Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  As Stavka chief of staff for Tsar Nicholas II after August 1915, Alekseyev functioned as de facto supreme commander, but was tainted in 1916 by the ill-conceived Naroch operation and by failure to support the more successful Brusilov Offensive. While maintaining contact with the liberal opposition, he left Stavka in December 1916 for reasons of health, then returned in March to June 1917 as

  ALIYEV, HEIDAR

  supreme commander. An ardent anti-Bolshevik between the two Russian revolutions of 1917, he fought against the disintegration of the army, even agreeing to serve temporarily as the army’s commander-in-chief after the Kornilov Affair of September 1917. Following the Bolshevik coup of November 1917, Alexeyev and Lavr Georgievich Kornilov became the military nucleus around which a White counterrevolutionary movement in the Don and Kuban organized the Volunteer Army. Alexeyev’s death in October 1918 at Yekaterinodar deprived the Whites of perhaps their most talented commander and planner. He left the legacy of a keen military professional who consistently rendered impressive service as commander and staff officer under extraordinarily challenging military and political circumstances. See also: KORNILOV AFFAIR; NICHOLAS II; STAVKA; WHITE ARMY; WORLD WAR I

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Wildman, Allan K. (1980, 1987). The End of the Russian Imperial Army. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

  OLEG R. AIRAPETOV

  ALIYEV, HEIDAR

  (b. 1923), Soviet Azerbaijani statesman, president of Azerbaijan (1993- ).

  Heidar Alirza Oglu Aliyev was born in Nakhichevan, Azerbaijani SSR. Aliyev studied architecture and history in Baku. In 1944 he joined the KGB of Soviet Azerbaijan and became its director in 1967. In 1969 Aliyev became first secretary of the Communist Party (thus effective leader) of Soviet Azerbaijan. In 1982 he was invited to Moscow as a full member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) Politburo and first deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. He also served as a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for twenty years.

  Following Mikhail Gorbachev’s accession to power, Aliyev was forced to resign from his positions in the Party in 1986 and in the government in 1987. Aliyev resigned from the CPSU in July 1990 citing, among other reasons, his objections to the use of the Soviet army units against demonstrators in Baku earlier that year. He returned to Nakhichevan, where he relaunched his career as the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Nakhichevan and deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani Supreme Soviet. In 1993 he was asked by the embattled President Abulfaz Elchibey of independent Azerbaijan to return to Baku. By October 1993 Aliyev was elected president of Azerbaijan. He was reelected in 1998.

  Aliyev’s main priority as leader of independent Azerbaijan was to secure domestic stability and effective control and exploitation of the country’s hydrocarbon resources. Aliyev was able to neutralize unruly elements that threatened internal peace, as well as others who could challenge him politically, while pursuing a policy of selective political and economic liberalization.

  In foreign affairs Aliyev adopted a supple and pragmatic approach. He moderated his predecessor’s excessively pro-Turkish, anti-Russian, and anti-Iranian policies. Aliyev used the country’s hydrocarbon resources to increase Azerbaijan’s international stature and, working closely with Georgia, secured the West’s political support to balance Russia’s influence.

  Aliyev’s initial policy of continuing military operations in the Nagorno-Karabakh war caused further territorial losses to Armenian forces as well as a new wave of internally displaced persons. In 1994 he agreed to a cease-fire. Aliyev has supported the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s mediation efforts for a permanent solution to the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as direct negotiations.

  His administration continues to be plagued by charges of authoritarianism, widespread corruption, and tampering with elections. Eight years into his administration, Aliyev’s main challenges-the problems of Karabakh, of succession, and of securing new major routes for the export of Caspian hydrocarbon resources-remain largely unresolved. See also: ARMENIA AND ARMENIANS; AZERBAIJAN AND AZERIS; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Curtis, Glenn E. (1994). Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Washington, DC: Library of Congress. Herzig, Edmond. (1999). The New Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs.

