by James Millar
DAVID M. GLANTZ
KURSK SUBMARINE DISASTER
On Saturday, August 12, 2000, the nuclear-powered cruise-missile submarine Kursk (K-141), one of Russia’s most modern submarines, was lost with all 118 crewmembers during a large-scale exercise of the Russian Northern Fleet in the Barents Sea. The Kursk sank just after its commander, Captain First Rank Gennady Lyachin, informed the exercise directors that the submarine was about to execute a mock torpedo attack on a surface target. Exercise controllers lost contact with the vessel and fleet radio operators failed to reestablish communication. Shortly after the Kursk’s last communication, Russian and Western acoustic sensors recorded two underwater explosions, one smaller and a second larger (the equivalent of five tons of TNT).
Russian surface and air units began a search for the submarine and in the early evening located a target at a depth of 108 meters (354.3 feet) and about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the Northern Fleet’s base at Murmansk. Russian undersea rescue units were dispatched to the site. The command of the Northern Fleet was slow to announce the possible loss of the submarine or to provide reliable information on the event. On August 13 Admiral Vyacheslav Popov, commander of the Northern Fleet, conducted a press conference on the success of the exercise but did not mention the possible loss of the Kursk. A Russian undersea apparatus reached the Kursk on Sunday afternoon and reported that the submarine’s bow had been severely damaged by an explosion. The rescue crews suggested three hypotheses to explain the sinking: an internal explosion connected with the torpedo firing, a possible collision with another submarine or surface ship, or the detonation of a mine left over from World War II.
On Monday, August 14, the Northern Fleet’s press service began to report its version of the disaster. The reports emphasized the absence of nuclear weapons, the stability of the submarine’s reactors, and the low radioactivity at the site. It also falsely reported that communications had been reestablished with the submarine. The Northern Fleet and the Naval High Command in Moscow reported the probable cause of the disaster as a collision with a foreign submarine. While there were reports of evidence supporting this thesis, none was ever presented to confirm the explanation, and both the United States and Royal navies denied that any of their submarines had been involved in any collision with the Kursk. The Russian Navy was also reluctant to publish a list of those on board the submarine. The list, leaked to the newspaper Kom-somolskaya pravda (Komsomol Truth), was published on August 18. The Russian Navy’s initial unwillingness to accept foreign assistance in the rescue operation and failure to get access to the Kursk undermined its credibility.
When President Vladimir Putin learned of the crisis while on vacation in Sochi, he created a State Commission under Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Kle-banov to investigate the event. Putin invited foreign assistance in the rescue operation. British and Norwegian divers successfully entered the Kursk on August 21 and found no survivors. Putin had kept a low profile during the rescue phase and did not directly address the relatives of the crew until August 22. At that time Putin vowed to recover the crew and vessel. In the fall of 2001 an international recovery team lifted the Kursk, minus the damaged bow. The hull was brought back to a dry dock at Roslyakovo. In December 2001, on the basis of information regarding the preparation for the exercise in which the Kursk was lost, President Putin fired fourteen senior naval officials, including Admiral Popov. Preliminary data from the Klebanov
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commission seems to confirm that the submarine sank as a result of a detonation of an ultra highspeed torpedo, skval-type. On June 18, 2002, Ilya Klebanov confirmed that the remaining plausible explanation for the destruction of the submarine was an internal torpedo explosion. See also: MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET; PUTIN, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Burleson, Clyde. (2002). Kursk Down. New York: Warner Books. Despite increasing competition from factories, cottage industry continued to account for a large share of Russian manufactured goods until the end of the tsarist regime, and enjoyed a brief revival in the 1920s under the New Economic Policy. Notwithstanding the importance of cottage industry in the Russian economy, there is no reliable data for the number of cottage workers in the country as a whole. Estimates range from 2.5 million to 15 million peasants engaged in cottage industry at the end of the nineteenth century. See also: PEASANT ECONOMY; PEASANTRY
JACOB W. KIPP
KUSTAR
Cottage worker, home worker; a peasant engaged in cottage industry (kustarnaya promyshlennost) to earn cash, usually in combination with agricultural production.
