by James Millar
Since 1991, because of the alterations in the freight-rate structure-the Soviet system was heav1266
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ily subsidized to keep the rates artificially low- and the post-Soviet depressed economy throughout Russia, particularly in coal mining, iron and steel, and other bulk sectors, both the Kemerovo and West Siberian railway networks have witnessed sharp declines in usage. They continue to represent bottlenecks, but these were much less severe than the ones they became in the Soviet period. The worst bottlenecks in the post-Soviet era occur in ports-both river and sea-and at junctions. The absolute worst are found in Siberia and the Russian Far East, where traffic is heavy, there are few lines, and management traditionally has been lax.
POST-SOVIET PROBLEMS
Since 1991, railway headaches have been less associated with capacity and more with costs. In the early 1990s, the Yeltsin government introduced free-market principles and eliminated the artificial constraints on prices and freight rates that had prevailed in the USSR. The de-emphasis on the military sector, which controlled at least one-fourth of the Soviet economy, proved to be a devastating blow to heavy industry and rail transport. The multiplier effect diffused throughout the economy of the Russian Federation, and soon fewer goods and less output required circulation, and those needing it had to be sent it at burdensome rates. Spiraling inflation and underemployment brought many industries to the edge of bankruptcy. Those industries that survived often were deep in debt to the railroads, which carried the output simply because they had nothing else to carry. Soon the railroads, which were themselves in debt to their energy suppliers, began to demand payment from the indebted industries. This engendered a vicious cycle wherein everyone was living on IOUs: industries owed the railways, which owed the energy suppliers, who in turn owed the mining companies that owed the miners, who could not buy the products of industry.
By 1991, the Soviet rail network was 35 to 40 percent electrified, and much of this electricity came from coal-fired power plants. When the railways could not pay their energy bill, coal miners did not get paid. Since 1989, miners’ strikes over wages and perquisites have often crippled the electrified railways. At times the miners have blocked the track to protest their privations. Since the year 2000, this vicious cycle has been alleviated because of high international prices on petroleum and natural gas. The resultant increase in foreign exchange income
Vladivostok is the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway. © WOLFGANG KAEHLER/CORBIS has brought some relief to the Russian economy. Wage arrears have been eliminated at least temporarily, and the economy, including the Russian railways, appears to have turned the corner. See also: BAIKAL-AMUR MAGISTRAL RAILWAY; INDUSTRIALIZATION; TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ambler, John, et al. (1985). Soviet and East European Transport Problems. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Hunter, Holland. (1957). Soviet Transportation Policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lydolph, Paul E. (1990). Geography of the USSR. Elkhart Lake, WI: Misty Valley Publishing. Mote, Victor L. (1994). An Industrial Atlas of the Soviet Successor States. Houston, TX: Industrial Information Resources, Inc.
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Westwood, John N. (1964). A History of the Russian Railways. London: George Allen amp; Unwin Ltd.
VICTOR L. MOTE
RAIONIROVANIE
Having inherited from the tsarist government a large number of territorial divisions and subdivisions, the Soviet leadership attempted to reduce their numbers and simplify their bureaucracies. Undertaken in the 1920s, this project to reorganize the internal administrative map of Soviet Russia was called raionirovanie, which can be translated as regionalization. Soviet planners implemented raionirovanie not only as a way of rationalizing administrative structures, but as an essential tool for the centralized planning of economic activity.
Before the reforms, Soviet central officials regarded the territorial divisions they inherited as cumbersome and archaic obstacles to economic growth. The basic divisions in tsarist administration were the province (guberniya), county (uezd), rural district (volost), and village (selo). Their number expanded quickly in the first five years of the new regime, fueling Bolshevik concerns about bu-reaucratism-the perils of an expanding, unruly, and unresponsive state administration. Specialists in Gosplan (the State Planning Commission) desired to reshape territorial administration to conform to their vision of the economic needs of the country. Its planners designed new territorial units that sought to follow the contours of regional agricultural and industrial economies, based on natural resources, culture, and patterns of production.