  51

  ALLIED INTERVENTION

  Swietochowski, Tadeusz. (1995). Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. New York: Columbia University Press.

  GERARD J. LIBARIDIAN

  ALLIED INTERVENTION

  The Russian Revolution of 1917, occurring in the third year of World War I, initially inspired great hopes in the countries engaged in the brutal struggle against the Central Powers that was exacting so terrible a carnage and so enormous a financial drain. The prospect of a new ally, the United States, seemed bright, since a war without the Romanov autocracy as an ally could now be claimed to be truly one of democracy against the old order of Europe, of which Russia had been one of the bastions. Unfortunately, Russia was already severely weakened by the war, both on the battlefield and on the home front. It was left to the United States to provide direct aid and a moral presence, but time was running out, and opposition to the war, with its huge human sacrifices and economic burdens, was a persistent trend in the new “democratic” Russia. The inability of the Provisional Government, headed by Alexander Kerensky, to deal with the situation led to a victory of the left wing of the revolution in the form of a Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917.

  This created a dilemma for the Allies, because the Bolsheviks were largely committed to ending the war. If the new Soviet government withdrew from the war, considerable German military forces would be shifted from the Eastern Front to the Western Front in 1918, thus nullifying the mounting American presence there. Opinion was sharply divided on a course of action. Some Allied agents in Russia believed that Bolshevik leaders could be persuaded to delay a peace or even to continue a military effort in return for desperately needed aid. Others advocated direct military intervention to maintain an Eastern Front, especially because of evidence that some units of the old Russian army remained intact and committed to continuing the war. American and British representatives in Russia, such as Raymond Robins and Robert Bruce Lockhart, campaigned for the former course, while influential political leaders urged direct military intervention, some maintaining that an American force of 100,000, could not only maintain a viable Eastern Front but also destroy the “communist threat.” The crisis came in March 1918 with the Soviet government’s negotiation of terms for a peace with Germany at Brest-Litovsk. Since there had been no forthright pledge of assistance, Vladimir Lenin felt that ratification of the treaty was necessary, but about the same time, due to deteriorating conditions in the major ports that contained large amounts of Allied supplies for Russia, detachments of marines from Allied warships in the harbors landed to safeguard personnel and reestablish order in the old port of Archangel on the White Sea, in the new one of Murmansk in March 1918, and at Vladivostok on the Pacific in April. Doing anything more at the time was precluded by the concentration of available men and supplies on the Western Front to stem a surprisingly successful German offensive. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk gave Germany access to a large part of the Russian Empire and to valuable military supplies, much of Allied origin. Moreover, a large number of liberated German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war were able to return to combat in the West or control large areas of Russia, such as Siberia.

  With the German offensive in the West stopped, but the Russian situation continuing to deteriorate, the Allies considered a more substantial military intervention. President Woodrow Wilson was reluctant to interfere in another country’s affairs, especially because it might result in dividing the old Russian Empire and its resources among the other Allies. But, in the interests of Allied harmony (and their commitment to a future League of Nations), he agreed in July 1918 to s
end American forces to northern Russia and Siberia. About 4,600 American troops, dubbed the Polar Bears, arrived in Murmansk and Archangel in August 1918, accompanied by a slightly larger British force and smaller Allied units (a total of about 12,000). The expeditionary force was under British command, much resented by the Americans throughout the campaign. Its mission was to protect the supplies in the ports, but also to secure lines of communication by water and rail into the interior. The latter resulted in a number of skirmishes with Red Army units during the winter of 1918 to 1919 and several casualties (though the influenza epidemic would claim many more). This intervention on Russian territory was supported by much of the local population, which was represented by a non-Bolshevik but socialist soviet at Archangel, thus complicating the question of what kind of Russia the Allied forces were fighting for. The end of the war challenged the legitimacy of an Allied interALLIED INTERVENTION vention and provoked opposition among the troops there and at home.

