stalin" ""Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature," was to extend to the Chukchi I'eninsda. C)nly three-fifths of the Pechora-fgarka segment had been hished, by the blood, sweat, and lives of slave laborers, when the Great Leader himelf died. A l t h o w it is t-he least h o w n of Stalin" pet prcrjects, che TPR was probably as deadly as Kolyma, For each of its 912 kilometers (570 mi) of rails laid, 1,000 to 1,400 prisoners were needcd.4 Every five to ten kilometers (3-6mi), there was a labcrr camp. m t e r was everywhere, but there was not a b p to drink. The food was so foul that peliagra was epidemic. The slaves drupged dead as they worked. Today, evidence of the "Mortal Road" "ill may be seen in the Lawer Ob" Basiin (Map 5,1). The project was abandnned in such haste that the rusting, buckled tracks still bear the weight of eleven steam locomotives and dozens of rail cars. Many of the wooden labcrr camps yet stand, albeit acvkwardly, on the t r e d l k g permafircrst Festooned across the gateway of the occasional "ghost camp" hangs a faded banner inscribed with such sayings as "Glory to Ehe Great Stalin, Camp Leader of the Wr1d.q' All too often, Chc bleached bows of an unhocvn infnate jut Emm the muskeg* To this day, nobody knows the totaf nramber of those who re;lped immortality on t-he "Mortal Road.ff

ElARVIor Labrsr Camp Adminisbations T

Se!&ed Labw Gsrnps

MAP 5.1 Itfattlous Siberinr-tRailmay Prt?jecfs ~zi~zd fi're Gzifag SOURCES: AFL, Free Trade Ijnicrn Committee, ""Culag"-Slaz7~"1y,Inc.: Tlze Docrdmerated May of Forcc>&il Lnbor Cnrtrys ir-t Soviet Xussig (New York: AFt, 1951); David Miller, Nationall Geographic Society; and G ~ l d ~March k, 12 and April 28-29,2988.

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STALXPfXSEVI AND THE NATIVE QUESTION :In November 1917, the Bolsheviks proclabed a cmstitutional pdicy of self-determination, equality, and sovereignty for all nationalities. Although they truly intended to abrogate nomadjsm, clan hierarchies, shmanism, and dl other ""primitive" aspects of Greater Siberia" h%enous life, t.he Bole;hevil.;sused altmism and paternalism to bring the natives into the twenlicth century Tc, shokv Chcis affection for trhe native peoples, the Bolsheviks abolished the fur tribute for the first t i m since 1822; canceled their etebtc;; prohibited the sale of alcohol; and created departments of "northern stwdi,esffin institutions of Iti.gher learning. Consequently life a m g the natives of Siberia, actually improved between 1917 and 1929, unless they had been in hostile territory during fie civil war. .hccordi,ng to Fondahl, "Many native people still accept thc 1920s and early 1930s as a period of great cultural developent [supported by] the new Soviet state.'"'" Nomadism was practicrd by m m than half oE the indjgenouv~70p"Lltion;clan structure smrvived; and mutud aid and care for the aged endured. Shamnism was abolished by decrce in the 1920s but was permitted to contirnue through the 1930s-Natives who had no written alph"bet-such as the Nentsy, Evenks, Chutcchi, and Nanaysobtained one, usually in Latin, not Cyrillic, script. Fhaliy, the Bolsheviks established an organfzed system of traciing posts where indigenes could trade their furs for commercial goods insted of trinkets and atcoho, Dozens of new national districts were created to lend credence to the idea of sovereignty. 'Tb gain tl-te status of a nationality under the Bolshevik ethnic policy, a group had to have a honteland. fn thc 1920s, Soviet 'Jews had no homeland except PaXestine, To guarantee their status as a nationality and to discourage Zionist thoughts, the Bolsheviks established a Jewish hmeland just west of Khabarovsk, in the SFE-about as far from Moscow m d Kiev (not to mention Jerusalem)as a person c d d get. Naturally few Jews were ever attracted to the spot, and the pcrpdation of the ""hmeland" "peaked at 9,008 migrants in 1932. By 1939, Jews accounted for only 18 percent of ""their" 'province" population of 108,000. That share was about as high as it ever would be.% h the 1 9 3 0 ~Sta1in"s ~ na,timali'cies policies shifted from seE-serving philanthopy to pragmatic authoritarimism: What was gmd for the Russians was goad for the natiwes, too. The CPSU forced collectjvizatim on G ~ a t e r S.iberi.an nat-ves, just as it did on everybody else. By 1937, all prosperotts members of the indigenous communities had bcen liquidated, and collectivization m c m g native groups rmged from 7'0percat in Yakutia to more than 90 percent in Klakassia and Buryatia. mroughout Che 193(3s, the Uakuts and Buryats stubbornly resisted collectivization, resorthg to arson, sabotage, and slaughter of their livestock. AIthough 92 percent of the

Buryatr nation lived in Russian-style viIlages by 1937, the population of their herds had fdlen by m r e &an 60 perce~~t. The popw1at.i.m of the Buryats themselves declhed by almost 13,000 between 1926 and 1939." By the early 19505, very k w groups could cbim to have memkrs wfio were tnxly nomadic..The Bolsheviks" antireligious fcrvor also took its toll on shamanism and Buddh.ism, The forrner Roman alphabets werc converted to Cyrillic, and all pe"pl"wercl exposed to Russim l m p g e train*. Industrialization in such places as Novosibirsk, NRriYsk, Kornsomol%sk,and the camps ixr th KoXyma Basin disrupted th lives of the natives. When their hear-hmting and stone-pine-nut gathering grounds were &spoiled by the Russians, the Sl'btups who lived near Novosibirsk and Tomsk were compelled to move nurthward, into the valleys of the :Kc.tfand Tym rivers. The smelters at Noril'sk destroyed the summer pastures of reindeer-herding Nganasms and Entsy Komsomol%skwas built in the middle of the ancient hooleland oi the Nanays, who were forced to secjentarize as a result. Some even joined the clrnstmction effort. 7'he activities in Kolyma farever altered the lives of some of the more relnote Vakuts and Evens. In her 1Pah.D. dissertation, Fond&l described the fate of the Vitkno-Olekma (Evenk) and the Obotsk-Even national o h g s , the latter of whjch was abolished ostensi,bly because the "eapitd," Nagayevo, becme the chief transit point for Kolyma-bound prismers.6 After Soviet troops hvaded eastern Poland in 1939, Soviet authorities delighted in the deportation of hw~dredsof thousands of Polish soldiers and civilims to Uakutia and the Kolyma, where they cleared forcsts and mined gold until they died. M e n the supply of Poles dwindled, these regions became ""havezzsf90r German POWS.~~ The lives of the natives were furOler changed by the was effort, A policy of universal conscription touched the life of every Soviet family, including those of native Siberians. Ta gauge the direct and indirect: effects ol the war on Greater Siberia" e t h i c mhorities, one need only examhe the censuses of 1939 and 1959, between which only three groups (Buryats, makass, and mants) increased their numbers. All others suffered declines of 2.2 percent or more, reaching m exh-erne of 17 percent among the le of Yakutia, 22 out: of 40 Evenks conscripted Evenks, fn a s i ~ ~ gdjStrict were lkilled in the kvar.48

The independent spirit of Siberians was a factor to be rclckoned with in the 19211s and 1930s. Althoqh regiondism was largely erwed in Western and Eastern Siberia (Sibkray) by 1924, its inspiration endured in the mixrds of Siberian peasants under the New Economic Policy (MEP). Siberian kuiaks were ideally suited to cmduct the k h d of free enterprise that

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lOl

the NEP encolaraged. Serwitude was anathema to *em, and European Russia's toadying minjons wen. offensive.. This free-spiritedness, which stemmed from the Siberian kulaks' nineteenth-centuq origins (see Chapter 41, was even more endemic in the SFE, which was so far away from the core that StalJin chose to ignore it until the late 2930s. What Stalin saw in Sibkray in. early 1928 sickened him. His Si:besian sojourn, as historian lames Hughes has suggeskd, may very well have been the proverbial last straw. From then on, Stalin aggressively pursued a harsh policy of forced collcctjvization combined with kulak Ijquidation. m i l e we c m & know whether Stalin% mind was permanently set against Siberia and the Siberims, it is clear that by 1940, m y Greater Siberian authority who had shown the slightest hclination h the 1920s or 1930s toward free &inking was dead. Under Stalinl the rape of Greater Siberia was complete. Not o d y was the region a massive pantry to be opened and.closed at the whim of the core but it also bad become a 'Wessdrodian net" that was far, far deeper than any ever before encomtered. Never beforra in h u ~ n mhistory had a geographic region been used so effertjvely as an instrument of oppression and execuf;icm,By 1953, the periphery and its ~ s i d e n t sincluding , its native minorities, were absolutely subordinate to Maseo\;v:

ROTES 4, Anthony P. Allison, ""Sberian Regionalism in Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1920,'3Sibiricn, Vol. I , No.1 (Summer 1990),p, 80. 2. F. A, Kudryavtsev, ed., Sibir' v q u k h u kcwpifalizm Vid. 3 of Isfuriya Sibirr', ed, A. P. Okbdnikov (5 vols.; t e ~ n g r a dNauka, : 1968), p. 286; and Paul Gable" cammentary in "Panel on Siberia: Economic and Territc3rial Jssues," 5~1-)zlieC C~r~graplzy, Vol. 32, No. 6 (June 19911, p. 369, 3, Allison, '"Siberian Regionalism," pppp.80-84, 94-95. Shortly after this, Potanin's health began to deteriorate, and in summer 1920, at age 85, he died in Tcmsk. During the 1 9 3 0 ~the ~ cemetery in which he was buried war; Ieveled. His remains, together with all the athers interred at the site, were lost, only tcr be found again twenty years later. Today, a bust bearing his visage stands next to a more apgrc~priategravesite) a n the campus af Tomsk University. The grave of his w i f e was similarly desecrated when a stadium was built over her cemetery in Kyakhta. Like those of her husband, her remains were disinterred many years later and transferred to a high turnulus overlooking the main road into Kyakhta. Her new resting place i s also marked by a bronze bust in her image (Valentin Rasputiin, Sibir', Sibir' . . . ,[Moscc~w:Moladaya gvardiya, 1991j, pp. 197-198). 4. George F. Kennan, Tke Decision Co Tnl.ervene,Vol. 2: Soviet-Amcricnn Relrrrtions, 1917-2920 (2 vols.; New York: W W. Norton, 19561, p. 59. 5.1. V. Vlasova, ""Poseleniyr?Zabaykalyya," in Byi E' isfc~sst-vorusskogo nasekeniyn Vosfoc!zirtqSibiri, eds. 1. W: Makavetskiy and C. 5, Maslova (Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1975), p. 26,

6, Kennan, The Decisic?~~ to Intervene, pp. 62-63, 65-71, and 132-133; William S. Graves, A tnerica S Siberi~nAdzjen ture, 3 93 8-2920 (New York: Peter Smith, 194l), p. 108; and Richard Luckett, The WlflteGenerals (London: Z,ongman Group, 1971), g. 391. Graves observed that Semenov and another notorious Cossack, I. P. Kalmyko>vrroamed the country like animals, killing and rc>bbingat will, and that ""ie anti-Bolsheviks killed 100 pectgle in Eastern Siberia to every 4 killed by the Bolsheviks." h c k e t t notes that between 1920 and 1945, Semenov was employed as a mercenary by the Japanese in Manchuria (Manchukuo), where ""trough some unaccountable lack of vigilance,'" he was caught and hanged by the Soviet Army. Ircmically, in 1993, his Cossack descendants paid him tribute in Cl~ita (Sibirshya gnzetn, %p tember 9,1993). 7. Alljx~n,""Sberian Regionalism," pp. 85-90; Z,uckett, Tlze Wlflte Generals, pp, 236-2122; and N.G.O. Pereira, "Regional Conscioumess in Siberia Before and Aft= October 191;"," CGa-llndianSlavonic Papers, Vol. 30, No. 1 (March 1988), pp, 120-133. Derber (1888-1929) ceased his political activities after the dissalution of the Siberian Durna and worked as a writer and fc~reignaffairs analyst until his death. Tbward the end of his life, he supported the economic integration of the SFE into the Pacific Region. Horvath (1858-1937), who served as Director of the CE23 until 4920, briefly became "Temporary Ruler" of Russia in July 1918, before sei-ving as Kolchak's "High Plenipotentiary" hthe Far East, a position he held through 1920. He retired to Beijing in 1924 Uohn J. Stephan, Tlze Russkn Far Easl: A Histoy [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 19941, pp. 315-316 and 319). 8, Luckett, The mite Gen~rnEs,p. 245. The British offered to meet the Bolsheviks on the island of Prinkipo in the Sea of Marmara to discuss the details of a truce, one of their demands being Siberian independence. Although Lenin appeared to take the Prinkipo prc~posalsseriously, the Japanese and Whites rejected them outright, Far a caltorful account of what may have happened, see Ric Hardman, F i f teezz Flags (Boston: Little, Brc3wn & Company, 4968), p. 155. 9, E, H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revrrltrtiolr, 1937-1923, Vol. l: A Hktory ofSaz7iet Rzassin (New York: MI; W Norton & Co., 19&5),pp, 352-355; Olga Bakieh, ""A Russian City in China: Harbin Before 1917," C~nadiarrSkz7onic hpers, Vol. 28, No. 2 (June 19861, pp, 12%148; Sirnon Karfinsky, "Memoirs of Harbiin," Savic iceview, MIX. 48, N o . 2 (Summer 498%, pp. 284-289; and David Wolff, '2ussia Finds Ifs Limits,'' in Rediseo~~eri~~g Russin in Asin: Siberia nrtd Clip Russian Far Easl, eds. Stephen Kotk-in and David Wblff (Armcmk, N.Y.: M. E, Sharpe, 1995), p. 46. In 4913, half the P C I ~ L I Xation of Harbin was Russian, 5,000 of wham were Jews, representing the second largest Jewish pc~pralationin Eastern Siberia (after that of Irkutsk), Even today, all the railway stations along the CER are of turn-of-the-cent- Russian design. 10. Henry Kittredge Norton, The Far Easlern Rqublic of SiEteria (reprint; Westport, Corn,: Hyperion, 1"31), p. 130; Ye, Mrivosheyeva, Balrsfzoy Bill v Kltsbcksse (Kernerovo: Kemero>vskoyeknizhnoye izdatet%tvo, 1990), pp. 49-58; and Garr, The Bolshevik R~c7ztoltkf i012, p, 355. 11. The bizarre 'WNikolayevsk Incident" ~ s u l k din the massacre of close to '700 Japanese civilians and soldiers (John Stephan, Sakimlin: R Histo9 [Oxf~jrd: Clarendon Press, 19711, p. 98). Further insight into the episode and the subsequent occupation of northern Sakhalin, where the Japanese committed themselves to the exploration and development of Sakhalin oil, is in Hara T'eruyuki, "Japan Moves

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l 03

North," in Rediscoveri~gRztssi~in Asia: Siberia arzd the Russialz Far Easf, eds, Stephen Motkin and David Wolff (Armonk, N.V.: M. E. Sharpe, 1995), pp. 55-67, 12. See Paul Gobte" comments in ""Panel on Siberia," p. 370. 13. No&an, 'T;cte Far Eastera Republic, p. 370. Krasnoshchekov and Shatov were recalled to Moscc>w in summer 1921, never to return to the Russian Far East. Although both would serve the regime in rather high posts-Shatov directed the construction of the Turksib Railroad from 1927 to 193Gthey were arrested and shot in 1937 (Stephan, The Russian Far East, pp. 322 and 333). 14. See footnOte 3, this chapter, 45. N. Va., Gushchin and V A, tlknykh, eds., Klassozmya bur'b~u sibirskoy dtyrevrle, 2920-ye-seredina 39SO-k/1gg. (Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1987), pp. 6Sb6, 16. Jarnes Hughes, Stalin, Siberia nlzd the Crisis of t l z ~New Economic h l i q (Carnbridge: Cambridge University Press, 19531), pp-7 and 18-22; and Frank Larimer, The Populntion c$ the Soviet Union: Histoy and Prospects (Geneva: League of Naticms, 49461, pp. 6 7 4 9 . 17. Ffughes, Sfrall'r-z,Siberia nlzd tlze Crisis, p. 38, 48. Ibid., pp. 30,38,45, and 57-62, 19. The approximate boundaries of Sibkray encompassed modern Western Siberia, Krasnoy arsk kray and Irkutsk &last.. 20. X. M . Razgon, ed., Sibir' v periode strctr'tel'stzta satsinlizmn, Vol. 4 of Istoriyn Sibiri, ed. A. P. Oktadnjkov (5 voXs.; Leningrad: Nauka, 1968)' p. 235; Hughes, Stalin, Siberia aud the Gn"sis, pp, 223-148. I: am deeply indebted to the work of Tames Hughes for the following summary of Stalin's sc3journ. 21, Ibid., pp. 497-200. 22. Rc>bert.Conquest, The Crenf 5rerrc;tr(London: Macmillan, 1968), p. 539; Rot-tert Conquest, The Great Yewar: A Rcmssl.,ssmertt (New York: Oxford University Press, 19901, p. 480; and Jzz7esfiyarApril 3,1988. 23. John J. Stephan, ""Fr Eastern Conspiracies? Russian Separatism a n the Paand East Europmu Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 / 2 (19901, p. 143; cific,'" Australian Slaz?o~r'c Stephan, The Russkn f i r East, pp. 160-Z3. Until 1938, Moscow had no teXecommunicatians link to the Russian Far East ((p. 201). 24. Stephan, "Far Eastern Conspiirades," pppp, 142-1 43. 25. Ibid., pp. 144-145; Aflan Rodgers, ed., The Soviet Far East: Geographiclinl Perspectives on Decfekrzpmcnl (London and New York: Rc>utledge,1940)' p. 23; and Walter KaEarz, The Peoples 6ft;lze Suzliet Far Elasf (New York: Praeger, 4954), pp. 4-IQ. 215. T'headore Shabad and Victor L. Mote, Gnteway to Siberian R e s o u ~ e s(the BAM) ('Washington, D,C,: Scripta, 197";"),p. 7 . 27. Razgon, Sibir ' D periode, pp. 321,325, and 370. 28. Shabad and Mote, Cafeway do Siberian Resourcest pp. 9 and 31-12. 29. Alaander Werth, Rztssk nf War, 3941-294.5 (Lczndon: Barrie and Rockcliff, 1964), p. 21 6; and Rot-tert C. Kingsbury and Rc>bert.N. 'Taaffe, APZAths of Soviet Affairs ((NewYork: Praegel; 1965), p. 55. 30. Gitavnojye upravteni ye geodezii i kadografii gri Scfvete Ministrov SSSR, Al.tas ubrazovn~zipi razvitiya Soyuza SSX (Mcwcow: Akademiya nauk SSSR, Institut istorii SSSR, 1"32), pp. 23-30. 31, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, TIze Gulng Arckipetago, Vol. 314 (New York: Harper and Row 1974)' pp. 2-5. (Culag is an acronym far Glnztnoye uprauleniye is-

pmuitel'tlo-trzrdoaykjz lagerei [the Central Administration of Corrective tabor Camps].) 32. Rc>bert.Conquest, Kolymn (London: Macmillan, 1978), pp. 215-216. 33. Conquest, The Grent Terror: R Rmssessment, p. 486; Cc~nquest,Kolymn, pp. 227-228; Nikoiay Shmelev, "Avansy idoltgi,'" Rloz~yy~rzir,No, 6 (1987), pp. 142-158; and V. N. Komissarov, ""Salinskiye lage;?ryaZapadnoy Sibiri," "0, Na, 3 (1990), pp. 58-59 and 193. 34,Elizabeth Prjnd, From the Yarostavskiy Stntio:orz:Russia Perceivd (rev, ed,; New York: Universe Books, 19%), p. 261. Tl-recommentary on transportation to the Gulag comes frsrrn the horrific eyewitness account-of Michael Solomon, Magadan (Princeton, N.J.: Vertex, 4971), pp. 47; 71-72, and many other entries. 35, Alan Wood, ed., Siberia: Problems and Prospectsfur Regiorzal Devcluprnerz t (London: Croom Helm, 19871, pp. 178-179; F. M, Borodkin et al., Gorodcl Sibiri i Dal'lzego Vosloka: KraGkiy ek~?nc?n~ik~~-geogra~c~teskiy spmzloclznik (Mowow: Prc>gress,19901, pp. l A Reassmsmenl, pp. 430-431; and Aivin D. 407 and 465; Conquat, The 6 r e ~ E'el-rol:. Coax, Mo~rusf?on: fapan Agnirzst Rzrssia, 3939 (2 volts.: Stanhrd: Stmfard University Press, 15385). 36, John J. Stepban, "'C6teansing"he Sc>vietFar East, 1937-1 938," Acfn Slavicca Vol. 10 (19321, p. 52, Iapo~tie~, 37, Ibid., p. 47; Bae-Saok Suh, fireans irz trlte Soviet U r t i o ~(Honolulu, Hawaii: Cent-er for Korean Studies/Center for SUPAR, 298[7), pp. 51 and 89; and Kirn Hakjcrcm, "The Emergence of Siberia and the Russian Far East as a 'New Frontier" for Koreans,'" in Rediscozlering Rzass-ia irz Asia: Siberia n ~ the d Russinlln Far East, eds. Stephen Kotkrin and David Wofff (Armonk, N.V.: M. E, Sharpe, 1995), p. 305, 38, Stephan, "C'6tcmnsilzg'Glze Soviet Far East," pp. 51-52. The minimum estimate of SFE incareeration~200,000-is greater than the maximum nurnber of i n m a t s held in tsarist prisons of all types (183,949 in 1912), according to Robed Conquest (Kolynta, p. 229). 39. Stephan, The Russia~zFar Elasf, pp. 245-248, 40. Gudokt August 24,4989, p. 4, and December 5,1989, p. 4. The second of these articles was entitfed "The Road to Nowhere." 41. Rurnor had it that Stalin perx3nally designed the route of the TPR, basing his decisic~nsm the prc>*ostications of geotr~gist-academicianI. M, Cubkin, who in the 1930s predicted the rtxistence of oil and gas in the Ob-asin. Cubkin" ideas would be borne out by events in 1959 (Gtrdok;March 12,1988, p. 2, and April 28,1988, g. 2). 42. Gzidok, April 29,11988, p. 2. 43. Gail Fondahl, "Siberia: Native Peojples and Newcomers in Collision,""n Nnt i o ~ as d Xaolifics in the Soaiet Szrecessor States, eds. Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (London: Cambridge Universit-JiPress, 19931, p. 484. 44, James Forsyth, A Hisfury of Zlre Roples of Siberia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19921, p- 326, X am indrrbted to Dr. Forsyth" work for most of this section (pp. 340-361). 45.. Ibid., p. 334. 46, Frmdahl, ""Sberia: Native Peoples,;,"p. 505. 47. Nikola y Ushakov, ""Prisoner Pioneers,'" in Yakzd tia: Frozen Gem of tlze USSR, 31978. AvaiXable on-line at ~http://www.maxirnov.com/R~ssia/Sakha/ yakutia-pask.html#arigins> (28 September 1997). 48, Forsyth, A Hi~tofyof GIZP Peoples of Sibel-ia, pp. 348 and 351-352,

SIX

ad Days: The East-West Debate and Greater Siberia

I am Q Siberian. [Siberia] is my Izome. I was barn fjtere, Xgrew up trltere, and yrty years' illere were nty best ye~rs.I ant n Confnztanist,bzrt not n Stnlizzist, T?ze~.ewere executions in my flzmily. Thtre were persons who were repressed and n m t c d . I lenrned nboztf Stalinism by the skirz of my awn ~ c c k . -Yegar KuzrmfchLigitchev

:Imagine yourself the potentate of a rich and expansive land. One part of the lmd, the part in which you live, is well developed m d relatively sophisticated. The other part is rich in potentid but undeveloped and wild. You have limited inweshnent firnds. How do you allocate them? This was essentially the probleln that Soviet leadcrs faced &r 1,953 While Stalin lived, bureaucrats, managers, and ordinary people followed orders because they feared for their lives. Provirrcial leaders, after the 1930s, rarely made a decision without consulting t k i r Moscokv overlords. Regional development was not up for grabs. h the wake of Stalin's death, howver, the reins were loosened. Soviet authorities in the p a t Stalin period reorgmized themselves, looked at the map, and had to decide what to do. Some wanted to continue to invest in the core; others wanted to irrcrease aliocaticms to the periphery, 'The east-west debate was subdued. Some question whether any d&ate took place. Nevertheless, the dichotomy represented one of the crucial conMversies in the USSR after Stali~~.

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SALAD DAYS: THE EAST-WEST DEBATE AED GREATER SlIBiERIA

LABBR, RESEARCH, ARB DEVELOPEVIEMT A R E R STALXM Just as no family in Greater Siberia avoided the juggernaut of World War XI, nonel even that of an apparatch jjC like Yegor Ligachev (see epigraph above), ehded Stal,infs megalomania. ~ massive D u r i q the 4 9 3 0 ~the use of forced labor was justified on economic grounds: The reg i m was virgin, territory, and. there was a labor shortage; the new projects were labor intensive; and there was a deficit of machinery. Moreover, capitalism% spontmeo~sorder" was lacking; and penal labor could be deployed at will. Siberians grew up in the PEIOTO 6,1 V q o r Kuz3miclz. Ligaclz~u shadow of labor camps, and. SOURCE: E~nbassyofthe USSR, Waslrington, many had direct experience or a D.C., 1989. family history in the camps: Mtes their release, the zeks (inmates) ssmethnes made Siberia their home. As meatcroft has observed, "By the mi&1950s, leaving aside the important question of moral,ty, there was no longer an econorrric rationale [for keeping hundreds of] thousands of peopie incarcerated in labor camps.""lfter the war, excavatorlbufidozer-turned-\iveapo~zs plants renewed the mnufactllre ol excavators and bulldozers, Given the availabjlity of earthmovers, the mining industry mechmized quickly The same was true of other equipment. 'The new ecmornics demanded the mechanization of what until then had been very lahor-htensive operations. By 1955, Nikita Khrushchev had decidcd a n d to rehabilitate the inmates. to abolish the costly ""rooflessprison" m Although it did not evaporate with Stalin's dennise, the labor camp population gradually diminished after mmshchev%speech to the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956. Ccfebrity-survivors such as Moiotov"s wife, the doctors front the "Doctors' X,lottffYevgeniya Ginzbwrg and her son (VasiliyAksenov), and Varhm Shalamov returned to the core after enduring incredible hardships in the periphery*In contrast, Tomsk-born writer Georgiy Shelest, an "duxnnus" of Kolyma, spcnt his find days in Chita. Ethnographer-chekIst Albert Lipskjy, who had spent the war in a Central Asian tabor camp, worked in an Abakm :Museum until his death in 1973. '/

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107

Hundreds of thousands of ailixlg, unsullg zeks took menial jobs inGreater Siberia, where t h y toiled larg"ly in sitence to the end of their fives..In the old days, they might have become beggars, looters, and debauchers of Siberia" scarce womenfolk, In truth, some of the criminal elements were ~cidivists,who newr did adjust to life "m the outside." A1"chougE.cG ~ a t eSiberia r shouid have had plenty of unskilled labor in 1956, it larked the numbers and specialists to implement ambitious h k r e targets such as the hydroelectric cascades asld their attendant ernergyintensive industries (aluminurn,pulp and.paper, and so iorth); the oil and gadwelopment of the C)h"asin; and tbe BAM railway. rli, attract the specialized labor forces required for these elnormous projects, planners used economic incentives, To train the scientists and engineers needed to ing and implementation of Greater Siberian developmem.t.,the regime founded thc '"science dty"%of l\rkademgorodok.

The idea of ushg rigl-ttsand privileges to entice the migration of workers to

wt-of-the-way places had been around since May 1932,but the alomdmce of slave labor durhg the prewar m d war years rendered the concept almost unnecessaq The Yomg Communj.sts who built Komsoml%sk-nah u r e , for example, recelwed a "northern incremmt" that included higher ba,se wages &at increased over a fiw-year period, lornger better pension plans, and prior* housing privileges. Xn August 1945, p h ners enhanced the northern iz~crementwith wage coefficients that increased in a northerly and easterly direction. Thus, a worker on the Chkclni Peninsula theo~ticallyobtained the highest salary inthe realm, To atbact workers who had special skills (excavator operators, mechmics, and so on),the regime created wage dioffereMials aypr0prial.e to the need. A good mecfnanic, for instance, could earn up to six tifnes the averagc Soviet salary in uddifi01.zto the perquisites of tbe ncrr&ern incremmt,Z These incentives obviously added substantial costs to Siberian development, stimulating a reevaluation of old dogmas, Was it really necessary to strive for "industry in depthf"in a world of intercantinentai bailistic missiies? Was the socifist concept of pianned proportional development (PPD) of all regions of the country-ven envim entally harsh onesrealty practical?Without affirmation of these ideals, Greater Siberia would be left out i,n Ihe cold. Mether to in\resl: i,n Europe or Asia kvas a question that would vex Soviet planners through the 1980s. Under Khrushchev, planwrs rarely ccrncermd themselves with the comprehensive, integrated approach of WE); rather, they came to regard Greater Siberia merely as a storehouse of raw materials that served the interests of the core. C ) f aturse, the periphery cmtinued to attract the atten-

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tion of Soviet military advisers, who considered the Soviet Far East (SIFE) an espedally vitd strategic interface with the powers of the Pacific Basin. :In the words of AIan Mrood, the SFE to them "embodied both an uutpost and a bastion, exemplifying both vulnerabiZity and securityf"e vulnclrability required constant vigilance and a comparatively large military pxlesence; such a presence would guarantee the security of the core" eeastem flank. At their near-cmstant urging, by the end of the 198Ktl.i, the Pacific Fleet had become the largest of the four Soviet fleet commands and the defense industry had become proportionally the SFE"s largest ernployer.4 Th.e new pragmatic approach tokvard the region was epitomized by the actions of Nikiea arushchev, who in 1960 downgraded the value of the northern increment, weakened its inc~mentalbuildup, and ~ d u c e dthe num,ber of perquisites for othewise deserving recipients. mrushchev felt that improved livhg cmdltims done would suffjceto attract permanent settlers to Greater Siberia.

Akade~ngorodok:SiberinS' Science Cify During mrushchev's tenure as undisputed Premier (195S19&), %viet science made remarkable progress. Khmshchev believed that science married to socialism would accelerate the achievement of commrmism. "Convinced that cities of science already existed in America, he supported the construction of scientific cities around Moscow" "and placed his ""personalstamp of approval" on constructicm of Siberia%Akademgorodok." The ""fther of Akademgorodok" was mathematician M. A. Lavrent'yev, who engendewd the notion of buitding a city for scientists while StaIisl still lived. ZJavrel~tfyev w o d d not be able to realize his dream, however, until Khrushchev &-Stalinized the Comrmunist Party, after 1956, The mathematician and his colleagues mvisioned a world-ctass scimt(ific cornunity free of the pressures of Soviet po:[itics and the econonty. He had little trouble persuading the ebullient Khrushchev, who was so enamcrred of the project that he visited the constmction site twice. r2ilhotrg%lproblems abounded during the constmction of the city and its instit.utes, the end result was superior to most Soviet architectural and urban designs, The setting helped: a beautiftll wooded valley locaed along the banks of:the %a of W, a reservoir created by the recclrtly built Novosibirsk dam (1950-1959). The builders did in fact "design with nat w , " b any season, Akademgrrrodok superficidy reminded one of a rustic village in Vermont or Sussex, perfectly integrated into the emvimnmmt, The scholars lived in Western-style detached cottages set bark from the roads, in the wo~)ds. When :lvisited the town in 39@, I got the ""huse

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tour"":cademicim so-and-so lives them; that's kanbegyan's place; over there is so-and-so the chentist's col-lage. . . . And just down the road was the reservoir for summer watersports and winter ice fishing. These amenities easily lured some of the best S w k t minds away from the num,bing lnitieus of European Russia. The first scientists were young, so-catled children of the Twentieth Party Congn~ss.Ear from Moscolhi, Akademgom&kfs own Party upsmtchiki we= more flexible than their peers in the core. In Siberia's sdence city, youthful scientists such as physicist Gersh Budkcr, sociologist ?Btfyana Zaslavskaya, and eccmomist A. G. Aganhegyan etiercised academic freedom to expand the limjts of fundamental research. One of Lavrent"yev"s priorities in Akademgorodok was to establish an atm.0sphere of science without walls, an interdisciplinary scholarly community in which people codd speak and socialize freely, without the impedimenta, of ""Party discipline."b Until 1968, I,avrentryevsucceeded in bringing free t.hinking to his new town, but by Snviet standards, the commmlity was far too informal: ""At social clubs, the scientists played cards, drank, and sang into the wee hours. There were rumors of prostitutes,"7 Suclt ribaldry could not long last in the USSR of the late 1968s. h fact, the freedom did end whe11 the Siberian scholars rose up in, protest against the trial of the writers Sinyavskiy anci Danid'; when in song they satirized the Communist Party; and Mifien they took a stand against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Thereafter, not only were the scientists and students of Akademgorodok more closely watched but "the "bulldt,zer"science of river diversion,sehmes for developme~~t around L& Baykal, and the S/ZM were seen as more important than fundamental research,"""~'undarnental researchers, such as Aganbegyan and Zaslavskaya, went into the busi~~ess of pragmatic regional planning and development.

