by James Millar
Responding to these pressures, Gorbachev twice sent a senior Soviet Middle East Expert, Yevgeny Primakov, to Iraq to try to mediate on Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, albeit to no avail. Instead, the Soviet specialists working in Iraq were swiftly taken hostage in advance of the January 15, 1991, United Nations deadline for an Iraqi withdrawal.
In late December 1990, as it became more and more apparent that the U.S.-led coalition would begin its attack against Iraq on January 15, Shevardnadze suddenly resigned as Soviet foreign minister in the face of mounting pressure from Soviet right-wing forces. His replacement, Alexander Bessmertnykh, was far less pro-U.S., and his remarks utilized the old Soviet jargon of “balance of power” rather than Gorbachev’s “balance of interests” terminology. Nonetheless, this did not inhibit the coalition attack on Iraq that took place on January 15 and that thoroughly defeated Saddam Hussein’s forces and drove them out of Kuwait by the end of February 1991. Gorbachev’s behavior during the fighting, as he sought the best possible deal for Hussein from the United States, resembled that of a trial lawyer seeking to plea bargain for his client under increasingly negative conditions. This was particularly evident in his peace plan of February 21, which provided for a lifting of sanctions against Iraq before it had fully withdrawn its troops from Kuwait. The United States, however, neither accepted Gorbachev’s entreaties nor paid much attention to the increasingly hostile warnings of Soviet generals as U.S. troops advanced.
By the time the war ended, Washington had emerged as the dominant power in the Middle East, while the USSR lost much of its influence both in the Middle East and in the world. After the war, the United States consolidated its military position in the Persian Gulf and reinforced its relations with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, while Moscow sat on the diplomatic sidelines.
Given Moscow’s diminished position in the region and in the world as a whole after the Gulf War, Gorbachev tried to salvage the USSR’s prestige to the greatest degree possible. Thus, besides trying to reinforce relations with Iran, he sought to retain a modicum of influence in Iraq by opposing U.N. intervention following the postwar massacres of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds by Hussein’s forces. Primakov, whose influence in the Russian government was rising, stated that he believed Hussein “has sufficient potential to give us hope for a positive development of relations with him.”
Nonetheless, Gorbachev’s attempts to protect Hussein availed him little. Less than a year after the end of the Gulf War, the USSR collapsed, and Gorbachev fell from power. See also: IRAQ, RELATIONS WITH; UNITED STATES, RELATIONS WITH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beschloss, Michael R., and Talbott, Strobe. (1993). At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War. Boston: Little, Brown. Freedman, Robert O. (2001). Russian Policy Toward the Middle East Since the Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Yeltsin Legacy and the Challenge for Putin (Donald W. Treadgold Papers in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies, no. 33). Seattle: University of Washington: Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. Nizamedden, Talal. (1999). Russia and the Middle East. New York: St. Martins. Rumer, Eugene. (2000). Dangerous Drift: Russia’s Middle East Policy. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Shaffer, Brenda. (2001). Partners in Need: The Strategic Relationship of Russia and Iran. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Vassiliev, Alexei. (1993). Russian Policy in the Middle East: From Messianism to Pragmatism. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press.
ROBERT O. FREEDMAN
PESTEL, PAVEL IVANOVICH
(1793-1826), a leader of the Decembrist movement.
Pavel Ivanovich Pestel, the son of Ivan Boriso-vich Pestel and Elisaveta Ivanovna von Krok, was born in Moscow into a family of German and Lutheran background. He was sent to Dresden at the age of twelve to be educated, and on his return four years later he joined the Corps of Pages in St. Petersburg, where he began to study political science. On graduating Pestel entered the army and in
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time joined several secret societies. The most important of these was the Society of Salvation, founded in 1817 and later renamed the Society of Welfare. Several of Pestel’s fellow officers had been in Paris and Western Europe during the war against Napoleon, and from them he became familiar with the ideas of the French Revolution. Transferred to the southern Russia in 1818, Pestel organized a local branch of the Society of Welfare, where he and his friends discussed such ideas as constitutional monarchy and republican government, as well as the means by which the imperial family might be coerced into accepting the former or made to abdicate in favor of the latter.