As a result of raionirovanie, the country’s provinces were replaced by regions (oblast or krai), which were divided into departments (okrugs replaced the counties), which were themselves divided into districts (raions, which replaced the old rural counties.) In light of a scarcity of trained administrators, each of these new units was larger than the old, and therefore had less contact with the population. The first areas subject to regionalization were the Urals, the Northern Caucasus, and Siberia, between 1924 and 1926. Raionirovanie continued in other areas of the country throughout the decade, and was largely complete by 1929. The process of creating regional economic planning agencies under the direct, centralized leadership of Moscow became a part of the essential infrastructure of the Five-Year plans, first adopted in 1928. Objections to regionalization were raised by the Commissariat of Nationalities and local leaders in the autonomous and national republics, especially in Ukraine, on the grounds that the centrally designed plans overlooked diversity in local culture and tradition as they sought to rationalize and centralize administration while maximizing economic growth. Indeed, regionalization sought to eliminate much of what remained of the tsarist administration in the countryside and the provinces. Beyond the reorganization of territorial subdivisions, names of cities, towns, and capitals were changed, as were traditional borders, and, so planners hoped, loyalties to the old ways. Similar to Napoleonic-era bureaucratic reforms in France, the ultimate aim was not only to rationalize administration and economy, but to reshape popular mentalities in line with conditions in a new, post-revolutionary era. See also: LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carr, Edward Hallett. (1964). Socialism in One Country, 1924-1926. London: Macmillan.
JAMES HEINZEN
RAPALLO, TREATY OF
The Treaty of Rapallo was signed by Germany and the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic on April 16, 1922.
As part of a plan to encourage economic recovery after World War I, the Allies invited Germany and Soviet Russia to a European conference in Genoa, Italy, in April 1922. Lenin accepted the invitation and designated Foreign Minister Georgy Chicherin to lead the Soviet delegation. Accompanied by Maxim Litvinov, Leonid Krasin, and others, Chicherin stopped in Berlin on his way to Italy and worked out a draft treaty. The German government, still hopeful for a favorable settlement at Genoa, refused to formalize the treaty immediately. In Genoa, the Allied delegations insisted that the Soviet government recognize the debts of the prerev-olutionary governments. The Soviets countered with an offer to repay the debts and compensate property owners if the Allies paid for the destruction caused by Allied intervention. While these negotiations remained deadlocked, the German delegation worried that an Allied-Soviet treaty would
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leave Germany further isolated. When the Soviet delegation proposed a private meeting, the Germans accepted, and the Russian-German treaty was signed by Chicherin and German foreign minister Walter Rathenau.
The two sides agreed to drop all wartime claims against each other, to cooperate economically, and to establish diplomatic relations. The Treaty of Ra-pallo surprised the Western powers. Germany ended its isolation with an apparent shift to an Eastern policy, while Soviet Russia found a trading partner and won normalization of re
lations without resolving the debt issue. This special relationship between Soviet Russia and Germany, including some military cooperation, lasted for ten years. See also: GERMANY, RELATIONS WITH; WORLD WAR I
BIBLIOGRAPHY
League of Nations Treaty Series, Vol. 19. (1923). London: Harrison and Sons.
HAROLD J. GOLDBERG
Grigory Rasputin, photographed in 1916. THE ART ARCHIVE/MUS?E
DES 2 GUERRES MONDIALES PARIS/DAGLI ORTI
RAPP See RUSSIAN ASSOCIATION OF PROLETARIAN WRITERS.
RASPUTIN, GRIGORY YEFIMOVICH
(1869-1916), mystic and holy man who befriended Nicholas II and attained considerable power in late Imperial Russia.