During the 19505, the periphery once again became a =source frontier. The output of Greater Siberia%extractive industries, includirtg n d w rous metals, agriculture, and fomstry, exceeded Soviet averages. Mechanization enabled a shift from the small-scale manual digg4ng and p of placer deposits to larger-scale, machinehydraulic and lode mining of precious and rare metals. The environment suffered, but production soared. Khrushchev's Virgirt L a d s Program resulted in fie conversion of longterm falXocv or virgin soil into cropland in the Altay forelmd. Athough yields werc rc1ativel.y low sowings of spring wheat were so extensive that harvests were abundant in good years. Even though most of the new

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sowings were in northern Kazakhstan, those of the Altay contr;ibutcd morf_? than 40 pex""nt of the annual hanrest.9 In agricdture, Akademgorodok soon proved its mettle, From the 1960s onwarb, agronomists at VAS a branch instihtte of the science city pmvided technical advice idance to the managers of couedive and state farms in Ihe Vir.gin Lands. The increased output of grain soon peted with coal for space on the Trms-Siberian and South Siberian t lines, necessitating the construcltion of l.he Central Si,berian raiiway between Barnaui asld Chelyabinsk, &ring the war, Greater Siberia's forest products industry declined, but in the 1,950~~ it ralljed, particulasly with thc addition of the western term& nus of the projected BAM railway. h u b l i n g as a lifefine for the darn builders in the new town of Bratsk on the Lena fiver and as a conduit for the raw materials of the I:.,ena watershed, the Tayshet-USE'-Kut: branch supplied iron ore to th Kuzbas steel d l s and timber to the burgeoning forest products operations around Bratsk. Other railkvay spurs-to S r g h o on the Qb', to Bo1"hay.a Ket" the Uenisey Bash, to Reshoty h the Angara Basin, and between mabarovsk and.Postyshevo in the SFE (the easkm termillus of the &AM)-pened up rich new logging a~as.10 Devdopment of the Greater Siberian economy was impossibie withod electricity and I(hrushchev was the greatest advocate of hydrwlectric power in Soviet history Under his watch, no fewer than nine Siberian dams were approved, under construction, or actually built. 'These included the already mentioned 4lf(l-megawatt (MW) Novosibissk and 4,050-MW Bratsk dams; the 662-MW Irkutsk darn; the 6,000-MW Krasnsyards darn; the 6,900-MW Sayanogorsk dam; the 4,320-MW U'stf-Ilimsk dam; the 308-MW Vilyuy dam; the 441-MW Khantayka dam; m d the 1,290-MW Zeya dam. The enormus multipurpose stations provided energy to satisfy the peak demand at Novosibirsk; the needs of new aluminum refjneries near Irkutsk, Bratsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Sayanogorsk; the cansumpticm of the Noril%k nonferrous metallurgical combine; and the requirentcnts of the wood-processing industry (especially p u p and paper mills) of Bratsk and Ust'-Xlimsk, They also improved navigation, diversified recreation, and controlled floods. They had the uttnfortmate side effects of inundakg the often massive floodplains, w a r n g i n g ul-rcut: t h b e r reserves, and forcing the removal of householcjls and villages. The Vilyuy and Khantayka darns, built to supply energy to the Mirnyy diamond mines and the NorCsk facilities, respectively, WE the first d m s ever raised on permafrost. Zeya was to be the. energy source for the eastern BAM service area.1' As m indicator of the growth h e r e n t in hydroeledricity-based industries, neit.her Rratsk nor Ustf-Ilimskregistered more than a few thousand residents in 1955, many of them former zeks. By 1990, tbrir popdations

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lll

were 258,000 and 311,000 persons, respectively Most of the working people of Rratsk were employed in either the USfifi's largest alurninurn refinery or its greatest forest products complex, whercl each year 6 d i m cubic meters of rcrundtvood were clrnsramed to produce up to 1million tons of m o d pulp, paperboard, l a d e r , and plywood. tlstf-l1imsk"sfacilit.ies added mother 500,000 tons of pulp. Unfortunately, the operations polluted vast tracts of otherwise pristine wilderness.

West Siberhn Oil and Gas nrushchev" ssless on large-scale hydroelectric projeds in. Soviet Asia resulted in a slight increase in capit.al investment in the peripbery Between 1960 and 1965, Greater Siberia attracted 12.1 percent of the funding verszxs 11.3percent in the 1950s.12 The increased outlay was not entirely clreatcd by dam and railway hddjng, however. 041 and gas develspment in the Obmver Basin,accclmpmied by pipeline construction, also required fresh hfusions of fbmcial aid. Support for the development of the periphery expanded after Lemid Brezhnev took power in 1964.During the eightrh FW (196&197(1), capital invest-nte11t in Greater Siberia jumped fmm 12.1 percent to 15.2 percent, a pmportion that had not been matched sixlce the 1920s. The explanation for this sudden outpouring of generosity was the development of Wst Siberia's oil and gas fields. Nlddle Ob' Islrtr~letrm, As hcadernician Cubkirr predicted in the 1930s,13 commercial oil deposits werc discovered in the marshlmd forests near the junction of the W and Irtysh rivers. The first gusher ""cme in" h 11959, in the Shaim field on the upper Kmda River, a left-bank tributary of the IrVsh. Initially; without a pipeline, Shaim clrude was transported by barge down the Kmda to the Irtysh and conveyed upriver to th Om.sk Refinery, which socm became the LlSSKs largest petroleum pmcessor. h 1900, a 400kilometer (250-mi) pipeline linked the ficld with Tyumen', whence rail tank cars carrid. the fuel, either to Wrals power plants or to h s k . 'The S h a h dixovery was followed in 1961by other gushers, in the Meginn and ti&"Balyk ~ g i o n of s the Middle Ob'. h the midst of the wildcatting in UstL-Balykwas &fteyugansk, which was a mere village in 1964 but had burgecmed to a city of almost 100,(100 by 1992.1"e Ustr-Balyk and Megion fields tllrned out to be "giants," meaning thcy each contained 100 to 500 million metric tons (Mmt) of petroleum reserves. Together with the West Surgut and Pravdinsk fields, these fields were cmnected to the Qmsk Refinery by pipeline in 1967. That same year, the Tyumen"Tobof%sk railway provided another means of transportation for the oil. An extemim of this railvvay =ached Surgut in 1974.

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I'he importance of the 5urgut region was enhanced further by the 1966 discovery of t-he supergiant oil pool at Lake Samotlor, located 250 Hometers (130 mi) to the east, Described as a ""flathg bog" 'beneath I to 2 meters of water and 35 to 211 meters of "quakkg, decomposed peat,'-amcrtlor was one of the world's most troublesome but greatest oil fields. In its original state it hdd. 1.5 billion metric tons of crude oil, or more than five times t e volume of Ustf-Balyk. Before it began to decline in output in 1,984, Samotlor alone produced one-third of the USSR" annual production of petroleum.= Attracting lahor tcr one of the world" nastiest environments was not an easy task. In winter, the subfreezitng temperatures were legendary. In sprirrg, floods converted the oil fields to islands, Tn summer, the humidity and insect swarms were unbearable. Tl~eorigjnal "rougheeksf%were a mot.ley contingent of students h r n Moscow, Leningrad, and Kieli, onethird. of whom usually departed before m e year was out. Many of them had to h e in automobik cabins, dugouts, and even tents, with no amenities, in .freezing temperatures. kf;hll?niki, or trusties on parole for crimes that ranged. from murder to theft., were rushed in to offset Ehe tumover of ""fee labor." If they did an honest day" work, the trusties got an honest dayfvayY Sufficient ""honat"days, and a parolee codif. take a wife, or it: already marned, could have his family with him in the oil fields (luciky famity!). A year in the oil fief& eyualed a year's impriso expiration of his setntence, the former uslounik obtahed a new passport: and all. the rights of a Soviet citizen16 Between 1961 and 1969, almost 60 oil fields were identified in the Middle Ob'. Eighteern, including supergimt Sarnotlar, were very large fields, each with more than 50 Mmt of pekoleum reserves. At tfie time, it seemed that Western Siberia might contain a '"imitless" "supply of oil; hcrwever, there was but one Samotlor, Mter that, only orle other supergiant (3500 Mmt), the Fedorovo field north oi S q u t , was uncovered, and it gushed in 19"i".

Laruer Ob' Nafuml Cns.

Exploitation of West Siberian natural, gas began in 1953, near the town of Berezovo, on the left bank of the lower Ob-ver. Because of emvimrnnnenl.al harshess and relative kaccessibility, gas field development pmgrcssed slowly Finally, in 1966, a 100-centimter (40-h) pipeline connected the main gas field at Pmga with cities in the nor&ern ZTrals. The Berezovo stl-ike was modest compared to the djscweries made between 1965 and 1974.. fn that decarje, roughnecks tapped no fewer than six supergiant gas fields (reservoirs containing more than 283 billion m3f , Zaor I0 trillion f.t.7). The mightiest of these, hduding U ~ n g o yYamburg, polyarnoye, and Medvezhfye,totaled 30 trillion cubic meters of rt.servesf

Yambuw Supergrant deld Sojenrcya Giant field (1@6gj

/2/

. e

Date of conrng on stream

Major plwlines kcfmlntstriltive bundartes Major m l a t e d places

MAP 6.2 Ob' Basin Oil n ~ Gas d Fields SOURCE: Joseph P. Riva, Jr., Petrolezint E;u[?l~zrnfioion Oppoufunities in the Fornzer Soviet Union (Tulsa, Okla,: Penwell Bcmks, 1994)' p. 153.

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m 41) percent of the LISSIi's supply of gas and 13percmt of the world%mserves.p By the time Gorbachev took oKice in, 1985, more than I08 natural gas fields had been discovered in Western Siberia, contahing one-third af the icientified reserves cm fie planet.

'The fortuitous events of Che 1960s elnhanced Che careers of Silnerian p&t& cians. Stigmatized by Stalin, they had lain low for decades, Since 1937, few Siberian-born or -based Party leaders had served on the Politburo (k~~ow asnthe Presidium between 1953 and 14166),AstrizUant-born A. B. Aristov (1903-?) had served in Krasnoyarsk, Chelyabinsk, and :Khabarovsk from 1944 to 1955 before being appointed to nmshchew's Pscsi.dium. "Il-tere he remained until 1961, kvhm Khrushchev, reputedly questioning Aristov" loyalty, made him Soviet Consul to Poland. In 1966, ?"tierf-bornG. E. Vc,ronov (191fZ-?), who since 1936 had spent his formative years as a ranking Party official in l'smsk, Kemerovo, Chita, and Orenhurg provinces, ended up serving a dozen years first as candidate, then full mernber of the Presidiurn/Politburo. By 3973, he fell out of favor wi& Brezhev over the latter" rivalry with Aleksey Kosygin.18 This was not the case with Konstanth Chernenko, who became one of Brezhnevfs proteg6s while the two m n were serving together in Moldova (then Moldavia). Born in 19fl, in the vi,llage of- 13ol"shoy Tes (then in Achinsk okrutj, in today" Krasnqarsk kray), Chernenko was a true Siberian but might as well have been born a Muscovite. I h r o w o u t his life, he was a staunch Party loyalist. He did anything the Party asked him to do, whether it was the forced reguisitiming of grain; the Russification of Nganasans, Evenks, and nakass; tbe mass reeducaticm of R/foldavi,ans; or the purging of Jews. In Moldavia, where hc becarne one of Bsezhnev? favarites, for hstance, Chemenko received the Labor Order of the Red Banner for his achievewnts, including his success in clemsing his agitprop department: of f e w . The Brezhnev-Chernenko alliance proved mutually beneficial, with Brezhnev nurturing Chc.mer.lkofscareerism and Chemenko massaging Brezhev's massive ego. Later, when both were in Moscow Brezhev was Head of the Party and Kosygixr was Head of State. One of Chemenko's tasks was to manipulate the Politburo agenda so as to favor Brc;zhevfs interests at the expense of his chief rivals, I(osygin and Nikolay Podgorn_)iY* Clhernenko was not a complete lickspittle, hwewer. He was the first Party offjcialto compllCerize his Moscow offices. Mt. wrote prodigiouslyr abeit perfmctorily, and he rewrote the country's constitution, For his role in devising the 1977 Soviet Constitution-which later would becclme the

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bane of Boris Ueltsh" existence-Chemenks was made cmdidate member of the Politburo. A year later, he became a full membet; and still later, general secretary of the CPSU (1%-1985). It is doubtful that Chemenks was the source of Brezhnev" well-hown admiration for Siberia. Me was a true Bolshevik who owcd everyChing to the Party Rcading Chernenko" biography,lY one finds no bint of regionalism or regional loyalty. W also cannot measure the s t ~ n g t hof Chernenko's rclatinnship with another Siberian who rose to the top, Vladimir DolgiWn. Dolgikl-r dso came from Krasnoyarsk kray where he was born in the village of: Xlmskiy i,n 19%. While still a teenagelt; he allegedly met Chernmko just bdore the latter left the Krasnoyarsk organization. Unlike Chernenko, Dolgikh became a decorated war hero. After the war, the hero, now a Party rnetnber and barely 21, returned to his native Siberia to study engineering. While Chernenko honed his agitprclp slil1.s in MoXdavia, Dsigikh became the principal engineer of a large Krasnoyarsk factory" b t i e ~ and ~ t perseverhg-accordhg to Yeltsin, Dolgikt.1 never did anything '"half-cockedH=-he eventually became disrsctor of the Noril%sk Metallurgical Comb&, where he w n five Orders of Lenin.. Altfiotrgk very different- i,n intellect, Dolgikt.1 is said, to have maintained contact with C h e r n d o , who as a friend of Brezhnev might have played a role in Dolgil-ih's ultirnate rise to full memberskip in the Central Committee (1971). h that position Dolgib met Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin admired the forth.right honesty and ""sober judgment" of Dolgikh, who, he ophed, "was the most professional and efficient s e c ~ t a r yon the Central Committee." Later, while serving as the persm in charge of heavy industry and energy development on the Secretariat, Dolgikh was promoted to candidate member of the Politburo. He wodd hdd the post until he was pa~sianedoff in 1988. According to kltsin, Dolgi& w s the "'most useful" Politburo member, even though as a mere cmdidate he was outranked by full mernbers like fellow Siberian Uegor Ligachev22 Ligachev was born in the t h y brillage of Dubinking in Siberia, in 1928. Until 1938, his experiences were exclusively Si:berian. n e r e h bore witness to Stalitlist terror (see the epigraph to this chapter).ZUfter a fiveyear i~~terval of sl.udy in Moscow, Z.,igachev betamc an engix~eerin a Novosibirsk aircraft plant, whese in 1944 he joined, the Party. Until 1.961, Ligachev spent most of his time working his way up through the ranks of the Novosibirsk Party apparatus, h e n suddmly he becalnc deputy ekief of the Russian Republic" sagitprop department in Moscow. Four years later, at the age of 45, he was back in Siberia. For the next eighteen years, a now-toughened Z,igachev served as first secretary of Tomsk &last. Havlng been to Moscow and back, i"tight have becm easy for him to rest m his laurels. b~stead,he built one of the most

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powerful political machines in Russia and became a major spokesman for the econon?ic developme~~t of his provhce in particular and Western Siberia in general. Perhaps his "exile" was a biesshg indisguise: His highly disciplined leadership style clrntrasted sharply with the looseness of the Brezhwv era. Mnreover, Ligacfnegs penchmt for discipline placed him ill good odor with his eventual bmeiactor, Yuriy Andropov, who ensconced him in the S c ~ t a r i ain t 1983. From that vantdge point, as cadre secretary, the Siberian wodd c l h b to the post of second secretary, b e h d Mikhail Gorbxhev, and full member of the Politburo (1985).

Cmzlp Politics? West- Siberian Elzerg and fhe NAM &ring the 19hOs, Siberim Party leaders like Ligachev, Dolgikh, and others contented themselves with buildilng patron-client relation&ips in Greater Siberia, an activity Brezhnev cmdoned. The sattaps built their confidence and staying power with cadres of loyal friends and associates. No longer did they live in terror of the midnight h o c k on their doors. The corc accepted the prefectural fiefdoms as a means of maintaining their fealty. As icmg as provincial leaders could guarantee their eccmomic qraotas, they hvere free to hande bcal affairs pretty much as t h y saw fit within their own prekctures. In general, the farther away a provincial Party head was from Moscolv, the more freely he could wield his considerahle power, Proximity to japan and the Pacrific Basin also etnabled Party pxlefects in Primor y e and on Sakhaljn to negotiate directly (and independently) with capitalist companies as early as the 1970s.24 Ri.ddi,ng for investment by rclgionnl Party bosses probably always existed in the Soviet Uni.on, albeit informally and "behind closed doors." mrtlughout the Soviet period, there were officials vvho favort-d the cmcentration of industrial production and those who favored its dispersal. The struggle emrged. openly in 195) at the time of tke Twent)i-First Party Congress and cnntil7uc.d fnr the next twenty years. From the 1960s onward, Sfieriirtn leaders steadily m d deliberately demanded and received more attention from the core. Two major successes reflect posit.lvely on their abilities tcr match wits with Moscow policymakl.rs: West Siberian oil and gas development and the constructinn of the BAM:. The West Siberian t'lu.rcCrmlilion. m Akademgorodok served not only as a fount of scientific research but also as a snuslding board for advocates of Siberian development. Che of Siberia's champions was none other than Lavrtmt"yew himelf, who teamed up in the 1'360s with ecmomist G. A. Fnxdenskiy to s~tpportthe expioratinn and devellopme~~t of West Siberian hydmcarbons.Z"5e two men were joined by another colleague, Acadernician A. A. Rofimuk, one of Lavrmt"y@v'sdeputy dimtors at the science

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city. A geologist, Trofimuk earlier had gained fame in the Volga-blrals oil fields (the "&cond Bakutt")2Wewas convinced that the USSR, m d Wester11 Siberia, ef;pecially possessed. infiisrite resenies of oil, and gas. By 1970, Second Baku oil and gas prcrduction would peak. Trofimuk used this to argue the case for more investme~ntin the fuhrre of Western Siberia. Rallying to his cause wre his colleagues at Akademgmdcbk, comprising geologists, Siberian politicims, atorprise managers, and feliow academicians. One ol his supporters was Aganhegyan, who was not yet 40. Afsel Gezevich was Prudenskiy's second in command at the Tnstitute of Economics and Ort;mizatim of industrial Production (EKO), and a key proponent of the Liberman economic reforms. Together with Zastavskaya, Agmbegyan would champion Siberim causes for the next twent)l years. ('The duo also aclvocated ecmomic restructuring-p~?restrayh-as early as f 965.) Not immune to politics, Aganbegyan probably met I:.,igachevin 1961, when both men lived in Novosibirsk. Four years later, far away in Stavropolf kray, a young Gorbachw became familiar with the ideas of Agmbegyan and Zaslavskaya. He would m e t neither of tbem until 1979, but he w u I d not forget them.27 The "academic lobhy'kno doubt encouraged Tyumenkobtast Party bosses A. K. Pratazanav m d B. Ye. Shcherbina to strongly endorse the development of the hydrocarbons of their region in order to offset the incipient decZine of Second Balcu production. They aIso called for the rapid, comprehe~nt;ive,and long-term development of Tyumen' &h& to accommodate the new industry. The new Party boss of neighboring 'Ibmsk province, Ligachev, also jumped on the bandwagon. At seentjfic confercmccs betweell 11966 and 1968, he challenged the Moscow regime to invest in Tomsk hydrocarbms, which after all were closer than Tymen~esourcesto the big industrid centers of Novosibirsk m d the Kuzbas. Such bluster emanating b r n the periphery had not been h e a d in forty years. It codd not fail to gain the attention of senior officials at the State Plaming Age11cy (Gosplan). At Brezhev's urghg, M. G. P e r v u b h ordered Gosplads Council for the Study of Productive Forces (SOPS) to derive a comprehensive plan fm the development of W s t Siberian energy by Ihe end of 1968. Also exhorting hint were Trofimzlk and his feUw geologist G, :I", Bogomyak~v~ who wouM succeed. Shcherbina as ?jiumenr Party boss in 1973 and serve until the end of the 1480s. They vigorousv lobbied for a lmg-term, comprchcnsi.veplan for Western Siberia. Agarnhegyan join.ed them, pushing for the development of a major petmchemical industry along with petroleum extraction and ~fining.2" By 1966, new development projects in Greater Siberia had depleted the supply of ex-zeks, creating a labor shortage, Accordingly, the Supreme Soviet restored the northern increment and wage h~centivesto their 1960

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levels, and in some cases, upgraded them. These were the incentives that attracted the studel-rtsm d trusties mel-rtioned earlier to the oil fields.. The labor crisis was ove~come,but at no small expense, Greater Siberia's share of Soviet capital invesment in 19(,1 to 1965 had been 12.1 percent. During the next five years, it sprang to 15.2 percent." Accorcting to Leslie Dienes, the monthly wages of a worker in Western Siberia now averaged 111percent of the Soviet mean; in Eastem Siberia, 126 percent; and in the SFE, 258 pe~el-rt.Given unwei&ted returns in the form of labor pmductivity of 101, 83, and 94 percent, respectjvely, authorities both. inside and outside the USSR were justified in questioning the w i s d m of such ul-rrequitedlargesse.30 The rclalities of exchmge theory rarely played a role in Soviet decisimmaking. On December 11, 1969, the Party and government jointly approved a SOPS plan that would comprehensively develoip pr?yumenfm d Tamsk provinces. The plan designated more than m e dozen mirtistries, state committees, state planning agencies, and other institutions to increase oil and gas output, to lay pipelines, to build railways, to string electric power trmsmission lines, and to create a vast infrastructure. Oil. production was slated to reach 30 Mmt in 197(1, 120 Mmt in 1975, and 230-1260 Mmt by 1980. All of these targets were exceeded.31 During the next decade (1970-1380), the Kremfin power struggle peaked. Until 197(1, Prtjmier Kosygin had been as promirrent as Brezhnev in intemati.onal and domestic politics. The two men were as difkrent as night and day. Brezhnev was pro-rural and emphasi\zed agriculture. :Kosygin was pro-city and emphasized industry. Rrezhnev was extroverted and rum,bustious. Kosygin was intmverted and reserved. Brczhnev increasingly sided with the Siberian pressure groups; neverthellcss, until 1978, he preferred to leave vestions of energy poficy in the hands of Kosygin, who tended to support the htelzsitication of existing industry in the core and.a balanced energy policy for the country as a whole. ktwccm 1970 anli 19715, the East-West debate tested pofitical careers. By them, B r e h e v had become the strorngest Soviet political Icader. Erstwhile '"Siberian"' Gcnnadiy Voronov fell from grace because he sided with Kosygin. The Ukrainian Party boss, Petro Shelest, lost his place cm the Politburo away from Donbas coal because he opposed the diversion of h-r~restin,e~-rts misres into the development of W s t Siberian hydmcasbons.32 But Kosygin codd daim an wcasional victory dso. 'flris was borne out during his speech at the Party Congress in March 1976, when he declared, ""Fture growth of our energy potential wiU corn prir~rilyfrom Inydroekctricity, nuclear energy and cheap coal."= To Siiberims, whcr had striven to obtain greater in\restme~-rtin oil and gas, Kosy&inrsideas werc a slap in Ihe face. Bogomyakov angrily criticized a pian to extract and transport cheap Siberian coal (tram the Kansk-Achinsk Basin) to Soviet Eumpe because it drew

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l l9

away scarce capital from the development of cleaner, more eccmomital natural gas. He co~~tended that if new oil deposits were not opened up, there would be a cdlapse of West Siberian oil production, Shortly afterward, the U.S. CM conf-Irmedhis contentim.2 None of this dissuadrd the 19% Party Congress delegates from rubber-stmpi.ng Kosyghfs ideas, The West Siberian c n lw coalition had. to regroup, For Brezhnev, the turning point in the debate came in 1977. Thmu$out that: year, the Siberians cond~tcteda mcdia blitz aga,i,nst the cclrtral q e n cies that were alleged to have repudiated further investment in the West Siberian e n e w complex. 'l'he loudest criticism emanated from junior regional politicians m d lesser members of EKC). They were joined by the powerful T r o h u k and Shcherbina, who called for an exgansicm of the role of oil and gas in the country's energy balmce. The climax came at the Party's Decernber 1,977 plenum,where the Siberian "lobby" ((Rogmyakov, Ligachev, Trofirnuk, Aganbegyan, and a host of others) mounted its final offensive. The Siberians obviously impressed Brezhnev, who immediately urged the initiation of a crash oil and gas development program for Western Siberia," Foour months l a t e ~ the general secretary took a whirlwind tour of Greater Siberia, during which he made several proSiberim speecrihes. Upon his return, as he had in the past, he challenged Soviet youth to go east to develop Siberia's vast resotlrces.36 Political jockeyirtg over the issue of Siberian oil and gas persisted until Kos~gin'sdeath in 1980. Political sejentist Gord011 Smith contended that the pro-Siberian faction m the FPotbura consisted of 9 of the 20 full and candidate members. Curiously, Cl~ernenkowas not listed among the supporters, allhough Dalgjkh was. Smith also determined that 77 members of the Central Comittee were behind the project, exclusive of legions oi unified backers in Western Siberia. Kosygin had a maximum of 5 supporters on. the Politburo, incl~tdingthe Premier himself, m d a few dozen advocates on the Central Committee, Representing different parts of the countr)!. Kosygin loyalists were less mified ar~dm m vutnerable than the highly orgmized Western Siberians.37

Elrstenl SiberiaJs On-Again, Of-Again Railway: The DAM. Lobbying for Siberian projects did not start and end with West Siberian oil and gas. For nearly a century, visionaries dreamed of building a railway north of Lake Baykal tcr the Pacific Ocean. Because it avoided the sinuous Amur bend, the route was 400 to 500 kilometers (250 to 300 mi) shorter than that of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Because it was a similar distance inland from Manchuria, it was also more secure from Yellow Peril .than was the TrmsSiberian. Before 1960, however, engineers could not overcame the envir obstacles fiat plagued the Baykal-hur Main Line ( B M ) for each of its

SEA OF

OKNOTSK

Yakutrrk Main Lme (projemd)

t

Statrons

MAP 6.2 Tlte Bnyknl-Amzrr Mail.2 Litze (BAM) SOURCE: Swearingen 1987, Siberia @adtfse Soviet. Far East, p. 48.

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12 1

4,434 kilometers (2,754 mi). ktween Tayshet on the Trans-Siberian Railroad and Sovetskaya Gavm' on the Tatar Strait, the BAM would negotiate virgin taiga, mountains, rivers, and bogs perched, atop gelatinous permafrost for more tban two-fiirds of the dista~~ce. Engineers would have to bore more than 30 kjlmetecs (19 nni) of tumels through earthquakeprone rock. Accodingly, the actual laykg of track in this hazardous region proceeded at a snail's pace. Serious efforts began m l y after the 1920s, wiCh Eke first constructinn of the "Litte BAM," hwhich lay approxjmately midway across the main east-west axis, m d the work was interrupted by the war. Between 3941 alld 1957, tthe BAM terminuses were completed to Ustf-Kut in the west and to Psstyshevo in the east, leaving 13,115 kilometers (1,934 mi) undone.38 I'he BAM represented a eteparture from the core's usual trr-?atmentof the periphery. Gven its constraints, the railwy, b m the beghning, held little promise for immediate returns. Criticized as a "frozm asset" and avmzfyuriznz (adwenturism), the BAM wodd be mow costly than beneficial for many years to come. Kosygin's forces must have been as bewildered by the resolution to bujld the BAM as they were upset with the regime%favmitism of West Siberian oil and gas. But the railway obtained powerfd advocates. Sino-Soviet relaions reached their lowest ebb during the 1.960s. The Chinese were threatening to retake the controversial borderlands that had been made Russim by the Aigunr and F"eki.ng t ~ a t i e s(see Chapter 3).3 Thus, pl BAM took on a strategic aspect, Fcrtr a while, the ministry of dcfense was the raihay"s most dedicated p ~ s s u r group.40 e Compared to the brauhaha surrounding West Siberim hydrocarbo~~s, issue at first attracted only subttc prcssure from Siberim leaders. Perhags because of its sbategic sensitiviq in the early stages, the acronym ""RAM" did, not a p p m in the Soviet press until 1970.ab e n then, it was s u b s u e d under the genera1 blueprint of the Pdorth Siberian Railway @SW. UAutian first secretary, C;. I. Chiryayev, arwed for an extension of Siberian the NSR from fifizhevartovsk near Samotlm across the C-e~~tral Upland to his homeland, where supplies occasionally r e q u i ~ da year or more to reach remote destinations. aherwise, Siberim scholars boosted the development of U'dokmcopper and South Yakutian coal, iron ore, and phosphtes without mentioning tbe BAM or its potentid rul.e.Q Before the 1971 Party Cmgress, the RAM gained the support of a tmly powerfttl Commw~ist,V. I? I;,omakin, the first sccfetary of Primorrye. As head of the so-calted Vladivostok Group, the patron-client tentacles of which reached Party leaders fimughout the SFE, Lomakin wieided masd for improvements in SFE sive influence. Z,ornakin a r g ~ ~ ee~zergetically transportation, which included not only the BAM but also a 4,QUO-kilometer (2,50-mi) oil pipeline from Angarsk, near Irkutsk, to the Pacific Coast.

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Pro-BAM forces in Moscow alwady had rejected the pipeline as ine;ufficier~tlyversatile. 'They boasted that: the railway would outperforin the pipeline, as a "super mavl line" that wodd spirit eight-axIe rail tankers from the Ob' oil fields to the Pacific at high speeds. Two years later, at the time of the Arab oil embargo, this became one of the cogei~targuments in the BAM's favor: As much as 70 percent of all BAM deliveries [were to be] West Siberian oil, all of which would be destined for export.4" With the Party's blessing, BBAM enthusiasts went public. I'he railway ministry" nnewspaper, Cudok, pmmdgatcd a spate of artides by railway engi~ieersand aufiorities who backed the idea of a second trunk line. Chisyayev continued to be the most cmspicuous BAM supporter among local Party ofijcials. (His protkgks would lobby for better transportation well into the 1980s.4" The Yilkuts depended on unreliable Lena River transport for three-fifths ol lheir supplie~andconsjstently argued for a rail link as a way to overcome the bottlenecks. I'he majority of the propaganda ceased, howwer, when the dekgates to the 1971 Party C o n g ~ s endorsed s orlly the construction of the port crl Vostochnyy, east of Nakhodka, and the re-laying of the Little BAM to Tynda. ?he latter appeased the Vakut delegation, since it was headed in the direction of Yakutsk. For the next two years, little was said about the main, east-west axis. Even in early 1974, shortly ""before the amouncement of BAM consh-uction, there were no promotional arguments for the railway"45 Meanwhile a series of compensation agreements with fapan, enhancing Soviet trade with that country and expanding Siberian rc?source development projects, must have piqued e d u s i a s m for the BAM both at the local and national levels. In addition, the 1973Arab oil embargo, with all its implications for higher raw material prices, surely impressed B r e h e v . In the end, however; without strong grassroots organizing for the BAM, Brezhnev alone may have been msponsible for the decision." He certahly stood alone on March 15,1974, when he mnounced that the east-west axis of the BAM would be "the cmstruction project of the century.f'47 Throughout the decade of construction (197rt-1984), Soviet citizens were led to believe that the BAM was part pyrantid and part colossus of :Rhodes. Hardly a day went by without considerable media attention being dewted to the railway and its constmction workers. A whole new geogaphy codd be grasped from the necvs reports alone. Uuring tracklaying, one figure in particular, apart Irom Brezhnev, was identified with the BAM. It was not Dolgifi, wlio characteristically maintained a law profile even when giving an occasional speech to BAM workers, :Nor was it Ligachev, who, until Andropov brougbt him to Moscow again, conttznted himself with slridifying his Tornsk power base.

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123

It was hardly Chernenko, who had long since shed his Siberim roots. It was Academician Aganbegyan, who together with his colleagues in Akademgorodok, Irkutsk, and Mltabarovsk, was charged with, comprehensively p l a m i ~ ~the g BAM and the would-be industries of its service arcs. Between 1975 and 1,983, almost: 10,000 articles, books, m d analyses we= completed pertahing to the BAM and its economy@Aganbegyan himself was responsible for several dozen authored or multiauthored pieces, and he was qraoted endlessiy inthe press. His most innportant role, however, was to serve as the director of the Scientific Council on BAM Development, through vvhich he cmsdted directly with SOPS. With the end of tracklaying, the BAM fanlarc died. Brezhnev and hdropov were dead. Chernenko was nearly dead, and m entirely new philosopl-tyof leadership was nigh, One of the first acts of the new leadership was to summon Aganbegyan from Novosibirsk to Moscow. The BAM had seen its heyday.