Cottage industry became an important source of income for rural peasants in some parts of Russia by the sixteenth century and developed extensively during the nineteenth century, producing a wide range of wooden, textile, metal, and leather goods. It was usually a family enterprise, although some peasants formed producer cooperatives and worked under the supervision of an elected elder. Some cottage workers independently produced and sold their production, while others participated in a putting-out system in which they worked for a middleman who furnished them with raw or semifinished materials and collected and marketed the finished products. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the state, zemstvos, and cooperatives had established schools, credit banks, and warehouses to assist cottage workers in producing and marketing a wide variety of goods.
The socioeconomic position of Russian cottage workers was the subject of many debates in the decades preceding the revolution. Populists argued that most cottage workers remained peasant agriculturists and engaged in cottage industry only to supplement their earnings from agriculture, while Marxists contended that cottage workers were becoming proletarianized and wholly dependent on the income they earned from selling manufactured goods to middlemen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blum, Jerome. (1961). Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Crisp, Olga. (1976). Studies in the Russian Economy Before 1914. London: Macmillan. Gatrell, Peter. (1986). The Tsarist Economy, 1850-1914. London: Batsford. Salmond, Wendy R. (1996). Arts and Crafts in Imperial Russia: Reviving the Kustar Art Industries, 1970-1917. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
E. ANTHONY SWIFT
KUTUZOV, MIKHAIL ILARIONOVICH
(1745-1813), general, renowned for his victory over Napoleon.
At the age of sixty-seven, Mikhail Kutuzov led the Russian armies to victory over Napoleon in the War of 1812 and created the preconditions for their final victory in the campaigns of 1813 and 1814. Kutuzov first distinguished himself in extensive service against the Turks during the reign of Catherine II. He served in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, first on the staff of Petr Rumyant-sev’s army, and then in line units with Vasily Dol-gorukov’s Crimean Army. In combat in the Crimea in 1774 he was shot through the head and lost an eye. When he returned to service, he took command of the Bug Light Infantry Corps of Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov’s army. He led his corps into combat with the Turks once again when war broke out in 1788. He was wounded again at the siege of Ochakov in that year, but continued to command troops throughout the war, serving under Grigory Potemkin and Alexander Suvorov. FolKUYBYSHEV, VALERIAN VLADIMIROVICH lowing the end of hostilities, Kutuzov served in a number of senior positions, including ambassador to Turkey, commander of Russian forces in Finland, and military governor of Lithuania. It seemed that his days as an active commander had passed. In September 1801 he retired.
The Napoleonic Wars put a quick end to Ku-tuzov’s ease. When war threatened in 1805, Alexander I designated Kutuzov, now a field marshal, commander of the leading Russian expeditionary army sent to cooperate with the Austrians. On the way to the designated rallying point of Braunau, on the Austrian border with Bavaria, Ku-tuzov learned of the surrender of the Austrian army at Ulm on October 20. Now facing French forces four times stronger than his army, Kutuzov began a skillful and orderly withdrawal to the east, hoping to link u
p with reinforcements on their way from Russia. Desperate rearguard actions made possible this retreat, which included even a brief victory over one of Napoleon’s exposed corps at the Battle of D?rnstein. Despite Napoleon’s best efforts, Kutuzov managed to withdraw his army and link up with reinforcements, headed by the tsar himself, at Olm?tz in Moravia in late November. Fooled into thinking that Napoleon was weak, Alexander overruled the more cautious Kutuzov repeatedly in the days that followed, ordering the field marshal to launch an ill-advised attack on the French at Austerlitz on December 2. Wounded once again while trying to rally his men to hold a critical position, Kutuzov helped Alexander salvage what could be saved from the wreckage, and then commanded the army during its retreat back to Russian Poland.
Blaming Kutuzov for his own mistakes, Alexander relegated Kutuzov to the post of military governor general of Kiev. It was not long before Kutuzov returned to battle, however, for he joined the Army of Moldavia in 1808 and commanded large units in the war against the Turks (1806-1812). In 1809 he was relieved once more and sent to serve as governor general of Lithuania, but in 1811 Alexander designated Kutuzov as the commander of the Russian army fighting the Turks. In the shadow of the impending Franco-Russian war, Kutuzov waged a skillful campaign that resulted in the Peace of Bucharest bare weeks before the French invasion began.