Born at Pokrovskoye, Siberia, January 10, 1869, Rasputin was the son of Yefim, a prosperous, literate peasant. Young Grigory was alternately moody and mystical, drunken and rakish. Marriage did not settle him, but a pilgrimage to Verkhoture Monastery, as punishment for vandalism (1885), was decisive. The hermit Makary persuaded Grig-ory to become a strannik (wanderer, religious pilgrim). Rasputin also met the khlysty (flagellants, Pentecostalists); though not a member (as often charged), he embraced some of their ideas.
Rasputin’s captivating personality, his eyes, and a memory for biblical passages made him a local religious authority. Grigory never held a formal position in the Church, but people recognized him as a starets (elder, wise counselor). His spiritual gifts apparently included healing. Although of medium height and build, and not handsome, Rasputin’s sensitive, discerning manner attracted women and brought him followers and sexual conquests. His pilgrimages included Kiev, Jerusalem, and Mt. Athos. Charges of being a khlyst forced Rasputin to leave Pokrovskoye for Kazan in 1902. By then, his common-law wife Praskovya had borne him three children.
Rasputin impressed important clergy and lay-people in Kazan, and they made possible his first trip to St. Petersburg in 1903. He captivated church and social leaders, and on a second visit, he met Nicholas II. For a year, his friendship with the royal family was based upon their interest in peasants with religious interests and messages. Rasputin first alleviated the sufferings of their hemophiliac son Alexei in late 1906. For the next ten years, Rasputin served the tsarevich unfailingly in this capacity. Joseph Fuhrmann’s biography reviews the theories offered to explain this success, concluding that Rasputin exercised healing gifts through prayer. Robert Massie explores hypnosis, rejecting the suggestion that hypnosis alone could suddenly stop severe hemorrhages.
Rasputin exercised some influence over church-state appointments before World War I. The high point of his power came when Nicholas assumed command at headquarters away from St. Petersburg, in August 1915. This elevated his wife’s importance in government. Alexandra, in turn, relied
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upon Rasputin’s advice in appointments, though neither controlled policies. As difficulties and defeats mounted, Russians became convinced that Rasputin and Alexandra were German agents, and that Nicholas was their puppet. Fearing this would topple the dynasty, Felix Yusupov organized a conspiracy resulting in Rasputin’s murder in Petrograd on December 17, 1916. Rasputin was poisoned, severely beaten, and shot three times, and yet autopsy reports disclosed that he died by drowning in the Neva River. Rasputin was buried at Tsarskoye Selo until revolutionary soldiers dug up the body to desecrate and burn it on March 9, 1917.
Rasputin favored Jews, prostitutes, homosexuals, and the poor and disadvantaged, including and, in particular, members of religious sects. He understood the danger of war, and did what he could to preserve peace. But Rasputin was selfish and shortsighted. He took bribes and was party to corruption and profiteering during the war. Rasputin ended as a womanizer and hopeless drunk, who undermined the regime of Nicholas II and hastened its collapse. See also: ALEXANDRA FEDOROVNA; FEBRUARY REVOLUTION; NICHOLAS II
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fuhrmann, Joseph T. (1990). Rasputin: A Life. New York: Praeger. King, Greg. (1995). The Man Who Killed Rasputin: Prince Felix Youssoupov and the Murder That Helped Bring Down the Russian Empire. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group. Massie, Robert K. (1967). Nicholas and Alexandra. New York: Atheneum. Radzinsky, Edvard. (2000). The Rasputin File. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday.
JOSEPH T. FUHRMANN
RASTRELLI, BARTOLOMEO
(1700-1771), Italian architect who defined the high baroque style in Russia under the reigns of Anne and Elizabeth Petrovna.
Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli spent his youth in France, where his father, the Florentine sculptor and architect Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli, served at the court of Louis XIV. After the death of the Sun King in 1715, the elder Rastrelli left Paris with his son and arrived the following year in St. Petersburg. Recent research suggests that the young architect did not return to Italy for study but remained in Petersburg, where he worked on a number of palaces during the years between the death of Peter (1725) and the accession of Anne (1730). Ras-trelli’s rise in importance occurred during the reign of Anne, who commissioned him to build a number of palaces in both Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Despite the treacherous court politics of the period, Rastrelli not only remained in favor after the death of Anne (1740), but gained still greater power during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna (1741-1761), for whom he built some of the most lavish palaces in Europe. Rastrelli’s major projects for Elizabeth included a new Summer Palace (1741-1743; not extant), the Stroganov Palace (1752-1754), the final version of the Winter Palace (1754-1764), and the Smolny Convent with its Resurrection Cathedral (1748-1764). In addition, Rastrelli greatly enlarged the existing imperial palaces at Peterhof (1746-1752) and Tsarskoe Selo (1748-1756).
With the accession of Catherine II, who disliked the baroque style, Rastrelli’s career suffered an irreversible decline. He had received the Order of St. Anne from Peter III and promotion to major general at the beginning of 1762, but after the death of Peter in July, Ivan Betskoi replaced Rastrelli as director of imperial construction and granted him extended leave to visit Italy with his family. Although Rastrelli returned the following year, he had in effect been given a polite dismissal with the grant of a generous pension. He died in 1771 in St. Petersburg. See also: ANNA IVANOVNA; ARCHITECTURE; CATHERINE II; ELIZABETH; WINTER PALACE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brumfield, William Craft. (1993). A History of Russian Architecture. New York: Cambridge University Press. Orloff, Alexander, and Shvidkovsky, Dmitri. (1996). St. Petersburg: Architecture of the Tsars. New York: Abbeville Press.
WILLIAM CRAFT BRUMFIELD
RATCHET EFFECT
The ratchet effect in the Soviet economy meant that planners based current year enterprise output plan
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targets on last year’s plan overfulfillment. Fulfilling output targets specified in the annual enterprise plan, the techpromfinplan, was required for Soviet enterprise managers to receive their bonus, a monetary payment equaling from 40 to 60 percent of their monthly salary. Typically, output plan targets were high relative to the resources allocated to the enterprise, as well as to the productive capacity of the firm. If managers directed the operations of the enterprise so that the output targets were overfulfilled in any given plan period (monthly or quarterly), the bonus payment was even larger. However, planners practiced a policy of “planning from the achieved level,” the ratchet effect, so that in subsequent annual plans, output targets would be higher. Higher plan targets for output were not matched by a corresponding increase in the allocation of materials to the firm. Consequently, overfulfilling output plan targets in one period reduced the likelihood of fulfilling output targets and receiving the bonus in subsequent periods.
Planners estimated enterprise capacity as a direct function of past performance plus an allowance for productivity increases specified in the plan. Knowing that output targets would be increased, that is, knowing that the ratchet effect would take effect, Soviet enterprise managers responded by over-ordering i
nputs during the planning process and by continually demanding additional investment resources to expand productive capacity. For Soviet enterprises, cost conditions were not constrained by the need to cover expenses from sales revenues. In other words, Soviet managers faced a “soft budget constraint.” The primary risk associated with excess demand for investment was the increase in output targets when the investment project was completed. However, the new capacity could not be included as part of the firm until it was officially certified by a state committee. By the time this occurred, the manager typically had another investment project underway.
In response to the ratchet effect, Soviet enterprise managers also tended to avoid overfulfilling output targets even if it were possible to produce more than the planned quantity. Several options were pursued instead. Managers would save the materials for future use in fulfilling output targets, or unofficially trade the materials for cash or favors to other firms. Managers would produce additional output, but not report it to planning authorities, and then either hold or unofficially sell the output. Due to persistent and pervasive shortages in the Soviet economy, and the uncertainty associated with timely delivery of both the quantity and quality of requisite material and technical supplies, the incentive to unofficially exchange materials or goods between firms was very high, and the risk of detection and punishment was very low. Despite the comprehensive nature of the annual enterprise plan, Soviet managers exhibited a substantial degree of autonomy in fulfilling output targets.