Compared to their predwessors in 1953, Siberian minorities in 1985 were more nwBerotls, more mod er^^, more urban, m d bener fed. ll-teywere also less ~ligious,kss likely to live in clans, less nomad.ic, and m m likely to speak Russim with s o w tlumy. Increming numbers had fort5l)ttm their native lmgznage but not their native culture- Much of the ""progress" described in this chapter was associated, with the intrusion of Russians into autochthonous Siberian regions and proved devastating to the native homelands. Defaresbtion and pohtion often had wide-ranging physical and human consequenres.Althuugh the B m d the usbmization associated with the new energy complex, had citified a few individuals, tbe bulk of t-he most-af"fectedgroups (mmts, Mansi, %l'kups, m d Evenks) sintply moved. deeper into their homdands,49 &e group, the Kmi, whme traditional territories are west of the Urals, fled from the Russim advance in such numbers that they som equaled the filentsy population of YamaloNenetsia.50 fn evev case, the changes eroded tradilimal ways uf X i f t . and personal dignity, which stimulated alcol-rolim and suic:ide. EspecialIy hard hit were the peoples of the sotrth\vest (makass, Altays, and Tatars) and those of the norhecast (Chukchis, Eskimos, Iltelhen, and Koryaks), The peoples of Amlaria and Sa&alin we= increasingly ur2lmi.zed and Russianized. By 1985, all of the groups wre heavily cokctivized, dthough somem semhomadic fishing such as the &ants, Mansi, md. Si'kups-arried. along the Ob'. A fw o'El-reremotest Even clms stilt maintairred a nomadic lifestyle, herding reindeer in the wilds of Uakutia.~l Essentially a Russian fief for dozens of years, Tuva ( a m ?jiva) was m independent state between 1921 and 1944, MIhen it became the Tannu-

f 24

SALAD DAYS: THE EAST-WEST DEBATE AED GREATER SlIBiERIA

k a autonomous rczpuhlic. Until then, 85 percmt of the Turkicized Mongol Tuvans were pastoral nomads who raised cattle, horses, sheep, and reindeer. Viftually none lived in cities. Soon thousands of Russians and. ldkrajnians flooded the region and created the first cities. Kyzyl, their capital, was an artificial Soviet creation devised as an outpost far forced cotlectivizatim, procurement, and industrializatjon. The T h a n mactim to collectivi2;ation was the same as that of the other Turkic and Mongol tribes: They staughtered thejr hestock to maid selling them. By the time collectivjzatjon was cmplete there, in 1955, Tuvm herds had plummeted from 1.5 million animals in 1944 to 600,000. The mderstmdable hatred of Tuvans for Russians would persist.52 Whilc the Russians asshilatecl, the Tavans in the south, they drilled diamond mines and raised hydroelectric dams in Yakutia, The Fnvasion of Russim workers was so impressive that even though Yakuts increased their nurnbers by 62 percent, they watched their share of the republic's population fall from 4ti percent in 1959 to 33 percent in 1989. Always adaptable, the Yikuts reasserted their national spirit ina way that was not so much anti-bssian as pro-Yakut.Q The reaction was also linked to the vivid memcrries of Stafi~~ist repression in the 1920s and N30s. hkuticization included the repudiation of their well-known habit: of Christening their cl-tild~nwith Russim n a m and.patronymics. Instead, they began to use appellations that were purely Yaktut. Before long, where tbey lived together, Vakuts and Russians wcre at loggerheads. In the wnrds of Jarnes Fmsyth, '"Yakut resentment against :Russians was matched by a Russian tendency to b a n d Yakuts as primitive." Riots erupted il-r Vdkutsk in 1979. 'They were reportedly so serious that Uniate convict Vyacheslav Chorrrovil, who was an eyewitness, beseeched Soviet authorities to change his place of exile." The antagmism continued into the 1981)s.

In the wake of Stalkist repression, the stig~aathat had been responsible for the purges of Greater Siberian leaders finally evaporated under ushchev. The prejudice had been forn-tictable: Between 1938 and 1955, no Siberim-born or -based Party member was appohted to the cou~~try's however, Siberihighest offices, the Wilburo and Secretariat. The~aft-er, ans became increasingly evident among the nomenktatura; and by the mid-DGOs, they had regained the codid,ence that they had lost in the 1930s. :Fm1960 to 1985, all over Greater Siberia, provincial Party leaders, aeademfcs, shtdents, and writers persistently beseeched the core to hvest in their much-negleded regio~~. This constant pressure f r m the Siberian provinces, together with Leonid Brezhnev"s invaluable personal bias, won fundil7g for the expen-

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125

sive West Slberian energy complex and the BAM. Accord% to geographer Ronald X,,iebowitz, of- the totail investments in the Russian Repubtic, Silberia attracted. 25.8 percent of the money irt 1970,31.4 percent in 1980, and a whopping 37.2 percent by 199O.'With a mem 22 percent of the Russian population in 1990, Siberians acquired 1.7 rlahles of investmem.t. for every one invested elsewhere in the republic. One of every five rubles invested in Russia went to the West Siberian Energy Complex alone (Rmsk and Tyunetn' provinces, including Yamalia and mantis-Mansia). Belween 1970 and 1990, the Politburo iapproved the allocation of an additional. 80 billion mbles (Br) for new inveswents (41 Br to 120 Br). Of this, 16 billion went to Tyurnen' province and 19 billion wetnt to the BAM. According to Dienes, the lohbyirtg effort had been so effectke that Tyumenf m d the BAM absorbed more than one-half of the Russian iz-tcrementbetweet1 19% and 1985.5"~ that year, exports of West Siherian oil and gas we= the country" lleradjng source of hard currency; the BAM was poised to go into full operation; and construction of the Amur-Vakutsk Main Line (AYAM), comprising the Little BAM and its extension to Uakutsk, had been launched. 8 1 1 of this had given a great boost to the Russian Siberian ego, but it had dearly cost the Siberim envirasnmetnt m d its native populatians. By 1985, Siberian indigenes had the lowest lmgevit.ies, the lowest confidence Iewefs, the highest rates of alcofiolism and suicide, and the least respect for their Russian masters ol any groups in the Soviet Uni.on.9 7 e sdad days of Siherian ecmomic development were overripe, however, if nut Zlletted. The dog days lay just around the corner.

ROTES 1. Stephen G. Wheatcroft, "Gllasnost' and X3ehabilitatimsIf'in Faciug Up fo fhe Pnsl, ed . Taka yukj Ito (Sapporo, Japan: FTokkajdo University Slavic Research Center, 1989),pp. 200-201, 2. John Sallnow, Refomz in the SozlieC Utzion: Clasnc?sfi& Clip Fulzcre (London: PinI-er, 1489),pp. 48-49. 3, As late as 19887, plamed proportional development was still recognized as ""the first principle of sclcialist distribution of production"~by none other than A. G. Aganbegyan, Gorbachev's chief economic adviser and the ""fther of perestrc>ykam (A. G. Aganbegyan and D. D. Moskvin, 61.att;? C;&, 170clzetrrz-1? [MCYSCCIW: Prosveshcheniye, 19871, p. 9). 4. Alan m o d , ed ., Siberia: Pmbfents and Prospects fur Regional Idez~elopmenf&ondon: Crctclm Helm, 198"i7),p. 171. 5. Paul R. J o ~ p h s o n"'New , Atliantis Revisited," in inediscavr.rizzg Russ-ia in Asia: Siberin and l.hc Russian Fur East, eds. Stephen Kotkin and David Wollf (Armonk, N.V.: M. E, Shave, 1995), pp. 93-94. 6, Ibid., p. 90,

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SALAD DAYS: THE EAST-WEST DEBATE AED GREATER SlIBiERIA

7. p. 101. 8. Ibid. 9. United States, Central intelligence Agency USSR AgrictllI.umf Atlas (Washington, DC.: CIA, 19741, p. 47. 10. The Sc~uthSiberian was extended to Tayshet, linking the new West Siberian Steel Mill in the Kuzbas with the iron ore fields a r c ~ m dZheleznagorsk, in the Lena Basin. The %>uthSiberian also funnel& Virgin ZJandswheat to grain-deficient Eastei-n Siberia and the SFE. Eaffic was expected to be sic) intensive that the %juth. Siberian was the first Soviet railway to be electrified ""asit was laid" (Gudok, December 48, 11985, p. 21, For the other railways, see B, I, Shafirkin, ed., EkonornicFl~skiyspravaefz~zl'kzlzeleznodorazlznika (Moscow: Ransport, 1978), p, 267; A, G, Aganbegy an and A. A. Kin, eds., BAM: pervoye d e s y a t f ' l t i(No>vosibirsk:Nauka, 19841, p. 1'72; A. ZXobin, "Na Sibirskoy mal;;istralifmNoetyy nzir, January 1959, p. 126; and Razvifiye yedi~uytransportnoy seti SSSR (Mc?xc>w:Transport, 1963), p. 28. 41. Farley Mowat, The Siberiatzs (Tc>ronto:Bantam Bnc~ks,49"i70), p. 438; Theodore Shabad and Victor L. Mcjte, Gnfezo~~y ko Siben;nn Resoures: The BAM (Wasl~jngton, D.C.: Scripta, 19177), pp. 27-33; and Kctbert G. Jensen, Theodure Sl~abad,and Arthur W. Wright, eds., Soviet Nnt-~lralResozirces irz trlte Wodd Economy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 49832, p. 3812. Alan B. Smith, "%viet Dependence on Siberian Resource Development," in Sozliet Ecovlonty in n Nezu Fserspecti~e~ for U.S. Congress, Joint Economic CommiHee (Wshington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 19761, p. 483. 13. Gztdok, March 12,1988, p. 2. 44. Estimated on the basis of Demograjcheskiy ycz/zegodi?ik SSSR, 2990 (Mcwcow: Finansy i statistika, 1%Q),p. 21. 45, Matthew J, Sagers, ""News Notes,""miet Gengr~phy,Vol. 32, No, 4 (April 1992), pp. 253 and 257. 46. Violet Connoly, Bqorzd fhe Urals (London: Oxfcjrd University Press, 19672, p. 261. 17.Z~~Xie Dienes and Thec)dore Shabad, Tke Sovkt Energy System (Mrashlngton, B.C.: Victor H. Winston & Sons, 1979), p. 87. 18. Jerry F;. Hough and Merle Fainscld, Hozu kllp Soviet Uniotln 1s Governed (Carnbridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 19"i"9), pp. 219-228, 230, 231, 23&239, 248, 269, 271, 272, 411, and 426. The biojgraphies of Aristov and Vic>rc>novmay be found in BulShnyn Sovctsknya ertrsiklopdiy~(19"i70), Vid. 2, p, 194, and Vol, 5, p. 368, 19. Xlya Zemtsov; Chemenko: The L ~ s Bolshevik t ( N e w Brmswick, N.J.: Ransacticm, 1989), p. 3. (38 ed.; 20. Alexander Rahr, A Biogmyl~icDirectory of 200 Leadirtg Sottief O~CI'LZIS Munich: Radio Liberty Research, 19%), p. 63. 21. Boris Yeltsin, k g a i ~ s tJze t Gmin (New Ucrrk: Summit b o k , 1990), pp. 199-150. 22. Rahr, A Biogmplzk Direcfoy, p. 63; and Yeftsin, Ag~z'zzsIflze Grain, p. 150. 23. Ye. K. tigachev, ""My View of Pcr~tropka:Gains and tosses" a public seminar presented at the Kennan institute, Washington, P.C., Nc>vember 15,1991; (4th ed.; Alexander G. Rahr, R Biogr~plricDrectuy of 100 Leadi~zgSoviet Q.?I;"Cicials Munich: Radio Liberty Research, 19891, pp. 99-101. 24. Brezhev not only condoned the creation of patrcm-client relations, he encouraged them. Veltsin climbed the ladder of success through the "Sverdlovsk

SALAD DAYS: THE EAST-WEST DEBATE ARD CifiEATEf-t SIBERIA

12'7"

Group"; tigachev, through the "Tc3msk Croup"; and Gorbachec: through the "Stavropol" Group." See Joel C. Moses, RegiolzaE Party XR~ldersllipand Policy-Makiitzg 2'12 the USSR (New'Vctrk: Praeger, 19%) and other similar w o r k by the same author; Gavin f-lelf, A Biographic Dz'mt-otyof Sovkt RegiorzaE Leaders, Parts 7 and 2 (2d and 38 eds.; Munich: Radio Libert.~Research, 19@ and 1990); T. H. Rigby and Bc3hdan HaRehlio~zsin flte USSR and Errasymi~r,eds., Leaders1zip Setectiolz and P~tror2-Clie~zf. pslnvin (bndon: Gwrgce AXIen & Unvvin, 1983); and Rigby." sother wcorks. Sakhalin officials contacted Westelm oil f i r m as early as the 1968s, apparently without noGSying Moscow (priivate conversation with a Marathon Oil executive, August 19,1997). 25. Han-ku Chung, Irzterest Representaiiozz in Suzliet Policymaking: R Case Stzldy of a W s t Siberian Erterm Cc~alition(Boulder: Westview, 19871, p. 85. 26. Bol'shnya Sotret-shya entsiklopediyn (1977), Vol. 26, p. 250; Chung Han-kuk, "1301itics of %viet Dwelupment Policy: Comparison of Two Siberian Lobbies,'" Anzericrzn and Sozliet Studies Annual (1986), pp. 45-47; Gordun B. Smith, Soviet Pditics: Continuity aezzl d Ct>~ztradktio~z (1st ed.; New York: St. Martin%s,1988), p. 423, 27. Anders AsEund, "Gorbachev" Economic Advisors," %Sea Economyf VcA. 3, N o . 3 (1987, p. 259; Rahr, A Biograplric Directorpp4th ed,, p. 8, The tiberman reforms involt\red a slight liberalization of the command economy and a greatm emphasis on the needs of comumers. 28, Chung, Irtferest Xiqresentatz'on,pp. 73 and 92. 29. Smith, "Srfviet Dependence," p 4485. 30. Leslie Dienes, ""Xnvestment 13riarities in Soviet Re~ons,"Annals of the Assock a t k n #Avtericnn Geogmplsers, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Sptember 19172),p. 444. 31. Chung, lnkercst Represent~tiorz,p, 34. 32. On Vc3ronuvr see Zetntsc)~,Ghem~nko:The Last Bolsllez~ik,p. 104. On Shelest-, see Richard Bridge, "The Ncjrthern Ecanomy in the 49"3"0s and 19FSOs: Scjme Factors, Some Resulks,'TiFiricn: Report of the BI-r'tislzUniz?ersz'tiesS i b c r i ~S~t @diesSeminart Vol. 2 (1986), pp. 18-19. 33. S%R, KPSS, Materialy XXV snyezda KPSS (Muscow: Politizdat, 1976), p-140. 34. CIA, Tlze Trzter~ztllionalEnergy Silunfion: Qzillook to 1985 (Wshington, D.C.: Government 13rintingOffice, 1977); and G. %gal, ""CIA's Dire Forecast for USSR Oil lEJooksAccurate as Output Slumps," Rtrofeunt ReviewJJ a n u a 1979, ~ pp. 17-1 13. 35. Smith, Soviet Pc~litics,p, 123. 36. Prnacln, April 26, 2978. In 1974, he exhorted ksmsomol?sy to migrate to the BAM service awa. 37. Smith, Soviet- Politics' p- 126, Chung argued that no high-ranking Party figure "except Brezhnev" ever publicly committed himself tor the project. He also noted that even thou$ he was more involved in energy affairs than anyone else in the Secretarial; Dolgikh did. not take a strong stand on oiX, Eal~oringdrilling in both Western Siberia and the VoXga-Urals, and felt gas was better used as a chemical feedstcxlk than as a fuel. Chung, hzteresl Represent-ation,g. 155. 38, Aganbegyan and Kin, eds., B M : Pervoye sluletiye, p. 5; Praz~h,July 16, 497; and Gzkdok, December 26,1980. 39. t2r, A, Douglas Jackson, Russo-Clz2'nes.e Bordcrtn~ld~(2d ed.; Princeton, N,J,: Van Nastrand, 1968). 40. Far a while, Westerners debated whether the BAM was built to serve the military or to serve the Siberian economy. My contention is that any railway, re-

f 28

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plete with its implications for supply and delivery, potentially serves a military purpose. Emigres who worked on the planning of the BAM project in the 1960s and early 1970s stated flatly that the only motivating factor at that tirne was a military-strategic one. Later on, economic considerations became paramount. See Jensen, Shabad, and Might, Soviet Natural Resources, p. 239; and Allen S. Whiting, Siberian Develupmetzt tand Ens! Asia: Threrat.ur Pwmise (Stmfc3rd:Stanford University Press, 19131), pp. 81,9>94,99-10'7, and 212. 41, C~ldc~le, July 2,4, and 6,1970, as cited in Chung Han-ku, Politics of Suztiet Det~elotlment-,p. 59. 42. Pmr~dn,March 16, 4974. 43. E Wyakonov, "Balkniy Vostok: Prublemy i perspektivy," EEko~omiclzesk~ya 19"75), g. 13; Victor Biryuko>vr" m e BaykaX-Amur Mainline: gaze!@,No. 5 ( J a n u a ~ A Major Natianal Construction Protect" "uiet Ge~~qrayhy: Retll'ew and TransEnti;on, Vol. 16, No. 4 (April 1975), pp. 225227; Lomakin" commentary is found in Sovets k y a Russiya, March 19,1971. 44. Chiryayev wrc~tea series of pro-BAM articles, beginning in 1972. See, for example, G. I, Chiryayev, ""Problemy osvoyeniya Severa," Eh~zu?nidrcskayngazetn, Na. 12 (March 1971)' p. 7; ""BM i Vakutiya," Bono~rticlzeskayagnzetn, No. 32 (August 49741, p. 5; and Suzletsknya Russiya, June 4,1975, Chiryayev's successor, Urn. N. Prokop"ev, would later champion the need for AYAM, the extension of Little BAM north to h k u t s k (see Gudak, September 2 6 1984, and his remarks at the 27th Party Congress, Praz~da,March 5,1986). 4 5 Chung Han-ku, ""Politics of Soviet Development," p 61. 46. Rabert N. North, ""The Soviet Far East: New Centre of Attention in the USSR,'TQC$CA f ~ i r s Vol. , 51, No. 2 (Summer 19781, p. 207; and Marius J. Broekmeyer, "Sr~meQuestions Concerning the Construction of the BAM," in Sibirk 1: Siberian Qziestiotzs, ed, Boris Chichla (Paris: Tnstitut d'ktudes staves, 19851, p. 319. Brcyekmeyer implies that Brezhnev "wanted to glorify himself with a grandiose trunk line. Why else did he choose the 20th anniversary of the Vir@n Lands as an o p p o ~ u n l qto mention the BAM for the first tirne . . . ?" 47. Xzt~estiya,April 5,1969, 48. Akademiya Nauk SSSR, Sibirskoye otdeleniye, Problemy BAM fNc>vosibirsk: Cosudarstvennaya publichnaya nauchno-tekhnieheskaya biblioteka, 1975-1983 [annual volumes]). 1 am grateful to Pat Polansky of the Univeniiq of Hawaii far permitting me to photocopy all nine vdumes of this raw bibliographic reference. 49. John Masxy Stewart, "The Khanty: Oil, Gas, and the Environmrtnt," Sibiri e ~ The : Jourr-zalof Siberian Sfzidies, Vol. 1, Nc). 2 (1994/ 1995), pp. 25-34, 50. James Forsyth, A History of the Peoples of S i b e k (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19921, g. 385. Oil and gas development in the Timan-Pechora region bid waste to much of the Kami hamtand. 51. Piers Vitebsky, "'Eerestroika and Cultural Change Among the Reindeer Herders of Siberia: A Field Repc~rt"(paper presented at the ccjnfewnce on ""Siberia in the Twentieth Century" Glasgow, Scotland, September 15389). 52. Gail Fondahl, "Siberia: Native Peojples and Newcomers in Collision, ""in Nnt i o ~ alzd s I3alitics in the Soviet Szrecessor States, eds. Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (London: Cambridge University Press, 1"33), pp. 499-503. 53. Forsyth, A t-fz'sl'otyof tlte Peoples of Siberia, p. 380.

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129

54. Piers Vitebsky, ""rakttt,"Yn The Nnlicl~tralitiesQzaesfion in ttic Soviet Uniotz, e d , Graharn Smith (London: L o n p a n , 1992), p. 309. 55. See Ronald Liebc>witzfsscommentary in "Panel on Siberia: Economic and Territorial Issues," Smiet Geogmyhy, Vol. 32, No. 6 (June Z99l),p. 382, 56. lE~stieDienes, "Perestrc3yka and the Slavic Regions," %vie! Eco~tonty,VcA. 5, N o . 3 (July-%ptembc;r 1989), pp. 255-256. 57. Aleksandr 1. Pika and Boris I""rokhorc>v,"Soviet Union: The Big Prcybtems of are^, available on-line at Small Ethnic Groups," Russia: KImnty-MnnsZ' A~nlCot~om~zts ..=http://www.lib.ucann.edl-t/ArcticCir~le/SEE~ /Yarnal/pikal.html> (22 September 1997), p, 5. Pika and Prokhctrov nate that in the late 1980ti, murders and suicides among indigenom peoples were 3 to 4 times higher than the Swiet average;?, and mate and female life expectancies were 45 and 55, respectively cor 18 years inferior to the USSR norms. For reports on the state of the environment of Greater Siberia, see Eugene tinden, "The Tc3rtured Land," Timex September 4, 19c)5/pp. 42-53; and Sibiriccr: The joumnl of Siberia12 Stzrdies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1994/95), pp. 7-49.

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SEVEN

Dog Days and the Rise

The ~ D Z W " I ' ~ "ZOZI~ C R ~not ~~ZthJt~ldfindsfiom Siberian da?rZapmeni,bzrt it is jtikstged ij"~demandirtg tlr~tthosefinds yield a retzrrr-zalzd not befiozen. -Mikhail Gorbachev, June12,1985

We will never stop our sfrike because Corbncllev tells 11s to. What IE says r;loesnY go nnyfartlzer flznn Red Sqmlre. We l i v e f ~ nr w ~ Z'yYZ Siberia. This is the Inl-zd cf the gtillzgs, tjlze phce zuhere priso~zershaz~ebeen sc~zt sincl? tswrisf times, We have rebel blood, -Atexmder Smirnov, Novokuznetsk Miners-Strike Committee (April 1991)

G m a t a Siberia again kfl on h& times. W1ercr.a~Brezhev pmbably lavished too much attention on Siberim prajects, Garbachev rowed to ecmamize. From tbe beginning, Mikbail Sergeyevicb had to face at least two difficult economic facts: (1)His country was htercasingly short of investmem.t.capital, and (2) declines in productivity were inexorable and cornmonplace. The blghest rates of =turn on investment wese obtained in Soviet Europe, not in Greater Siberia, which in fact was being subsidized at an annual rate of 2 percen.t.of the country's net material product. As early as 1985, the handwriting was on the3 wall: Usjcng words like '"ntensifiration,'" ""sicmti.fic m d techdogical prcrgrnst;,'"~mcrderni~ation~" and "resome-savirtg po:lisies," GGorbachev obviously favored the corn at the expense af the pesipheq Although, like the core the periphery had factories and mines in need of renovation, the periphery was underdeveloped and

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r e y u i ~ dmany m m ""geenfield'" projects. B M , fur exmple, fell into djsrepa,ir alntost as soon as the trains began to rollt Mulndreds of Inlest Siberian oil fields became idle for want of appropriate equipment. Memwhile, Gorbachev salved Siberian wounds by promisirrg much, but he delivered little," After 1986, Gorbachev" policies of pevcstroyka, gltiis~ost',and demlrkratimfsiya pern?itted Siberians to air their grievances against Moscow for the first time since the NEP (see Chapter 5). These policies also unleashed unprecedented labor protests and "waves of nationalism" among Soviet minorities.2 In the process, Gorbachev plarposeiully set about destroying the vestiges of Rrezhev's patronage system, which for aXI its faults, had attracted, investments to Siberia. These occurrences marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union,

Despite the good intentions behind the^^, Gorbachev" reforms wreaked political and economic havoc throughvut the USSR, Gorbachev wanted to estahfish the prc-.conditionsfor the formation of a civil swiety within the purview of a fundamentally changed Communist Party: one in which '"rights are efl'cctively secured and in which intercst groups can assert themselves.'" Perestroyku and glns~zctsf'gave vent to long-suppressed freed o m ~of s p e d and press and a plethora of diverse social interests, including those of the worki-ng class. The State Enterprise Law of 19871 which was to be implemmted by January I, 1990, was desiped to shift control over industrial activities from the central ministries to the individual enterprises, and in the process, to parantee the workers some authority over the s a w enterprises and plant managers. By makhg ecommic ernterprises responsible for their own fates through khozmschet (cost-accounting),Gosbachev sought to crcate an economy that would be more mspongve to the needs of the people. However, so much redundancy and waste were built into the Soviet econolny that Gorbachev's policies actually laid the foundations for the futurt. bankruptcy of major employers. By raishg the level of efficiency in such an econorny, there would be less, not more, to do, Fewer workers would be needed, m d the economic system might even collapse. The irony of state corporate socialism was that the working class remahed alimated from the power stmckrre that claim4 to be its vmguard: n provinces The proletariat and the CPSU were never really integrated, X such as Kernerovo &last, miners Evecl in squalor. I?is demand for Kuzbas coal withered under the new economic stimuli, conditions worsened. "Working class msistilnce increased agabnst atkmpts to sohe the economic crisis at the expmse of living standards and social elfa are.'"^

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Until 1989, Soviet wcrrkers rarely if ever vented their grievances publicly. Ordinarily; they turned to their trade union representatives, who would iorward. their complajnts to the Central Committee oi Sovict T r d e Unions. That was pr"-"cisQthe channel that the miners in Kiselevsk, a city af 128,000 people in the Kuzbas, decided to use in December 1988. Their principal spokesman was 58-year-old Teimuraz Avalymi, the town" first secretary. Avalymi was a seasoned veterm in the stmggle against injustice, having been harassed by police in the 1920s for criticizhg Brezhnev; He would. later run against Gorbachev in the first open eleclion for CPSU general secretary in seventy years. If anyone codd comn-tunicate their (jrievances to the approprhte authorities, Avalyani was Che perfect choice-ar so the miners thought, Between 1987 and 1989, decentralization and seIf-management had destabilized the coal d u s k y . The miners began to vent their fmstrations over disorganized work schedules, the lack of modern equipment, the indiffe~ncedisplayed by mine directors over t e daily needs of the miners, and crocvding in the n?ine shnfis. Their mine directors had failed thcnt. '"They" ((the miners) could do a better job, It was time to implement th terms of the enterprise law. They wanted economic independence and more control aver mine activities. 'The Moscow trade unionists returned their complahts to their mine director without comment,' Storm clouds gathewd. Kuzbas miners expressed their dismay by voting t?$ainst incumbent Communists in the city of Kernerova, candidates for the regimd executive committee, and the directors of the Kemerovo coal and railway admimistraticms. Kemerovafsdeiegation to the Congress of People's Deputies tried to warn congressional leadcrs of the serious misis in the Kuzbas, but ""national" poblems took precedence." Exasperated by the rc3buff and apathy in the c m , W Kuzbas miners on July 10,1989.7 The foilowing day, initiated a strike in Mezhdureche~zsfic 15,550 miners from ten other Kuzbas operations joined them, They now expressed their grievances in terns that anyone could understand. They wanted more colztrd over the mines, gmranked safety in the worblace, higher pay better food, cleaner water, soap, pollutjm control, and a national debate an the Soviet Constitution (see Photo 7.1). Gorbachev interprckd the pmksts as an affirmation of his reforms, and in turn, supported the miners. He dispatched his much-maligned Coal ister, M:. 1. Shchadov, whose views wem quite different, to Kernerno, By then, rniners throughout the USSR made no secret of their desirc to force the ranaccommodating Shchadov into retirement. His mixrjstry had always t ~ a t e dthem . as a ""clonid work force.'" Long accustomed to ntbber-stamp treat~aentand perfmctory applause, Shchadov was met with catcalfs and whistles by the discontented thousands who had gathered in the town square oE Mezhdurechensk. fn sweltering,ninety-five-degee heat, the min-

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THE RISE OF"THE LIVLE SIEERIARS, f 98% X 993

ers, h e h e k d and in the s m e crlothes they wore into the pits, initially sat stoically on the scorching pavement, o d y occasionally drinking water out of nearby fireplugs, They listened as Shchadov pleaded with them to return to work and promised that he would take tl~eirdemands into consideration. The operations at Mezhdurechensk were undo& tediy significant. They produced one-fifh ol all Kuzbas coaf, the majority of the rttgion's coking variet)i and 2.5 percelzi: of Soviet coal. output. The loss of Mezhdurechensk pmductim for ;my length of m m iecodd pmve disastrous. The miners h e w this. It was their trump card. 'They were PHOTO 7.1 Miifpr on sfrikr i ? t!ie ~ Kuzbas tired of waiting and hearing (1989). SOURCE:D~tzitriyKorobq~zikov,Noi?osfi the same jaded promises and Press Agency (knlelwvo Bureau), formulas..Yes, they earned decent salaries (up ta ten times the Soviet average), but what could they buy? The strikers%ssessment of their plight was '"you have to work hard to Live worse." m e n they did work hard, the railways could not accommodate the excess coal. At any given t h e , tczrelve million tms of the fuel lmguished in bins awaitirrg shipment over thc Souh Siberian Raihay. Even worse, the ulrdergrnvlnd mkes were dangerous because of a chronic shortage of mine props-and. this in a region (S.iberia)with the greatest forclsts on earth. I'heir potlutjo~zprotests were well taken. The Kuznetsk Basin is a narrow bollow, for the m s t part only about 100 lcilmeters (GO mi) wide. It is drained by the Tom%ver and its tributaries. The air in the bash often stagnates because of the nightly drajnage of cold air fm the Sajair and Kuznetsk ranges and the periodic elevated temperature inversions. The latter are most prevalent in the c d d whters. fn 1989, the heavy industry in the basitz-comprishg coal-burning power plants, coke ovens, iron and steel mills, nonferrous metallurgical smelters, and a variety of chemical enterprises-b&hd out more than one mfifion metric tons of atmo-

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PHO-107.2 Set~ereair poill'zrtion at fJze West Siberia~Steel Mill, near Novokziznetsk (1990). SOURCE: TA$$.

spheric emissions amually half of which was sulfur dioxide. The steelproducing town of Novokztznetsk rmked third among Russia's most potluted cities (Photo 7.2). Kemerclvo and. :Prokop"yevsk also ranked in the top 25. fn Greater Siberia, only Norilfskwas mcrrtr notorious." Even in Kemerovo, which was much less noxious than Novokuznetsk, air pollution exceeded Soviet standards not by dozens but by hmdreds of times. Area coal miners died at age $8, having achicved only threefourlhs of l.hc average Soviet life span. Chronic childhood sicknesses we= 188 percent of the norm. The rate oi ilhess among persons 15 to 19 years of age was twice the average. Half of the pregnant women of the mgion suMered chronic illness. Stili-births nzlmlclered 20 per 1,000 live infants. hang coal miners and their families, these averages were the higl~estin the USSR.1" Among the mlmers' ggrievmces, none was more critical than the need for clem water. The Tom', the water of which had been ""as pure as well water" in 194%was by 1989 a ""sewer" that cantairred compounds crf lead, zinc, s~~lfur, phenol, and cyanid,e. Seventy percent of the mrbidity in the region was directly attributable to bad water. The primary cause was acid leachate from Kuzhas strip mines. The rt;gion's strip mines scar thousands of acres of fertile Kuzbas earth. The open. pits occasionally reach depths of 300 meters (900 ft), and. they have disrupted the courses and purity of hundreds of creeks, streams, and ri\ldets that feed the Tomf.A sirngle strip mine affects the water balance within 25 kilomters (15 mi) of the center of the depression, By 1989, the sum of all the dozens of Kuzbas strip mb~esaccoullted for me-fifth of the entire basin, or an area the size

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of the US. state oE New Jersey. In parts of thc.Kuzhas, the water table was beyond repair, leavirtg s o m localities high and dry. I:,,owerwater tables had led to subsidence, which was a u p e n t e d by earth temblors induced Zly the use of explosives in the mines. Despite the hazards, only 3 to 6 percent of the strip mines had been reclaimed. Ignorant of, or choosistg to ignore, these nigt7tmarish statistics, Shchadov from his vantage point in Moscow adjured that Kuzbas coal output be increased from 160 Mmt in 1,989 to 2211 Mmt in 1999, Chc majority comiag fmm further use of strip rnhes.11 The coal miners' strike mushroomed within and beyond the borcters of the Kuzbas. By July 12, it had expanded to include 10,000 more mhers, from Osinniki and Prokop'yevsk. Withjn 98 hours, mines in Novakuznetsk, Leninsk-Kuznetskiy,Belovo, Kemerovo, m d Berezovskiy shut down, affecling 134 operations and 111,125 mine workers. By the end ol the week (July 17), the work stoppage had peaked at 158 enterprises and 177,W strikers. By then, the firestom had spread from the Kuzbas to Karagmda, Pechora, Z/vov, Rostov, and the Dozzbas.'2 To orchestrate their efforts, the miners established strike committees in every mining town. 'l'he Association of Kwbas Labomrs, based in Kemerovo, coordinated the cornittees regionally. The immediate purpose of the units was to oversee implementation of the contract to end the strike, which came to fruition in the latter half of 1989.1"s thne went on, however, they superseded the di,sc=dited local oficials, who had failed to pmvide basic services not onIy to the mhers but Lalso to other locaI residents. Initially, the comxnittees worked aromd the clock, fielding grievances .from all corners, Mezhcturechemsk, for instance, a city ol 1,1)7,000, had onIy two rnovic theaters and. two bathhouses. The principal concerns of the non-mhers wew medical care, home hnprowments, and fh~ancial aid. In the eyes oE the public, the miners were heroes who cottid accomplish miracles. In the words of William Mandel: "[Strike committees found themselves] besieged by citizctns who assumed that at last they had an instjtution to help &ern. Petitioners lined up all day for a s t m p and signature to enable them to get a bank loan, advice as to what to do when the person ~ n t i n gthem a room wanted to terminate the lease, and a host of other daily cares."l4 Members of the strike committees soon realized that such matters lay well beyond their purview, In the words of one committee member: "We're not as&ng for sausage. mere's no pface to turn for i t and none to be had,"= What the strike committees wmted was the opportunity to fulfill their own self-interest and their own desthtyYlhey werc. concerned by the fact that in 1990, the Kuzbas yielded 15bi.lrion rubles oE regios~alproduct, but the core took all but 17 percent of the profit out of the region: "W have been used as a colony for centuries. What we produced was taken

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13'7

away from k r e , alld we were given wirtually nothing in e~change+~,16 'They WE let: \zrith cold showers, dirty clothes, environmental dismption, and little real power to better their circumstances. fn moments of krvent discussion, strike committee members sounded like Uadrhtsev, Potanin, or the Siberian kulaks: "We're seeking separation. Why? We must split off in order to break that rigid, [stupid.] centralization. And mly after we have broken [with it], when we l-tave local budgets and our own funds, wiil we possess real pocver, because m n e y is po\ver!"lY h an electord system, real power is also political power: h o t h e r Gorbachev reform was to democratize the Soviet political system. One of the aspects of the process was multicmdidate elections,.After the strike in the Kuzbas, incumbent Party and government 0ificial.s and the would-be ittees stood at daggers drawn. 'The fanpower brokers cm the strike co uary 1, 1990, deadline for implementing decentralization and self managmmt came and went. For various reasons, the core failed to act, and the confrontaticm in the Kuzbas deteriorated, The yuestions of selffhmcing m d cmtml of the coal mhes became key issucs in Ihe ellsuing pmincrial elections in March. :In Kernerno oblast, the strike committees put forwarcl their own slates, and in most cases their candidates did quite well, winrring two out of five elections. A few months later, shortly dter he had assumed his duties as chajrman of Russia's Supreme Soviet, Boris Yeitsin met ~presentativesof the Ku%bas strike committees to discuss the innpasse on decentraljzati.on..Yeitsin, who hhself sought indepeldence for the h s s i a n Republic from Gorbachcv's USSR, was d.eli@tcid, to give his support to the miners. 7%re Kuzbas-USSR crisis over who had authority over coal in r(emerov0 oblast thus becme part of the iznbroglio betwee11 republics and. the Soviet Union, "and most particularly between Gorhachev and Yeltsin+'"g

'The bid for economic sovereigllty was not the exclusive realm of Kuzbas cod miners, the vast m;rjoriv of whom were nomatives. As Peter Duncan prexiently observed in 1994, since 1986, one of the most urgent t a s k of the cclrtral arnhrity, whether Soviet or Russian, has been "to find a mechanism to balance the rights of [Siberia"] indlgcnuus peoples with [those] of the ethnic Russian majorityu1gBefore the Revollltion, the myriad Siberian groups had no self-government. The Bolsheviks designed their nationalities policy to co-opt ethnic groups by crelatjrrg 'knationalities"' with "homelartds." Overnight, clans such as the Kachas, Sagayt;, Beltirs, Kyz*, and Koybals woke up to find themselves u ~ ~ i t easd the '"makass nation," in their own nationaI uyezd.20 SiImilady, in the mountaiz-ts west of what would become makassia, the Tubulars, Chelkms, Ku-

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martdas, Telengits, Telesy, Altays, and Teleuts discovered that they were all now Oirots (Altays), living in m Oirat autonomous oblast- (tday's Altay Republic).2"n the decade between 1929 and 1939, the neigh,boring Shors had their own national &rug, which the commissars disbmded ostensibly because they thought it might impede the development of the coal and iron resources of the Kuzbas (Photo 7,3)." At least one of the amalgamated groups has never accepted the common national status (Teleuts have always considered ~~emselraes distinctive among-the Altays). The creation of e t h i c homelands loft the impression that the Bolsheviks were democratizing their society, when in fact the goal was not: the dispersal but the further concentration of authority by means ol the temtxles of the CPSU. Before 11929 and aAer 11953, CPSU leaders implemented a policy similar to the United States3affirmat h e action, wbereby native Communists usualiy occupied the highestranking posts within their homelands.2"uoting Duncan, "Quota systems intended to mobilize the non-Russim population in the service of the Moscow regilne gave over-representation to the members oE the local nationatity [in important positions].'QqTlr\iscreated a potitical paradox between an hcmasingly Russian central leadership and staunchly indigenous nomenklaturas in the pmvinces. 7'he dichotomy continued to exist even as the proportion of ethnic Russians expanded with the d u x of workers bound for the new developmnt projects. In exchange for their loyalty to Moscow, the natiwe leaders gradualIy acquired perquisites that en;tbled them to disregard their minority status m d discreetly to pursue their economic and social interests and those of their homelandis..Thus, as Goibachev"s democratization policies weakened the position of the C m , they also undermined the position of the overrepresented native minorities and strengthened the band of the underrepresented e t h i c Russian majorities in the indigenous homelands.

