Encyclopedia of Russian History
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lobachev, S.V. (2001). “Patriarch Nikon’s Rise to Power.” Slavonic and East European Review 79(2):290-307.
CATHY J. POTTER ZEMSKY NACHALNIK See LAND CAPTAIN. ZEMSKY SOBOR See ASSEMBLY OF THE LAND.
ZEALOTS OF PIETY
The Zealots of Piety (1646-1653) were a group of clergy and laity who energetically sought to elevate the religious consciousness and spiritual life
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
ZEMSTVO
Zemstvo was a system of local self-government used in a number of regions in the European part of Russia from 1864 to 1918. It was instituted as
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ZEMSTVO
a result of the zemstvo reform of January 1, 1864. This reform introduced an electoral self-governing body, elected from all class groups (soslovii), in districts and provinces. The basic principles of the zemstvo reform were electivity, the representation of all classes, and self-government in the questions concerning local economic needs.
The statute of January 1, 1864, called for the institution of zemstvos in thirty-four provinces of the European part of Russia. The reform did not affect Siberia and the provinces of Archangel, Astrakhan, and Orenburg, where there were very few noble landowners. Neither did the reform affect regions closest to the national borders: the Baltic States, Poland, the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, and Central Asia.
According to the statute, zemstvo institutions in districts and provinces were to consist of zemstvo councils and executive boards. The electoral system was set up on the basis of class and possessions. Every three years, the citizens of a district elected between fourteen to one hundred or so deputies to the council. The elections were held in curias (divisions), into which all of the districts’ population was divided. The first curia consisted of landowners who possessed 200 or more desiatinas of land (about 540 acres), or other real estate worth at least 15,000 rubles, or had a monthly income of at least 6,000 rubles. This curia consisted mainly of nobles and landlords, but members of other classes (merchants who bought nobles’ land, rich peasants who acquired land, and the like) eventually grew more and more prominent. The second curia consisted of city dwellers who possessed merchant registration, or who owned trading and industrial companies with a yearly income of at least 6,000 rubles, or held real estate in worth at least 500 rubles (in small cities) or 2,000 rubles (in large cities). The third curia consisted mainly of representatives of village societies and peasants who did not require a special possession permit. As a result of the first of these elections in 1865 and 1866, nobles constituted 41.7 percent of the district deputies, and 74 percent of the province deputies. Peasants accounted for 38.4 and 10.6 percent, and merchants for 10.4 and 11 percent. The representatives of district and provincial assemblies were the district and provincial marshals of nobility. Zemstvo assemblies became governing institutions: They elected the executive authorities: the provincial and district executive boards (three or five people).
The power of the zemstvo was limited to local tasks (medicine, education, agriculture, veterinary
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services, roads, statistics, and so on). Zemstvo taxes ensured the budget of zemstvo institutions. The budget was to be approved by the zemstvo assembly. It was compiled, mainly, from taxes on real estate (primarily land), and in this case the pressure was mainly on peasant land. Within the limits of their power, zemstvos had relative independence. The governor could only oversee the legitimacy of the zemstvo’s decisions. He also approved the chairman of the uezd executive board and the members of the provincial and uezd executive boards. The chairman of the provincial executive board had to be approved by the minister of the Interior.
As a result of the zemstvo counterreform of 1890, the governor gained the right not only to oversee the reasonableness of the zemstvo’s decisions. A special supervising institution was created, called the Governor’s Bureau of Zemstvo Affairs. Over half of the voters in 1888 were bereft of electoral rights. The composition of zemstvo assemblies was changed in favor of the nobles. In the 1897 zemstvo elections, nobles constituted to 41.6 percent of district deputies and 87.1 percent of provincial deputies. The peasants obtained 30.98 and 2.2 percent.
