by James Millar
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Galler, Meyer. (1977). Soviet Prison Camp Speech: A Survivor’s Glossary: Supplement. Hayward, CA: Soviet Studies. Heller, Mikhail, and Nekrich, Aleksandr. (1986). Utopia in Power: The History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Present, tr. Phillis B. Carlos. London: Hutchinson. Preobrazhensky, A. G. (1951). Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language. New York: Columbia University Press.
ALBERT L. WEEKS
ST?RMER, BORIS VLADIMIROVICH
(1848-1917), government official who reached the rank of president of the State Council, or premier, of the Russian Empire.
Boris St?rmer studied law at St. Petersburg University and then entered the Ministry of Justice. He was appointed governor of Novgorod Province in 1894 and of Yaroslav Province in 1896. In 1902 he became director of the Department of General Affairs of the Ministry of the Interior and in 1904 was appointed to the Council of State. From January to November 1916 he was president of the Council of State, serving simultaneously as minister of the interior (March-July) and minister of foreign affairs (July-November). Nicholas II dismissed St?rmer after Paul Milyukov’s famous “Is this stupidity or is it treason?” speech in the Duma, in which Milyukov accused St?rmer of being a German agent. In fact, he was not. Arrested after the February Revolution of 1917 and placed in the Peter and Paul Fortress, St?rmer died there in August 1917.
St?rmer owed his rise to his arch-conservatism and friends in high places, including the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna and Grigory Rasputin, who reputedly referred to St?rmer as “a little man on a leash” and to whom St?rmer reported weekly and received instructions. St?rmer has received universal scorn. Contemporaries called him a “nonentity” (Vasily Shulgin), “totally ignorant of everything he undertook” (Mlyukov), “a man of extremely limited mental gifts” (Nikolai Pokrovsky, his successor as minister of foreign affairs), “a man who had left a bad memory wherever he occupied an administrative post” (Sergei Sazonov), and “an utter nonentity” (Mikhail Rodzianko). Historians have seen St?rmer as “an instrument of the personal rule of the Empress [and Rasputin]” (Mikhail Florinsky), “a reactionary [who] brought discredit on the extreme Right” (Marc Ferro), and “an obscure and dismal product of the professional Russian bureaucracy” (Robert Massie). See also: ALEXANDRA FEDOROVNA; RASPUTIN, GRIGORY YEFIMOVICH
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Florinsky, Mikhail. (1931). The End of the Russian Empire. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Fulop-Muller, Renee. (1929). Rasputin: The Holy Devil. New York: Viking Books. Miliukov, Paul. (1967). Political Memoirs. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
SAMUEL A. OPPENHEIM
SUBBOTNIK
Communist subbotniki (Communist Volunteer Saturday Workers) were shockworkers who volunteered their free Saturdays for the Bolshevik cause.
Subbotniki were lauded as heroes of socialist labor, as prototypes of the new unselfish man, and role models for the working class. Their actions may have reflected spontaneous enthusiasm among some workers, but they were also encouraged by the Communist Party to mobilize effort. The phenomenon was a mixture of socialist idealism and coercion.
The KS (Communist subbotniki) movement is said to have started by the communists on April 12, 1919 at the Moscow-Kazan railway depot, and was praised by Vladimir Lenin in an article entitled “Velikii pochin,” July 28, 1919. During the summer and autumn of 1919, KS mobilized to defeat Denikin, and surmount the “fuel crisis.”
During World War II, the KS and voskresniki (Sunday volunteers) are said to have inspired the war effort. Celebrations commemorating their achievements and encouraging the movement’s continuation were held frequently during the seventies. See also: SOVIET MAN; STAKHANOVITE MOVEMENT
STEVEN ROSEFIELDE
SUBWAY SYSTEMS
The original line of the Moscow metro, completed in May 1935, laid the foundation for one of the world’s most impressive subway systems. In its first fifty years, the Moscow metro grew from thirteen stations to more than 120, and the average
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number of passengers carried daily increased from 177,000 to more than six million, making the Moscow system the world’s busiest. The Moscow metro organization also reproduced its various structures in similar metro systems across the former Soviet Union and behind the Iron Curtain. It became, in the words of one official, “the mother of all socialist metros.” Symbols of Soviet power accompanied riders in the metros of Leningrad, Kiev, Kharkov, Baku, Tiflis, Tashkent, Minsk, Gorky, Erevan, Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, and Volgograd-not to mention those systems built partly by Moscow engineers and architects in Poland and Czechoslovakia.
