World Country Guide

History and Government

History of pre-revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union
In the course of the ninth century, Viking tribes from Scandinavia moved southward into European Russia, tracing a path along the main waterway connecting the Baltic and Black Seas. The first monarchic dynasty, which ruled until the Mongol invasion of the 13th century, built Kiev as its capital. The Mongol Empire, which stretched across the Asian continent, was divided into a number of ‘hordes’ or individual kingdoms; Russia was put under the suzerainty of the Khanate of the Golden Horde. The next two centuries saw the rise of Moscow as a provincial capital and centre of the Christian Orthodox Church. In the late 15th century the Grand Prince of Moscow, Ivan III (the Great), annexed the rival principalities of Russia, including the Novgorod Republic to the north, thus becoming the first national sovereign. His grandson Ivan IV (better known as Ivan the Terrible) further expanded the state to the south and into Siberia. He was the first to hold the title of Tsar (derived from ‘Caesar’).

The political history of the period from 1500 until the mid-17th century was characterised by struggles between the tsar and the rich, powerful, landed nobility, known as the boyars. The Russian empire expanded gradually to acquire land to the south as far as the Caspian Sea and eastwards into Siberia. The two most important rulers of Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries were Peter the Great (1682-1725), who cemented the regime and established Russia as a leading European power, and Catherine the Great (1762-96), generally recognised as an astute and energetic ruler, who pursued a policy of enlightened despotism at home while continuing the aggressive foreign policy initiated by Peter.
In the first quarter of the 19th century, under Tsar Alexander I, the first steps were taken to dismantle the system of serfdom under which most people lived. The process was disrupted, however, by Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. The French were driven out in 1812 and Napoleon’s army was destroyed in the legendary retreat from Moscow. Alexander’s successor completed the growth of the empire into the Caucasus (now Georgia) and Armenia, and reached agreement with England about the division of Central Asia into spheres of influence. Most of Siberia had been annexed by the 1840s, but the expansion to the south and east (creating more or less the present frontiers of the CIS) was not complete until 1905. Domestic policies remained conservative: pressure for political and economic reform was met only with repression.

By February 1917, Russia was engulfed by widespread strikes, rioting and army mutinies, which forced the Tsar to abdicate. The liberal Provisional government which took control was then forced out of office by a Bolshevik coup in October of that year. The Bolsheviks were the more radical product of the split in the Social Democratic Party, formed in 1898, upon which much of the organised opposition to the regime was focused. Under the leadership of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, the Bolsheviks moved quickly to consolidate their position, bringing land, industry and finance under state control. The military challenge of the right-wing White Armies, backed by the major European powers, was seen off by Bolshevik forces in a nationwide civil war that lasted two years.

Lenin died in 1924 and was succeeded by Josef Stalin (Djugashvili) who instituted a crash programme of industrialisation and the forced collectivisation of agriculture. This was an indiscriminately brutal process which caused mass starvation in parts of the country, especially the Ukraine (one of the Soviet Union’s most fertile regions) Stalin’s pathological fear of domestic enemies led to purges in which thousands of party members and others were shot or disappeared into the vast network of concentration camps famously described by writer Alexander Solzhenystin as the ‘gulag archipelago’.

In 1941, the USSR was invaded by Nazi Germany - despite Stalin having signed a peace treaty with Hitler in 1939 - at the start of what the Soviets referred to as the Great Patriotic War. Like Napoleon before him, Hitler’s armies were driven out, again with massive loss of life on the Russian side (an estimated 20 million people). A large reconstruction effort had, by the early 1950s, repaired much of the war damage. In the meantime, the USSR had become the world’s second nuclear power, having exploded its first atomic bomb in 1949, and created a buffer zone of communist-controlled governments in Eastern Europe. The occasional instability of these regimes led the USSR to intervene militarily on two occasions – in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Foreign policy was dominated by relations with the USA, which fluctuated from outright hostility to the ‘Cold Peace’ of détente.

America and the Soviet Union came to the brink of nuclear war during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The Soviet Union was by now in the hands of Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, who had shocked the Communist Party in 1956 by revealing the extent of Stalin’s savagery. Also during Khrushchev’s term, the split with China, which fractured the unity of the world communist movement, took place. Relations between the two countries have since improved but remain circumspect. After Khrushchev’s fall from power in 1964, the USSR was led until 1982 by Leonid Brezhnev. In retrospect, the Brezhnev years are seen as a period of stability and relaxation in international tensions (although Brezhnev took the USSR into Afghanistan) coupled with domestic stagnation and inertia, presided over by an ageing and unimaginative party leadership. The very last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, took over the leadership in March 1985, after a three-year intermediate reign of two General Secretaries, Andropov and Chernenko, who were more often than not indisposed by ill health. Gorbachev instigated a programme of social, political and economic reform, and a wholesale diplomatic offensive abroad, not only on nuclear arms control, but also in regional policies and relations with the Third World. An early success for Gorbachev was the treaty on Intermediate Nuclear Forces, signed in December 1987, which eliminated a whole category of superpower nuclear armaments. Another protracted dispute with the Americans was settled in early 1989, when the last Soviet forces left Afghanistan after a decade of fighting.