The War of 1812 was Kutuzov’s greatest campaign. Alexander relieved Mikhail Barclay de Tolly after his retreat from Smolensk and appointed Kutuzov, hoping thereby to see a more active resistance to the French onslaught. Kutuzov, however, continued Barclay de Tolly’s program of retreating in the face of superior French numbers, until he stood to battle at Borodino. Following that combat, Kutuzov continued his withdrawal, eventually abandoning Moscow and retreating to the south. He defeated Napoleon’s attempt to break out to the richer pastures of Ukraine at the Battle of Maloyaroslavets, and then harried the retreating French forces all the way to the Russian frontier and beyond. He died on April 28, 1813, a few weeks after having been relieved of command of the Russian armies for the last time. See also: ALEXANDER I; AUSTERLITZ, BATTLE OF; BORODINO, BATTLE OF; BUCHAREST, TREATY OF; FRENCH WAR OF 1812; MILITARY, IMPERIAL ERA; NAPOLEON I; RUSSO-TURKISH WARS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Parkinson, Roger. (1976). The Fox of the North: The Life of Kutuzov, General of War and Peace. London: P. Davies.
FREDERICK W. KAGAN
KUYBYSHEV, VALERIAN VLADIMIROVICH
(1888-1935), Bolshevik, politician, Stalinist, active in civil war and subsequent industrialization initiatives.
Active in the Social Democratic Party from 1904, Valerian Kuybyshev was an Old Bolshevik who played a major role in the Russian Civil War as a political commissar with the Red Army. Having fought on the Eastern Front against the forces of Admiral Kolchak, he was instrumental in consolidating Soviet power in Central Asia following the civil war. Kuybyshev subsequently held several important political posts: chairman of the Central Control Commission (1923); chairman of the Supreme Council of the Soviet Economy (1926); member of the Politburo (1927); chairman of Gos-plan (1930); and deputy chairman of both the Council of People’s Commissars and Council of Labor and Defense (1930).
A staunch Stalinist throughout the 1920s, Kuybyshev advocated rapid industrialization and supported Stalin in the struggle against the Right Opposition headed by Nikolai Bukharin. Kuyby-shev’s organizational skills and boundless energy were critical in launching the First Five-Year Plan
KUZNETSOV, NIKOLAI GERASIMOVICH
in 1928. However, in the early 1930s Kuybyshev became associated with a moderate bloc in the Politburo who opposed some of Stalin’s more repressive political policies.
Kuybyshev died suddenly on January 26, 1935, ostensibly of a heart attack, but there is some speculation that he may have been murdered by willful medical mistreatment on the orders of Gen-rich Yagoda-an early purge following the assassination of Sergei Kirov. Whatever the actual circumstances of his death, he was given a state funeral, and the city of Samara was renamed in his honor. See also: CIVIL WAR OF 1917-1922; INDUSTRIALIZATION, RAPID; RED ARMY; RIGHT OPPOSITION; STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Conquest, Robert. (1990). The Great Terror: A Reassessment. New York: Oxford University Press. Kuibyshev, V. V. (1935). Personal Recollections. Moscow.
KATE TRANSCHEL
KUZNETSOV, NIKOLAI GERASIMOVICH
(1904-1974), commissar of the navy and admiral of the fleet of the Soviet Union.
A native of the Vologda area, from a peasant background, Kuznetsov was born on July 11, 1904. He joined the Red Navy in 1919, served during the civil war with North Dvina Flotilia, and fought against the Allied Expeditionary Force and the Whites. He served in the Black Sea Fleet beginning in 1921, became a Communist Party member in 1925, and graduated from the Frunze Naval School in 1926 and the naval Academy in 1932. He served as assistant commander of the cruiser Krasnyi Kavkaz (1932-1934), and as commander of the cruiser Chervona Ukraina (1934-1936). Kuznetsov served as naval attach? in Spain and was the Soviet advisor to the Republican Navy during the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1937. After returning from Spain, he served as the first deputy commander of the Pacific Fleet (commissioned August 15, 1937) and as commander of the Pacific Fleet from 1938 to 1939.