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Glas~~ostkand the Liftle Silael.z'ans The history of the twentieth century is one of perpetual. colfisim beheen members of the expandingf technologically developed world anci the imnocent bystanders on the margins, who represent traditional societies. This truly was the case within the Soviet Union, which aspired to military-industrial superiority throughout its seventy-four-year lifetime. 'The speed of its transmogrification horn an overwl?elntingly rural, agriculturd sociew to an urhan-industrial one is nonpareil inbuman history, Yet, as it sped toward its goals, the USSR trmpled on anytkhg and mycme in its way. The inrpIications of glnsnostf for ethnic groups in the USSR finally hit home after Gorbackv's ""Murmansk Initiatives"' speech on October 1, f 987, in which the g m e d secsrrtary declare& "Prderns of the North's hdigenous population require special: attention." Until then, the Soviet propagantfa machine had masked the truth about the nature of life among the mharities, preferrhg to vaw~tthe successes of hdustsialization over the needs of Russians and non-Russians alike, From 1988 onward, however, the liberated p s s promulgated remarkably frank articles and broadcasts regarding the pfight of Soviet ethnic groups, particularly the peoyles of the European Nosth and Greater Siberia. As the press ~ v e a l e din , the face of Soviet technological progwss, thr needs and npinions of these peoa7,es "carried little hveighteffz5 Unlike technology-based societies, which create artificial milieus to owercome quotidian kmands, traditional societies and their environments possess inlimate, mut.ually beneficial rel&ionships, in wl.rich the disruption of one cannot fail to dismpt the other. Piers Viteebsky, who lived among Siberian natives, has remarked that "coompetencc; in [reindeer] herding,""for example, ""dependson inlirna.t.e knowledge of one's animals and of their interaction with the landscape across which they mwe; it uses special vocabulary and imagery of rc3indeer behavit-lr and moods; and reqwires unceasing teamwnrk from before d a w i ~till after dark."zb Thus, Soviet megaprojects like Miest Siberian oil and gas development and the B M could not fail to ravage the simpl" lifestyles of the ""Iittle Siberians," In mantis-Mansia and YintaXo-NeneGia alone, ecologists estimated that Soviet '"progress" had damaged or destroyed 11 mitlim hectares (27 million acres) of reindeer grazing area alld 28 rivers with c o r n e x i d fishaies, including 18,000 hetares (4,000 acres) of spalivning and ieeding grounds. The despdiation c m e from air pollutim created Zly the widespread flaring of weilhead gas into the cold, stable air of Western Siberia and rhe 3,W0 to 4,000 accidents that occurstld inthe oil and gas fields each year." The high rate of accidents such as leaks, spills, Zllowouts, wilcifires, and so m could be explained in part by the attitudes

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PE-fOTO7.4 Xlrant mnn zultlz rein&cu, SURCE: Dmitriy Korobqtzikuv, Novosti Prms A p n q If(entelwvo Bureau).

of the Siberian roughnecks, who were basically transient workers, on the job for only three to h u r weeks at a time.2"e oil and gas field workers could not have c m d less .for the wilderness swalnps and woodlands on which the natkes depended for their livelihoods, Fmdahl tells of such wlrrkers stealing Khant "deds m d winter clothing, poaching =indeer, m d desecratJing native burial grounds." m e behavior enraged one Khant to such a degree that he proclaimed he would. shoot a y oilman who ventured into his hunting range (Photo 7.4)" Despite sufferirrg the abuse of p r o g ~ s sthe , Khants, Mansi, m d Nentsy saw n o t h g of the huge profits made from the extraction of hydrocarbons in their homelands. In fact, they were. not even invited to take part in the pl With the advent- of glasrlclst', a few Siberian indigenes made it clear that they wanted to live separately from nonnatives. Several Evcnks residing in the &AM region of Irkutsk &last chose to leawe the state farms for life in the taiga. They drove their rcindcer into the forclsts and becme state hunters, a lifestyle that marhdly improved their healthand living standarci.sWtween 1962 and 1986, programs of rural consalidation and resettle~nentreduced the number af native cornmw~itieson S a a a l h ~ Island by at least hnio-thirds, The number of Nivkh settlements alone, on the island's northwest shore, fell from 82 to 13.111 1989, N i v b and Orok reindeer herders sought perxnissio~~ to return to the sites af their former villages and hunting grounds. Although the total number of Sakhalin. indigenes in 3989 was o d y about &SOU, their spokesman, veteran writer

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and Communist Vladimir Sangi, chan-tpioned their cause." Testing the limits of glmsnost*, the Chukct.ri proposed a program designed to resettle the puishliye rather than themselves, encouraging the latter to emigrate elsewhere in the USSR. And the &rim popular front, Spaseniye Yugri, urged the governme~ntto relocate the mants and Mmsi to settlements of no more than 150 persons, ringed by protected mtural buffers. The concept of exclusive native zones (reservations, nation& parks, and so on) obtained a measure of popularity among Greater Siberian autochthonous groups during the Gorbachev years.33 Accordingly, by the time Gmbachev was ousted by Yeltsin, the hdigenous groups of Greater Siberia including the eommercid exclnmge ol were prirned for true soven.ig~m.t.y, their resources,

The Pamnk af Sowvcignties The Kuzbas strike committees were symbolic of what was happening on a quieter scale elsewfiere in Grc~aterSiberia. By spring 19901 with Gorbachev's democratization pLans in full swing, indigenous leaders in the autonomous ~ g i o n feared s that tbey wlruld lose their positims and privileges unless t-hey dcclared lheir regjnlns sovereign states, At the last mmmt, they obtained hdirect help from the Yeltsin-led. RSHSR Congress of People" Deputies, which approved the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Republic. Under this act, USSR Laws were invdid if they cmairted with those of the RSFSR, Because it eroded central authority, this act gave Yeltsin the upper halld in his power struggle with Gorbachev. fn despemtion, Gorbachev" forces ehorted i n d i g e m s leaders in Russia to declare their hornlands sovereign states, Tkis ?Btar.;tan was prepared to do, but before it could become a full U11ion republic within the USSR, kltsin co-opted the "'parade of soverclignties,' te:ll,ingthe republics to 'Take as much sovereignty as you can swallow."'^^ In the months that followed, Siberian ethnic groups, led by their respective popular fmnts, took Yeltsin at his word and demanded grea.t.er sovereignty over their resources, less environmental degradation, and greater hfluence over the Russim majority within their homelmds. The Uakuts led all others, declaring their Yakut-Saba Republic sovereig~non September 27,1990, Two days late&the Cbukchi pronomced their region a sovereign autonornous okrug separate from :Mat;adan oblast, under whose jurisdiction they had been, since 1953. C)n October 8, 1990, the Buryats formalized their sovereignty, and like the kkut-Sakhans, upgraded their homelmd status from ASSR to SSR. One day later, the Koryaks declared not only their sovereig~ntybut also their intention to secede from Kamchatka oblast. (The latter announcement proved premature: ias of 1998, bryakia ~ m a i n e dsubordinate to Kamchatka.)

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On October 18, 1990, the Uamalo-Nentsy not only pranouncetd themselves a sovereign =public but also claimed rights ta the monumental gas m d oil fields f o n d withh the boundaries sf their homelmd. A week later, titular leaders of Grno-AXtay raised the status af their homeland to a sovereign ASSR m d declared themselves the exclusive owners of all its resources. Still later in the year, makassia, Tyva (formerly Tuva), and KhantiaMansia pronounced thernselves sobrereign.35 h the WE, leaders of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAR) declared their province autonomous of mabarovsk kray and expressed a desire to make Birabidzhan truly Jewish. ElsePHOTO 7.5 Nitzety-two-year-old Nanny rvorlrn~tzuiflr pipe. %m: Dlnit&y Korobqwhe" inthe Murav'~evrlikorr Novosti Press Agef~cy(knerozro Burrnu). A m u r s E ~Admiral Kolchak, and Ataman %menav (see Chapters 4 m d 5) wese gkcn special homage. Ethic Koreans expressed their desire for m autonomous homelmd soutkwest oi aadivostok, aramd the Gulf of Pos'yet. DescendaMs of the Amur and tlssuri Cassaek Masts staked claims to sections of the Amus, Ussuri, and Tumen (also Turnan) rivers (Photo 7,5).3" Most of the declarations took place peacefully; but in the year preceding its '"independence," the Tyva Republic was fraught with tension. In early 4990, the Tuvan (soon to be Tyvart) Popular Front was born, and before long, street fightjng betwee11 the titular Tuvans and the hded Russians had resulted in at least 88 deaths and in the mass departure of more &an 3,000 Russians.37

'The phenomenon of ~ g i o n a l i 51 s ~Russia, ~ has little to do MIith democracy and much to do with local cmtrol over raw material, wedth. By early 1991, Kuzbas millers and Siberian minorities were solidly in the Ueltsin

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camp on the question of sovereignty but were not yet sure of hts positicm on the sharing of ecol~onticpower. 'The strike committees and e h i c minorities increasingly saw the Gorbachev r e g h e as an adversary that was intewsted only in maintaining the core at the expense of the periphery. As the confrontation between Gorbachev and Yeltsin intensified, Kuzbas miners further sided with Ueltsin, When it became clear that the Gorbachev regime was incapable of =dressing their grievances, they again ceased to work. The coal minershtrrike of 1991, which persisted for more than two months, was worse than its predecessor*fn the Kuzbas, as a result of both work stoppages, the gross output of coal had imploded k m a peak of 1541:Wlmt in 1988 to 109 Mmt in 1992-a 31, pesccnt coilapse in only three years," Coal shortages were experienced thrrrugl~outthe USSR. Kuzbas strike comminees boldly delnandcd the rcsig~,zati.on of Gorbachev and his governmnt, and were beginning to distrust Yeltsin, who now found hirnself in the middle of the fray. 'Tb break the impasse, Yeltsin flew to Kernerovo on May Day 1991. He urged the mhers to consider terminathg the strike if he could persuadc Gosbachev to transfer jurisdiction over Russia%coal mines from the rninistry of coal to the RSE'SR. This was acccrmplished by May 4, and four days later, the strike ended. In the words of Paul Christensen, ""Attention focused on the mhers3emands that Gorbachev =sign, but [they] accepted the compromise o d y becutlse YgItsilz pmlrzisrd to cede gmitrr control omr the coal i?.nlustr?yto the !0calititrs*~~39 Christensen furthermore characterized the victory of the Kuzbas miners as, inter alia, a "triumph d regionatism over centralism," which in many ~ s p e c tset s the tone for Great.er Siberjan pditics in the 1990s." The victory could not have been won, however, without the schism in the core between Gorbachev's "empirtr, savers" and Ycr1tsin"s "natim builders.,'41 Sortly after the August coup anempt, in fall 1991, the North Caucasian republic of Checbnya declared its independence. The ultimak debacle of the USSR followed in December, with Gorbachev's resignaticm, Given its problems with ethnic sovereignty and brekvhg regionalism, Russia, it seemed, was also m the brink of collapse. Westerners wonder why "ieltsin, at the peak of his popularity, did not thoroughly expunge the Communists and their old, patchwork col~stitution, paving the way for radical reform m a tabula rasa. The view represents a total lack of understanding of Russian history and culture, and such an act probably would have Icd to civil war, kltsin thus avoided the disaster by mixing the past with the present: :He destroyed the nomenklabra system but not the men in office. As fc.ffrey'TBylor wrote in 3997, ""InChe prwinces those WhO had effectivrly presided over the min of the country were left to direct its kefformtion,' with predictable results."'4z Yeltsin dstr chose to refom the country within the framework of the d d

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Soviet cmstihtion because, for the moment, he had no alternative, again with predictable results, By leavi.ng the "Red Directors" in power in the periphery and the majority of old guard Communist parliamentarians in the care, he squelched the threat of civil war as he cmsolidated his own authoritarim power base, In Yeltsin's opinion, federalism mixed with authoritarianism was the only means to countervail the nascent ethnic secessicmists and regionalists. To prevent Russia's disintegration, he initially granted substantial powers to provincial Ieadcrs, which they codd effeckate within their regicms. In this way he tempwarily emasculated th0ut;ht.s of secession and deflected at-tention away fmm the hated c m . Mis notion of federalism was embodied. in the Federation Treaty of March 31, 1992, which was signed immediately by all but four of the twenty-one constituent republics.@m e of the dissenting republics was k'akztt-Saaa (now Sakha [Yakutia]), the leaders of which wanted a greater share of the profits made from their homelmd" lucrative dimond and gold trade. Memwfiile, reSiberia concentrated on ways to atginnal leaders elsewhere in -ater tract foreip capitat.

Joint Venlzdresand Free Eeo~omieZones The jofnt v m b r e (JV) was to be crucial to the success of jl7eresfr~yka,particularly in Greater Siberial where devetoprnent costs were often higher than the core could afford.. During the 1970s, Rrezhnev had authorized mutual compensation agreemmts (MCAs) in the periphery whereby foreign firms from, say, 'Japan and the United Stat-es wouid supply technology and know-how to develop a Soviet project in exchange far a share of the prcljeet" future output. The difference betwen JVs a d MCAs was , perestroyh, could share up to 49 percent of project: that h ~ i g n c r s under ownership. The Politburo later amended the program to permit the outside investor to be the majority JVs becante legal in t9@ b ~were ~ t slow to take oft:because of the lack of legal safeguards. June 1989, onIy 520 JVs were registered in the entire USSR, the vast majority of h i c h were found in the manufacturing Rgions of the core. Greater Siberia attracted few investors. As late as Jmuary I, 1991, the region clairned only 102 JVs, few of which were engaged in mmufacturing, whiah was needed mcrst." flocked to With the collapse of the USSR, international emtreprene~~rs the successor states. Whereas 3,000 fVs were registered in the USSR at the end of 19530, their number had reached 5,f)I)O by the spring of 1992 and 6,OW a pear later. No= than half were located in Rtxssia, atmost three in ten of which were h Greater Siberia, Approxixnately 450 fVs functioned c ~ rawaited approval in the Russian Far East (RFE) alone. frrdicative of

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gradual federalism, 22 percent of Greater Siberia%JVs were d o c m n t e d in Novosjbirsk and 6 percent were registered in fiabarovsk, Vladir,rostok, and Magadan, The balance of the registrations were filed in Moscow.45 Because of their proximity to the Pacific Rim, representatives of the WE we= especiauy active in wooislg JV candidates. In exchange for their participation in the regim, fureign investors were given a tax hcrliciay of three years instead of two, which was the Russian standard. mabarovsk kray and Sakhdin oblast offered their own incentive plans. Consequently, Zly the end of 1993, there were over 1,000 JVs with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, North American, European, m d Allstralian partners. They owned restaurmts, department stores, hotels, boutiques, computer shops, sturgem hatcheries, rendering plants, and Dutch windmills. By the begin&g of 1994, more than 3,UOC) fVs were registered in ercater Siberia, split evenly betwcm Siberia proper and the RFE-46 JVs were not the only incentke used to attract fort-ign invesh-nent to the USSR and its successor states. i\rs early as 1987, the GoTbacfiev regime ereated. ad boc comrrtittees to investjgate the possibilities of establishing duty-frcre economic zones modeled after those p~viouslyestablished in China." The Soviet version of the free, or specid, economic.zone (FEZ, or SE%) was designed not only to lure fort;lgn invest-ment but also to comprehensively develop the regional economy and to integrate it into the Soviet and global, econmies. Fmm the standpoint of an investor, FEZs had the fdlowing advantages: (1)easier registration procedures; ( 2 ) tax privileges; (3) ~ d u c e d rent, including leasing for up to 70 years and the right to slahlet; (4) lower customs tariffs on imports and exports; and (5) simple entry and departure privileges. As in other countries, FEZ status heralded greater ecmomic atxtonomy- fnr the favcrrtrd region, sometbing that: ran colrnler to Soviet praxis, with its haxnlhanded, Moscow-cedered approach. Conservatives in the core therefore opposed, the FEZ concept, prclferrillg instead the idea of the SEZ, with special priwileges but less autonomy." Their opposition considera:bly dowed the deliberatinn process. The first rclgulations governing FEZs emerged FR & c e d e r 1988,49 b-ut the I-CSFSR Supmme Soviet did not d e on the plans until July 1990. EEZs recommended for Greater Siberia comprised Prinnorskiy kray (chiefly Nakhodka), Chita oblast (Uauria), the JAR, Mtay hay, and. Kemerovo &last (the Kuzbas), the last mcommertdation hviously bowing to the wishes ol the c d miners. In May 1991, owing to the charismatic Icadership of Valentin Fedorov, S a k h a h Island also joined the foXd.50As the USSR collapsed, other rt~gionsconsidered for FEZ status included Blagoveshchensk; Magadan; Greater Vladivostak (a region stretchillg from the Tumen River to Nakhodka); the Kurile Islands (separate from Sakbalin ohlast); and the Tumen fiver region, which would be an intcma-

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ticrnal FEZ inccrrporat% parts of Russia, m r t h Korea, a d China. The Tumen FEZ also had the support: of the Japanese, the South Koreans, and the Nmgolims.5~The hgmuous provincial Russian govenm-tents eventually made a mockery of the ncrtiltn of '"special economic stah;lsm":eforct. the e ~ l dof 1991, rnom than 60 of"the 77 Russian provi,nces then in existence had iapplied for FEZ status." By 1993, only three or four of the proposed FEZ?;in Greater Siberia had any ma:ljstie chance of"succeeding. All of them were in the WE. For all its previous bluster, landlocrked Kemclrovo was unlikely ever to attract sufficient forcrign capitd to merit such a desipation. The world, after all, was shiAing to clean fuels, not: coal, which was the primary bargaining chig ol the Kuzbas." The FEZs oi Dauriya, Altay, Rlagweshchensk, and tEte JAB would no douht suffer the same fate, although their proximity to China has aided them. The economies of Magadan and the Kurile Islands were simply too weak to support the status. Unly Nakhodka, Vladivostok, Sakhalin, and ?ixmen we= promfsing.

""Iddeyender?ceffand " A z ~ t ~ t z o ~ ~ y " WLhj, a year after Ihe colXapse of the Soviet Wnim, a .few Siherims dared broach the subject of hdcpendence. Others stressed economic autonomy. Huge numbers refused to pay their taxes, and innumerable eighteenyear-old Siberians repudiated registration for the &a&. Simila events occurred in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, What was remarkable about these latter-day episodes was that the core was wirtualfy pokverless to do anything about them. Betwee11 sprjng f 992 and fall 1993, a constitutional crisis raf~cd,pjtting " p r ~ r e s h e s "in tthe executive branch against the comervative mqority in the legislative branch of the

'The debacle of the Soviet Union datmyed the injquitous departmentalization (the verGcal administrative-bureaucra~chierarchy of ministries) of socialist industry, which Stalin had encouraged, mrushche-v had discredited, m d Brezhev bad reinstated, The mhiskies were vertical fiefs, jealously guarded and sharing little h~formaticmbetween m d among thcmselves, This led to overlapping jurisdictions, to duplication, and to the cross-hauling of raw materials and goods b e h e m mgions. As senseless as the system was, however, it did to a large degree parantee contml over the l perifiery. kparf-mentalizat-ion w s typicalfy indiffere~~t to all ~ g i o n ademands; hence, during its post-Stalinist heyday, Siberians were not: m c h worse off than their Moscow or Lmingrad comrades. As depart~aentalizationand olfner factors fhatly c m s k d the govemmmt of the USSXP, they left a gaping wound. To fill the void, kltsin and the parliament: mshed in to mobilize the provkcial elites. fn Duncmfs

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words, "The President sougbt to win over the republics within the Federation and, in particular, their presidents by promising them greater powers,"'5%timulating regional revolts over economic autonomy in Sverdlovsk and Vi,logda oblasts and Primorskiy kray. Yeltsin invoked classic Stalinist tactics, playistg off one territory against the other, wer-akeningregional affinities, n d stultiflying economic redevelopmnt. H e used "imperial visits" to placate his disillusimed subjects in tbe periphery, leavirrg behind enngty promises and harclened cynics such as Annan Tuleyev of the Ku~bas~'" In April 1993, Boris Yeltsin returned to the Kuzbas. The president had bee11 popular there ever since he gave an ixnpromptu speech in the Mezhdurcchensk public square, during the 1989 coal miners-strike. h that speech, as p s i d e n t manqu6, he vowed to support :Kemerovo oblast as a zone."G Yeltsh-whom the Western press referred to as a free e~~terprise ""SberianmV-had defied the mhistries, called lfor economic and e t h i c autonomy, and appeared to stand for t.he periQbery qainst the core. By 1,993, while those go& hvere at best only partly fulfilled, the Russian pmliarnent and not Yeltsin was blamed for problems in the regions, h Vpical Siberian fashion, Kmbas residents felt certain that Yeltsin eventually would respond positively to their grievances. -Thus, when Yeltsin announced his intention to mle by decree In March 199& the Muzbas strike commfttees were the first to rally to his side. Dufing the campaip for the national referendum a month later, Yellsin's most enthusiastic support came horn the Kuzbas, In April 1993, it was a cautious Yeltsin who met the mfners. Mihethr?r still grieving the recent death oE hjs mother, fatigucd by his bat-tles with the parliament, or belabored by his bad heart, the president was decidedty coal to his jubitant Kuzbas backers. UsuaIfy comfortable with ~fo\vds,Yeltsin snubbed his fms wjth a terse "I have a tight scheduls," and, reminiscent of the caucuses of the old GPSU, locked himself into meetings with top lclcai executives, handpicked officials, and labor activists (Photo 7.6). Emerghg from t-he meetings, Tuleyev, a former sympathizer with the August coup and one oi Yeillsin's leading critics both, nationalIy and locally, observed, "He c m e here before but none of his promises have materialized. When the tsar visits his subjeds he at least should make certain his vows are fulfilled."sB It was s u ~ r i s i n g that Yczltsin's populariv in Greater Siberia had endured mder e Gorbachev, it as lorlg as it had. As bad as the economy had b e c o ~ ~ anly worsened. under the shack therapy of Yeltsh" F r h e Mini.stcr, k g o r Gaydar, in 19422. The polircies not mly resdted in the expected dttclhe of industri.al output but also in a disequilibrium of industrial performance bemeen and among regicms, Poorer rcgims paid mre into the federal budget per capita tban richer regions.iW~anufactrarillgwas especialfy h a d hit.

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PHOW 7.6 Left fo r@f: Ama~zTzllqev, Boris Veltsin, n ~ nrirzers'strz'ke d leader Cennadiy Gsfl'kovi~z&trnelwvo (1991). %URCE: Dwrz'friyKorobqnikozt Novosfi Press Agency fKetncrovo Bareauj.

Fossil Euel extraction f a d better because of demand and higher prices. h Siberia, T y u m e n k d Kemerovo oblasts temporarily did better than neighboring Novosibirsk &last, which fioundered because its high-tech mititary industry desperately needed to be converted. Like most of Russia, Siberia laeked t-he stabilizjng hfluence of a strong middle class, hvlnich failed to emerge expeditiously during the trmsition to a 'Tree market" ecmoxny According to Vladimfr Zhdanov, "As living standads declhed across Russia, Siberim provhces remairxed among the countv's poorest."@ By autumn 1993, the regional sovicts increasingly took sides with the Russiar.1 parliament against Yeltsin. Witnesshg the growing strength of the republics and the rishg popularity of the parliament in the provinces, the president dissolved the legislative body and revoked, the Soviet constitution by decree in September 1993. Shortly afterward, the c d i c t bet w e e ~the ~ executive and the legislature became blnody wf7en kltsin ordered tanks to fire on the legislative building, resultkg in 150 deaths. The outcry was immediate. On Septemba 21, 1993, after Yeltsin had djssolved parlimemt, Contmunist Vitaliy Multha, then chairman of the Novosibirsk provincial legislature and head of the three-year-dd Siberian Agreement, defied Yeltsjn" presidential order and f i ~ a t e n e dto btockade the Trms-Siberim Railroad (see Chapter 8). Backed by hundreds of disenchanted Novosibirsk supporters, each carrying placards with familiar slogans, such as "For Socialist Siberia!" and ""All Power ta the Soviets!,"

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Mukha momentarily came close to Yadrintsev's and Potanfn's d ~ a m of an independent Siberim Republic-albeit a recrudescent communist one.61 Si.multaneously in the RFE, bvgcniy Nazdratenko, governor of Primorrye, emotionally called for the establishment of a new Far Eastern Republic, invoking the n m e ol r(rasnoshchekov (see Chapter 5). Tu(eye\i actions, called for ""Siberian independence" m a n d also enraged by Ye%tsin% a tjenerai political strike agahst the president.a

Peuclstvoylwz,Garbachev's internatio~~ally notebvorthy and dornesticmllly notorious reform., emphasized existing big industry in the core over new projects in the periphery*The policy discriminated against thr economy of Greater Siberia in spades. Under penrstroyh, the region was doomed to recession and outright depression. Not surprisingly, Kuzbas miners would strike a second time, in 1991, Rsen like the Phoenix was Gorbachev" old n e ~ ~ e s iBaris s , Ueltsh, who became Russia's first popularly elected president. To consolidate his power at the expense of the n w unpopular Gorhachev, Yeltsin supported and an end to the coal miners, the movements for ethnic sovereig~~ty; communism. Once these Objectives c m e to pass, Yeltsin inherited an ecmomy in shambles, a constitution that favored the parliament, and a in rapid parliament full of old guard Communists who were u~zhter~sted reiorm, Meanwhile, the president played poli'tics. He co-opted tke etlnxlic ~ p u h i i cby s declafing them sovereip and by tjivint; them apparent political powec He made prontises to e t h i c Rwssjans in Greater Siberia that he knew he could not keep. He urged them to woo foreign investors with joint ventures and duty-free zones. These efforts helped stave off Rmia's seemhgly innunbent disintegration. Throughout the period. between 1985 and 1993, ethnic Russian residents cJf Greater Siberia began to lQok nostalgically upon &rrzhnev"sp?r i d zastoya (period of stagnation). k l t s i d s promises were also entpty. Soon, he, like Gorbacbev, became the object of the Russian peoplds wrath. In contrast, Gorbachev's glasnnst' policies enahled long-silent Siberian indigenes to stand up and be counted, They established popular irmts and sovereignty mnvemnts, and they readily voiced their concems over their treatment at the mercy of Soviet hdustrializaticm, 'They were poised to become ""the mice that roared.'"3 NOTES 1. Leslie Dienes calculated the annual subsidy in Sozlilzt Asia: Ece;tnomic Develtjpmenf ~ l N'afio~nl ~ d Policy Cf~oices(Boulder: Westview, 19871, pp. 87-88. For a Soviet

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assmsment of Siberia's ccontributitictn to the national ecctrtomy at the time, see Rafik Sh. A. Aliyevr ""Vneshnyaya pvlitika Swetskvgo %yma v bstochnoy Azii: Kritichheskoy anaXjz," Aefn Slnvic~Inpanicn, Vol. 8 (1%0), p. 1725. For Gorbachev's rdUniversliv Press, 1995),p. 256). KhantiaMansia also declared itself scrvewip owner of the ail and gas resources within its borders (Sibirshya p x t n , December 243O,199Qfp. 2). 36. Stephan, The Rzrssialz Far Ensl, p. 233. The JAR'S delegate to the Supreme Soviet discussed the notion of makhg Birobidzhan ""genuinely Jewish.'' 37. Fondahl, ""Siberia: Native Peoples?;,"p. 582. 38. Matthew J. Sagers, "The Energy Industries of the Former USSR: A Mid-Year Survey" fisd-Sozliel Gcaf~raplzy,Vol. 34, No. 6 (June 1993), p. 392. Also, see Mote, AH lltdustrial Atlas, p. 111-7. 39. Christensen, ""T>s)pedyFree-fo~All,"p 2.216. The italics are present in the original statement. 4.0. Ibid., p. 217. 41, Graham Smi"E, ""IEZhnic Relations in the New Statesfp7nTbc Posf-SuztieC Repziblics: A Systenznfic Geograpl~y,ed. Denis J, B, Shaw (London: Longman Scientific & Techical, 1995), p. 36. 42. Jeffrey Taylor, "This Side of Ultima Thule," Tke Atlantic IllonfrltlyfApril 1997, g. 41. 43, The four included Chechnya and Tatarstan, which refused to sign the treaty; Bashkortostan, which signed but delayed ratification; and hkut-Sakha, which signed cznly after it obtained special ecmamic cmeessions, See Andrew K, Bond, Richard M. Levine, and Gctrdon T. Austin, "Russian Diamond Industry in State of Flux," Post-Soviet Geogra"LfPzy,Vcd. 33, Nc), 40 (December 4992), pp. 635444, 44. See Michael Eradshaw" commentary in ""Panel on Siberia," p. 400. 45. Fewer than one in four actually operated. See Russinrt Far Easf Updadr, June 1993, p. 10; Alaander B, Parkansky, ""Current Issues of Foreign Direct Investment