At home, Gorbachev’s programme centred on perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness). At the heart of the glasnost policy was the liberalisation of the media, while perestroika was mainly designed to enable essential economic reform: it was clear by now that central planning had failed and that the Russian economy was in a poor condition (see Economy section). Gorbachev had also realised that the ‘nationalities problem’ – a reference to 100-plus distinct ethnic groups in the Soviet Union – could undermine the cohesion and integrity of the nation: for all his reformist intentions, Gorbachev was determined to guarantee the continued survival of the Soviet Union. He was quickly proved right as simmering aspirations and resentments, particularly in the Baltic republics, Transcaucasia and Central Asia, came to the surface.
Gorbachev’s disastrous decision to send the Red Army into Lithuania in early 1991, to prevent it from seceding, marked the beginning of the end. Now under assault by radicals and secessionists on one side and conservative elements in the military and KGB on the other, Gorbachev’s position was becoming increasingly untenable. At this point a rival emerged – sacked head of the Moscow Communist Party, Boris Yeltsin, who won the election for the presidency of the Russian Republic in June 1991. This conferred on Yeltsin a legitimacy which Gorbachev, who had never received any popular mandate, could not match. Meanwhile, the conservatives realised that to arrest the situation, they would have to act quickly.

On 19 August 1991, while Gorbachev was holidaying in the Crimea, a coup was staged by a group of conservative hardliners led by KGB chief Kryuchkov and Gorbachev’s nominal deputy, Ligachev. Badly planned, it fizzled out after three days, but Gorbachev’s position had been completely undermined. Boris Yeltsin, who co-ordinated and rallied resistance to the coup, came out greatly strengthened. Gorbachev’s last attempt to save the USSR was dismissed by the leaders of the republics who spent the remaining months of 1991 consolidating their own positions and sketching the rough outline of a post-Soviet system.

History since the break-up of the Soviet Union
With the end of the Soviet Union and the demise of Gorbachev, Yeltsin set about consolidating power within the Russian Federation. During October and November 1991, Yeltsin established a new ministerial team and a radical economic reform programme (see Business Profile section). The Soviet and Russian Communist parties were suspended. The main resistance to the programme came from the Congress of People’s Deputies, the quasi-parliamentary elected body established by Gorbachev in 1989, and dominated by ex-Communists and conservative nationalists.
The confrontation came to a head in October 1993 with an outbreak of fighting between supporters of the Congress and security forces loyal to Yeltsin. The Parliament building, the White House – where Yeltsin had made his famous stand against the coup plotters just two years earlier – came under siege. The pro-Yeltsin forces prevailed. With his position secured, Yeltsin was now able to introduce a new constitution which allowed for greatly increased presidential powers.

The ban on the Communist Party was lifted in November 1992, since when it has been a constant and moderately influential presence in the Duma (national parliament). Despite its limited powers, especially in matters of foreign and security policy, the Duma has become the main focus of opposition to the presidency, as Yeltsin discovered during the disastrous first Chechen war of 1994-95. By 1996, when presidential elections were due, Yeltsin seemed almost certain to lose office. But Russia had changed considerably over the previous five years. The pervasive influence of the Communist Party had been replaced by competing centres of power: the security forces; the military and its associated industrial complex; the so-called ‘oligarchs’, powerful business executives who had exploited the anarchic privatisation process to secure control of important parts of the economy; and, finally, regional governors controlling their often remote fiefdoms with little interference from Moscow. A complex and frequently corrupt network of alliances between these elements now controlled the country. While the new ruling class grew rich, the majority of the population suffered as the economy contracted.

By forging links with this amorphous group of potentates, Yeltsin was able, during the course of the 1996 presidential campaign, to turn a disastrous campaign into a winning one. Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov came second. However, with his health deteriorating, Yeltsin came to rely increasingly during his second term on his prime minister. A string of appointees of varying calibre and experience filled the post until the summer of 1999 when Yelstin picked Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB officer who had built a successful political career in St.Petersburg, to fill the post. Putin proved to be a deft political operator and at the very end of 1999, with Yeltsin fast fading, he took over as president. The same month, the newly formed pro-government ‘Unity’ party, created just two months earlier, came a creditable second to the Communist Party at the Duma elections. Putin then won the presidential poll in March 2000.