Pestel left two unfinished works, Russkaia Pravda (Russian Truth) and Prakticheskie nachala politicheskoy ekonomy (Practical Principles of Political Economy). The first outlines a program for political reform in Russia; the second, a rambling essay on economics, expresses admiration for the prosperity made possible by political freedom in the United States. Pestel’s ideas, especially in their tendency to favor radical solutions to the problem of Russia’s political backwardness, relied heavily on the ideas of the French writer Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy, but they had other French and German sources as well.
When Alexander I died in December 1825 there was some confusion about the succession. There was also confusion among those who were plotting a revolt. The more radical revolutionaries were in the south under Pestel’s leadership. Betrayed by informants in the Southern Society, Pestel was arrested on December 13, the same day that three thousand soldiers demonstrated in Senate Square in St. Petersburg on behalf of Alexander I’s brother, Constantine, who had already given up his claim to the throne in favor of his brother, Nicholas. Pes-tel’s colleague Sergei Muraviev-Apostol attempted to lead a revolt, but it was crushed by imperial troops. Pestel was found guilty of treason and executed in 1826 with four of his fellow revolutionaries, Muraviev-Apostol, Peter Kakhovsky, Mikhail Bestuzhev-Ryumin, and Kondraty Ryleyev. See also: DECEMBRIST MOVEMENT AND REBELLION; RYLEYEV, KONDRATY FYODOROVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mazour, Anatole G. (1937). The First Russian Revolution, 1825: The Decembrist Movement: Its Origins, Development, and Significance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Walsh, Warren B. (1968). Russia and the Soviet Union: A Modern History. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
PAUL CREGO
PETER I
(1672-1725), known as Peter the Great, tsar and emperor of Russia, 1682-1725.
The reign of Peter I is generally regarded as a watershed in Russian history, during which Russia expanded westward, became a leading player in European affairs, and underwent major reforms of its government, economy, religious affairs, and culture. Peter is regarded as a “modernizer” or “westernizer,” who forced changes upon his often reluctant subjects. In 1846 the Russian historian Nikolai Pogodin wrote: “The Russia of today, that is to say, European Russia, diplomatic, political, military, commercial, industrial, scholastic, literary- is the creation of Peter the Great. Everywhere we look, we encounter this colossal figure, who casts a long shadow over our entire past.” Writers before and after agreed that Peter made a mark on the course of Russian history, although there has always been disagreement about whether his influence was positive or negative.
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
The only son of the second marriage of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich of Russia (r. 1645-1676) to Nathalie Kirillovna Naryshkina, Peter succeeded his half-brother Tsar Fyodor Alexeyevich (1676-1682) in May 1682. In June, following the bloody rebellion of the Moscow musketeers, in which members of his mother’s family and government officials were massacred, he was crowned second tsar jointly with his elder, but severely handicapped, half-brother Ivan V. Kept out of government during the regency of his half-sister Sophia Alexeyevna (r. 1682-1689), Peter pursued personal interests that later fed into his public activities; these included meeting foreigners, learning to sail, and forming “play” troops under the command of foreig
n officers, which became the Preobrazhensky and Se-menovsky guards. On Tsar Ivan’s death in 1696, Peter found himself sole ruler and enjoyed his first military victory, the capture of the Turkish fortress at Azov, a success which was facilitated by a newly created fleet on the Don river. From 1697 to 1698 he made an unprecedented tour of Western Europe
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with the Grand Embassy, the official aim of which was to revive the Holy League against the Ottomans, which Russia had entered in 1686. Peter traveled incognito, devoting much of his time to visiting major sites and institutions in his search for knowledge. He was particularly impressed with the Dutch Republic and England, where he studied shipbuilding. On his return, he forced his boyars to shave off their beards and adopt Western dress. In 1700 he discarded the old Byzantine creation calendar in favor of dating years in the Western manner from the birth of Christ. These symbolic acts set the agenda for cultural change.