The structure of zemstvo institutions contained no “minor zemstvo unit,” understood to mean a volost (rural district) unit that would be closest to the needs of the local population of all classes. Neither was there a national institution that would coordinate the activity of local zemstvos. In the end, zemstvos became “a building without a foundation or a roof.” The government opposed cooperation between zemstvos, fearing constitutionalist attitudes. Zemstvos did not have their own institution of compulsory power, which made them rely on the administration and police. All this soon made zemstvos stand in opposition to autocracy. They were especially active in the 1890s, when a so-called third element (professionals employed by zemstvos, or predominantly democratic members of the intelligentsia) became influential. In the early twentieth century, liberal zemtsy became overtly political, and in 1903 they formed the illegal “Union of Constitutionalist-Zemtsy.” In November of 1904, an all-Russian assembly of zemstvos was held in St. Petersburg, and a program of political reforms was developed, including the creation of a national representation with legislative rights. Later, many members of the movement joined the leading liberal parties, the Constitutional Democrats and the Oktobrists.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
ZERO-OPTION
By 1912 zemstvos had established 40,000 primary schools, approximately 2,000 hospitals, a network of libraries, reading halls, pharmacies, and doctors’ centers. Their budget increased to 45 times its 1865 level, amounting to 254 million rubles. In 1912, 30 percent of zemstvo expenditure went to education, 26 percent went to healthcare, 6.3 percent went to the development of local agriculture and the local economy, and 2.8 percent went to veterinary services. In 1912 zemstvos employed approximately 150,000 specialist teachers, doctors, agriculturists, veterinarians, statisticians, and others. By 1916 zemstvos were operating in 43 of the 93 provinces and regions.
After the beginning of World War I, on August 12, 1914, zemstvos created the National Union of Zemstvos in aid to sick and wounded soldiers. In 1915 this Union united with the National Union of Cities. For the coordination of the two organizations, a special committee called “Zemgor” was created. Besides aiding the wounded, it also helped supply the army and helped refugees. After the March Revolution of 1917 the Zemgor chairman, prince Georgy Lvov, became the prime minister of the Provisional Government. The chairmen of the zemstvo executive boards were appointed the plenipotentiaries of the Provisional Government in their districts and provinces. Zemstvos were instituted in 19 more provinces and regions of Russia and volost zemstvos were created, forming the lowest institutions of local self-government. Re-elections were held in all levels of the zemstvo on the basis of universal, direct, equal, and secret voting. After the October Revolution, on January 17, 1918, by decree of the Soviet Government (Sovnarkom), the main committees of the Zemstvo and City Unions were dismissed and their possessions were given to the Supreme Council of National Economy. By July 1918 zemstvos in the territories controlled by the Bolsheviks were removed, but were reinstated in territories controlled by the White Armies and abroad. In 1921 a Committee of Zemstvos and Cities, once again called Zemgor, was established in Paris to provide aid to Russian citizens living abroad. Divisions of the Zemgor also operated in Prague and the Balkans. The Paris Zemgor exists to this day. See also: LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eklof, Ben, Bushnell John, and Zakharova Larissa, eds. (1994). Russia’s Great Reforms, 1855-1881. Bloom-ington: Indiana University Press. Emmons, Terence, and Vucinich, Wayne S., eds. (1982). The Zemstvo in Russia: An Experiment in Local Self-Government. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. Starr, Frederick S. (1972). Decentralization and Self-Government in Russia, 1830-1870. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Zaionchkovskii, Petr
Andreevich. (1976). The Russian Autocracy under Alexander III. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press.
OLEG BUDNITSKII
ZERO-OPTION
Originally conceptualized in 1979 by the Social Democratic party of West Germany, the concept of a “zero option” led to the first, albeit more symbolic than substantive, nuclear disarmament treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although it began as a simplistic rhetorical slogan among West German anti-nuclear activists, the concept of having zero nuclear missiles on the European Continent was embraced by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and eventually codified as the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
On November 18, 1981, Reagan announced the United States’ support for canceling the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe, in exchange for Soviet withdrawal of nuclear missiles already positioned in its Eastern European satellite states. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev immediately dismissed the idea, noting its asymmetric nature: The Soviets were being asked to dismantle an entire class of weapons (from Asia as well as Europe) in exchange for the United States’ non-deployment in Europe alone. As a result of a continued stalemate, Reagan ordered the deployment of nuclear missiles into Western Europe in 1983. Neither Reagan nor Brezhnev and his successors, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, were willing to compromise.