Putin’s approach has been to allow the competing power centres leeway within strict limits defined by central government (see the example of Tatarstan, below). His treatment of the oligarchs exemplifies this. They are largely free to pursue their commercial interests, but are ill-advised to engage in politics: that, at least, is the perception following the arrest and imprisonment (on charges of tax evasion and corruption) in 2003 of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, reputedly Russia’s richest man, who financed the opposition Yabloko party.

Yabloko has failed to prosper despite Khordorkovsky’s largesse. Duma elections in December 2003 returned the pro-Putin ‘United Russia’ (formerly ‘Unity’) as the largest party. And Putin was the comfortable winner of the March 2004 presidential election.

With the economy performing reasonably well during the last few years, Putin’s main domestic headache has been the rebellious region of Chechnya, situated in southern Russia on the border with Georgia. As Gorbachev had predicted, the nationalities problem would be one of the most serious facing post-Soviet Russia. The Russian Federation is a far from homogenous entity, hosting nearly 100 distinct nationalities. A number of these have been the cause of secessionist headaches for the Moscow government, especially in the southern Caucasus region where there is a majority Muslim population. There has been serious political tension and occasional violence in the autonomous regions of North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Bashkiria and Dagestan. For example, Tatarstan, one of the larger regions with a population of 1 million, has persistently lobbied for greater autonomy and, in 2003, achieved it in a deal with Moscow under which it controls almost all its own affairs (including foreign trade deals). However, the Tatars accept that sovereign independence is a non-starter.

This may be a future model for the evolution of Russia, and a much preferable alternative to the situation in Chechnya. Here, the Russians were determined to thwart the popular Chechen secessionist movement (the history of Russo-Chechen relations is replete with warfare and large-scale brutality. In 1944, accused by Stalin of collaboration with the Germans, almost the entire population was forcibly moved to the barren steppes of Kazakhstan. Many thousands died. The people were eventually ‘rehabilitated’ by Krushchev and allowed to return home). Full-scale fighting broke out in 1994 – the first Chechen War – and lasted until a ceasefire in August 1996 paved the way for an uneasy peace.

Moscow had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of ‘terrorists’ (or, as they have since been relabelled, ‘Islamic terrorists’). Following a series of mysterious bomb explosions (almost certainly carried out by Russian intelligence) in Moscow apartment blocks during October 1999, the Russians had cause to resume their Chechen campaign. The already badly damaged Chechen capital, Grozny, and most other major towns were reduced to rubble by massive bombardment. The Chechens are now largely engaged in a difficult guerrilla struggle in their own territory, augmented by high-profile terrorist attacks such as the 2002 assault on a Moscow theatre and the Beslan school attack in 2004.
The Russians have a related problem in neighbouring Georgia: some Chechen militants have taken refuge in the Pankisi Gorge, an inaccessible area occupied by armed opponents of the fragile Georgian government (see Georgia). A political solution in Chechnya remains elusive (despite desperate Russian attempts to portray the situation in Chechnya as near-normal); despite the Russians managing to install a pro-Moscow president, Akhmad Kadyrov, in the province in 2003, he was assasinated a year later.

Elsewhere, during the last two years, Putin has done much to rebuild Russia’s prestige, while recognising that it has strictly limited powers – especially by comparison with the United States. The country has recovered some influence in parts of the Middle East and concluded a strategic alliance with China. Putin has also focused considerable effort on the European Union, both for economic reasons and because (in common with the Chinese) he perceives it as a counter-influence to the dominance of the US.
After the terrorist attacks on the USA of 11 September, Putin moved quickly to cash in on American requests for support, offering copious and detailed intelligence information about Afghanistan to US forces. Putin was also guaranteed a free hand in Chechnya, and the Russians have major interests of their own in the shape of the post-Taleban regime in Afghanistan. Moscow remained on the sidelines during the March 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq and has played a limited role in the post-war settlement, although it has long-established links with the country, an interest in the oil industry, and is keen to recover if possible some of the billions owed to them by Saddam Hussein.

Government
Under the 1993 constitution, broad executive powers are held by the President who is directly elected for a four year term and governs with the assistance of an appointed cabinet (whose Premier must be endorsed by the legislature). The bicameral legislature consists of the State Duma, with 450 members directly elected for four years, and the Federation Council, with 178 members – the head of the regional legislature and executive in each of the country’s territories. These territories, which make up the Federation, comprise 21 republics, 49 administrative oblasts (regions), six provinces, one autonomous oblast, 10 autonomous okrugs (districts), and two urban areas (Moscow and St Petersburg) with special administrative status