THE GREAT NORTHERN WAR, 1700-1721
After making peace with the Ottoman Empire in 1700, Peter declared war on Sweden with the aim of regaining a foothold on the Baltic, in alliance with Denmark and King Augustus II of Poland. After some early defeats, notably at Narva in 1700, and the loss of its allies, Russia eventually gained the upper hand over the Swedes. After Narva, King Charles XII abandoned his Russian campaign to pursue Augustus into Poland and Saxony, allowing Russia to advance in Ingria and Livonia. When he eventually invaded Russia via Ukraine in 1707-1708, Charles found his troops overextended, under-provisioned, and confronted by a much improved Russian army. Victory at Poltava in Ukraine in 1709 allowed Peter to stage a successful assault on Sweden’s eastern Baltic ports, including Viborg, Riga, and Reval (Tallinn) in 1710. Defeat by the Turks on the river Pruth in 1711 forced him to return Azov (ratified in the 1713 Treaty of Adri-anople), but did not prevent him pursuing the Swedish war both at the negotiating table and on campaign, for instance, in Finland in 1713-1714 and against Sweden’s remaining possessions in northern Germany and the Swedish mainland. The Treaty of Nystadt (1721) ratified Russian possession of Livonia, Estonia, and Ingria. During the celebrations the Senate awarded Peter the titles Emperor, the Great, and Father of the Fatherland. In 1722-1723 Peter conducted a campaign against Persia on the Caspian, capturing the ports of Baku and Derbent. Russia’s military successes were achieved chiefly by intensive recruitment, which allowed Peter to keep armies in the field over several decades; training by foreign officers; home production of weapons, especially artillery; and well-organized provisioning. The task was made easier by the availability of a servile peasant population and the obstacles which the Russian terrain and cli Peter I in battle at Poltava. © THE STATE RUSSIAN MUSEUM/CORBIS mate posed for the invading Swedes. The navy, staffed mainly by foreign officers on both home-built and purchased ships, provided an auxiliary force in the latter stages of the Northern War, although Peter’s personal involvement in naval affairs has led some historians to exaggerate the fleet’s importance. The galley fleet was particularly effective, as exemplified at Hango in 1714.
DOMESTIC REFORMS
Many historians have argued that the demands of war were the driving force behind all Peter’s reforms. He created the Senate in 1711, for example, to rule in his absence during the Turkish campaign. Among the ten new Swedish-inspired government departments, created between 1717 and 1720 and known as Colleges or collegiate boards, the Colleges of War, Admiralty, and Foreign Affairs consumed the bulk of state revenues, while the Colleges of
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Mines and Manufacturing concentrated on production for the war effort, operating iron works and manufacture of weapons, rope, canvas, uniforms, powder, and other products. The state remained the chief producer and customer, but Peter attempted to encourage individual enterprise by offering subsidies and exemptions. Free manpower was short, however, and in 1721 industrialists were allowed to purchase serfs for their factories. New provincial institutions, based on Swedish models and created in several restructuring programs, notably in 1708-1709 and 1718-1719, were intended to rationalize recruitment and tax collection, but were among the least successful of Peter’s projects. As he said, money was the “artery of war.” A number of piecemeal fiscal measures culminated in 1724 with the introduction of the poll tax (initially 74 kopecks per annum), which replaced direct taxation based on households with assessment of individual males. Peter also encouraged foreign trade and diversified indirect taxes, which were attached to such items and services as official paper for contracts, private bathhouses, oak coffins, and beards (the 1705 beard tax). Duties from liquor, customs, and salt were profitable.
The Table of Ranks (1722) consolidated earlier legislation by dividing the service elite-army and navy officers, government and court officials-into three columns of fourteen ranks, each containing a variable number of posts. No post was supposed to be allocated to any candidate who was unqualified for the duties involved, but birth and marriage continued to confer privilege at court. The Table was intended to encourage the existing nobility to perform more efficiently, while endorsing the concept of nobles as natural leaders of society: Any commoner who attained the lowest military rank- grade 14-or civil grade 8 was granted noble status, including the right to pass it to his children.
Peter’s educational reforms, too, were utilitarian in focus, as was his publishing program, which focused on such topics as shipbuilding, navigation, architecture, warfare, geography, and history. He introduced a new simplified alphabet, the so-called civil script, for printing secular works. The best-known and most successful of Peter’s technical schools was the Moscow School of Mathematics and Navigation (1701; from 1715, the St. Petersburg Naval Academy), which was run by British teachers. Its graduates were sent to teach in the so-called cipher or arithmetic schools (1714), but these failed to attract pupils. Priests and church schools continued to be the main suppliers of primary education, and religious books continued to sell better than secular ones. The Academy of Sciences is generally regarded as the major achievement, although it did not open until 1726 and was initially staffed entirely by foreigners. In Russia, as elsewhere, children in rural communities, where child labor was vital to the economy, remained uneducated.