Credit for the eventual success of the zero-option concept, as solidified through the signing of the INF Treaty, rests largely in the hands of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who applied a new spirit to Soviet foreign policy. Gorbachev offered a series of unilateral concessions that essentially meant acceptance of a final treaty mirroring Reagan’s initial 1981 proposal. Ironically, as the 1980s progressed and the INF Treaty gained political momentum, it was the Western European nations that balked, voicing fears about Soviet conventional superiority in Europe.
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ZHDANOV, ANDREI ALEXANDROVICH
Such fears were quelled by the non-inclusion of British and French nuclear weapons in the final treaty, which was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union on December 8, 1987. See also: ARMS CONTROL; GORBACHEV, MIKHAIL SERGEYE-VICH; INTERMEDIATE RANGE; NUCLEAR FORCES TREATY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bennett, Paul R. (1989). The Soviet Union and Arms Control: Negotiating Strategy and Tactics. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Risse-Kappen, Thomas. (1988). The Zero Option: INF, West Germany, and Arms Control, tr. Lesley Booth. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
MATTHEW O’GARA
ZHDANOV, ANDREI ALEXANDROVICH
(1896-1948), Soviet political leader. Andrei Zhdanov, leader of the Leningrad Communist Party from 1934 to 1948. © HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS
Andrei Zhdanov was one of Stalin’s most prominent deputies and is best known as the leader of the ideological crackdown following World War II. After the assassination of Leningrad leader Sergei Kirov in 1934, Zhdanov became head of the Leningrad party organization. Also in 1934 he became a secretary of the party’s Central Committee and in 1939 a full Politburo member. He spent most of World War II leading Leningrad, which was besieged by Hitler’s troops.
Zhdanov was transferred to Moscow in 1944 to work as Central Committee secretary for ideology and began playing a growing leadership role, which intensified his rivalry with Central Committee Secretary Georgy Malenkov. Zhdanov, as chief of the Central Committee’s Propaganda Department, became identified with official ideology, while Malenkov, chief of the party’s personnel and industrial departments, was identified with management of party activity and industry. In the maneuvering between these leaders, Zhdanov scored a victory over his rival by starting an ideological crackdown in August 1946, denouncing deviations by some literary journals and harshly assailing prominent writers. During Zhdanov’s campaign, Malenkov lost his leadership posts and fell into Stalin’s disfavor, while Zhdanov became viewed as Stalin’s most likely successor.
Zhdanov’s role in the harsh postwar ideological crackdown earned him the reputation of the regime’s leading hardliner; the wave of persecution of literary and cultural figures became known as the Zhdanovshchina. In June 1947 Zhdanov denounced ideological errors and softness toward the West in Soviet philosophy. At a September 1947 conference of foreign communist parties, Zhdanov laid out the thesis that the world was divided into two camps: imperialist (Western) and democratic (Soviet). Zhdanov’s pronouncements fostered development of the Cold War and an assertion of basic hostility between Soviet and Western ideas.
However, the worst excesses of the Zhdanovshchina ironically were committed after Zhdanov’s death and were directed against Zhdanov’s allies. Zhdanov refused to back biologist Trofim Ly-senko’s attacks on modern genetics, and Zhdanov’s son, who was head of the Central Committee’s Science Department, actually denounced Lysenko’s ideas in April 1948 and was later forced to recant publicly. In July 1948 Zhdanov was sent off for an extended vacation, during which he died on August 31, 1948. Malenkov returned to power in mid-1948, and, as Zhdanov was dying in August 1948, Lysenko was given free reign in science and
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
ZHELYABOV, ANDREI IVANOVICH
initiated the condemnation of genetics and other allegedly pro-Western scientific ideas. In 1949 a campaign against Jews as cosmopolitans began. Also in 1949 Zhdanov’s proteges in Leningrad were purged (the Leningrad Case), many of them eventually executed. Zhdanov himself was spared public disgrace, unlike his proteges and his Leningrad party organization, which was cast into disfavor for years. Zhdanov continued to be treated as a hero, and when Stalin concocted the Doctors’ Plot in 1952, he cast Zhdanov as one of the victims of the Jewish doctors, who allegedly had poisoned the Leningrad leader.