THE RlSE OF"THE LImLE SIBERIAHS, 1985- f 993

11

l 53

in Russia,"UAc CnSl~vimInporzim, Vol. 44 (191)3), p, 21; and Pavel A, Minakir and Gregory L. Freeze, eds., Tlfe Russign Fgr East: An Econc;tmic H~ndbaak(Armonk, N.V.: M. E, Shave, 1994), pp. 187-188. 46, Stephan, ""The Russian Far East," p. 298; and Wladimir I, Ivanov, "The Russian Far East: The Political Ecctnnmy af the Defense Industi-y Conversion,"Yn Soeia-Ece;tnomicDz'mensia-lzsof flze 61mltges izz the Slrlzlic Ezrrrlsinn World, eds. Shugo Minagawa and Osarnu Ieda (Sapporo, Japan: Hokkaido University, Stavic Research Center, 49361, p, 188, Peter Kirkclw cmtradicts Stephan" claim aE 1,000 JVs, stating that in early 1994, there were 461 such businesses in operation in the RFE (Peter Kirkcrw, " R u ~ s Gateway ~ ~ ~ s to Pacific Asia," "bz'rl'ca: The Jo'ournnfof Siberian Sttldies, Vol. 1, No. 2 [1994/1995], p. 53). 47. V. Ivanov and P. Minakir, "0roli unesheekclnomicheskikh svyazey u razvitii tikhookeanskikh rayontjv SSSR," Mirox~aynekonanfikn i ntezltdurznradnyye ofnosheniyn ( M E M O ) , No. 5 (19881, p. 62; A. Kovalev, "Svobodnyye ekonomicheskiye zony: Opyt zarubezhnykh stran i perspektivy ikh sozdaniya v SSSR,'" kteshtzyayn lorgavlya, Nc). 1 4 (19891, pp. 46-19; and Sophie Quinn-Judge, ""Partners Preferred," f i r Eastern Econontic Reaiezut February 2,1989, g. 54. 48, Benis J, B, Shaw and Michael J. Bradshaw, ""Free Economic Zones in the Russian Republic," Post-Soviet GeogmpltyTVol. 33, No. 6 (June 1992), pp. 409-411. 49. Izvcstiya, December 10, 4988. 50. Cztdok, July 31, 1990; Shaw and Bradsha~nr,"Free Economic Zones," p 440; and Lexis Nexis reports on the RSFSR Council of Ministers Decree No. 540 (November 23, 199Q),an the Nakhodka FEZ; Decree Nc). 312 (June 7, 1991), on the Jewish AR FEZ; Decree No, 359 ('June 26, 4991), an the Sabalin FEZ; and Decree Nct. 49VSepternber 25,39911, on the Chita FEZ. 51. Stephan, Tlzc Rztssinn FQT East, p. 298. A Japanese businessmanphilanthmpist first brc~acheclthe idea for the Tumen FEZ to Aleksey Kosygin in the 19170s. In summer 1990, Strang International, an Australian transportation company, actively courted %>vietofficials, trying to convince them that VIadivostok needed to be a FEZ QGzndok, July I9,1 990; and The Iat~anEnzes Weekly In fernalionnl, February 45-24,4993). 52. Nichaef J. Eradshaw "Rsreign Trade and Inter-republican Relations," in Tlze hsd-Soviet Republics: A Syslenfntic Ceogmphy, ed. Denis J. B. Shaw- (London: Longman Scientific 8s Technical, 1995), pp. 145-146. 53. Frrr information on the Kernerovc) FEZ, we Cuduk, Ncjvember 15, lli390, and December 2;7, 1990; and Ngsttn g~zeda,July 19, 1991. The early optimism about trade with China has faded: China is a coal-surplus nation, with monumental air pollution problems. The driving force behind the Memerovo FEZ was Governor Mikhail Kislyuk, who has since been d e p a s b , Since 1993, the idea has been moribund. %e Ghristensen, ""Prope~yFree-for-AXI," p 21218. 54. Duncan, ""The 130fiticsof Siberia," p. 17. 55. Vfadimir A, Zhdanov, ""Contemporary Siberian Kegionalism,"YirrRc7discozlerirlg Rznssin in Rsin, eds. Stephen Kotkin and David Mlolff (Armonk, N.U.: M, E, Sharpe, 1995), pp. 122-123. 56. Sibirshya gazeta, September 59,1990, pp. 1 and 5, Almost from the moment that he set foot in Kemerovo ablast, Yeltsin was barraged with the slogan af "full

f 54

THE RISE OF"THE LIVLE SIEERIARS, f 98% X 993

economic independence for the Kuzbas region" (Kommersant, No. 33 [August 20-2% 19901, p. 42). 57. Yeltsin was born in 1931, in the central UraXs city of SverdXovsk, nc>wYekaterinburg. By the historical definition of Siberia as everything east of the crest of the Urat Mountains, this area could be considered part of the Greater Siiberian region. This traditional definition prc~bablyexplains why in the early 190s, Western repc~rtersoften referred to Yeltsin as "the Siberian." Russians, for their part, rarely have made this identification, because for many decades the Urals-including Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Murgan oblasts, among other territories-have formed a separate economic zcme. However; in a March 1993 intei-view, the Governor of Sakhalin, blentin Fedorov, did allude to Yettsin as having been "barn and raised in Siberia" "flndependcnl Riewspnper [EngXish ed . of Nezavisz'maya g~seln], Vol. 3, Issue 23/21 [March 19932, p. 1). 58. Associated Press, April 15, 1993; and Sibirskaya gazefa, No. 38 (September lli391), p. 4, A fiery orator, Tuleyev (b. 1944) is a Mazakh by nationality and a member of the Communist Party of Russia (CPICF). Elected a people" deputy of Russia and Kemerovo clblast in 1990, he has seived in high-ranking pc~stsin Kernerova ever since, most recently as interim governor (through October 1997) after the dismissal of Kislyuk (see fc3otnote 53 in this chapter), As a candidate for the Russian p ~ s i d e n c yin 1991, he ran fourth-behind Yeltsin, Ryzhkov, and Zhirinavskiywith '7 percent of the oweralll vote. He campaigned for the same offire in 1996, before ceding the CPRF nominatian to Gennadiy Zyuganov. He has been an outspoken critic of Veltsln, whom he views as a dictator. 59. Duncan, "The Politics of Siberia," p. 17. 60. Zhdanc>vr"Contemporary Siberian Regionalism," p. 1122. 61. Vcdomosti, October &14,1993; Zhtlanov, ""Contemparary Siberian Regionalism," p P. 26. 62. Stephan, The Russialz Far Elasf, p. 294. 63, This is an allusion to the popular 1950s film, The Mouse That Ranred, in which a tiny countr)~struggles to compete with some of the world" most powerful nation-states.

EIGHT

Greater Siberia Today: Roaring Mice and Wage Arrears 7"key shot it out nf noon, not l s ~ after g n Fsnrd szrntnzer min FMAturned tile city rmd fo mud. By t h timc fhc tzlfbntttefir mztr ojSr'berinfs wildet uzatposts Itnd ended, two g ~ n gmctnb~rslay deadf six otlzers were on tlleir way to the fiospilat, and ftiis urzl-a~~zed cify-$/led with etzozaglz gnmbjers, con men, and thieves fo ~rzmi%llDodge City ssc3enz like LarcIz~rtnnt-hnd taken one step closer tu a~lnrctzy, -Bze New York Times, February 36,1994 The coal-milzr'ng t o m s RIE around wre bankrupt. It. is 1mrd tofind alzyottc on tlte street wIzo has beelz pnid i~ the past six months, -Los Angeles rim=, May 26,1997

0CTfSBEfr;'S SflERrXATH: IUATIOIUAL SUPREMACY VS. ETHfilOREQfQRAL RIICjrHTS? The bloodletthg m d spleen ventk g subsided aAer the partiame~~tar y crisis of October 1993, That December, after 90 days of gave tial decree, Kussia"s electorate affirmed not only a new gra~f"" ""E paliarnentarims but also a new co~~stitution. Wereas the old %viet Constitution vested. the parliament with most of the political, power,' the rrew constitution gave the president most of the clout. 7%lr Mareh 1992 Federatim Treaty had guarmteed certain rights to the republics that the new cmstitution toak away The status of the republics was reduced, No longer werc they referred to as ""sclvereipff~publics.Instead, tbry were shnply submyekty (corzstituent parts) of the realm, like alf the other regjons. They last the right to secede, whkh they arguably had had under the 1992 treaty as well as in the previous period, but which they never could have hplemtynted under

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%viet taw. The new constitution sanc'tified the rights of the individual, not the rights of e h i c groups or other collectives. To soften the blokv, Ihe dwument allowed, aU ethnosegicrns except autonomous okrugs (that is, eight of the fnurteen e h i c administrative u ~ tins Greater Siberia) to a s s i p indigenotls lmguages a stakns wi.t-hh~ their borders that was equal to that of Russian, and Articie 69 made passing reference to other rights of n small native peoples Overall, however, the new cmStitutim dissatisfied many repubkm m d regional leaders because of its vagmess rcgardjing the extent of home rule. In protest, S a b a (Yakutia), along with Chechnya, Rtarstan, and Bashkortostan, adopted its own comtibtion, "proclaiming the supremwy of [its] laws over Russian kderal laws."2 On a positive note, with the crcatiosl of the Federatiosl Council, at1 regims, including the republics, were permitted. to maintain two seats each in the upper c f i a d e r of the Russian parliament, Since 1,996, Ihe elected regional ar republican governor and the chairman of the provixlcial duma have occupied these posts. This framework obviously favors sparsely inhabited Siberian ethnoregions, MIith titular populations ranging from as few as 3O , UO peopk (Eve* autonomous o h g ) to 365,UOQ persons (Sakhd Uakutia).3 Smi& notes that the controversies over sovereignty in Russia trmcend canstihrtimd guarantees. They also comprise the mhtionship between federalism and demwacy the essence of core-periphery economic relations, and the definition of cultural autonomy. It wottld be easy to advi,se that Russia, with its long hlstory of elitist rule and the absence ul pluralism, &wld diver% m d share its cmtralized p w e r s in order to stimulate demwracy m o n g its regions. Smith cogently argues that there is no evidel~cein political theov that smaller mits are more wco odating of democratic poliks than larger ones. h the Russim pmvhces, *ere many local leaders predate the fall of co~nmmism,authoritarian trends are readily observable.4 lin fact, the long tradit;ron of Siberian satrapies a h o s t ensures a continuatjon of au&ori.tarianismin certain lmalitks in the periphey. :lnmultinational states like Russia., gl.ea.ter federaljsm m y in\rite the xceieration of- centrifugal forces and the labefaction, if not the wholesalg cdlapse, of the system. The sovereignty issue peaks in corn-periphq econornic rdations. Since 1943, the Yeltsin government and the regions have perforlned a clumsy balancing act in which the regions demand grctater local controt over their economies and the core requires revenues needed to balance the mtional budget. The result is a cat&-22: The transition from large, centrafly controiied, state-owned enterprises to smaller, market-oriented, privately owned activities has meant that tbc. state must cmtinue to collect revenues front local budgets to fixlance the activities of the residual state hdustries. E~lterprisesand citizens, both of which paid no taxes during the Soviet period, to date have stubbornly resisted parting with

meager =sources that they know coutd be put to better use permnally or locally. The reswlt. has been a nationwide shortage of cash in circu,latio~l. The core cam& collect enough taxes to pay pensioners and state workers in the ~giftns,while a prhileged few become increasingly rich by hoarding undeclared income at home or in forraign bank accounts. The core suff;ersfrom the long history of tyranny to such a degree that even when it is serious about reform, the ~sicientsof the pcrlriphery suspect it is up to no good. S a b m s , for example, fear that if they stress their own cultural heritage too much, they may upset the federal: structure and invite ~acticmfrom the c o r e - h Russian majority within their republic. Deprived by the Russian canstitutio~~ of the right to secede, they must operate withln a federal system that they distmst; moreover, they must reckon with the fact that wi&out Russia, not to mention the Russians within their midst, they are not ecmornically viable at this time. If these statements apply to msuurce-rich Sakha (Yakutia), then they are equally pertinent to &:he other ethnorcrgions of G ~ a t eSiberia."' r To a certah degree, the struggle between core and periphery is remhiscent of the ongoing battle in the United States betwem advocates of national supremacy and propcments of stateskights. "'11 the general reduction of the rights of: Che republics, [the always politic4 kltsin was respading to ethnic Russian pubiic opinion," which typically favors strong central control.6 Duncan suggests that the president may hawe bee11 influelnced by proponents of national suprrzmacy, s w h as reformer Boris Nemtsov and nationalist Vladhir Zhirhovskiy, Then governor of Nizhiy Novgorcrd, Deputy Prime Minister Nemtst,\i and his philosophical near qpositc, Che viru:ient Zhirinovskiy, have been conspicuous supporters of returning to the tsarist system of gzlherlzii (governorships), in which "ehicity was irrelevmt.""T

At the same time as gkrsnusl-' activated Che nativcs of Grc?a.t.erSiberia, it also spurred the creation of "supraethic" htercst groups, originally with the aim of attracting forcr?iptrade and capitai that the regional economies so desperately needed. W h e ~ a es h i c popular fronts nnnbilizcd the aspirations of indigenous groups, regional trade organizatjons w e d to orchestrate the economic i~~terests of the various ~ g i o n and s to serve as a clarion for other Siberim causes"

In existcnce since the early 1980sbut founded officiallly in 198Tf the Association of Siberian Cities (ASC) ~presmtecttbe first mified Siberian im-

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t e ~ s group t since the U i ~ c t o r yof 3918 (see Cl-rapter 5). ll~itialiyemphasizing environn?enta.l causes, ASC men?bers urged l.he CPSU to cancel river reversd schemes in the ObLIrtysh Basin, to clean up the mess left in the aftermath of B M ccrnstruction, to mpudiate several Slberian dam proposals, and to protect the numerically small peoples of the northThe concept of siphoning water from s o g g Western Siberia and conducting it to sere Central Asia dates from tsarist times. A modem version, knocvn as t-he Davydov Plan, surfaced in the 196Os.g The Davydov Flan included the construction of a long, low d a m near the mouth of the Ob', which would have created a Portugal-sized. ~ s e r v o istretch* r upstrram to the mouIh of the Irtysh. Thc Lower mydam was to be the first of a cascade of d a m on the C)b'-Irtysh, the reservoirs of which would back up irrigaticm water via a series of pump stations and canals into tbr Turanian Basin of Kazakhstan asld 19zbeEstan. There, the deliveries not d y would bave enhanced irrigation but also would have supplicd, water for drinking and industrial purposes and helped to stabilize the levels of the Aral and Caspian seas. h technical feasibil.ity study of the project's first stage was c o q l e t e d and.submitted to Gosplan in the earXy 1.98Cls.9After extensive dtrfibrraticm, Gctsplan and the Council cJf Ministers approved the plan and directed the Ministry of Reclmdion m d Water Management to draft detailed engineerirrg designs by 1986. &hind the scenes, vigomus debates took place. lmpkmentafion of the Dav ydov Plan would cost m r e than 40 billion 1983 U.S. ddlars and cornpeted directly with another multibiflion-dolllar surd developmnt program in the Central Non-Black Earth zone near Moscw. Naturally Central Asians favored the river-reversal scheme, whereas oppc,sjt.ion inclded not anly European Russians but also latter-day mmbers of tlne West Siberian b e r g y Coalitio~~, who worried about the loss of oil well sites, m d representdives of the mili-y-industrial con?plex, who kartld the loss of potential hvestment cqital.10 The ASC joined the opposition late, on ecological h t a r i a n grounds: ASC members served as a voice for the obviously disencf-tmted m m t s m d Mmsi, whose grazhlg areas would be hundated by the reservoirs, Other opponents were scientists, including geographers and climatologists, who warned that the diversions would wduce the flow of f~3Shwater into thc Gulf of C)bf,raising its salinity and lowcr.ing its temperature. The changes, they said, might even l a d to negative effects on global weather pattcms. tiltirnately the strongest opposi~oncame from Gorbache~r,Gromyko, and Aganbegyan, who tabled-essentially, canceled-the project beforc the Par@-Congress in 1986.11 Gradually, the ASC reserwed its erstwhife ecobgicat causes for other el~viromemtalp u p s . In time, it focrased on urhan land use and resources and the deteriorating social infrastructure of Greater Siberian cities. Before 3993, Moscow-based ministries represented the absentee

lartdowners of Siberian cities and their hil^lterlands. In the capital, they drafted and approved urban construction projects destined for Greater Siberia, without cmcern for the local residents. The ASC sought legal protectim against the mhistries by imposing a kind d home d e . Ilorne rule would allow Siberian city gover ents to force the mhistries to compensate them for the damage they had caused. The assot-iationfsmemttership grew rapidly. By the end of 3988, the ASC represented 43 cities, A year later, it boasted a m e n ? b e r w of 67 cities, or 45 percent of all urban areas in Grcater Siberia, with a total popdation of 13.6 millicrn peclpk, or two-thirds of the regirm"s urban popdation. By 1,990, the n u d e s of city mntbers had soared to 78.12 h that year, the ASC was easily the most powerful Siberian political lobby Shce that time, however, it has been superseded by intermgionat associaticms such as the Siberian Agreement and the Far East m d Baykal Association for Economic Cooperation.

The Siberian Af(reeme1zt: As an orgmization focused primarily on urban lmd use and infrastructure, the ASC ultimately proved too limited in scope to serve the purposes of many if not most, Greater Siberian residents. On October 2,1990, prowinrial leaders from five Siberian crblasts msk, Tyumen', Novosibirsk, Tomsk, and maltassia-met in Mernerovo to agree to a united Ernnt on the economy and politics of Siberia, R e group resolved to coordinate Gortaachev's wonomic reforms at the pmvincial Levef, to ortymize the exploration m d utilization of regional resources, m d to cushio~~ the negative impact of puesstroyka and. khozmschet: on Siberian society. Early on, they criticized the Soviet leader for favoring the western zmes of the Russian federation over the east (see Chapter 77.13 A month later, the group met agairz in Novosibjrsk, where they rclgistered their association as tl-re ""lnterregional iassociaticm 'Siberian Agreement,"' or in Russian shorthand, S i h i r s h e soglasherzlye (Siberian Agreement, or SA). As we have seen, Siberian prefects had challenged the core over resource atlocation fnr at Least three decades. According to Zhcianov, "Each provincial leader fought to seczlre both as much local investment and as much, control over local resources as possibk, while minimizing taxes."" O~ccasionally~ as with the West Siberian Energy Coalition, the BAM, or the Davydov Plm, common causes drew them together. Accordingly, tthe ASC and the SA were the next steps in that trend. M e n the $A met in Ulan-Ude to adopt: its charter in July 3992, its parts, comprishg Altay and membership included nineteen co~~stituent Krasnoyarsk krays; Chita, Erkutsk, Kemerovo, Novasibirsk, Omsk, M s k , and Tyumen' obtasts; and the ethnoregions cJf Aga-Buryatia,

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Buryatia, Evenkia, (Gomo-)Altay,makassia, Khantia-Mmsia, Taymyria, Tyva, Ustf-Clrda Buryatia, and Yamalia.~'Note that the organizat-ion d d not include regions of the U E . The organization represented regions that collecti\lely accounted for 38 percent of Russia" lmd area and 16 percent of"the country's population asld that boasted 18 percent of its d u e addcd industrial product, With such a broad basis, the SA was considerably mow than a "mmc,use that roartld.'" By tl-re end of the year, it ~ c e i v e d the offjcialsanctim of Rwssja's Mkistry of justice; and in Tomsk, in early 1993, P1-ime Mhister Viktor Chernomyrdin simed an agreement of cooperation with the org""izatim, It soon became evident, however, that ""coperation" was not necessarily the SKs primary nrrissio~~, although members favored a '"strong Russian state" to toAinin a stable overall economy. This time it was kItsin, not Gorbachev, who received the group's criticism, for his pro-western orientation. Whjle thcy repudjded Siberian separatism and elforts by the ethnic regions in Russia to expand their powers, members seemed dctemined to defend Siberian interests aga,i,nst those of the core and to keep more of Siberia's wealfi within the region. ls Observers lauded the SA as the first step towilrd the reestablishmmt of a Siberim parliamel-rt(see Chapters 4 and 5). Members recognized the necessity of developing mutually beneficial socioeconomic relations and of stmngthening their horizontal interregional production and commercial ties independe~~t of the core. Crucial to these goals was t-he p~servation of the existing system of imports and exports and the staMlization of the network of suppliers and consumers, which pc.rtstroylcu had wrecked. SA leaders m d e no secret of the fact that lbey intended to expand their association ultimately to include the whole of Greater Siberia, fulfilling the drtlam of ninetemth-cenhtry Siberian regionatists. They were determined from the start to defend Siberia against the rapacious core. The so-called Greater Council, comprising govesnors md. heads of the local soviets of each of the 19 territorial units, led the SA, convening at least twice per year. The SA's orgmizatianal headquarters was in Novosibirsk, although branch agencies were located in other cities, such as Irkutsk (natural resources), Krasnoyarsk (foeign traeie), Tymenf (energy), Qmsk (cultural development),m d so on.17 Other agencies, based jn other locations, concentrated on deknse plant conversion, crim, and regimal ecology. Betwee11 the meeti.ngs of the Greater Covllcil, the Exeeutj\re Directorate managed the day-to-da)r affajrs of the SA. These activities comprised the coordination of communications among association members; the impler facilitation ol menta.t.ion of deei.sions approved by the G ~ a t e Council; the conversion to a market economy; and overall economic integration of the constituent parts of the SA.

PHOTO 8.1 Rzass-in~Pn'me Mi~zisterVilkforCtzerno~rtydinnnd Viffifiy Mukhn, governor ojPjcrvosibirsk and citnz'irpersonof the Siberian Agreenlenf 11993). Sovlzc~:ITARTASS, murtesy of Dr. RfeksqRIoD~CU'Z~, MOSWUISfnZe Uniucrsity.

Then head of the Nwosibirsk nralyy sowrf (standing council) and later governor of the province, Vitality MuWna was elected chairman of the Greater Council (Photo 8.1). Although pubticly opposed to the notic,n, Mukha initially c o n s p i ~ dto use the SR to promote tfne concept of an independent Siberian republic, Having been a l q a l Communist f arty appamtcliik all of his pmkssional life, Mukha disdained the implamtation of pcrcskrtlyim and its consequent poltical liberalization. The debacle of the Soviet Union enraged him. In response, the die-hard. Mukha hoped to keep his pm-Soviet/-Gommmist regime alive in a secessionist, independent Siberia. Miith reactionary Mukha at its helm, the SA in.creasingly opposed Yeltsin's economic ~ f o r m swhich , proved especialfy darnaging to the kagile etonolnies of: Greater Siheria. In March 1993, the president attempted to fire both M u b a and the recalcitrant governor of Irkutsk, Yrxriy Nozhiksv; but when the S A flexed its interregional muscle by voting unanimously to i g ~ ~ othe r e sackings, kltsin =&acted his order with npolqies to the two governors.1" This was not the end of the core-periphery cmfrcmtation, however. Mter Ueltsin dissolved the Russian parliamel~tin fall 1993, Mu&a organized resistance among bis reactionary colleagues and. invited, the Supreme Soviet to move its headquartas horn Moscow to Movosibirsk. It

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was at this time that he also threatened to blockade the Trans-Siberim Railroad and to establish a Siberian republic (see Chapter 7)" Three days before the Xiussian executive and legislative branches resorted to violence, a still confiknt Mukha arranged a meet* in Novosibirsk of all the heads of the Siberim standing cotmcils. 'The group agreed to sign several, documents opposhg YeItsin" actions against the Russian padiament, ilncluding a call for his irngeachment. For his impertinence, Mukha was rewardcd with the support of the Cornmunist Party of the Russjan Federation (CPW) as well as Zhirinovsky % Liberal Democrats (LW), the Russim Salvation Front, Pmyatf, the Democratic Party of Russia, and other groups*zO Afthough it was the most vwaX group within the SA, Muba's faction did not represent the m;tjority se~~timent. Ueltsinfs show of force in Msscaw e~~couraged the Greater Cou~zcilto convene a plenary meeting of the SA.. There they distancled themselves from. Mukha md. other fireh n d s , even tbough their opposition was mild. They exprtrssed cauticrus concern for fiussia" ppo:(ical situation and pr&ssed their dedication to a peaceful resolution of the conflict by means of early parliamentary and prtrsidential elections. Afterward, Yeltsin dissolved the startding councils, szxpemeding them with regional dumas, and replared some of the governors, including Mukha. Moderate L. K. P~lezhayev~ the governor of Omsk ohlast, became the new chairperm of the SA, and fnr the t h e being, the notion of a Siberian republ-ic retreated into dormcy.2" Had the h s s i a n governnnent been strmger in the early 1990s, th SA itself might have died homing. ial: the t h e , core authorities dreaded the prospects of interregional associations in general and Siberian interregional associations, reminiscent of past ubltrsfnichestvo, in particular. Before December 4992, the individual ~sponsiblefor Russia's regional poficy, Vderiy Makharadze, boasted to SA leaders that he would '"ever" register their organization while he served in the Russian govemment.22 The politicai shake-up that took place that winter, however, resulted in Makharadze's ouster, clearing the way for that very nccurreIIce. Before?he signed the documents sanctioning the SA, Chernomyrdin also had. ohjected to the nation of '"trong regions," which in his mind wouid tear Russia apart. Even as the prime minister signed the cooperation agreements in Tomsk, certain SA members stumed him when they demanded the abrogation oE core-established export quotas in Siberian provinces. This overtly aggressive behavior must have worried Russian leaders in Moscow who still feared a Siberian separatist movement k d by vestigial, old tjlaard Ccrmrnunists such as Mukha. Xlwever, their fears prcrbably were grot~~~dless, as Siberims thcmsehes showed linlc support for such a development: .A poll taken in Novosibirsk obllast near the time oi Mukha's f i k g ~ v e a l e dthat mly C-, percent cJf those polled favored Ml

independence; 27 percent favored economic separation; and 48 percent were t?$ainst the creation of a Siberian republic. In contrast, in answer to a question about =storing the USSRI the same poll hawed that 49 percent favored t k idea, 36 percent opposed it, and 13 percent were indifferent. Having f;,Z billion Chilnese ncighbors along their soutkem fimk has persuaded most Siberians that independence might not be such a good idea after alI.23 It would appear that s o w things never change: Even thougl'~ the idea of a Si:berian repllhlic s e e m comatose, the speckr of Yebw Peril is apparently alive and well. With the passage of the new federal constitution in December 1993, fears olRussia's coltapse or djsmemberment WE quicted. The SA gradually retreated from federation politics and became a pragmatic instrument for the benefit of the local p v i n e i a economies. SA leaders reected the idea that t-hey had my aspirations to sepmate h m Russia, blanning ambitious journalists for spreading the mmors, Between 3993 and 1995, the Greater Council spent much of its time trying to dispel gossip. 11% late 1,993, for example, SA Gerleral Director Vladimir Ivankov vowed that he would sue anyone who clabed that his orfyanizationplanned to establish an independent Siberian republic. H e proposed, instead, that the association concentrate more on the contingezzcy of an independent SA, cornplcte with a he-item allocation within tthe n a t i o d budget.% Since 1993, the SKs primary mission has been to protect the Siberian economy-It engages in politics only when it is necessary to obtain greater administrative control over taxation, transport and. energy tariffs, customs duties, and so forth. In each case, it has had to wrest the authority to conduct its aMairs away from, the Yeltsin governmemt.'To do this, "'in the battle for scarce resources, what counts is making a lot of noise and.having friends in high places, especially friends fmm your region who will favor it over others."26 An exmple of SA protectionism, occurred in 1994: The SA decliared that the core's economic reforms had failed to stabilize the Siberim economy. In the opinion of SA mcntbers, the onXy solution to the pr013lem WBS for the national government to increase monetasy transfers to Siberian budget~ to expand Siberian ~ g i o n ashaes l oE t.he value-added tax (VAT); to rclduce national portions of the VAT! the profit tax, m d income tax; to create a national reserve fund for regicznal needs; and to terminate the process of wassessmmt of local industrial assets. The &mm& were obvi,ousl,y selfish and unrealjstic. Any region of the country could have made such demmds, replicating a kind of NlcCzdlloch z:: Maqland conundrum: 'The regions c o d literally tax the nationai government out of business wi.lhin their territories.27 Basically the SA serves as m interest group with a lobby in Moscow. It voices the key needs of Siberian ~ g i o n and s represents the economic in-

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tewsts of local industrial elites. For ertample, it advocates an end to massessments of industrial assets, kvhich would &ow plant managers to privatize their enterprises at lower values, Naturally, many if not most managers of the largest and most profitable Siberian enkrprises are members of the SA. h the past, the SA bas done thhgs that favor some of its constituent members at the expense of others. For instance, the SA refused to take part in Russia's unified wholesak market for the szlpply of electricity. The Greater Council a s s m e d that the added ""sale"'stage in the process would inevitably raise the cost of electricity." The assumption proved incorrect because within the m r k e t for wholesale electricity, the purchase price e ~ a l th s sales rate; moreover, expanded competition would tend to decrease thc. market price. h fact, the SA argment seemed motivated less by economic logic than by energy-surplus regions in Siberia that we= attempting to maintain their oligopoly over local rates on the sale of electricity, In energy-redundant rc-rgions such as Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, m d Khakassia, rates are typically three to four times lower than in the energy-deficient provhces that neighbur them. For example, Chita &last and Buryatia often suffer discriminatory rates because they have no supplier other than lrkzttsk oblast. 'The rate pre~mdieederives from the fragmentation of the market space. MthougX-1origindly e s t h l i s h d to eliminate these kinds of contradictions, the Sn occasionally becows the pawn of p0werf"u Siberian industrial lobbies. Critics have suggested that the SA no longer speaks for and protects all of its constituent members, Between 1995 and 1997, the :!A had only moderate success in serving as a "third force" "parate from and in opposition to both thc CPRF mcl Yeltsin" reformers, M i l e the CPW would like to mle Russia through a resurrected Gosplan, the refomers prefer to lead through thc. big Moscokv banks. The SA has tried to persuade the natimal government to invest in ecmomic sectors other than rcsourcc extraction. It has strqgled to prevent the collapse of Siberian agriculture and associated markets, both oE which are regionalfy isolated, unprofitable, and uncompetitive on foreign markczts. Agriculture continues to be a major enrployer in regions such ap; Altay kray, Omsk &last, and Nowsibirsk oblast. Most mcently the SA has championed the causes of its "'donor rclgions" @hoseregions that give more to the national budget than they receive), Three SA constituent units are donors, including Krasnoymk, Khantia-Mmsia, and Uamalia.2" The success of the 5% has been mixed. Aithough core authorities definitely listen to the SA when it "roars," "gnifieant pmgmss has been lacking si,nce 11992. Eighteen of the nineteen constituents of Che associiltion recorded negative ecmomic growth in 1996. Only Krasnoyarsk kray' a donor ~ g i r mregistered , any sign of life.30

The economy had become so bad that residents of Novasibirsk oblast reBecause his candidacy was SLIPelected Ziitaljy Mukha in Uecember 1995% ported by the CPRF at that time, M u b a was considered sympathetic to the left opposition; but during the 1996 grtrsidential campaign, he ~ m a i n e d neutral. 'This perhaps paved the way for his reelection to a two-year term as chairperson of the SA Greater C o m a in Uclccmber 1996." M u b a feels that "third force" ~ g i o n dassociaticms such as the SA, the Far East m d Baykal Association for Economic Cooperation, t-he Greater Wlga Assoeiatim, the Cerrtral :Russia Association, m d other regional assodations in the North Caucasus, the Central Black Earth, the Urals, m d the Nor&west, should merge and mold t-hemselresh t o a nationd lorce. Me viecvs b d h the C P E m d the ""dmocrats" as two brmcf-tes of the "Moscow Party." M u h a hopes to galvmize and reinspircf confidence in thc. SA. fn his view, the SA must approve of any act of parliaxnent &at is jntended to rc3gdate or affect m y Siberian in.terczst; the SA should have the right to block implenrentation cJf the Federal Treaty any time it contradicts Siberian concerns; m d the SA progrms-32 should play an active rnle innational eco~~omic Such flagrant forms of regionalism emanating from the periphery have not fallm on deaf ears in the cow. In spring 1997, hoping to dose Loopholes in existhg legislation that had allowed the regions to repudiate national laws, the Russian Duma adopted a bill that reasserted the sugrtrmacy of the 1993 Constituf;ic,nand other national l w s over provincial legislal.ion, especially where the two levels conSlict.33 The resolution was quicWy tested by reactionaries in the RT;E.