THE CHURCH
The desire to deploy scarce resources as rationally as possible guided Peter’s treatment of the Orthodox Church. He abolished the patriarchate, which was left vacant when the last Patriarch died in 1700, and in 1721 replaced it with the Holy Synod, which was based on the collegiate principle and later overseen by a secular official, the Over-Procurator. The Synod’s rationale and program were set out in the Spiritual Regulation (1721). Peter siphoned off church funds as required, but he stopped short of secularizing church lands. He slimmed down the priesthood by redeploying superfluous clergymen into state service and restricting entry into monasteries, which he regarded as refuges for shirkers. Remaining churchmen accumulated various civic duties, such as keeping registers of births and deaths, running schools and hospitals, and publicizing government decrees. These measures continued seventeenth-century trends in reducing the church’s independent power, but Peter went farther by reducing its role in cultural life. Himself a dutiful Orthodox Christian who attended church regularly, he was happy for the Church to take responsibility for the saving of men’s souls, but not for it to rule their lives. His reforms were supported by educated churchmen imported from Ukraine.
ST. PETERSBURG AND THE NEW CULTURE
The city of St. Petersburg began as an island fort at the mouth of the Neva river on land captured from the Swedes in 1703. From about 1712 it came to be regarded as the capital. In Russia’s battle for international recognition, St. Petersburg was much more than a useful naval base and port. It was a clean sheet on which Peter could construct a microcosm of his New Russia. The Western designs and decoration of palaces, government buildings, and churches, built in stone by hired foreign architects according to a rational plan, and the European fashion
s that all Russian townspeople were forced to wear, were calculated to make foreigners
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feel that they were in Europe rather than in Asia. The city became a “great window recently opened in the north through which Russia looks on Europe” (Francesco Algarotti, 1739). Peter often referred to it as his “paradise,” playing on the associations with St. Peter as well as expressing his personal delight in a city built on water. The central public spaces enjoyed amenities such as street lighting and paving and public welfare was supervised by the Chief of Police, although conditions were less salubrious in the backstreets. Nobles resented being uprooted from Moscow to this glorified building site. Noblewomen were not exempt. They were wrenched from their previously sheltered lives in the semi-secluded women’s quarters or terem and ordered to abandon their modest, loose robes and veils in favor of Western low cut gowns and corsets and to socialize and drink with men. Some historians have referred to the “emancipation” of women under Peter, but it is doubtful whether this was the view of those involved.
PETER’S VISION AND METHODS
Peter was an absolute ruler, whose great height (six foot seven inches) and explosive temper must have intimidated those close to him. His portraits, the first thoroughly Westernized Russian images painted or sculpted from life, were embellished with Imperial Roman, allegorical, military, and naval motifs to underline his power. Yet he sought to deflect his subjects’ loyalty from himself to the state, exhorting them to work for the common good. A doer rather than a thinker, he lacked formal education and the patience for theorizing. Soviet historians favored the image of the Tsar-Carpenter, emphasizing the fourteen trades that Peter mastered, of which his favorites were shipbuilding and wood turning. He also occasionally practiced dentistry and surgery. Ironically, Peter often behaved in a manner that confirmed foreign prejudices that Russia was a barbaric country. Abroad he frequently offended his hosts with his appalling manners, while Western visitors to Russia were perplexed by his court, which featured dwarfs, giants, and human “monsters” (from his Cabinet of Curiosities), compulsory drinking sessions, which armed guards prevented guests prevented from leaving, and weird ceremonies staged by the “All-Mad, All-Jesting, All-Drunken Assembly,” which, headed by the Prince-Pope, parodied religious rituals. Throughout his life Peter maintained a mock court headed by a mock tsar known as Prince Caesar, who conferred promotions on “Peter Mikhailov” or “Peter Alexeyev,” as Peter liked to be known as he worked his way through the ranks of the army and navy.