Although the symbol of intolerance in literature and culture and of hostility toward the West, Zhdanov was probably no more hard-line than his rivals. His denunciations of ideological deviations appeared largely motivated by his struggle to retain Stalin’s favor. But Stalin turned to a crackdown and a break with the West and drove the Zhdanovshchina into its extremes of anti-Semitism, Lysenkoism, and the execution of Leningrad leaders and Zhdanov proteges. See also: JEWS; LYSENKO, TROFIM DENISOVICH; MALENKOV, GEORGY MAXIMILYANOVICH; PURGES, THE GREAT; STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Graham, Loren. (1972). Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union. New York: Knopf. Hahn, Werner G. (1982). Postwar Soviet Politics: The Fall of Zhdanov and the Defeat of Moderation, 1946-53. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Medvedev, Zhores. (1969). The Rise and Fall of T.D. Ly-senko. New York: Columbia University Press.
WERNER G. HAHN
ZHELYABOV, ANDREI IVANOVICH
(1851-1881), Russian revolutionary narodnik (populist) and one of the leaders of the People’s Will party.
Andrei Zhelyabov was born in the village of Sultanovka in the Crimea to the family of a serf. He graduated from a gymnasium in Kerch with a silver medal (1869) and attended the Law Department of the Novorossiysk University in Odessa. He was expelled in November of 1871 for being involved in student-led agitation, and was sent home
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
for one year. Upon returning to Odessa, in 1873 and 1874 he was a member of the Chaikovsky circle and spread revolutionary propaganda among workers and the intelligentsia. In November 1874, he was arrested but bailed out before the trial. Zhelyabov faced charges of revolutionary propaganda as part of the Trial of 193 (1877-1878) in St. Petersburg. He was declared innocent on the basis of insufficient evidence. After his release, he lived in Ukraine, where he spread revolutionary propaganda among the peasants.
Disappointed with the ineffectiveness of his propaganda, Zhelyabov concluded that it was necessary to lead a political struggle. In June 1879 he took part in the Lipetsk assembly of terrorist politicians and was one of the authors of the formulation of the necessity of violent revolt through conspiracy. He joined the populist organization Zemlya i Vo
lya (Land and Freedom) and became one of the leaders of the Politicians’ Faction. After the split of Zemlya i Volya in August 1879, Zhelyabov joined the People’s Will and became a member of its executive committee. On August 26, 1879, he took part in the session of the executive committee where emperor Alexander II was sentenced to death. He supervised the preparation of the assaults on Alexander II near Alexandrovsk in the Yekater-inoslav province in November 1879, where an attempt was made to blow up the tsar’s train. Zhelyabov also supervised the assault on the tsar in the Winter Palace on February 17, 1880, and an unsuccessful attempt to blow up Kamenny Most (Stone Bridge) in St. Petersburg while the tsar was passing there in August 1880.
Zhelyabov took part in the devising of all program documents of the party. He is also credited with the creation of the worker, student, and military organizations of the People’s Will. He was one of the main organizers of the tsar’s murder on March 13, 1881, but on the eve of the assault he was arrested. On March 14, he submitted a plea to associate him with the tsar’s murder. During the trial, Zhelyabov, who refused to have a lawyer, made a programmatic speech to prove that the government itself, with its inappropriately repressive means of dealing with peaceful propagandists of socialist ideas, forced them to take the path of terrorism. Zhelyabov was sentenced to death and hanged on April 15, 1881, at the Semenovsky parade ground in St. Petersburg. See also: ALEXANDER II; LAND AND FREEDOM PARTY; PEOPLE’S WILL, THE