The FAYEnsf and Baykul Associatiunfur Ecolzomic CoopernCion The framework for the Far East and Baykal Association for Economic Cooperation, or simply the Far East Association (PEA), was established in mahamvsk in summer 1990. It represented a clone of several: far eastern regional organizations that sprouted about the s m e time. The FEA's primary goal was to create a unified economic community h the RFE. Its s e c d a q - missions were to develop SakhaZin's natural gas resources; to complete the Burttya hydrlretectric station, vvhich had been under constsuc"ron since the late 2970s; to further exploit the raw material base in general; to conserve and preserve valued ecosystems; and to develop joint venturczs (see Chapter 7)*34 In 1997, the FEA was cmposed of the republics of Buryaria and Sama (k'akutia); I7t.limorskiy and Khabamvsk krays; Amur, Kamcbatka, Magadm, Chita, and Sakl~alhoblasts; the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR); and the I(oryak and Chtakotka autonomous &rugs. It spans approximately one-thi.rd of h s s i a n territory, includes 7 percent of t:he popdation, and cmstiSutes 7' pertlent of the value-added industrial product.35

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Like the SA, the EEA is pmtectionist in its economic mientation. This springs from ljving rnmories of the core's abuse and rapacjntts exploltation of its most m o t e periphery. As Stephan has stated, when the PEA was formed, ""itbecame fashionable to fadt Moscow for pocketing Far Eastern revcnue, for stunling Far Eastern developmemt, and for drcmmscribixlg Far Eastern contacts with Asia-Pacific neighbors,"" Thus, when gla~l-tast9Liberated public opinicm, residents of the W E likened past corepmiphery relations to pure cololzialim. 'They accused Moscow of betraying them and said that they would save themsehes, without the cooperation of the c m . There w r e rumors of new separatism; yet, far easterners, like the Siberims in the west, had little affinity for independence. They depended too much on the core for food, fuel, subsidies, and wages. Mo~over,regional rivalries thrlratened their unity krnoteness from Russia's main cenkrs of szxpply and delnand has dways been the IZFE's key problem. Far eastern hdustry spends billi.ons of dollars per year in order to bridge t3.lose distances. Yeltsin's free market reforms and the concomitant drmatic increase in transportation costs have made the lion" share of ecmonic actjvities in the WE unprofitable. The public utiZity sector that supplies far easterners with electricizy and hot kvater, for example, suddenly hund itself unable to pay for imports of Kuzhas cod. This, of course, also created problems for the Kuzbas miners, who needed markets for their pmduct. The RFE's ggovernors face the daunting task of transforming their former military bastion h t o a modern economic gateway for integration into the Asia-Pacific Region (Afr'lZ). With 32 mgor enterprises, thr defmse sector =mains one of the most important employers in, Ihe WE, occqying 13 pescmt of the overall regional workforce, which includes 20 percent in Prirnor'ye and 24 percmt in :Khabarovsk hay." Befortr the collapse of the Soviet Union, these industries cmstituted 90 percelzt of the output of the region" 'bilitary-industrial complex" 'and 67 percent of all regimal manufacturing, illcluding 1(X1 percent of thr ""consramer goods." According to Russian scholar Vladjmir Xvanov, RFE defclrse plants have always produced at least so= civilian goods, ranging from refrigerators to baby strollers. 'This would imply that defense plant conversim migkt be relatively painless. 'This has not been the case, however: Between January m d September 1994, in aabarovsk and Prirnorskiy krays, the conversions prtrcir>itatedthr loss of 250,000 jobs." B~ecauseeach wcrrkcr in the defense indusky supports at least three otkrs, the multiplier efkct on unemployment is quite extreme. High unempEoyment in the iormer military towns of Komsomol"sk-na-hue and Amlarsk adds significantly to the WEfs inventory of ecmonnic woes, Enhancjng the effect is the fact that fnr m r e than 20 of the 32 defense plants that are in the process of conversion, both the output of rnilitary supplies and the pmducticm of civilian goods have decl;ined by at least 50 pexent since 1994.39

I'hus, the FEA has had the unenviable task of lowering trmsportation defcnse plant concosts, redu,cing the costs of electricity, and s~~bsidizing versions, Another FEA mission has been to convhce officials in the core to allow WE: provinces to reserve 20 percent of federal customs cdleetims for local eco~~onnic deve1opmem.t.and foreit;gn trade. fn 1,994, the maximum allowable retention was 10 percent." ".Atthou@ the request appeared reasonable at the tinre, its fulfillment was thwarted by the unprecedented actions of the govcmor of I_'rj,n?orskiykray. Nazdmfelzki,: 7"Izol-n in YeEtsinS' Side. Like Vitaliy Mukha, Yevgeniy Nazdratenko is a rebel who defends Russian national interests even as he aspires to further a personal political agenda that clashes with that of the core (Photo 8.2). He became the govemor of f)rirnor"yeafter a regional coup d'ktat in spring 1993. The coup victim, Vladimir Kuznetsov; had served as governor since 1940. Kuznetsov had been a devoted reformer, whose most cmspicuous brai~~storm was the Greater Vladivostok FEZ. His w ~ d o h gwas that he asked for more regional power over the project than the authorities in the core were willing to grant, induding the establishment of an economic development fund to trmsfer assets from the national coll"ers to "a region4 authority."" l~uznetsovproposed Greater Vladivostok as a Russian altesnatke to the mulitinational Tumen FEZ, which would involve giving the Chinese free access to the Sea of Japan via an extension of the old Chinese Eastern Ritilway (see Chapters 3 and 7).As Peter Kirkow has noted, "phis] naturally clashed with Russian gewtrategic interests and its desire to become a new key player in the [APRY" Kumetsov also successfully lobbied Moscow to relinqujsh hard currency so that he could buy foreign food supplies for his shortageplagued region in 39%. He was also the person respmsible for obtaininf: the rights to 10 percer~tof the state cm,sbms duties in the RFE. U'ltimatel~~ Kuznetsov" illiberal philosophyf together with his pmc1ivit.y for extended trips to Moscow and abroad, left him vulnerable to hard-liners in the maIyy souet (stmding council), among the spreadi,ng m f j a mentbership, and a m g local hdustrial managers, who supported. the. candidacy oi Nazdratenko. According to Grkou; Nazdratenko is a Ragrant: example of how Russian irtdustrial monopolks are ""pu~cfinto executive power h Russian regions.'"JWe is tbe formr chief execuf;ive of the Vt>stok Tmgsten Mine m d Concentrator, located in celztrizl Primorye, As a people's deputy to the Russian parliament between 1990 and 1993, Nazdratcnko represented the WE% ccaptains of industry. When he assumed the governorship, "he aypohted a new t e r n in wl-\ich a nuntber oE deputies were [simultaneously] leading members of the joint-stock company PAK?; [al.1owiw 4 combination of tax-evasion, e m b e z z l e m t , and control of polirticaf powe~;which becme farnous as 'Primor'ye Watergate,"'": M e n Yelitsin

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PE-fQ"T 8.2 Yez~geniyNtzzdrate~zh(ricght),govertzor of Pri~norskiyk r ~ ynzeets , with Y,ltsinS repr@s~tztrafives i'l~V1adz"z7osrnkfjune 28, 1995. SOURCE: ITAR-TASS, co~lrfesyof Dr. Aleksq Novr'koz?,MOSCOW State U n i z ~ e ~ i t y .

dissolved the parliamcmt, Nazclratenko, like the Slcci's Muklza, initially rallied to thc came of Alexander Rutskoy asld the other pntsch leaders. When it became obvious that Yeltsin would win, however, the governor sided with the more moderate views of his own locaf legislature. h r h g summer 1993, far eastern regio~~alism gathered steam. There is considerable evidenre that Nazdratedo urged the t~talyysovet- to declare Prhor'ye a w e r e i p =public, altfiough Nazdratenko himseE denied invdverne~~t. He might havc done so in order to di\rert:anation acvay from the PAKT scandal. As support for sovereignty grew, some of its advocates lauded the concept of the Far Eastern Republic (FER) and iwoked the name of Alexander Krasnoshhekov (see Chapter 5) as "a charnpjon of independence and democracy,"'"' ?i, convince core authorities that Primor'pns \iliaserious about this latter-day FEW, Nazdratenkofs forces (jillhered the signatures of the thousands who supported regional sovcreignt_\iand asked for preferential treatment in fiscal arrangexnents and in foreign commexe. At the peak of the cmfrontatictn in Wf~?;co\rv; Nazo w e d that inthe event 05 a prolonged cmfl,ict, Pridrate~~ko alleged1y mosskiy h a y conceivably might ""separate" from the Russim kderatim, Nazdratenko also has denied this allegation, claiming that what he reaIly said was that the p a r l i m n t shodd have been dissoltred inApril W93!

Irrespective of what he clairns tc:,have said or done, the opportunistic Nazdratenko often has shown his coNernpt for the Yeltsin gcrvemme~~t. When Chernomyrdjn visited Primor 'ye in August 1993, Nazdratenko served the prime minister with five separate demands, regarding hnport duties, export tarifis, the consignmmt of all federal taxes to the region for the next three years, the introduction of special local taxes on transit cargoeq an""degiona1 autoncrmy in matters of yearly export quotas and export tjcmshg on fish and wood products," "0 ternpctrarily co-opt its rebellious subject, the government responded with a onetime subsidy of $12 million to keep regional electricity rates at 28 cents per kilowatt-hour decifor industrial users. In part because of Nazdraterrko's "~~nilateral sion" to dispcmse with privatization of the energy hdustry the core also in early 1994, the subsidized the far eastern coal mining industry. Fi~~dl>i, national government allocated anotber $81 miilion to the region for the purpose of stabilizing its economy47 Nevertheless, Nazdratertko is hardly a hero. A nulnber of Russim intelXectuals call his ruthless, authoritarim admhistsation "a fascist reghef' that is rife with corruption." Others refer to him as a racist, .An inveterate initiator of policy campaips with telZtale names like '"peration Hempff' ""QperationArsenal,'"'"Operation Foreigner," and others, Nazdratenko zealously attacks issues he deems critical to his region. Tn "Uperation Foreiper," h r example, he forcibly evicted more than 200,000 Clxinese from Primorskiy kra y. The democratically elected mayor of Vladivostok, Viktor Ckrepkova m g othrrs-wodd assert that Nazdratenko is homophobic. Elected in szxlnrner 1993, Cherepkov initially committed s o m rather unpopular admhistrative blunders that caused dissension within Primor'ye's executive ranks. Evicientl~in respcmse to a televised newsreel that showed him embracing Rutskoy, Nazdratmb blmed CI:herepkov for the footage and therefore shut down the local television station; cut the Vladivostok city budget; and covertly sabotaged the citfs wata, electric, and heating systems. The editor of the newscast was subjected to theats. When these measures failed to intimidate him, police allegedly shot at him ""by mistake."' Allother journalist who was antipathetic to Nazdratenko was seized m d beaten by unkzown assailants. Che~pkov'soffice and apartment were illegally ransacked, and his son was arrested on charges of "aggravated assault." "1 a subsequent televised intavie~v,Nazdratenko characterized Cherepkov as golzrhoy (gay)and spoke at l a ~ g t hon the subject. Evidently without having all, the facts, Yeltsin fired Cherepkov in March 1994, following baseless aIfegations that the mayor had taken bribes. According to Kiskovv, this c a m on the heels of the mayor's '""brutal ouster from office by armed [Nmdratenko] police," The cbarges agahst Cherepkov were later dropped, but two years passed before he was reinobjecti011s~49 stated as mayor agaiinst Nazdrate~~ko's

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Sixnultaneously, Yeltsin's presidential representative, Valeriy Butov, and members of the National Control Admhistration conducted an inquiry into Nazdratenko" notorious behavior and his connections with big business and the mafia. Their findings inchded more than enough evidence to warrant the govem~r'srclmoval from office. Instead, Butov was remved and an individual considered symgathetic to Nmdratenko was appointed presidential representative irr his place.50

The "Tflarn" "Befzueelz the Core and the Perip'ytlleq, Canfident that he had the core's leadershit-, in his pockt, the gowernor solided further economir and territorial concessjons. He demanded higher freight r&es on transi.t cargoes, which represent tbe lartyest category of shipments in Primorye; fuel and mergy subsidies; invesments in Primorryemterprises; a ten-year tax hotiday for his region; and restricted entry on innmigants to Primor'ye for the next decade, mese rcyuests, which were not approved, added up to almost $91) billion &rou$h 2rnO.a A nanve of Svero-Kuril%sk,Nazdratenko hoped to subordjnate the Kurile Islands under the control of Primorskiy hay. He aspired. to accmpbsh this with the help of his Kremlin, cronies and witbmt tbe knowledge of the governor of Samah. Acc_luisiti.onof the islands, which are subsidized by the core, would have meant several bi,flio~~ mose rubles in Primor "pet"s coR~?-rs.~2 All the while, rumors of Nazdratenkcrfsplamed secession fmm Russia roiled about the country, even embarrassing mrnbers of the FEA." By the end of 1995, it appeared that Yeltsin might very well lose the 1996 presidential election. The oloviously ailing pmsident hcreasingly relied on m e h e r s of the clique sucrounding his close f r i e d and advjser, Alexander Korzhakov. Most of Yeltsids retinue considered Primor "ye strategic to the election's outcome, and they advised t-he president to proceed with caution in addressing the rramors &out Nazdratenko, at lea,& until after the election, Since the election, Nazdratenko has become more vulnerable, Kirkow correctly has asserted that the I"ri,mortyegovernor could not have gone as far as he did, had he not close d i e s in the president" entourage in. Moscow," As a member cJf Chernomyrdin" pparty (called Our Home Is Russia), he has had the oppmtu17jty to hobnob reguiarly with s o m of the most conspicuous, if not the most contmptible, Russian politicians of the day, not the least being Korzhakcrv. Urttil 1996, Nazdratenko" oother friends in high places included deputy prime ntinisters Viktor Il'yushjn and OXeg Soskovets, a Korzhakov prot6gii.i Yt.ltsixl%chief of staff, Sergey d. the fomer security chief, Alexander I,&ed" The governor'S Filatov; a close ties with high-ranking individuds in the attorney general's office delayed investigations into his alleged vioiations of Cherepkov" human rights, not to mention those of the 20t1,000 Chinese. One of his closest al-

lies was Vtadimir Shun-teyko, the fomer chairpersm of the Federation ~ for corruptim while Cottncil (1994-1995), who in 7,993 w a investigated serving as one oi Chernorrryrdin" deputy prime ministers. Not long after the 3996 presidmtial elections, in which Shumeyko served as one of his canpai,gn managers, kltsin fired Korzbakov, Soskovets, Filatov, and Lebed" Later, IYyushin was investigated for misuse oi funds, Simultmeously, Yeltsin promoted the ""incorruptible" Boris Nemtsov m d strengthened the position of Nazdratenko's sworn enerny, Anatoliy Chubais.55 As proponents of a strong core#both Nemtsov and Chubais have favored a dhk~ishmentin the p w e r s of the regions and their mti-Yeltsin governors, Chubais has been especially aggressive in countering the regions" promotion of their own laws over national kgislation. He was responsible for e ~ m d i n the g powers of prtrsidmtial appojntees in Russian regions, particularly h monitoring the use of kderal funds. Both Nemtsov and Chubais have emphasized the need, for the cme to tighten its grip over the regions by supporting Yeltsirt lnyalists in provjncial elections. Such effclrtt; hiwe met with limited success, because Russim voters prefer candidat-es with connections to local enterprises and mernbers of the oppmition,5b Some Russian analysts befieve that the power of the regional governors peaked in autumn 1,996, after Chubais's appointment. Before Chubais took office, ""the governors felt themselves to be government officials of the hi@est rank, on par with ministers."'7 As deputy prime minister in charge of the cconomy, Chubais was given fulf contmt over critical financial flows and became a threat to the regional governors: FIis prapoxd reforms in local self-government would have forced governors (such as Nazdratenko) to share money with city and district officials (such as Cherepkov), in accordance with federal laws. The governors naturally favortrd the existing, eqttivocal situation in which they lobbied the core for f u l d s and h o r s and then allocated these benefits as they cvished, to p=ferred cl.ients in their OTnJn territories. In a manner evoking U.S. pork barrel pditics, this is precisely how Nazdratenko operated within his Primor'ye fief..To be fair, hocvever, "he and his" wcre only the tip of the regional iceberg: The Primor y e governor% links to big business and the criminal underwortd were merdy more conspicuous than most other governors', and politicalfy more testable. Nazdratenko" power over the core began to unravel in March 1996, whrn the Primor'ye regirrnal duma wrote a letter to Yeltsin and the parlimemt, threatening to witlnhold taxes unless the fedcral government Ijquidated its $37?, miflion debt to the region, The rcgional oificials argued that without these funds, the kray would suffer power outages, late payment of wages, m d inability to satisfy child welfarc benefits. 7%rc local, population, they said, lived in '"near-Stone Age conditions" and was vull nerable to mass pmteds and strikes.58

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h even more cantmtious confrontafion arose over the consfikttianaliQ of the 1991 Soviet-Chinese border agreement. Ch March 20, 1991, to e1ncourage the creation of the %men FEZ, the kltsin gove transfer 1,5W hecQres (3,700 acres) of disputed territory to China, giving the latter access to the %a of Japan. Yeltsin's decision was applauded by officials not only inCbina but also Japan and South Korea, who felt that their countries had much to gain from the potential duy-free manufacbring zone. Nazdratenko and his le@lators pmtested that Yeitsss decision was illegal under Article 104 of the old RSFSR Constitution, which specikd that border changes repired the approval of the Congress of Peoplefs Bputies. They also poi~ntedout that the treaty violated the June 1990 sovereignb- declarations, which demanded that border adjustments be subject& to all-Russim referenda.59 The goldemor himself arwed that the region was valuable forest and hunting lmd and contended that if China abtained the proper% Russia would lose authority over river trmiiport on the Turnerr. Win weeks of the gresidenfial election, Yeltsin suspended the prcxess of demarcation of the disputed z m ~which , in essence prevented authorities from implexnenting t aty. Nazdratenko" iisrkrference ry of Foreign AM:airs, vvhich castiprcrmpted a harsh &&c. from the o" Russo-Chhese relations. Six gated the governor for tryjng to ' mont-hs later, well after the elections, Yeltsh also warned Nazdsatmko to stop "rwking the boatf"in Russo-Chinese ~ l a t i o n and s ordered him to suborn the issue to the Russian foreip mh1mit any llCure pllblic state~xe~~ts istry for clearance before I"rimorfye%p r " ~ i s " d a s s protests and strikes erupted over back wages on July 15,twelve days after the presidential r m d dection, whieh, Ueltsin won with 52.3 percent of the vote (Map 8.1). The protesters included 1C),OOO miners vvho were demanding back wages totaling $22 mftlion; moreover, electric pawer workers were cmductifng a hunger strike for the same reason. In early August, the core responded by earnarking $1.2 billion to relieve the pressures on the krayfs fuel and energy sectors. .hforhnight later, Yeltsin placed the blame for the encrgy crisis squarely orn the shoulders of Nazdratenko, whom he described as "nat entirely qualified" to handle such matters, He upbraided the gcrvemor and instmcted him to fire his deputy responsible for regionai fuel and energy, to pay the miners their overdue wages, and to stabilize the situation by midSptember. Nazdratenko agreed to implement emergmcy measrtres, but the miners%trike cornthued well into autum.b" Nazhatenko" woes mounted as his regional d m a " eefctosal term expired in n-tid-January 1997. :New elections originally were to be held on March, 30, but they were poslponcd ixldefkitely by the in.cuntbent deput.jes. VVith. Cherepkov in the ,agitated crowds filled the streets of Vladivostok m d demanded the ediate dissolution of the duma, the members of

MAP 8.1 Results of llte 2996 Russinn Presidenthi Runof E1ecthi.1 in 61-cater Siberl;'l SOURCE: "Eleclion Results irz Sr'bcri~,"Jzify4, 1996. Azlailable on-line nC xftrfkp://wlozt?n lzs.I ~ I ~ / Y ~ s ~ / Y ~ sNote ~ - ~that . I zYelfsirz Z ~ Z .S support becomes sfrotzger

from soltth CO norttz,

wh.icb in support of Nazdratenko had sworn to oust the mayor a second t h e . MeanwhileI the governor diverted attention from the issue by calling for a rclgional ~ferendumon the Tumen Ever question. Etridmtly, he had not deared the effort with the breign miXlisfTy, fnr withiJl61) claysf Yeltsin dispatched. Chubais to Vladivostok to demmd Nazdratenko" hmediate resipation. Simultaneously in Mosco~~, Nemtsov, himself a fomer governor, charged Nmdratenko and his authoritarian drama with irresponsibility indealirzg with the kra)i"s energy pxloblem. On May 23, Yelt* =placed his presidential representative, Nazdratenko ally Vfadimir Watenko, with Viktor Ko~~drittov, the focal chief of the federal secufily force and possibly the only leading official inVladivostok with no known comections to orga" nized crirne. At bis press conference on May 28, Kondratov he, not the governor, hencefor% wodd corndinate ali fcderai;activities in Primuryye, includ.j.n.g operations of the navy army, police, and tax collection offices. Ueltsin has since broadened Kondratov" ppcrwers to include oversighl of the hplernentation of prcsident.ial decrees; of the fuel and ellergy swtors; of fjsh and b b e r export quotas; and of the allocation and distribution of federal fmds.62

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Nazdratenko immediately accused Chubais of carrying on a blood feud, It was nonetheless a clear case of the chickens coming home to roost: Due to hls sloppy handling of the energy crisis, his misuse of funds, and complaints from Russian and internatimal businessmen about his callous disregard for (and probable eoolplicity in) crimind activities in Primor"e, the governor was stripped of m s t of his powers. As proof of Nazdratenko's misdeeds, Kmdratov noted that approximately $4.3 milXion, which had been earmarked as back wages for teachers and doctors, had disappeared in just one month-the month of April.@ The cm-periphery ccmfrontation, in h i c h this was but m e striking episode, continues. On the one hand, k l t s h insists that he has Che right to dismiss democratically elected governors, Ost the other, Nmdratcnko gained the support of governors of all persuasions at the meethg of tl-te Federatjon Council on July 3, 1997, forcing Ueltsin to promise that he would not employ the Primorskiy model: of direct rule in any other regim. Despite his recent political vulnerabiljty, Nazdratenko has been able to ward off all his detractors. As a member of the Federatio~~ Cau~zcil,he is immune from prosecution; and according to the 1993 Constitution, he cannot be forced to stand down as a popularly electc-rdgovernor. This was the key to his Pyrrhic ~rictoryin summer 1,997*64 The All-Russia~sAssclciutiols Ilf'flle Nurrrerjcally SZYI~EI Peoples of tlze Nor l.h, Siberia, and t l Far ~ East

The Assmiation of Peoples of the :North (APN) was born in May 1989 as an advisory body to the Gorbachev admhistriztion.@Originally chaired by Communist writer Vladhjr Sangi, the APN has served as an advocate of indigenous rights for native peoples throughout northern Russia. In 1,997, the organizatim's name was chmged to the '211-Russian Assodation of the Numerically Small Peuples of the Nor&, Siberia, and the Far East."" Within a year of its establishment, the M N held its first cmgress in the Kremlin. With Gorbachev in the audience, &legates spoke of job discrimination against indigemus youth, poor e t M c representation on local political ccnanciis, the rise of tensims m m g natives and nomatives, and the lack of use o.f nati.ve langmges in local media. For exarnple, the Mansi, who together with the mants represented less than 2 pesccnt of the population of their official homeland, had not had a Mmsi-lmguage radjo broadcast or newspaper for a long time.&? The fiving standards of the natke peoples in 1990 were far worse than those of the nonnatives, the delegates asserted. Housing space was less than half that of Ihe prisfiliye. Chly 3.0 percent of Ihe dwerljngs had gas, 0.4 percmt had water, and 0.1 percent had ccntral heat. A typical: native residence, which was a minimum of thirty years old, had no sewage dis-

P H Q m 8.3 Vetpdakiya Gayer,fonrzer member of the Federa tiofr Council (ca. 2 994). S Q ~ C ]TAR-TASS, E: courtesy of Dr. AIeksq Novikov, Moscc~wState University.

posal. The Khants and Mansi, for instance, who formerly lived in hundreds of hamlets, now resided in "i" consolidated rural settlements that had been established under ~ m s h c h e v In . many villages there were no medical facilities, schools, clubs, bakeries, batlntnouses, or shops.68 The collapse of the Soviet U ~ ~ i ohas n bmught little relief to the native peoples..In sprhg 7,992, the Russian parliament resolved to improve the living conditions oi the peoples of the north but falled to follow througfn. Deputies such as Nanay parliamentarian kvdokiya Gayer, whO represented the nurnerieally small peoples during that: tirne, ""dmanded that: the North be declased an ecological disaster area," but such prmouncements werl, udikety tc:,have much effect on tbe environment or the native pmples oZI those areas (Photo 8.31.""" By 7,993, an estimated 30 to 51) percel~t of the Western Siberian taiga had. been affected by the deveilopmnt of hydrocarbons. The accident rate at wellheads increased by 20 percent in 7,994 alone, Peterson reported that: i,n 1992-1993, a year after the parliament" resoIuti.ox.l, no fewer than 20 oil spills occurred in 7jiumenf oblast, clhiefly in mantia-Mansia.70 During the troublesome transition from the commmd ecrollarny to the free market, the APN itself has experienced growing pains, At its second conference in November 1993, the organization suffered splits and spent much of its time bickrjng over who w o d d be Ihe msnciation's preside~~t. Nevertheless, the APN continues to lobby for indigenous property riglnts, including guarantees of traditional uses of land and rc_.sr,urces.It empha-

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sizes the fact that the numericaliy small peoples must have cmtrol over their homelands and resources if they are to survive as nations. Fmdahl notes that the Yeltsin government '"has responded [to these demands] in prl,'"particularly by inc~asingnative access and control over rmewabfe resources.71 Other laws permit the numerically small naticms to selcct their own way of life in order to preserve their ethnic singularity. Wth the debacle sf the USSR, f i e sibation has gone from bad to worse. The Yeltsin tern h a yet to fomnalize a c o ~ ~ p ~ h e n spolicy i v e fm native peaples or rt3gianai developmt of the norh.7" :In fact, with ahucates of national supremacy like Nemtsov and Chubais in his camp, Yeitsh has been advised to reduce the nt~mberof regjclns d to spend lrrss time resp~~~dilzg to demands for indigenous property rights-not more?" the Soviet Idnion, native regions were inevitabty subsidized. Today, wi&out state subhave collapsed, m d my egorts by the natio~nal sidies, the local eco~~omies ent to improve houshg, social, and medlicall meslities have lagged for want of money. The money short-age has forced Yeltsin to priori~zehis peoples, m d conserallocatiol~sin terms of regiol~s,production, b~dige~~ous vation, Obviously the natkes, especially tlne t h y Siberian ones, and conservation are w i p e d lower priorities relative to the rclyuiremcmts of Mxhiavellim Russim "patriotsf"such as Mufia m d Nazdrate~~ko. h a w i n g this, the APM forwarded m open Xettcr headed "Discri ticrn Against Indigenous People cJf the Russian Northf" to Yeltsin, Chernomyrdin, and the chairpersms of both houses of pmliarnent in March 1996, The document was co-signed by spokespersons for the Nentsy, Sakhans, Kets, Buryats, Ittjl'men, a ~ a n t sand , Mansi, and the natiwes of Safialin oblasr ancl k a s ~ ~ o y a r bay. s k No longer a member of the Russian parliamnt, Gayer siwed as secretary-general.of th Xnternatimal IRague of Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Groups.7-e letter indicted the Russians for cawing t-he extinction of six differcat native groups "in the past century" m d for permitring the endangemnent of such mtionalities as the Aleut, Ket, Ngmasan, Negidal, Orok, Oroch, 'lbfalar, b e t s , and Vukagir.75 The authors of the letter =minded the Russian leadership that the Soviet and Russian suprem soviets hcluded eighteen indjgenuus parliamentarians from 1989 to 1994, who deweloped a code of l w s pmtecting native rights and interests, Because of the donninance of nonindigenes in the titular homelands, howevcr, only two natjve deputies we= elected in the 1995 parliwntary elections, lew% the peoples of the north virbally wit;hout represenhtion. The letter" swriters stressed that shce that time, authorities in the rnaj0rit.y of e t h i c homelands had been under great pressure to make decisiom that we= not in keeping with the interests of numerirally small native groups. They complahctd bit-lerly that native rights were jnadeyuately defended by the 1993 Constitution, m d that the legislation that has been approved has not been apprvriately implemented:

"The Govmment rczmains indifferent to repeatod appeals of the APN."76 The hwiters scarified Che Yctltsiln government by emphasizing the facts that their native lands we= being ""annexed and barbarously destroyed. by rapacious oil, gas, coal, gold, and nonferrous mirring h~terests,withirut jrrsf corrapensutiou, knd] deprives us of our right to life.""l"hey noted that a )aw of great national significance, the "Basis for the Legal Status of Indigenous Peoples of Russia,'%ha been tabled twice by tbr president himself. (Several successi\re drafts of the law, in fact, shokved that: the nat-ive political powers it was designed to codify actually had diminished progressively d u k g tJle debate.") 'They concluded by stating that the economic collapse had brought soaring unemployxnent; increased im,poverishment; lifethreatenjng levels of crime and alcoholism; erosion of their traditional outlooks on life; a d a decline in the health of tbeir peoples evidenced by death rates one and a half times the Russim averizges.78 The authors of the letter did not leave the president without a proposed solution to their woes. They demanded: (1) the establishment of procedures to compensate hdigenous groups and elnterprises for damages resulling from amexation and industrial. development of their homelands; (2) licensing procedurczs tc:,provide for resource use practices, production qraotas, m d land tenure? that would guarmtee the perpetuation of traditional native activities; (3) the crcation oi a native economic development corporation; (4) the estabhshment of procehres for negotiation between the Russjan government m d i,ndigenous represenl.atives; (5) the creatiorn of a M y empowesed agency to advance native rights within the executive branch;"""(h) the establishment of a state h d to support natiwe northern peoples; (7) a home rule system for indigenous peoples of the nor%; (8) guarmteed. m h h u m representation of numerically small peoples in federal, regional, and executivebodies; (9) the creatim of a Department of the Arctic, which would have m ambassador to coordhate, ""at the international level,""issues of northern development; (10) the passage of the pending federal laws on tbr ""Basisfor the Legal Status of fndigenous Peoples of Russia" (see hove) and the "'Statw of the Peoples of the Nor&"; (11)the organization of celebrations marking th I-nternational Decade of Indigenous Peoples of the VVorld (1995-2005). In response, Rrxssia" minister of nationalities hformed an obviously colncerned Council of Europe delegation in March 1937 that the Kremlh planned. soon to establish an Assembly of the Peoples of Russia, which wodd r e p ~ s e nthe t interests of all 1% officially recognized Russian e t h i c groups-8"" Because Chubais, Nemtsov, Zhir-inovskiy, and other advocates of national supremacy in the Russian government oppose these proposals, the APN has an uphill climb. Moreover, became the glacial pace of the executive's movement on these matters precludes the desil-ed quick solutions, "going international'" with their cause may be APN" only alternative. Al-

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ready, formr A1"N chairperson Sangi has entreated the U.N. General Assembly and the Counci:l of Europe to ensure protection of the e~~vironment of the Nivkhi, Oroks, Orochi, and Nanays, whose native lands on Sakhaiin Island lie astride the path to and from the international oil and gas developme~~ts of SamalJn I, 11, m d 121.81 Shultaneausly the APN has forged links with the Miorld Council of hdigenous Peoples, the Znuit Circumpolar Council, and the Saami (Lapp) Council. Such connections have paved the way for cultural exchmges and for the participation of Russim minorities ixr international conferences. These activities bave particularjy benefited Russim Eskimos, whose interac.tion with Narth Americm Eskimos (Xnuits) has been ongohg shce 1989.""

THE MICE THAT ROAR. The numerically small peoples of Russia are hardly pushovers, All over Gmata Siberia, they struggte to i n c ~ a s etheir autonomy a d control over their native lmds. -The makass, br example, have battled politicalSp with Russian and Cossack factions over seats and offices in the reprabliicm duma, in a homeland in which they compose only 11percent of the population. They also nnajntain a strained customs relationship with contiguous Krasnoyarsk kray which t h y defied when they declared themselves a republic in 1990. Their ""sovereign'"neighbors in the west, the Altay, whose share of the population is grc?aterat 31 percent, have laid claim to all raw materials withh the borders of their homeland.sVar all the brouhaha raised by others, howevele, none has been more blatant than that registered by the m m t s , the Mansi, the Ne~ztsy,m d the Sabans.

Regional Szrpremuq or Efhlsic Property RigflLs: Tyztnrm' Versus the Indigerzrs As we have seen, shce 1960, the exploitation of Obqasin oil and gas resources has tl-toroughly dismpted the traditional lifestfles of the natke U'grians (mants and Mmsi) and Samyeds (Ne~~tsy and Sel'kwps). Moreover, the use of mtiquated hydrocarbon-extractive techologies and equipm a t , poor supervision and o ~ m f z a ~ oand n , simple neglect have kd to environmental damage far beyond what rnight have been expected four decades ago,W"lREX scholar Gail Osherenko, a sgecjalist on ixrdigenolls political and property rights in the Circumpolar North, has cclncludud that ""themost kasible appmach to envi ental protection m d revitalizatio~~ of the traditional economy m d lifeways of Siberia's indigenous population zuifio~ltimpeding large-scalecxfractiotz of resources is to accord indigenous growpxetensive political m d property rights the areas they have traditionally occupied,"fi As evidenced by their bekavior since 1995, native groupmf the ObTasin arc.poised to m e t the challmge.