For Soviet leaders, Soviet subways were more than transportation systems. The metro provided what one Soviet propagandist called “a majestic school in the formation of the new man.” For the 1935 inaugural line of the Moscow metro, the Soviets constructed each of the stations on different themes of socialist life. Stations celebrated Soviet leaders, the Communist Party, Soviet achievements in education, and the supposed superiority of the Soviet system. The Soviets lavished scarce resources on the first thirteen stations, including 23,000 square meters of marble facing, chandeliers, and crystal. Metro builders boasted that they used more marble in the first line of the Moscow metro than had been used in the entire Tsarist period. Through the end of the Stalin era, stations became more ornate and monumental as the metro grew. Like a mirror held up to Soviet self-perceptions, an elaborate political iconography reflected a sense of approaching perfection in Soviet society. To convey this message, architects calculated that a passenger would spend roughly five minutes per station. In the words of one: “Within that time the architecture, emblems, and entire artistic image should actively influence him.” Soviet subway systems thus celebrated Soviet socialism, provided a pulpit for preaching its values, and offered an effective way to get to work in the morning.
Lazar Kaganovich, a ruthless Bolshevik leader of working-class origin, assumed managerial responsibility for construction of the original metro line. His chief deputy on the project was Nikita Khrushchev, who later became general secretary of the Communist Party. Kaganovich believed that the metro “went far beyond . . . the typical understanding of a technological construction. Our metropolitan is a symbol of the new socialist society being built.” Under his management, the Soviets deployed a variety of improvised Western techENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
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niques to build the metro in the treacherous geology of Moscow’s subsoil, which was laced with underground rivers and quicksand. Builders bored through layers of Jurassic clay and fissured limestone, soaked with water. Khrushchev recalled that the builders had only “the vaguest idea of what the job would entail.” The party mobilized public opinion to gather necessary resources and labor. Days of voluntary labor became festive occasions as bands played and able-bodied Muscovites roamed the shafts looking for work. Prominent officials picked up shovels and joined Moscow’s masses. Compared to the construction of the New York subway system, however, only a handful of Soviet workers died-and the Soviets trumpeted the successful construction as proof of the superiority of the socialist order. Nonetheless, the Soviets benefited greatly from the long experience of foreign engineers who had helped construct the world’s other great subway systems. They used the drafts of a failed 1908 Moscow subway plan, whose backers were unable to secure financing. Soviet engineers visited the Berlin subway, studied engineering plans for the London and Paris subways, and hired American engineers as consultants.
The story of the first Soviet subway was as much the subject of Soviet propaganda as the actual metro stations. Soviet memoirs, official histories, metro architecture, and newspaper accounts wove the events and personalities of the metro’s construction into a mythical microcosm of the new Soviet society. The epic tale of its construction, which was recounted in two elaborately bound volu
mes published in 1935, relayed an ideal conception of socialist engineering and its ability to conquer and transform nature (human and otherwise). In this story, successful technological construction did more than fulfill the party plan for transportation; it proved the inevitable success of the revolution and the party’s vision of itself as an instrument of a supposedly scientifically determined historical destiny. See also: KAGANOVICH, LAZAR MOYSEYEVICH; KHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH; SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bobrick, Benson. (1981). Labyrinths of Iron: A History of the World’s Subways. New York: Newsweek Books. Jenks, Andrew. (2000). “A Metro on the Mount: The Underground as a Church of Soviet Civilization.” Technology and Culture 41:697-724.