Kuznetsov was recalled to Moscow in March of 1939 and was appointed as the first deputy. Days later, on March 12, 1939, he was appointed commissar of the Navy. He held this position until 1946, leading the Soviet Navy during World War II with mixed results. The Navy did not perform well against an enemy whose naval interests were elsewhere, and it remained in a defensive mode for most of the war, suffering heavily at the hands of the Luftwaffe. The Soviet retreat from the Baltics proved to be a fiasco, but the Navy performed better in the evacuation of Odessa and Sevastopol. Two landings in Kerch in 1942 and 1943 ended in disaster, but the blame was not confined to the Navy. The Volga Flotilla played a significant part in the defense of Stalingrad, and the stationary Baltic Fleet provided artillery support in the Battle of Leningrad. Throughout 1944 and 1945, a number of landings took place behind the enemy lines, which resulted in little gain and heavy losses.
The outspoken Kuznetsov may have offended Stalin, although he blamed the Navy’s shortcomings on Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov, the political commissar of the Navy before the war. In February 1946, Stalin divided the Baltic and Pacific Fleets into four separate units, a decision Kuznetsov opposed. The end result was the removal of Kuznetsov. He was forced to face a Court of Honor, where several admirals were accused of passing naval secrets to the Allies during the war. Kuznetsov was reduced to the rank of rear admiral on February 3, 1948, and was sent to the reserves, but was called back and appointed as deputy commander in chief in the Far East for the Navy on June 12, 1948. On February 20, 1950, he was reappointed to his old job of commander of the Pacific Fleet. Stalin, encouraged by Lavrenti Beria (head of the secret police), also recalled him, and once again named him commissar of the Navy on July 20, 1951. He kept this position even after Stalin’s death.
On the night of October 29, 1955, the Soviet Navy suffered its greatest peacetime disaster when the battleship Novorossisk blew up in Sevastopol, with the loss of 603 lives. Kuznetsov was blamed for this disaster, and was removed from his position. On February 15, 1956, he was once again reduced in rank and forcibly retired. Kuznetsov’s reputation was rehabilitated only in 1988, fourteen years after his death and after a long campaign by his widow. During his roller-coaster career, he was rear admiral twice, vice admiral three times, and admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union twice. He was deputy to the Supreme Soviet three times, and served the Eighteenth Party Congress in 1939. He was also declared a Hero of the Soviet Union on
KYRGYZSTAN AND KYRGYZ
September 14, 1945. The Soviet naval policy changed after Kuznetsov, who was mainly a surface-ship admiral, to emphasize an oceanic navy that was heavily dependent on a large fleet of submarines, missile cruisers, and even the occasional aircr
aft carrier. See also: BALTIC FLEET; BLACK SEA FLEET; MILITARY, IMPERIAL; PACIFIC FLEET
MICHAEL PARRISH
KYRGYZSTAN AND KYRGYZ
The Kyrgyz are a nomadic people of Turkic descent living in the northern Tien Shan mountain range. Originally chronicled as living in the region of what is today eastern Siberia and Mongolia, the Kyrgyz migrated westward more than a thousand years ago and settled in the mountains of Central Asia. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, ethnic Kyrgyz live in the countries of Kazakhstan, China, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. The majority of the Kyrgyz live in the country of the Kyr-gyz Republic (known as Kyrgystan), a former republic of the Soviet Union that received its independence in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. With an area of 76,000 square miles (198,500 square kilometers), the mountainous, landlocked republic is nestled between Kazakhstan, China, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The Kyrgyz Republic’s population is 4,822,166, of which 2,526,800 (52.4%) are ethnic Kyrgyz. Significant minority groups include Russians (18%), Uzbeks (12.9 percent), Ukrainians (2.5%), and Germans (2.4%). The capital city of Bishkek has an estimated population of 824,900, although the number may be closer to one million if illegal immigrants are considered.
Sunni Islam of the Hanafi School is the dominant faith among the Kyrgyz. However, when Islam was introduced to the people, many kept their indigenous beliefs and customs. The force of Islam was further weakened during the Soviet period when active religious adherence was discouraged. During the early twenty-first century, the Kyrgyz government espouses strong support for maintaining a secular state and any sympathy for radical Islam has been marginalized.