  The opening of a Second Russian Front in Siberia was rather different, since it involved a more substantial American expeditionary force (around 9,000) under its own command and a much larger Japanese army of approximately 70,000, along with 4,000 Canadians and token “colonial” units of French, Italian, Chinese, and British. Their ill-defined mission was to assist the transfer to the Western Front of a Czecho-Slovak Legion consisting of 60,000 former prisoners-of-war who supported the Allies, to protect munitions in and around Vladivostok, and to guard against one another’s imperialist ambitions. On the long way to the Western Front, the Czech Legion managed to seize most of the Trans-Siberian Railroad to prevent released German and Austro-Hungarian pris-oners-of-war in the area from forming a “German front” in Siberia; and to provide aid to what at first seemed a viable anti-Bolshevik government centered in Omsk under the leadership of Admiral Alexander Kolchak. For the United States, limiting Japanese ambitions for a more permanent occupation was a major factor. In any event, the American commander, General William S. Graves, was under strict orders from Washington not only to avoid coming under the control of the larger Japanese army, but also to desist from direct hostility with any Russian military units, of which there were several of various political orientations. Most of the Allied expeditionary force remained in the vicinity of Vladivostok and at a few points along the Chinese Eastern and Trans-Siberian railroads until the decision to withdraw in May-June 1919.

  Another commitment of men, supplies, and financial assistance came to the south of Russia but only late in 1918, when the end of war allowed passage through the Straits into the Black Sea. The catalyst here was the existence of substantial White armies under Anton Denikin and his successor, General Peter Wrangel. In the spring and summer campaigns of 1919, these forces won control of extensive territory from the Bolsheviks with the support of about 60,000 French troops (mostly Senegalese and Algerians), smaller detachments of British soldiers with naval support, and an American destroyer squadron on the Black Sea. Divided command, low morale, vague political objectives, the skill and superiority of the Red Army, and, finally, Allied reluctance to provide major aid doomed their efforts. This “crusade” came to a dismal end in late 1920. Besides a direct but limited military presence in Russia, the interventionist powers provided financing, a misleading sense of permanent political and economic commitment to the White opposition, but also medical and food relief for large areas of the former Russian Empire.

  Allied intervention in Russia was doomed from the beginning by the small forces committed, their unclear mission and divided command, the low morale of the Allied soldiers and their Russian clients, the end of the war of which it was a part, and the superiority of Soviet military forces and management. Throughout, it seemed to many that the Allied interventionists were on the wrong side, defending those who wanted either to restore the old order or break up Russia into dependent states. To many Americans, for instance, the Japanese posed more of a threat to Siberia than did the Bolsheviks. In the aftermath, genuinely anti-Bolshevik Russians felt betrayed by the failure of the Allies to destroy their enemy, while the new Soviet power was born with an ingrained sense of hostility to the interventionist states, marking what could be claimed as the beginnings of the Cold War. An immediate tragedy was the exodus of desperate refuges from the former Russian Empire through the Black Sea and into Manchuria and China, seeking assistance from erstwhile allies who had failed to save the world for democracy. See also: BREST-LITOVSK PEACE; SIBERIA; UNITED STATES, RELATIONS WITH; WHITE ARMY; WORLD WAR I

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Carley, Michael J. (1983). Revolution and Intervention: The French Government and the Russian Civil War, 1917-1919. Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Foglesong, David S. (1995). America’s Secret War Against Bolshevism: U. S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Goldhurst, Richard. (1978). The Midnight War: The American Intervention in Russia, 1918-1920. New York: McGraw-Hill. Graves, William S. (1932). America’s Siberian Adventure, 1918-1920. New York: Jonathan Cape amp; Harrison Smith. Kennan, George F. (1958). The Decision to Intervene: The Prelude to Allied Intervention in the Bolshevik Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Saul, Norman E. (2001). War and Revolution: The United States and Russia, 1914-1921. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

  ALLILUYEVA, SVETLANA IOSIFOVNA

  Ullman, Richard H. (1961-73). Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917-1921. 3 vols. Princeton. NJ: Princeton University Press. Unterberger, Betty. (1956). America’s Siberian Expedition, 1918-1920. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Unterberger, Betty, ed. (2002). The United States and the Russian Civil War: The Betty Miller Unterberger Collection of Documents. Washington, DC: Scholarly Resources.