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Josephson, Paul. (1995). “‘Projects of the Century’ in Soviet History: Large-Scale Technologies from Lenin to Gorbachev.” Technology and Culture 36:519-559.
ANDREW JENKS
SUCCESSION, LAW ON
Peter I published the Law on Succession, a manifesto on the succession to the Russian imperial throne, on February 16, 1722.
The Law on Succession was the first such written law in Russian history. Russia’s rulers in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries favored primogeniture (inheritance by the first-born son), although this custom could be bypassed for pragmatic reasons. Peter, prompted by the defection of his eldest son Alexei (condemned to death for treason in 1718), and by the death of his only surviving son in 1719, rejected primogeniture and issued a succession law. The new law required the reigning monarch to nominate his successor with regard to worthiness. It placed no restrictions on age or gender, but it did not specifically direct the reigning monarch to look beyond the imperial family, by raising a commoner, for example. The work The Justice of the Monarch’s Right to Appoint the Heir to the Throne (1722), attributed to Feofan Prokopovich, justified the new law with reference to scripture, history, and natural law. Peter himself died without nominating a successor, but Alexander Men-shikov claimed to be implementing Peter’s wishes by choosing his widow Catherine, thereby inaugurating a period of female rule. Catherine I, Anna, Elizabeth, and Catherine II all nominated their own successors, while Elizabeth and Catherine II took the throne from legally nominated emperors on the pretext of protecting the common good. Paul I repealed the law in 1797, replacing it with a new law based on primogeniture. See also: PAUL I; PETER I; PROKOPOVICH, FEOFAN
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lentin, Antony, ed. and tr. (1996). Peter the Great: His Law on the Imperial Succession: The Official Commentary. Oxford: Headstart History.
LINDSEY HUGHES
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SUCCESSION OF LEADERSHIP, SOVIET
Like other authoritarian systems, the USSR did not adopt a formal system of succession. Over time, the system developed an informal process of succession, which eventually evolved into a predictable pattern. In 1922, at the age of 52, Vladimir Lenin, the first Soviet leader, suffered a major stroke from which he never fully recovered. After his death in 1924, there was considerable struggle within the Politburo of the Communist Party before Josef Stalin emerged as the top leader. Since Lenin had functioned as chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars (later called the Council of Ministers), the emergence of the general secretary as the preeminent leader was not predictable. Lenin’s position was equivalent to that of prime minister. The general secretary initially had been considered an administrator with little policy responsibility. Despite the fact that Stalin led the USSR for almost thirty years, it was not clear after his death that the position of general secretary of the CPSU would remain the preeminent one. Stalin had been prime minister also since 1941, and it was hard to say where his power base lay.
After Stalin’s death, Georgy Malenkov chose to be prime minister when forced to select between the positions of chairman of the Council of Ministers or general secretary of the Communist Party. The less well-known Nikita Khrushchev emerged as the top leader in the succession struggle that ensued during the next five years through his role as first (renamed from general) secretary of the Communist Party. By 1958 Khrushchev was both prime minister and first secretary, although not with the degree of power that Stalin had had before him.
Leonid Brezhnev also used the position of general secretary to rise to the top position within the collective leadership after Khrushchev was deposed. Although he wanted to be prime minister as well, the Politburo denied him that title in the interest of maintaining collective leadership. In 1977 Brezhnev became president of the USSR (chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet), a nominal position that gave him the position of chief of state in international protocol, even though his power base remained the CPSU.
With the death of Brezhnev (1982), the process flowed smoothly in the appointment of Yuri Andropov as both general secretary and president, and a short time later both titles passed to Konstantin Chernenko after Andropov’s death (1984). Within
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the Politburo there appeared to be agreement on a successor and on giving the top leader both a party and government position.
There was nothing in either the Party Charter or the Soviet Constitution to guarantee that the process would remain the same. After the death of Chernenko in 1985, power passed to a younger generation. Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary, after serving as de facto second secretary under both Andropov and Chernenko. Gorbachev, however, did not become president. The title went to an elder statesman, Andrei Gromyko. Only in 1988 did Gorbachev assume the presidency, which was subsequently restructured as part of pere-stroika (restructuring) and demokratizatsiya (democratization). Gorbachev had the real power, not merely the title, of chief of state and functioned as president in both domestic and international politics.