Tyumclm' oblast is the richest of Russia" admhistrati\le regions. Its industrial ouput, concentrated on oil and gas, is 150 percent more valuable than that of Moscow oblast.86 Its 1995 populatim of 3.2 milhon represented only 2.1 pexent of Russia% overall census, but its share of the country's industrid output was 7.5 percent. Tyumen" oblast, however, includes tf7rcre constituent parts that irtcreash~glyare vying for a share of the wedth and property: Tyu"enf oblast proper, and the autonowus okrugs of fiantia-Mansia and Uamalia. Khantia-Mansia claimed 1.3 million. of Tyumen" sesiknts, cmprisirtg lt2,OW Khants and 8,300 Mansi, who accounted for 1.4 percent of the oknng census. U;lmalia boasted 4811,00 of Tytxmcn's inhabitants, 21,000 of whom wme N'entsy-about 4.4 percent- of the okrug population, In Russia's current =venue-slnaring fnrmula, 40 pexent of the money derived from the marketing of C%' Rasjn oil and gas is allocated to the cort. and to 7jiumenkblast (20 percent to each); 30 percent to the okrug; and 30 percent to the rayon (district) of orGin. If the constituent parts were divided, the richest Russim province would be mantis-Mmsia; Uamalia would rank fifteenth; and Tyumenkould fall to fiftieth place. W i l e Vamdia contains approximately 90 pexent of Russia's (and onethird of the globe's) natural gas =serves asld Khantia-Mansia bears 53 percent of Russia's oil, Tyumen-Mast by comparison has very few natural Rsourcles (Photo 8.4). Well m a r e of their wealth, the nfmindigmous majorities and the native minorities of mantis-Mansja and Ya,malia have transhted their economic power into political power, which they have wielded at the naticmai level. T'heir quest has becclme a true test of Russian constitutionalis~nrrxThe 1993 Russian Constitution divided jurisdiction over property rights between federai (meankg national or core) and regional structws. There are now t h e categories of juriscliction: an exciusiveiy federal category; an overlapphg, joint fcderal-~gionalcategory; and an exclusively regional category- As set forth in Article 72,1, matters of wnership including the use and disposal of land, minerals, water, and ohtner =sources am the provlnce of joint federal-regional jurisdiction. However, Article 9.2 is vagut-, about who acbally owne; the resources. The structure of minerals jndustries thus becmes the focus of a "triiateral struggle" betweern the IZussim executive branch, the Russian legislative branch, and the regional governments.87 Xn the case of Western Siberia, the crux of the issue is the okmgs' alleged administrative sdordination to ?jiumenkOblast. h d e r the original post-Soviet oblast charter, Uamalia and %ant&-Mmsia are integral and equal parts of the oblast. Between 1991and 1993, Tyumen' and okrug of& ciials attempted to create a modified framework of relations, but afl efforts failed. Oblast authorities forwarded a bill to the parliament in Moscow

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PE-fOTO8.4 East. Surgut oiljeld, X1mnt.i~-MlarzsiaCm. 1994). SOURCE: Dmitriy KOrobq-rzikaz?,Novosfi Press Agenq IKente-foaobmnelr).

that proposed to place energy supply, pipelines, and crime cmtrol under the exclusive jtlrisdictim of the Oblast, and rclsnurce use under t-he joint federd-regional category. Not hlplng the relationship is the 1993Russian Cmstikrtion, which is contradictory and has become a cause for embarrassment ta the Russian Constitutional Court. In accordance with Articles 5 and h5 of the document, each constituent part is equal; but in accmdance with iarticle 66.4, autommous okrugs are subordinate to the administration af the abliast or h a y in which they are located. After deliberating for more than a year, on July 14, 1997, the Court mXed in favar of both constih;ltional provisions: ''On the one hand, the okrugs arc. parts of Tytxmen' oblast; an the ather hand, they have equal rights with the oblast in relations with the core, with other constiluent parts of the Russim Federation, and with representatives of hreign countries." As the &rugs beauthorities increascame aware al: their new political power, Ty~~merr' ingly lost both political and budgetary control over thenn.88 k(ween 1995 anci 1996, Russian ~gis,naland publican durnas fornulated and approved new provhcial el-carters to conform wiB the national, framework, As required by liaw, by the end of 1996, each rcgion was compelled to hold m w ekctions b r governor and chair of the provincial d so as to fill the seats of the Federation Coutlcil. The Yamdim legjslahrrzcr approved a charter that contained virtually no m n t i m of the authority of Tyumenf obbst Lvi&in &e oknxg except for m b d l y sham$.~ s p s i b i l i t i e s

for social welfare pmgrams. Meanwhile, Tyurnenkblast found it diBicult to formulate its charter, beca~~se of the ulcertab fate of its relations w i h its constituent parts. On March 23, 1995, representatives of the three regions convmed in Tyumen' in an effort to forge an agreemat on jurisdictional aut.hority. Ohlast agidals tried to farce the o h g reprexntathes to accept Tyumen' as their superior-or at U-re very least, to consent to the use of their n m e s as ~;ub'~yekf!j (comtihmt parts) of the oblwt in thc. Both mantis-Mansia and Yamaiia reused to accedc to Tyun?an'sdemands. As voting day approached, leadelrs of both Yamdia and KhantiaMansia advocated a boycott of the Tyumen' tbla~;telections. Although a president.ial rclpresentative crlaimed to have acquircJd an agreement from the legisiaturcs of both. okmgs to comply with Weltsin" decree ordering the okrugs to participate in the electiom, a subsequent legislative vote in I(hantia-Mansja ~Beetecioverwhelming support for ignoring the decree. Both okrzlgs then proclaimed that the oblast election could not take place until after the signing of a pwer-sharing trt-latywith Tyumenf.Wibesses .feared that il Ihe okrugs did not take part in the gubema.t.oriai:dectio~~, the oblast would be split three ways and the election would be nnemhgless." 4 November 1996, after the elections of its own governor and legislative head, the d m a of r(ha,ntia-Mansia agreed to participate in Tyumen% elections, simultmeously declaring that the vote would be valid only if 25 percent or m m of the okrugfselectorate took part. hmalia cmtinued to resist, hsisthg that it was not subardbate to Tyumen".g" The Tyurnmkobtast gubernatorial election was held on January 12, 1997. As it prmised, Uamalia boycotted the affair. Clnfy 13 percent of the Khantia-Mansia electorate turned out., invalidating the votes. Tfic elections, in fact, did nothing to reduce the secessionist tendencies in the maverick regions. Okrug governors clmtinued to press for direct links wi& Moscow bypassinp, the administrat.iveheads in Tyzlm,em'.'l As the codict deepened, it acquired nationwide notmiev, heling subordination controversies within Arkhangel%skoblast and Krasnoyarsk kray wkch also eoNajn autonomous okrzlga N'oril'ssk rayon, for exampie, has aspil-ed to be subordhate to Taymyr autonomous okrug h lieu of Krasnoyarsk kray The "Tyumen' spdrome" "stimulated the involwement of large industrial organkations and federal agencies, whjch hnve had the daunting task of taking sides. Gazprom, for exampk, took the side of the tih;lfar minorities, which to a degree explai~~s the current weahess of the l'ytx~~en' aadministratio~~.

S a k h in the Sky with DiClmonds Resource-rich Sa&a (Yakutia)has one of the lowest standards of living in Russia, ranking just above the poorest backwatrers of the North Caucasus.

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Idpm their declaratic,~of s o v e ~ i p t yin 1990, the Sakhans, with wivid memories of the riots of 1979, wanted to immediately shed their Russim n a m of "Uakut"; but true to their historical propensity to compromise, they adopted the hyphenated appellation "Yakmt--Sakha'%stead. Within two years, they had deleted the hyphen and called their land the #'%&a Republic (Uakutia)."% Sakhans are descendants of northeast Turkic tribes who mivated to their present homelmd during the fifteenth century and arc Ijr~guistjcally related to the Altays, Dolgans, Khakass, Shors, Tofalars, and Tyvans, Neither Muslim nor Russian Orthodox in faith, they are culturally linked with the Evens, Evenks, m d Yukagirs-shamanist tribal peoples- Although Sakhans have been subjected to some form of h s s i a n rule since I W , Russian c d t m has obtained but a superficial foothold.gWative occupants of a territory that represent-s 2 percent of the eari:hfslandmass, Sakhans number fewer than 400,000. More than 96 perccnt are residents of 5al;ha (Yakutia), with the remaining 15,000 or so d w e l h g in Khabarovsk h a y , Evcnkia, and other parts ol" Russia, In 1,995, Safians represented more than 35 pescmt of the population of their homelmd, a proportion that was rising because of the outfbw of short-term nmnative workers. Approximately 50 percent of the republic's population was ethnically Russim.9" E'rorn the perspective of the core, the Sakha Republic is "back cJf beyondM";ut in Greater Siberia, the region forms a bridge between Siberia proper and the WE, The Turkic Sakhans arc uniquely positioned. to communicate not only with the Turks of Siberia but also with Turks worldwide. A small nuntber of Sakf7ans hnve espoused pm-Turkic gods and have sent delegates to Turkic congresses in Ankara, Baku, and Kazan'. 5afians atso interrelate with the numericay small minorities of the north, som of whom have suffered not d y the sears of Russificatior~hut also Uakuticization. Several new in.stitutions dedicated to healhg these womds have materialized in tJle S a b a capital of Vakutsk. The most conspicuous of these are the Associatior~of Northern Misrorities of the Saikha Republic and the Institute oi Problems of Northern Minoriq Peoples. The 5akha government's northern interests now extend to peoples beyond the borders of Russia by mems of a program elltitled " R e Cooperatior~of the Sakha Republic (Uakutia) with :Northern States." President Mikhail Nikolayev, who despite his very Russian name is purely S a m m by birth, is Ihe vice president oC the internationally based PJorthem Forum (a11 advocacy group for the rigX7ts oi northern peoples around the world), whirh maintains a branch office in Yakutsk. h this way S&a (Udku-tia)has expanded its relations wiCh the peoples of Maska, Canada, and %andinavia* Reinforcjng their image as an e t h i c bridge, Sahans also have active ties with the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, and Mongolians, with whom they

have distant kinship.""e South :Koreans, fapaw", and Cl~inesehave developed ecmomic m d cultural activities in the Sama capital-96

Miklzuil Nikolay~z":Sakhafs Stqlzrnz A. Doziglas. i?niM-r.;tilUefiimokh Nikolayev (Photo 8.5) wati born of S a h a n partmts in the village oE Otemskiy, southwest of Uakutsk, in 1937. He studied veterinary medicisre in tbmugh 1961, then =turned to S a b a (Uakutia) and became the head of the Yakutsk Kttmsornol, hvlnich placed hjnt on the fast track to fuhzre political stardom. In 1963, he became a member of the C K U m d climbed the ladder to Soviet success as a pr~Mg& of Uakut party secretaries Gavril Chiryayev and Vuriy Prokop'ycv, At the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nikolayev was chairperson of Yakutiak supreme soviet (1989-1991). bring the March 1990 eteetions to the Russian parliament, whieh he wcm decisivdy, he campaigned in his native district of Ordzhonikldze. txl Decexnber 1993, he ran for a seat on the kderatim Council and.won agah, wi.& two-thirds af the vote. He has served on that body ever since.97 Nikslayev's association with Yeltsh begm and ended in rivalry In the 1991 presidential election, be ran against Ycltsin, Wkolay Ryzhkov, Weyev, Z~irinovskiy,and others. His platform cmprised: (P) state sovffor the hktrt-Sakha Republic. wifhilz Russia; (2) transition to a ercig~~ty market economy with due consideration of the special characteristics of the north, which included i~zterulk the c ~ a t i o nof a national banking system and the simultaneous development of the private and state economic sectors; (3) pmtection of the social welfare of the population; and (4) encouragement of international agreemmts-W Nikolayev was soundly beatex?, but he had made his point on the issue of economic autonomy for Uakut-Sakha. For these and other of stands, he was elected preside~~t Vatkut-Sama on Decernher 20,1991. A. week later, while being swlrrn in, he pleased the native residents of his republic by pledging ta serve the "Sakba (Uakut) Repubtic.'" Since that time, the S a b a n presidellt has performed double duty as prime minister M ikliail kolayeis af his homeland. Presidczz t clf- Snkfza (Ynkzatia) (ca. Nikola~evhas proved 1994). SOURCE: TrAR-TASS,corrrtesy himself one of Russia's ablest politi- # D , ~ l Nouikorj, ~ M~~~~~ k State ~ ~ cians in many ways. By supporting Ll,liz~ersify.

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Yeltsin for the Russim presidency in 1991, at the time of the August (1991) coup, and in the executive brmch" clash with parliament in October 1993, Nikulayev has stayed on the winsrjng side despite opposition from his frequently conservatiw mgional legislatures. During winter 1992, Nikolayev ralljed support for Sak:han sovereignty. He contended that Sakha" relations with Russia had to he based on firm legal foundations. It was during this period that he h a m e r e d out economic a g ~ e m e n t son oE Sakhan diamonds m d other resource-sharing policies. the dispositio~~ Throughout the negotiations, Nikolayev" ggoals were a h a y s geared toward economic and nrtf political independence. Until spring 1993, the Sakhm preside~~i: exercised caution when speaEng of reform.,Despite his conservative record in, parliarnent,Y"owever, he supported Yeltsin's wishes and voted againp;t the ouster of Russian Prime Minister Gaydar in December 1,992. Thus, on substantive issues, Nikoayev has been one of the Russian parliament" sstronger supporters of President Veltsin. However, in day-to-day politics, he has been a regionatist and Sa&an patriot. After kltsjn's victory in Oct&er 1993, Pllikolayev djssolved his republic's parliament and tailed for new elections. The Sakhan prt-sident" loyalty to Yeltsin, however, may be more trmsparent than it at first appears. Under the USSR, Sakha w s a classic resource frontier, and Sakhans dmaded that the pattern would persist under the administration of the Russian Federation. Nikolayev and his regional parliaments were determhed to accrue as much control as they could over their resources. The core" concessions on these matters might be due less to its grateful generosity to a loyal Nikolayev than to its desire to co-opt Saklna by gainhg the republ.cfs pprolnises not to seek indcpendence,'" Nmetheless, Nikolayev's apparent loya1"ry to the Russian president would have made it difficult for Ueltsh to rehse his ally's demands wit;hout alienathg Sabans.

Diamnnd S o u e ~ i gty. ~ z Nikcrlayev believed that if his constituency held direct control over only 30 percclri: of its rclsnurces (especially diamonds, gold, oil, gas, and coal), Sakha could. becom wealthy enough to attract businessmen from all over the developed world."""rabafs most impressive bargaining chip is its di,amonds, cvhich represent 99.8 percent of Russia"~current productinn (approximately 24 million carats).l(jzUnder Soviet authority, all revenues from the sale of such =sources went directly into the corc-.'s coffers, Rarely if ever did any of the profits retur~rto the Rgion of origin, except indirectly by way of Moscow Since 1957, four diamond mining operati("m have arism on Sakhan soil. The first of these was a diamond concentrator based on South Afrirran-like kimberlite pipes at Mirnyy, south of the Wlyuy River. A decade later, two other diamond centers took root, on sites of sisnilar

pipes at Aykhal and Udachnyy, almost due north of Mirnyy and just south of the lirctic Circle. Still farthec m r t h of Mirnyy, on the tiny EbelyaW? W e r (a right-bank tributary of the Anabar), diamond placers were rnined throul;h the 1980s. "Ti,gether,Ayfial, Udachnyy, and Mimyy produce more than 95 percrent: of the republic's annual ouQut. EbeXyakh pmvides an additional million carats per year. By the mid-1990~~ the original Mirnyy m i ~ ~were e s near depleticm, hut the prmimal Wileynyy (lubilee) pipe awaited exploitation..For want of appropriate equipmemt and sufficient funding, the Jubilee operation had been delayed for four years, Because of envirs ental concerns, 'Jubileewas to be a shaft mine illstead of the more economical opencast type. With the demise of the Soviet Union, the question of economic sovere i p t y ower domestic diamond production shi&edfrom a rivairy between Russia and the USSR to onc of Russia vcrsus Safia. In early 1992, N'ilcnlayev advocated Sa&a% ssecession from h s s i a and vowed to conduct his intercourse with the core on the basis of jrrternational treaties.%"3 e outcome of the cmtroversy; emerging h late 1992, was a joht-stock relationship (Almazy Rassii-S&@, or Asosa) that gave Russia 80-pescent control over the domestic gem diammd industry and Safia a 20-percmt share. Sama was permitted to retain 100-percent control over the domestic industrial diamond industry. The agreement permitted Sakha to '%sin*-channel market" up to half of its 20-percent gem-quality quota to customers other than DeBeers, which maixrtains a near-monopoly m world diamond markets, Sakhans also formed a joint venture with DeReers in dimond selection and cutting under the narnc Pdar Star. At inception, rclpresentatives of Pdax Star announced that they had plans to coordinate fourteen new dimondcutting operations in Saba, the first of which went wstream in the Vilyuy River to.cvn of Suntar' in N o v e d e r 1,992To the initid disxnay of authorities in the core, Polar Star also intermediated between Sakha, independent of Russia, and other cutting flrms in Jalpan, Israel, klgium, and South Korea.la" Sadly, the arrangement has not proved beneficial to the odinary residents of Sakha. Instead, the old guard Communists in neclcagitalist garb have kept most of the profits. This gmup undoubtedy includes Mkolayev himself. Because of his "special relationsl?ipfJwith Utrltsin, the 5akhan president has been abte to obtain advantages for Sakha that other Siberim regions do not possess. For example, the constitution of S a a a stipulates that Sakhan domestic law takes precedence over Russian law The document also gives the repuhlic the right to secede, s h o d there ever be a catastrophic crisis in the core; but Moscow authorities do not take this prwision sericlusly. Gonstitutiondly, % h a retains the right to form its own army, but it has m t chosen to adopt its w n cur~ncy,hank

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network, or other attributes characteristic of independence. In =turn for the care" peaceful acceptance of these potentially contentious notions, Sakha agreed to participate fully in the governance of the Russian Federation. The rc3pulic obtained the right to avoid much of Russia's privatization program, with local retaiiing remaining in state hands. In another '"special arrangement," Ydtsin permitted Paikolayev to keep aX I federal taxes that he raised until June 1995, when the two sides negotiated a new tax code that has been even more fa~rorableto Safia. Tax retention proves to be a two-edged sword: SaWla must pay for afl federal a d local progmmdrom its own budget. As Barner-Barry and Hody have pointed out, the "money does not ensure ecmornic prosperity but it puts Sakba in a position to begin rebuilding its infraslructure and to clean up the worst of its envirmmental problems.f'los Many of the negotiations that resulted in agreements favorable to Sakha were conducted in secrecy En the biggest secret maneaver of all, the repu2llic obtained ownership rights over all t.he diamonds cm its territory and the right to sell them abroad, as long as Russia could maintain a 32-percent share of the stock in Alrosa. It was a sweet deal: Sakha had permission to buy its 20-percent share of the output at cost, or approxiprice. In 1995, Alrosa acculnulated mately 40 percent of the intematio~~al gross returns of $721 dllion, including $250 million in profits. The hllowing year, the ccmlpany =parted revenues of $1.4 billion, $600 miltion of whjch derived from exports through DeBeers. A dosed joil~t-stock cornpan&led by the republic" vice president, Vyacheslav Shtyrov, the ente~riisc.pmvides 70 to 80 perilent of Sa&a% bbudgetary mvenues.l'"h The Sakhan preside~~t's szlpporters tout the tax treaties as his greatest accorrrpIishment.fn Sama, the vast majority of his compatriots see him as the guarantor of pditicai stability, h e person most likely to solve the mpublic's socioeconomic problems, and a bulwark against potential interethxlic quarrels. Most Sabans arc wilIjng to extend his term to 2001. N&olayevfs&ministration has not been without its critics inside SaM-ra, however" His eco~~arnic ideas tend to be authoritarian. He supports state regulation of the economy, contmding that only the state can stimulate business and entrepreneurial actilxities. The old guard Communists bewly restyled as el~trepreneurs)in his parEarne~~t., who wrote the republic's (1011stihrtion, have striven to weaken his authoriv-but to no avail. fn October 1996, Nikolayets propments urged hirn to disband his legislabre and to convoke a constitutional assembly to adopt a new canstitutim that strengthens his already heavy Inand.107 In April 1997, he s i g e d a decree that compels all fnreipers w h come to SaM-ra to first obt& pernits from local officials and the rfr.pu:blicfsinterior ministry. Simultmeous:ly,the interior ministry amomced that it might soon begin a sweep of Sakha to deport all "illegai a1ic.ns." P~dictably,Nikolayev" pdamentary opponents daimed the decree violated the corzstitutictn of the rcpuhlic.108

er 1997, it appeared that Nikolayev" hmneymoon with the national governmnt was near its elnd and that external opposition also was growing. When Sakha" bbilateral treaty with the core expircd in March 1997, the regional dunla unilaterally extended it, trYithout permission from trhe kltsin government. I'rnbably jealnus of Nikolayev's growing power and popularity' the governor of Gasnoyarsk bay, VaZeriy Zubov, summoned the national government to terminate its ""secret arrangement" with the repubijcs, particularly with Sakha. In May 1,997, when Zubov invited Chubais to Krasnoyarsk to discuss tlne filvoritism issue, the deputy prime minister was only too wilting to accept. After the talks, Chubais traveled to Sakha, hlrhere he chastised the locd leadershi,p for asking for federal subsidies at the same time as they retahed would-be federal taxes. He a$monished the owners oE compmies to sell stock as a means of raisislg capital. Chubais contended that Sakha could afford to contribute more to the national budget. He argued that as of spring 1997, Safia Rad not transferred a shgle d i a m o ~ ~todthe core and that Moscow had obtained a mere $3 miltim of the money garnered from the arrangement with DeBeersr desipite its one-third proprietorship in Alrosa. In ~taliaticm,the Russian government refused to approve nlrosa's deal with DeReers in 1997, By late spring, the compan)i and SaWna werc strapped for funds. The young deputy prime minister stressed that Sakha wodd nt,longer be permitted to avoid its obligations to the federall btxdget.1"" Meanhile, the Yeltsin governmnt sought to find ixrvestors inthe Lornmosov diamond deposits in Arkkangel'sk oblatit-reputedly the world's largest untapped =serves of the precious stones"The goal, was "to create a paweriul mhing center to Tival t h t of S ~ k h a"l1"" . In early July 1997, Nikolayev finally surrendered, saying that Sakha In response, Yeltsh signed l-he wodd pay taxes just like any other regio~~. decree that allowed. Alrosa to conclude a new agreement to export diamonds with DeBeers. The ukase also reduced Safia" ability to benefit from the dimond saies. Since the decree, Sama has been allokved to buy o d y as many diamonds as h s s i a permib, and only at the prices set by the core. Almost immediately, Sakhans empted in anger. In September, workers horn the Vakutsk wates works h u t ollj water supplies to government buildings. They said, that they had not been paid in ten months and they intended to keep the water off until all back wages were collected.1~~ Nikolayev" ho~~eymoan was indeed over.

:In autumn 1991, the city of Kernerovo played host to an internaticznal er was ending, and the trade show. The event was perfectly timed: Su brief"a M m n was nigh;the leaves were changing, and the sky was bright

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P H Q m 8.6 Lenin as antihero at knwrovo Meeting Hall, 2991. SOURCE: Bnzr'Criy KOrobq-rzikaz?,Nozlosti Press Agenq (Kente-foaoBure~u).

with sunlight, Cod breezes from the %m-blew away much of the air pollution generated by the huge irrdustrial district west of t o m , at least until the late &ernoon. It was Kemerovo's "'window of opportunity." Mundmds of foreigners would. witness the city at its very best. A pmmonitcrry glow perfused the t o m . Naive Kuzbas communiststurned-capitalists dreamed of doing big business with the visitors. nlX manner of techology, both Russian and.foreign, was on display in the cumbrous exhibition hall that sverlaoked. the Tomhdder the watchful gaze of the now-w~fashionableLenin (13hoto 8.6). The biggest attraction was a miniature h t c h mobile bakery that contirruausly cranked out free bagwttes: Whatever else they went without, Siberians must have their &kb @=ad), which was get'li"g scarc.er and more expensive every day. Curiously, although their presence was needed. at the exhibition, host after host would disappear for several hours, but never ail at once. The trade shokv had eoindded with the season of harvest on private plots, and the precious produce had to be collected before mid-September lest it rot, mroughout the city, Kemerovans werl, filled with the urgency that only a pmple who have h o w n past malnourjshnnent can feel, In cnntrast to the Occident, Kuzbas sociev still worried. about the availability of the m s t basic necessities.

Alr thr "Red. Dirt_.ctorsf"(communists-kmed-capitalists)were m hand Aman TuXeyev still seelned unto commwle wi.Lh their former e~~emies.. sure that he appreciated the new times, He appeared. to be seething at Gorbachev for the latter's havir~ginitiated such changes. At fie opening ceremony in the downtown opera house, he gabre a preprmdial address to a capacity audience, A gifted orator, he shook his fist and ranted that the f o ~ i g businessmen n needed to appre"iate Kemerovo &last% bounty As a Kazab, he had jnherited coal-black hair and black, bushy eytlbrows from his forebears; be was as menacing as a young John L. Lewis, and twice as mimated (Photo 8.7)).One could tell that he was accustomed to deference. Like the blessing at: a d h e r table surrou~ldedby nonbelievers, his fiery speech was over in a few minutes, The abrupt ternination of his prtrsentation was tantamcrunt to the declaration, "and now, let's eat!" Siberians, whether KazaU, Russim, or sometlhkg else, not only b o w how to eat, they h o w even better how to drir;tk. Within an hour after the So drunk was he, opening of the buffet line, Tuleyev wap; roarilzg &d. in fact, that he had to be carried out to his ehaullieur-driven Volga by no fewer than four of his lackeys, He conthued to rave sibilantly and nonsensically as he vanished into the dusk.112 Aman T~~leyev was born in the Turkme~~ port of Krasnovodsk in 1944. A leading member of the CPRF, Tuleyev -has been in Russian politics since 19639, when he ran for the Soviet C q r e s s of People" Deputies. He naturally supported the strikers but distanced himself 'from their call for Gorhachev" resignation, He did this because he pknned to run for the Russian presidency against Yeltsin, Gorbachev's archrival. h r i n g the 1990 c m paign, he blatantly registered his opinion of Ueltsir~by deelaring that "a vote for YcXtsin" would be ""a vote for a superdictator." Tuleyev came in fourth, surprising many of his detractors, In Kemerovo, he garnered more votes (44.7 pcrcefi) than PE-LOTO8.7 A m n ~l"ulqev, ttw "'Xazraklz m y other candidate. Jro~rz:Kenzerovo" (ca. 2994). SOURCE: [TARDuring the August 1991 coup, TASS, courtesy of Dr. Aleksey Novik?~, he interrupted his vacation, flew Moscow State Urlizwrsify,

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directly to Moscw, and held discussims with the coup supportc;rs to ensure that they would not interfere in the affairs of Kemerovo &last. Tuleyev urged the pespetrators to use state food reserves to gain the support of the people. M i l e the ouf;come of the putsch was still undecided, the Kemerovo governor met with his &last presidium, and informed the members of his discussions with the coup" leaders, He told them that under no ci~umstancescould he support Yeltsin, m d that the coup's leaders had his backing, stressing his wifiislgness to aid them should they need his help. Shortly afterward, an ad hoe cmrnittee was established as a contingency to assist the coup. Tulcyev declared martial law in thc. city of Kemerovo, imposed curfews, m d ordered the army m d the militia to patrol the strets. To counter Zilleyev" actions, Vrltsin dispatched Mikhait Kislyuk to Kemerovo as his preGdentia1 rc-rpresentative. Until szxmrncr 1,997, Tuleyev had to play second fiddle to Kislyllk in his base &last; thus, Tuleyev and Kislyuk bave never been fricnds. The Kazakh was livid over Yeltsin" handling of the parliamentary crisis in C)ctober 1,993, and he c d e d not only for Silnerian independence but also for a nationwide strike against the Russian president (see Chapter 7). Both positions were expected because of Tuleyev's stands on regionalism. In his opidon, the existing system oJ: managing the central budget '"drains the provinces of everything'kd pumps it into "the coffers of the state txasury." This constrains local budgets and excludes rt;gions from the reform process. To allwide the crisis, Tuleyev argucs against the elirnination of extant social stmctures based on collective principles and advocates the lievelopment of new societal forms paralfel to and competing wi& the old ones. In this way, he contends, "vrealize a progrm of stabilization simultmeous with the implementation of a regdated transition to the market ecmomyi.'Xe supports wage increases tied to inflation, ernphasizes lowering costs, and wants to rez~ovatethe industrial base. He has been a strong voice for the rights of vestigial socialist institu.tjons."lJ The predominantv Russian citizms of the Kuzbas never aspired to sovereignty (see Chapter 7). All they want is a higher standard of hint$, r in degreater control over their domestic resources, and g ~ a t eautonomy cisionmaking. Even on these points their expectations have become m m modest over time. Christensezz has noted that shce 1991, the Kuzbas strke committees have become FRvolvcd in '*rearguard actions" protecting workers"obs and social benefits, or have "bickered inten~ally""about the .l14 Under the new appropriate long-term strategies of the labcrr movemez~t market economy, t h y hoped that the cheapness and compet2iveness of their coal (shultmeously the lowest cost at the mine head and the highest Russian domestic gradc) would carry them, They did not foresee the dramatic rise of rail tarif& in October 2993, which forced them to their knees* YeLtsin's pmmises of yesteryear proved as empty as Corbachev"P;.Tempers

fliired. By 1995, Kuzbas millers and elites alike could hardly abide the mce-popular eco~nomicforms Of the Yeltsin govcmment. The vaunted Kemerovo FEZ foundered on infertile soil, The region's new capitalists could neither ship their coal overseas nor distribute it economically to domestic markets. The former home of the Soviet "workingclass elite," by 1997, Kemerovo was swamped with human and economic depression The steel mills of Nowokuznetsk no longer operatred, and tl-te coal mining towns w m bankrupt. Since f 993'37 tlnprofitable rnines h d closed. Ironically, as unemployment rose,the state of the envirmment kproved. On M m h 27, faced with further pit clcrsms, the once inspired mir.rers of Pmkop'yev" ignored mother call to strike. Fearing unemployment, they simply could not afford to halt work. They could not afford, to stop work even though tbey had not been paid in six months, Meanwhile, filling the streets of the tokvn, wives, c h i l d ~ n and , pensioners carried placards &at read "give the miners their muney," """ourcbildren are starving,'" and ""save our town."" Governor Kisly.txk decIared a state of economic emergency in the oblast as early as September 1936. FXe took the action because local mterprises could not pay their debts. Wth a n a t i m i d e onus of $9 billion in wage arrears, the core cou,ld not find sufficient rnolney to pay back wages, pensions, and other social benefits in the region. W h i n the oblast, 90 percent oE the industrial enterprises relied on barter e h a n g e s . Whatever monetary transactims occurred took place outside the province. This left local, governments destitute. The sihlation became so desperate that Kislyuk seemed to side with Nemsov and Chubais by rr.c""ommendil.lgthat his ohlast be split into three parts and merged wiCh neighboring Altay kray m d Novosibirsk and Tomsk oblasts, By May, still without wages, Kuzbas workers stoical@ accepted their fates. Long before, lhey had taken second and third jobs to tide them over when the core could not pay t:hern. The Kuzbas m& was flourishing amid generai exhaustion and a p t h y In the words of a Los Angclcs Tir~tcls rclporter, "The mSt:&%tic change wroughl. bp [the kltsin gover is that the poor feel defenseless." Even when a Dahmerish canniloal staiked children in Novokuznetsk, city ~ s i d e n twere s hardly fazed.115 The heat- ol' summcr brr>u,&t telnsiom to a boil. kltsin fired the unpopular Mislyuk and repllaced. him with Tuleyev, who was to govern the oblast mI;il the new gubernatorial elections took place in Octcrher (Tu1eyc.v would win wi* 95 percent of the vote). Havilng had prior experience (hehre 1991) as governorf Tulcyev irnmediatcly took the side of the protesters and began to pay out at: least some of the wage arrears and child allwmces. Meanwhile, he stiit s~neeredat Yrtltsin's markct rebrms. .A supporter of a strongly b o n d economic on, or common~eafth~ Tuleyev nostalgically favors a return to SvieCstryle paternalism."e