  NORMAN E. SAUL

  ALLILUYEVA, SVETLANA IOSIFOVNA

  (b. 1926), daughter of Soviet general secretary Josef Stalin and his second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva.

  The daughter of an old Georgian revolutionary friend, Sergo Alliluyev, Nadezhda Alliuyeva was sixteen when Stalin married her on March 24, 1919. In addition to Svetlana Iosifovna, she had one son in 1919, Vasily. Svetlana also had an older half-brother Yakov (Jacob), the son of Stalin’s first wife, Yekaterina Svanidze, a simple peasant girl, whom he married in June 1904 at the age of 25, but who died on April 10, 1907.

  Nadezhda Alliluyeva’s death in 1932, apparently a suicide following a quarrel with Stalin, deeply affected both her husband and her daughter. Morose, Stalin withdrew from Party comrades with whom he had socialized with his wife. Some believe her suicide contributed to his paranoid distrust of others.

  Svetlana was twenty-seven when Georgy Malenkov summoned her to Blizhny, the nickname for Stalin’s dacha at Kuntsevo, just outside of Moscow. In her first book, Twenty Letters to a Friend (1967), she poignantly described Stalin’s three-day death from a brain hemorrhage. “The last hours were nothing but a slow strangulation. The death agony was horrible. He literally choked to death as we watched.” Although she had lived apart from Stalin, who had always been “very remote” from her, she nevertheless experienced a “welling up of strong, contradictory emotions” and a “release from a burden that had been weighing on [her] heart and mind.” After her father’s death, Svetlana taught and translated texts in the Soviet Union. In late 1966, while in India to deposit the ashes of her late husband Brajesh Singh, she asked Ambassador Chester Bowles in the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India, for permission to defect to the United States. She left a grown son (Josef) and daughter (Katie) from two earlier marriages in the Soviet Union. Svetlana’s defection caused an international sensation. “I could not continue the same useless life which I had for fourteen years,” she told reporters on March 9, 1967. Settling in Locust Valley, New York, she wrote the abovementioned memoir describing the deaths of her two parents, and a second one two years later (Only One Year), in which she described her decision to defect. Upon becoming a U.S. citizen, she married an American architect, William Peters, in 1970 and had a daughter by him. After sepa
rating from Peters, she returned to the Soviet Union in 1984 and settled in Tbilisi. She again left the USSR in 1986 and returned to the United States, but then settled in England during the 1990s. See also: STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Alliluyeva, Anna Sergeevna, and Alliluyev, Sergei Yakovlich. (1968). The Alliluyev Memoirs: Recollections of Svetlana Stalina’s Maternal Aunt Anna Alliluyeva and her Grandfather Sergei Alliluyev, comp. David Tutaev. New York: Putnam. Clements, Barbara E. (1994). Daughters of Revolution: A History of Women in the USSR. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson. Radzinskii, Edvard. (1996). Stalin: The First In-Depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia’s Secret Archives. New York: Doubleday. Richardson, Rosamond. (1994). Stalin’s Shadow: Inside the Family of One of the Greatest Tyrants. New York: St. Martin’s.

  JOHANNA GRANVILLE

  ALMANAC See FEMINISM.

  ALTAI

  The Altai people comprise an amalgamation of Turkic tribes who reside in the Altai Mountains and the Kuznetsk Alatau. Their origins lie with the earliest Turkic tribes (Uighurs, Kypchak-Kimaks, Yenisey Kyrgyz, Oguz, and others). In 550 C.E., the Tugyu Turks settled in the Altai Mountains along the headwaters of the Ob River and in the foothills of the Kuznetsk Alatau, where around 900 C.E. they formed the Kimak Tribal Union with the Kypchak