Had the Soviet system continued, it is fair to say that succession would probably have been institutionalized in the constitution. Even under Gorbachev, however, the Soviet president was not popularly elected. Gorbachev was selected by the restructured parliament, the Congress of People’s Deputies; a new Supreme Soviet, selected from the Congress, was a working parliament, not merely a rubber stamp that met once or twice per year.
Even without formal institutionalization, political succession had become predictable, especially by the 1980s when the ailing Andropov and Chernenko were successively chosen to lead the USSR. The selection process was concluded within days of the leader’s death. The selection of Gorbachev seemed to be equally smooth, but when one examines the difficult road that Gorbachev pursued to undertake reform, one realizes how superficial consensus was. Gorbachev faced opposition from the conservatives and liberals within the Politburo and the CPSU throughout his tenure.
Political succession, although never formalized in writing, became, nonetheless, a well-established and even reasonably predictable process in the mature Soviet Union. The failure to establish a constitutional succession process, even after Gorbachev’s democratization, was one of many contributing factors in the rapid demise of the USSR after the 1991 attempted coup. See also: COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION; GENERAL SECRETARY; POLITBURO; PRIME MINISTER
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bialer, Seweryn. (1980). Stalin’s Successors: Leadership, Stability, and Change in the Soviet Union. New York: Cambridge University Press. Breslauer, George W. (1982). Khrushchev and Brezhnev as Leaders. London: George Allen and Unwin. Brown, Archie. (1996). The Gorbachev Factor. Oxford: Oxford University Press. D’Agostino, Anthony. (1988). Soviet Succession Struggles: Kremlinology and the Russian Question from Lenin to Gorbachev. Boston: Allen and Unwin. Hough, Jerry F. (1980). Soviet Leadership in Transition. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Hough, Jerry F., and Fainsod, Merle. (1979). How the Soviet Union Is Governed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mitchell, R. Judson. Getting to the Top in the USSR: Cyclical Patterns in the Leadership Succ
ession Process. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. Simmonds, George W., ed. (1967). Soviet Leaders. New York: Crowell.
NORMA C. NOONAN
SUDEBNIK OF 1497
The 1497 Sudebnik was Russia’s first national law code. Unlike earlier immunity charters, which pertained only to a private landholder and his land, and the Dvina Land Charter (1397) and White Lake Charter (1488), which pertained only to particular localities, it promulgated rules of general application for Muscovite courts. Adopted after Ivan III had gathered in the lands of Novgorod, Tver, and other principalities, the Code is usually interpreted as part of Ivan’s policy of nationbuilding. The short preamble states that the Code was adopted by Grand Prince Ivan with his children and boyars. Thus, unlike some of Muscovy’s other legislation, it was not associated with an assembly of important prelates and servicemen.
A single copy of the Code has come down to us, which was found and published by Pavel Stroev in 1817. Most modern editors divide it into sixty-eight articles, but the original also contains thirty-seven chapter headings. Articles 1 through 25, in general, concern courts presided over by boyars and okolnichy, the two highest service ranks, with some attention also to the court of the grand prince. Clerks (dyaki) were to sit with the boyars and okolENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY nichy in these courts, and were to prepare not only a written trial record but also a written judgment. These courts were to exercise jurisdiction over major crimes, such as murder, robbery, and theft, and the death penalty was provided for certain crimes. Articles 26 through 36 concern judicial documents such as summonses, warrants, and default judgments, as well as the duties of judicial officials such as bailiffs. The bailiffs were charged not only with serving such judicial documents but also with interrogating suspected criminals. Articles 37 through 45 concern the courts of the namestniki and volosteli, the grand prince’s vicegerents in rural areas. The jurisdiction of these courts depended on whether the judge was granted full jurisdiction. Many of the provisions of the first section are repeated in the third.