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We live h a soealled new world order that mare often than not resembles a gmups ~ long fused together by the world of disorder. Uurir~gthe 1 9 9 0 ~ Cold War were tom mader. Even in the United Stat-es, centrifugal fasces have hcreased in, the last score of years, h s r 15393, historian Dmiel Boofitin warned, "the menace to America today is in the emphasis on what separates us rather than on what brings us tagether-the separations of race, of religious dogma, of ~figiouspractice, of origins, of lmguage."ll% the United. States, this procfivi~is cause for concern, but in the rest oE the world, its bplicatio~nsare tmly profotmd. In the United States, the vellerable g l u of constitutionalism and a cornmm language still counteract centrifugal tendmcies. In Eurasia m d elsewhere, however, where cultural differences are e~ntreillehedm d ""cnstihtions" are either notnexistmt or weak, the menace is very real. For a while, isr the early 1990s, a good slogan appeared to be: If you don't have a country rush out and make one. h d so it was in Greater Siberia. Toward the end of Gorbachev's adnrtirzistration, the historic precedents of nineteenth-century regionalism reemerged as if they had never dissipated. AL&ough their movemcmts wert. fleeting and ineffective, Greater Silserian separatists had =grouped under the banners of econonnjc autmomy and ethnic sovereignty, Congresses that the regim we= held. ?he messal;e that transpired from all of this wa~; as a whole is hardly u ~ f i e dbut , parts of it are: S&a is one such part, Yamalia anot_her,and nmtia-Mmsia still anoher; and there are ohers that tend to be less compicuous. Regional economic confederations, such as the Sh and FEA, do not and W/Ll not fuse togefier "'matiorns,'3ut can and do serve useful. purposes as hterest groups and lobbies in the core, In 1997, it became apparent that the YeZtsin gowemment was more worried about Greater Siberim "economic separatism" than about its political separatim. 7b lower hflation rates in 1996, core authorities had to withhold fb~mcialsupport of the regions, including wages for state ernr the irst ployees, pensions, and other social paymetnts. In G ~ a t e Siberia, to respond to the austerity program were Sakhalin and Trkutsk &lasts, both of which discclntinued their contributions to the federal budget. The population of Sakhdin oblast had shriveid from 720,Om in 1992 to 632,000 in fa_nuary1997, an implosion of 12 percent. The overwhelming workers Mxha abmdoned majofity of emigrmtt; were highly s the provhce because of the regiond 'S %abiliq to create conditions that would permit residents t island" resourccs+specially kcause of the delays in the devdopmcynt of oil m d gas fidds on the cotntkentaf shelf. =ring the same period, average life expeetmcy otn the is1md. fell. from ti8 to 55 years. Other ""push factors" cornpr tous rise in tho crime rate and if7 drug use. The Sahalin gov

pacity to cope with its sagging economy wa~;largely monetary. The problems were the same in Irkutsk, where the pop.ular Governor Yuriy Nozhikov compllahaed that federal, debts to the province totalcd. more than $350 mFllion, while frkutsk trmsfemed a h o s t $700 million to the federal budget durjng 1,996.A m n t h after he presented these statislies, Nozhikov, who had been governor since 1991 and had been supported by 70 percent of the prowincial electorate, resiped, saying that the policies of the core had severcly damaged the interests of dollor regilms such as 1rkutsk.l'" Today, Nozhikov, Tuleyev, Nikolayev, and Nazdratenk tion dozens of other governors-are like Siberian salmon stream. Xn Soviet times, Siberian workers were granted the nortlnern inmement and other incmtkes for sacrificing theis cormforts in the core to work in the periphery (see Chapter 6). Tlze prices on their raw materials and conszxlner commodities were held extremely low, and relativc to the ordinary worker back home, nornatives in G ~ a t eSibcria r became "rich." Overnight, Yeltsin's ~ f o m emsed s the high wages and low prices, 'The real wage of an average Siberim fell by 20 percelzt below the Russian average in 1992 and has continued to lag ever since, especially in the face of wage arrears (Appendix B1.119 As we have seen, Sakt7alin and Irkutsk are joined by Kernemvo and Primor'ye in their hstrating competition for cooperation from the core, Obvitrusly, these four ~ g i o n are s not alone. Each day,the core must cope with z s republics with 89 separate inventories the plea bargains oE 89 ~ g i o ~and of local problems. Paul Gable contends that the core in 1997 is considerably weaker than it was in 1987, fnr three reasons: (1) It has lost key levers of conlrol. (Che CPSU, t-he KGB, and the Soviet Army), wi&out being able ; its authorito replace them with dmocratic instiktims in the ~ g i m s(2) tarim traditicms force regions to be suspiciws of its motives; and (3) the core itself is divided, a1lokvin.g regional govmors to play one side againd the other. mere are also three reasms why regions are stronger than ever before: (1)Governors are elected m d are legiwated at the local level; (2) ~ g i o leaders d face .few conskaints h a f l y in their control of t-he media, repression of the ~ p m i t i o nand , management of the lncal purse strings; and (3) they often have close ties with regional business leaders m d miiitary commanders (Nazdratenko, for example)."O Whe11 viewed from this perspective, une can easily understand why Nemtsov and Chubais want to sirtlplify the nurnber of administrative units with which Moscow now cmtmds and to co~zstrainthe power of regional governors. Ten purely terrjtoriat.administrative districts made up Greater Siberia in 1917. Today, the region is composed oE twenty-nine ehic-territorid administrathe units (see Appendix A), each with a different e n v j r o n m t and very different needs. Compared to those in other Russian regicms, Siberian populathns are numerically small, and some are very small (see Appendix

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B). Humanitarians, such as the members of the. Althi, arwe that the n u w r ieally small peqles of Greater Siberia should be preserved, no matter what the cmts. Pragmatists counter that the costs are too great, In the view of the latter, the opinions of 3&OW %ants and Mansi and 21,000 W a l e N e n t s y are of no consequence in the face of the need to extmct the hydrwabolw of the Ob-asin, on whid-i tens of milfions of people dcpend for their energy suppLy. More hgortant, the sale oE thc energy to o&er countries still attracts the b d k of the fomign exchanhge income that Russia req~ljrcsto carry itself into the twenty-first centuv. Were Alexander Hamilton alld Thomas fefferson alive today, they would be simultaneousiy fascinated m d horrified by thc strzlggle between national supremacy and ethnoregional rights in modern Russia. The struggle is a classic example of federalism in the making. As we have seen, it is a process of give and take, of adamancy and compromise, and of constitutionalism and tyramy, Many questions =main. Willl the Russian core &ally and ruthlessly repudiate e t n i c and regiond sovereipty in &vox of nczltral admiaistrative units such as the governorships of the tsarist era? Will the Greater Siberian periphery forge stronger ties among its Little Siberians? Will the Russian economy obtain sufficient staZlility m d cmcomitmt security to balance col~servatio~~ with production m d to protect mjnority rights in Greater Siberia? Will the ethnic minorities throughout Greater Siberia use the model set by the :Khants, Mansi, and Nentsy m d practice civil disobedience to acquire what they need to cmtinue their traditional lifesvles m d occupancc patterns? Wll the ethosegions surrel-rder under the p r e s s w from core lieutenants like Chubais and Nemtsov, as did the Sakhan leadership in 19977' And if lhey do, is it simply an example of: a Leninist pseudoalliance, a h r which they will rise again at a more appropriate time? At this juncture, allhough there is good reason to suggest that parts of Siberia m d the EWE might someday become an indcyendent republic (or republics), it is equal@clear that: as long as Siiberians generate their livelihood primarily by trading in raw materials, they wiX1, remain a resource frontier dependent on Russia and other world rczgions for food, finished products, and consumer goods. Siberians are headstrong and hardy people, but their economies are far from self-sufficient. They need the Russim and international markets for their cmde resources, Likewise, they depend m Russia and fo~ignersfor sophisticated machinery and know-how, as at yet supply its own. Sophisticated Western compmies such as Amoco, She11, Exxon, Pmnzoil, Marathon, Mustmg, Elf-Aquitaine, Jolm Brwn, Antglo-Suisse, and mmy others stand ready to provide Siberim s wi& the same environmentally friendly techalogy that they are already using in subarctic and arctic locations elsewhere in the world. To date, xenophcrbic:members of the Russian parliment have successfully de-

wed.these provisions because of their lingering fears of Greater Siberiafs political separation and their usual paranoia about national security Remember, it was this same chauvinism that drove Siberia" ggratest political urskiy, from office in 38471 (see Chapter 3). protagonist, Murav"yevWithout high t e e h ~ a l o wmd secmdary hdustries, Siberia and its regions will have neit3ler economic nor political i n d e p e n d m e .

NOTES 4. Tracey A. Kyan, ed,, Russinrz Cover~lme~~f Today (Washington, D.C.: Carroll Publishing, 19931, pp,iv-viii. 2. Graham Smith, ""El~nicRefations in the New States,'' in inlze Post-Soviet Repziblics: A Systenzntie Geagrapjzy, ed. Denis j. B, Shaw (London: Longman Scientific and Technical, 19951, pp. 38-39. For the complete text of the Russian Constitutin, see Xonstitlttsiya Russiyskoy Febmfsii: Proyckf (Moscc~w:Yuridicheskaya literatura, 1993). 3. Peter J, S. Dunean, ""The Politics of Siberia in Kussia,""Sibiriw: The jarat-rzal of Siberi~nStudis, Vol. I, No. 2 (4994/4995), p. 27; and james H. Bater, Russi~a ~ the d Post-So.oici:Sce~te(London: Arnold, 49%)' p. 448. 4. Smith, ""Ehnic Relations in the Mew States,'" pp- 38-39; and Jeffrey Taylor, "This Side of Uttirna Thule," "te Allcrntic Monll~ly~ April 1997, pp. 37-41. 5. Smith, ""Ehic Relations in the New Slats," pp. 3940, 6. The quo>ttat.ionis Ero>rnDuncan, ""The Politics of Siberia," p 118, 7.ibid. 8, Philip R. Pryclef El-lvironurteniaI Managcmmt ir-z the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 44991), p. 228; and Paul E. Lydulph, Geograplty offhe U S S R (2d ed.; New York: John Wiley and Sans, 1970)' pp-277-278. 9. P11ilip 1". Micklin, "Recent Developments in Large-scale Water Transfers in the USSR," Smiet Geogmphy: Reviezu and Translatialz, Vol. 25, No. 4 (April 1984)' p. 262; G. V. Vc)ropayev et al., "The Prtbtern of Redistribution of Water Resources in the Midlands of the USSR," "ttief Geogmpljy: Reviezu and Trarzslatim, Vol. 24, No. 10 (December 19831, p. 724; and Gordsn B. Smith, Soviet hlilz'cs.: Confir-zuityand Co~~tradl~ibriU~~ (1st ed.; New York: St. Martinp$ 1988), p. 127. 10. Smith, Soviet I""ulilz'cs,g. 129. Shortly before the coXIapse of the USSR, Greater Siberia's military-industrial complex comprised 40 percent of Russia's ddefense industrial enterprises and 18 percent of its filfour force (see Victor L, Mote, AH 11zdz-l~trial Atlas of ffze Soztkt. Successor States [Houstcm, Tex.: Industrial Information Rewurces, 19941, pp. X-2-X-6); Brenda Horrigan, "How Many People Worked in the %>vietDefense Industry?" Radio Free Europe/Radz'o Liberfy Resealleh Report, &l. 1, No. 33 (August 21, 1992), pp. 33-39; and E. Amosenok and V. Bazhanov; ""Qboronyy kompXeks regions," EEKQ, No. 9 (19931, p. 17'. 44. Smith, Sovkf hlifics, pp. 435-436. 12. F. M. Borc>dkin, ed ., Goroda Sibiri i Dnlkego Vosle;tkrz: Kratkiy ekonamikogeogrnficlteskiysprar~octznik(Moscow: Progress' 49901, p. 523. 13, Sibz'rshya gazefa, October 15-21, 1990, pp,12; and Omshya pravda, March 29, 1995,About the same time, the Interregional Association for Siberian Understand-

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ing was founded in Novosibirsk, with a chairperson, executive diredor, and analytical center for coordinating the shift tu a market economy. This group involved representatives from the provinces of Altay; Krasnuyarsk, and Nc~vosibirsk,and focused mainly on analyzing regional industrial surpluses and deficits (Cudok, D-ember 13,1990). 44, Vladirnir A, Zhdanov, ""Contemporary Siberian Regionalism,"YnRc7discuzlerStephen Kotkin and David Wc~lff(Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. ing Russia in A s i ~ eds. , Sharpe, 4951, p. 123. 15. A. Clubotskiy A. Mukhin, and N. Tyukov, Organy vlastz' sub"yektoz7 Rossiyskoy Fediyratsii (Moscc~w:Panorama, 19951, p,30. 16. Duncan, "The Politics of Siberia," p.222, citing James Hughes, "Regionalism in Russia: The Rise and Falil of Siberian Agreement," "rope-Asia Studies, Vc>l.46, N o . 7 (11394), pp. 1133-11 41, 17. Rossiyskn gasefn, March 4,1994. 48. Duncan, "The blitics of Siberia," p. 21. 19*Ibid 20. Rdomosfi, October 8-14, 1993; and Zhdancrv, 'Tontemporary Siberian Regionalism," p. 126, 21, At the time, hlezhayev tvas a member of Chernomyrdin's 'Our Home Is Russia'" Party (see G, V. Belonuchkin, Fedeml5rzoye Sobranhe: Sovet Federcltsii, Gosur;larsfvenrza;ynDztmn fSpmz~och~zikt [Mowow: Panorama, 19961, p. 93; and Duncan, "The 1301iticsof Siberia," p. 22). 22. Rossiyskayn gasefn, July 27,1993. 23. Duncan, "The Palitics of Siberia," p. 22. 24. Segodnya, November 20,1993. 25. Segadnyn, January 28, March 5, and June 28,1994; Kommcrsant, June 21,4994; and Vek, f anuary 21-27,1994. 26. Zhdanov, "Cantempc~rarySiberian Regionalism," p. 423. 27. Segod~ya,April 6 and June 28,1994; and Vek, January 21-27,1994. In the famous U.S. case of McCulloclz a Maryland (18191, the State of Masyland tried to tax an agency of the national gavernment, the Bank of the United Slates. The Supreme Court ruled that Maryland could not tax such an agency because theoretically any state could raise the Local tax sa high as to force the agency off its territory 28, Segudtjya, December 27,44994. novost i, December 22-2% 19%. 29. M~skcoz~skiye 30. Mo~lll2ost5ibir~ December 19,1946, 31. [bid, 32. M. Lyashevskaya, "Regionalkyye assotslatsi-ioblastey Rossii: Qpyt regionalkoy integratsii,'" Kenta-rrr,No. 3 (19"35),pp.59-68. 33. "Duma Adctptti t a w on Federat-Regional Subordination," Chronology of Extents: NUPI, April 28,4499i", available on line at (27 May 1997). 34. Sibirshpa gazetn, September 3--9,1WO; and Cudok, September 29,1990. 35, Moskoz7skiye noe7osfi, December 22-29, 1996; Clubutskiy, Mukhin, and Tyukcjv, Orgntly vlasfisu&""yeklov,p. 30; and Lyashevskaya, "f;iegionaL%nyye assotsiatsii," pppp.59-68,

36. Stephan, "The Russian Far East," p. 234. 37. Vladimir I. Ivanov, ""The Russian Far East: The Political Economy of the Defense Industry Conversion," in inocio-Economic Dz'mcszsions of tlre 61tanges in tlze Slazjic Eurnsian World, eds. Shugo Minagawa and Osamu ieda (Sapporo, Japan: Hokkaido University Slavic Research Center, 19961, g. 180; and EIisa Miller and of the Russian Far East: A Rqerertce Gziidc ~C~ Alexander Karp, eds., P L I C Handbook (Sattle, Wash.: Russian Far East Update, 19941, p. 123. Since its fc>unding,the FEA has actively courted countries of the APR to join WE regions in creating a flourishing base of commerce f see Segod~zya,April 25,1997). 38, Ivanov, "The Russian Far East," pp. 176 180, and 185, 39. Xbid,, p. 176. 40. Segodslyn, March 5,1994. 41. Peter Kirkow, "Russia" Gateway to Pacific Asia," Sibirica: Tke jclumnl I?(Siberign Slzddies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1994/1995),p. 54. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., p. 55; and Glubotskiy, M u h l n , and 'Tyukov, O r ~ n vlnsfz' y subUyekfoz~, pp. 16&169, 44, Kirkaw, "Russia's Gateway,'" p. 55. " f e 213 individuals who founded PAKT-l-he Prirnorskiy Joint-Stock Corporation of Manufacturers (Primorsknyn aktsionerrzaya korpomtsiya prakttndit-eley), a sort of local business roundtable+ame from the region" 36 leading enterprises, comprising, among o>thers,six defense plants and four fishiing and fish-canning industries. Members of i3AK"Twe indicted for the embezzlement of as much as $16 million in 1993, or 3.3 percent of that year" total regional budget (see alw Ciubotskiy, Mukhin, and Tyukov, Org a n ~'"@ski sttb'"yekt.oi;? p. 269). Tc) locate Nazdratenkops former enterpris at Vc)stnk, see Mote, An Jndusfrial Atlas, p. V-13. 45. Stephan, The R z i s s k ~Far East, p. 294, 46, Kirko~r,"Russia" Gatewa)?r,"p. 55. 47. Xbid, 48. Clubotskiy Mukhln, and Tyukov, Organy vlnsfz'~z~b"yektoz?, p. 170, 49. Kirkow, ""Russia%Gateway," p. 56. For the update, see Izvesti;ya, July 2%26 19%; and ""Political Battle Heats Up in Primor"ye," CGltronofogy of Ezrents: NUPI, April 2% 1997 amailable on line at (27 F e b r u a ~1997). 50. Glubotskiy, Mukhin, and Tyukov, Orgatzy vllasfi sub'"yektov, p, 169; and Kirko~r;"Russia's Gateway,'" p. 56. The new representative was Vladirnir Xgnatenko, 51. Xbid,, p. 57. 52. Gitubotskiy Mukhln, and Tyukov, Organy vlnsfz'~z~b"yektoz?, p. 169. 53. Ross-iyskiyeu~sti,April 14,2995; and TuEskiye izz~esfiya,Svtember 3,1994. p. 169. 54. Gitubotskiy; Mukhln, and Tyukc>v,Organy vlnsfz'szcbUyekfoz?, 55. Kommersant Dailyt September 17, 1996. Between July 1996 and November 1997, Chubais was Yeltsin" chief of staff and first deputr)r prime minister in charge of the economy. He fell victim to scandal and has since witnessed a reduction of his poweu: 56. "Cl~rrbaysWants to Assert Control over Russia's Regions,"Tefiro.oPtott>gyof E v e ~ f sNUPI, : September 30, 1996, available on line at (14, September 4997); ""Presidential Decree Broadens Powers of Regional Representatives,"' RFE/RI, Nezuslirze, No. 73, Part 1, available on-line at .=http:/ /citml .rnet.fsu.edu/-gXenn/russia/mr;g01296.htmX> (16 July 1997); and Geir E;likke, "Chubays Wants to Control Regiom," Chronoloa of Ezrents: NUPI, %ptember 31,1996, available on-tine at reign Ministry Slams Primorsk Gc>vernor," Chronolilgy cf Ewtzts: NUPI, April 19, 1996, available on-line at owers," Clrronolugy of Events: NUPI, June 9, 1997, .ehtty:/ /www.nupi.no/cgi-win/Russ1and/ krono.exe/683> (17 June 1997). The governor is not friendless. On the same d a ~ he received a telegram fmm Alexander tebedbdvising him to stay the course. 64. ""Kremlin Quandary over Prirnorskiy Kray," CGltronole~gycf Events: NUPX, June 30, 1997, ry.akMountains parallet to the coast of the Bering Sea (Fc~ndahl,"Assimilation and L)iscc)ntents," p. 192). The Kamasins preserved their Samc>yediclanguage in the Eastern Sayan Mountains into the Sc)viet period. They represented the last tribe af Samctyeds in the Samctyedic hearth, the rest of whom migrated to northern Siberia more than a millennium ago. "The Qmoks lived on the Kc~iymaLowland in the vicinity of Cherskiy (Forsyth, A History of the Peoples of Siberia, pp. 2 0,18,123, 2 25, 2 34, and 355). 76. "Discrimination,""March 4,1996, p. 2. 77.Fmdahl, ""Assimilation and Bixontents," pp. 2@-203. 78. "Discriminatic>n,"March 4,1996, p. 2. 7 9 , Although there is nc, such agency within the executive branch, a Committee on Matters of the North and Numerically Small Peoples exists in the Federation i p. 17). The Cormcil (Ctubutskiy, Mukhin, and Tyukov, Orgn~ly~ I a s fs~ab'"yckfov, Buma has two committees that would =ern to overlap: the Committee on Matters of the Nationalities and the Committee an Prdfems af the North (Belonuchkin, Fedeml"noyeSabraniye, pp. 2 41 and 148).

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GREATER SIBERIA TODAY

80. "Russia to Set Up Body to Facilitate Dialogue with Minorities," Cfzra~zott7gy M W ] , March 10, 1997, chttp: /' /www.nugi,no/cgi-winIRuss1and / krono.exe / 5Q9r(22 September 1997). 81, "Sakhalin Oil 13rojectsRun into Opposition," CC/zro1"~0Eogy of Ezten fs: NUPXf March 6, 1997, ~http://www.nupi.no/cgi-~in/R~ss1and/krono.e~e/563 (22 September 1997). Sakhatin 1-111 will. develop fi-ve ail and gas fields, containing 400 Mmt of crude oil and 830 Bcm of gas, in the Sea of Qkhotsk northeast of SakhaXin Island (Tanya Shuster, "Sakhaiiin Leads the Way," Bistzis B~2llleCitz,September 4997, p. 1; and Matthew J. Sagers, ""Pospects for Oil and Gas Develvrnent of IXesia's Sakhalin Oblast," Post-Sovief Geogmplzy, Vol. 36, No. 5 [May 19951, pp. 276290). 82. Fondahi, ""Assimilation and Di~ontents,"p. 204, 83. Ibid,, pp. 207-208. 84. John Masxy Stewart, "The Khanty: Oil, Gas, and the Enviranmrtnl;" "SiFirica: The Ju~irnnlof Siberian Studies, Vcd. 1, Nct. 2 (1994/2995), pp. 25-34; and Osherenkct, ""fdigenorrs Political and Property Rights,;,"p. 225, 85. Osherenko, ""XdigenousPolitical and ProperPy Rights," p 21226. 86. Izvestiyn, October 8,1996. 87. Daniel R, Kemptan and Richard M, Levine, ""Soviet and Russian Relations with Foreip Corporations: The Case of Gold and Diamonds," S~lnvicReviewt Vol. 54, No. 1 (Spring 9 9951, pp- lff2-203. 865. Segodnya, July 15, 199'7; Kons t itut s i y Rossiyskoy Federa! sii: Proyekf; and "Split Beepem in "Tyurnen;" CGhronologj of Events: NUPX, April 24,1997, arraifable on.-lhe at .c=http: nupi.no/cgi-win/iRussXand/ krc1nu.exe/469> (22 Spternber 1.997). tiorv-; for Regianal Electiom Cmtinue," Clzm-l?ulogjof Eve~gfs:NUPlf 89. August 7, 1996, avaiIabXe on-line at .=http://www.nupi.no/cgi-win/'Russland / krctna,exe/94> (30 May 1%7); "fianty-Mami Withdraws from rfyumenWblast," Chro~olo~q of Events: NUPI, September 27, 1996, on-line at chf3-p:/ / cgi-win/Rus;sland / kronct.exe/ 1713 (29 May 1997); Rabed Orttrung, ""Kazakok~Resolves T'yumenTrisjs,'TChronology c?f Ez~enfs:NUPI, October 9, 1996, (29 May 1.997); "Yett-sin Moves ons Back to Decembeu;" CGl"zro.anolocqof Ez)ents:NUR,Qdaber 16,1996, nupi.no/cgi-win/Russtand / krc1nu.exe1382r (29 May 19137). 90. Ritsuko Samki, ""Oil Factor in Tyumen%lectiom," Glzro.urzology#Ezlenl.s: NLIPI, November 13, 1996, .c=http:/ /www.nupi.no/cgi-wi~/F:ussland l krc1no.exe/284> (29 May 4997). 91. "TyumenTe-elects Rcrketskiy,'" Cltmnology of Events: NUPX, January 15, 4997, chttp: / /www.nupi.no/cgi-win/Russland / krona,exe/408> (31 May 199Q. 92. Partly in exchange for his signature on the March 1B 2 (Russian) Federation Treaty, Sakha President Nikolayev signed in the name of the Sakha Republic (Vakutia) (Maqorie MandeXstam Pialzer, "The Sakha Republic," in Redismzrering Russia in Asin, eds. Stephen Kotkin and Davici Wolff [Armonk, P3.Y.M. : E. Sharpe, 49951, p. 142). 93. Ma jorie Mandelstam Balzel; "Turmoit in Russia's Mini-Empire," firspeclive, Vol. 2, Na, 3 Uanuary 1992), pp. 2-3. Dr. Balzer kindly sent me a photocopy ctf this piece. 94,Out-migration from S a b a was 17600 in 1991, a figure that was second only to the emigration from Magadan obtast. Sakha's outnow exceeded the republic's of Events:

rate of natural increase by 5,600 persons, The migration stream burgeoned after the debacle of the USSR, thus raising the share of Sakhans in their republic (Miller and Karp, X;"ockefHandbook, p. 91; and Baize&"The Sakha Republic," p 1142). Between 1989 and 1992, the pogulations of Western and Eastern Siberia imploded by 150,800 (Peterson, '"ussia" Environment," p 3304). 95. There are vestigial Sakhan and Evenk groups scattered alt~rtgthe Chinese bank of the HeiXongiarlg (Amur) River. 1 spotted Evenk in their native dress in the Hailaerh (Hailar) Railway Station in 4987. As Balzer stwsses, they are ""Snocized but hungry for further contacts [with their m kind in SakhaJf"Balzer, ""Te S a b a Republic,"". 147). For informatim an the Manchurian Evenk, see Juha Janhunen, ""Ethnic Implications of the Sino-Russian Border," in inocio-Economic Bintensions c f f h e Clmlzges ir-z the Slavlc E~arasianWorld, eeds. Shugo Minagawa and 01;amu ieda (Sapporo, Japan: f-lokkaido University, Slavic Research Center, 19961, pp. 202-204. "3. Balzel; "The S a b a Republic," pp. 146-447. While I was in Seoul, in a u t u m 199GshortXy after Sakha" ddrrctarat.ic>nof so>vereignty(September 27)-""penlpotentiaries" of the Yakut-Sakha Republic toc~kpart in discussions with representatives of Hyundai about developing the EIgen coal deposit and the private construction af the tmubled AYAM Railway, 97. Belonuchkin, Federtrlltnoye Sobm~riye,p. 91. 98, Gitubotskjy Mukhjn, and Tyukov, Orgarzy z ~ l ~ s~z~b"yektoz?, ti p. 153. 99. Ryan, Rzrssinn Government 'l'oday, Spring 1993, p, 52. From 1991 to 1993, Nikolayev ranked -41 on a wale of - 3 08 to 100 (Frcym antirefc>rmto proreform). 400, Carol Barmr-Barry and Cynthia A, P-iody#T!jc Tr~lzsformlioiulzof t k Former SozlieC Union (New York: St. Martin's, 1995), g. 29'7. 404. Balzer, "Turmoil in Russia" Mini-Empire," p, 3. 102, The rest of the diamond output comes fram Kus'ye-Aleksandrovskiy, the site of a tiny mine an the western slope of the central Urals, in Perm" ablast. For more an the Sakhan diamond controversy, see Bond, Levine, and Austin, "Russian Diamond Industry," pp.6 3 5 4 4 ; and Kempton and Levine, "Sc>vietand Russian Relations," pppp.100--102. 103. Kamntersnnlt-13~2'Iy'December 15,1996. 404. Bond, tevhe, and Austin, "Russian Diamond Industry," pp. 637-639. 105. Barne~Barryand Hody, Transbjrur.mtiorz,p. 298. The absolute "worst" of Sa&a% environmental problem is radioactive plutonium polfutiun, the remains of windblown fallout from a 58-megaton, above-surface explosion of a hydrogen bomb aver Novaya Zemlya in 1961. The perpetrators tzraited until the winds blew from the west in order to avoid contaminating the core, thereby concealing their secrets. Instead, the fallout precipitated on Sakha, "smothering the land with an invisible layer of plutonium 239 and 240, the most poisonous substances known to man and comparable to the fallout from Chernobyl." No one was told. 'Tc>day, almost 48 years after the explosion, thousands af Sakhans suffer fmm disorders of the blood, hair, connective tissues, digestic~n,and immune system. See Svetlana Uegomva, ""Uakutia: Siberia's ChernobyI," Sibirica: The Jt~urr-zalof Siberinn Sfzrdiss, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1994/1995), pp. 35-37. 406. Sovetsbya Rossiya, October 49, 1996 107, Ibid.

202

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408. Segodnya, April 26,1997. 109. Iz~7estiyn,May 16, 1W?; Segadnya, May 15, 1997; and Ko1r~mersant-DailyI May 15,1997. 110. ""Russia to Offer Diamond Rights to Foreign Companies,'" Today's He~dlines Tnletnafionnl: PR Newswire, Story 71Q96(May 23,1997). 441. ""rakutsk Workers Shut Off Water to Local Government," RFE/RL N~roslitze, No. 115, Part 1, available on-line at chttp: / [citml .met.fsu.edu/-g1ennIrussiai msgO1409.htrnL> (11 September 1997); p. 3. 112. I: was an eyewitness to this display. tater, as I: emerged from the opera hause, 1 noticed a staggering Tuleyev, '""atking it off" alone in the city square. His chauffeur obediently awaited his recovery (Memerovo, early September 1991). 113. Sibitskfzyagaxfa,No. 38,September 1991. 114. Paul T. Christensen, "Property Free-for-All: Regionalism, "ernocratization,hnd the Politics of Economic Contrc~Xin the Kuzbas, 1989-1993," h inedisco~en"11g Russia in Asia, eds. Stephen Kotkin and Davicl Wolff (Armank, N.U.: M. E. Sharpe, 1995),p. 220. 445. Los Angeles Elnes, May 26,1997 '""Siberian Miners Ignore Strike Call, Fearing Job tosses," hzdustq Traekfiom Busr'n~sWire, Document 708f;IS% (March 27, 19971, pp. 1-2; "Kerneravo Oblast to Be Dismembered?" Chronology of Evmfs: NUPI, February 12, 3.997, on-line at .ehttp:/ /www-nugi.no/cgi-win/RussIand / krono.exe/46'79 (27 May 1997));and ""Kernerovo Governor Declares State of Economic Emergency,'" Ctzmnology of Evenfs: NUPI, September 10, 1996, .ehttp:/ / www.nupi.no/cgi-winiRussIand / krc1no.exe/Z55 (30 May 1997). 116. "Yeltsin Sacks Siberian Govermr," Chronology ofEz7mfs:NLJPT, July 3,4997, .=http:/ /wwwnupi.nt~/cgi,-win/IZ.ussiand/krc1nc1.exe/733 (9 July 1997); and "Day of Prcltest in Kernerovo," RFE/RL Nciwstine, Na, 172, Part 1, on-line at (I6 July 199?), p-3.

447, Parade Magazine,July 25,4993, p, 4. 118. ""Sakhalin Papulagon Shin&," CCtzror?olomoJE~fenfs: NUPI, April 30,1997, online at .=http:/ /www.nupi.no/cgi-win /Russtand / kronc>.exeiVa (22 September 1997); ""Regional Leaders Seek E c o n o ~ Independence;" c CChr~~oloa ofEz7ents: NUPI! March 13, 1997, ~ (31 May 4997); Segodnyn, March 6,1%1;1; m d Komfrtersa~l-Daily,April 21,1997'. 119. Jarnes Hughes, "Yettsin's Siberian Opposition," W E / R L Researctz RqtlrG, Vol. 2, No. 50 (19931, p. 30. In 1995, the average Siberian real wage Lag was 34 percent among the 15 losing regons, with 13rimor"ye, Chita, and the JAR all below -50 percent. When Tyurnen" and Sakha, with 107 percent and 13 percent, respectively above the Russian average, are added in, the deficit average real wage becomes -20 percent. Chu kotka, Kamchatka, and Koryakia were still xceiving government subsidies but endured enormous wage arrears. Karnchatka, for example, suffered a N-percent unemployment rate (see "'Administrative Units," on-line at ~ h t t p/:/ www.nupi.no/cgi-'~~in/;Russland/a~e~thet.exe/ (30 May 49977; and New York Em~cs,June 15,1997). 420. Paul Goble, "Russia: Analysis from Washington-Federalism by Default," July 14, 1997, on-line at .ehttp://www.rferl.org/nca/features/199?/07/ ERU,9f;70"714131730.html> (;2"3"ugust 19971, pp. 1-2.

TABLE A,I Greater Siberian Covei-norships in 4947 and Ethnoregians in 1997

Regions in 1917

Regions ir-z 1997

Poptn Ea t A rea in 1997 in 1993 1,000 km-" millions

Share Tit~dlar Gmup

Tyumen' clblast Khantia-Mansia Uamalia Ornsk &fast Tomsk oblast Navosibirsk oblast Kemerovo clblast Altay kray AXtay republic

Eastern Siberia Yenlseysk guberni ya

Krasno>yarskkray Evenkia Taymyria makassia lryva

Irkutsk c3blast UstL-QrdaBuryatia Buqatia Chita abbst Aga-Buryatia

Russian Far East Uakutsk &last Amur oblast Maritime obtast-

Sakhalin island

SaWa (Vakutia) Amur clblast Jewish aut. oblast Primorski y kray mabarovsk kray Karnchatka obtast E=clryakia Chukotka Magadan oblast SaWalin oblast

W Treadgold, The Crmt SZ'ber2tkl~Migratio~z(Princeton, N.J.: Princetan University 13ress, 1957), pp. 263-265; Goskornstat Rossii, Ross-iyshya federwtsiya v 1992godzl (Mc)scc>w:Retjpubf iikanski y informatsionnc~izdateX"skiy tsentr, 1993), pp. &-10,91--93;and James H. Bater, Russ-in and tlze Post-Soviet Scene (London: AmrtXd, 1996), p. 1.18. SQVRCES: Drtnald

Appendix B

E

TABLE B.1 Socic~cc~nernic Characteristics of Ethnc3regions in Greater Siberia in 19917

Ethnic Crozrys Et ~ Z F Z O ~ ~ ~ ~ O I I

ka~zdPnj~lilaf'it?ti)

hifzgtirlge

Rcfigio~~

Altay republic Altay kray Kernerc3vo