Sociology SOCI 20182 Demography of Russia and the Former Soviet Union

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Sociology SOCI 20182Demography of Russia and the
Former Soviet Union

• Dr. Leonid A. Gavrilov, Ph.D.
• Dr. Natalia S. Gavrilova, Ph.D.
• Center on Aging
• NORC and The University of Chicago
• Chicago, Illinois, USA

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What do you know about Russia?
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Matrioshka dolls
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Faberge eggs
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Samovars
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St. Basils Cathedral
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Kremlin
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Where is Russia?
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Russia now

• The largest country in the world by the area
  (United States is the 3rd)
• The 2nd country by the number of immigrants
  (after the United States)
• The 10th rank by population number - 141,377,752
  people on July 2007 (United States has the 5th
  rank)

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Russia now

• The 10th economy by GDP (CIA World Factbook). But
  only 75th by per capita GDP (14,600)
• The third largest reserves of foreign exchange
  and gold - 470 billion (after China and Japan)
• The largest reserves of natural gas
• The second in the world by oil production but the
  9th by oil reserves

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Russia Location and Size

• Russia is the worlds largest country
  17,075,000 sq. km (6,592,819 sq. mi.).
• It is almost twice as large as Canada, the second
  largest country.
• Russia has a tremendous east-west extent from
  the westernmost point near Kaliningrad (formerly
  Königsberg, 20º31E) in the Baltic Sea to the
  easternmost point at Cape Dezhnev (170º W) on the
  Bering Straits.

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Russia 11 Time Zones!

• At the same moment it is
• 600 AM in Kaliningrad
• 900 AM in the Ural Mountains
• 130 PM in Vladivostok
• A little after 500 PM at Cape Dezhnev
• The time difference between Kaliningrad and Cape
  Dezhnev is more than twice the difference between
  New York and London (five hours) and nearly four
  times the difference between New York and San
  Francisco (three hours).

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Russia now
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Russia Vegetation and Soils

• Tundra extensive, treeless plains inceptisols.
• Taiga -- coniferous forest spodosols, alfisols.
• Mixed Forest coniferous and deciduous trees
• Broadleaf Forest Southern Far East Russia,
  mostly deciduous trees.
• Steppe Short grass prairie mollisols,
  (chernozem black earth)
• Desert Clump grasses and xerophytic plants
  aridisols

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Russia Resources

• Russia has a rich resource base.
• One of the most important mineral producing
  countries with widely scattered deposits.
• Russia leads the world in the production of
  natural gas and lead.
• Russia also leads the world in iron ore reserves
  and natural gas reserves.
• Russia is second in the production of platinum,
  tungsten, aluminum and vanadium.

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Russia Population Distribution

• Russias population is unevenly distributed.
• Most of Russias population is located in
  European Russia, or the western one-fifth of
  the country.
• Overall arithmetic density is very low, 8.5
  persons per square kilometer (22 persons/sq.
  mi.).
• The areas of highest population density are the
  lowland of the Trans-Caucasus, the Moscow area,
  and the middle Volga lands.
• Most of the taiga, tundra, and desert areas have
  densities of one person per sq.km. (two persons
  or less per sq. mi.)

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Russia Political Geography

• Following the election of Vladimir Putin as
  President in March 2000, one of his first moves
  was to turn Russia into a single economic and
  legal space.
• In May, he issued a presidential decree which
  divided Russias 89 republics and regions into
  seven new federal districts.
• Central (Moscow), Far Eastern (Khabarovsk), North
  Caucasus (Rostov-na-Donu), Northwest (St.
  Petersburg), Siberia (Novosibirsk), Urals
  (Yekaterinburg), and Volga (Nizhny Novgorod).
• Each of these was to be headed by a
  plenipotentiary representative appointed by the
  President.

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Russia now
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A Few Words on Russian History
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(No Transcript)
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Weakness of Tsar Nicholas II The ruler of Russia
was Tsar Nicholas II. He was an absolute monarch,
meaning that he had total power in Russia.
Nicholas was a weak man. He used his secret
police, the Okhrana, to persecute opponents.
Books and newspapers were censored. The Church
supported the Tsar the Little Father of the
Russian people. Nicholas II ruled a vast country
that was almost medieval in comparison to other
countries. The Tsars undemocratic government was
a major cause of the revolution.
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The opposition of the Communists Many
middle-class Liberals and Social Revolutionaries
(who supported the peasants) opposed the rule of
the Tsar, but the most revolutionary were the
Social Democrats or Communists. The Communists
believed in the ideas of Karl Marx. Marx claimed
that history is all about the struggles between
the classes. He claimed that the capitalist
system was unfair because the factory owners
(bourgeois) made profits from the toils of the
workers (proletariat). Marx predicted that the
proletariat would violently overthrow the bosses
and take control of the country on behalf of the
people. The Russian Communists were divided into
the Bolsheviks led by Lenin and the Mensheviks
led by Trotsky. Lenin believed that the small
party of Bolsheviks should seize power and
control Russia on behalf of the people. Before
1917 Lenin and many of the other Communist
leaders were in exile abroad, plotting to bring
about a revolution in Russia
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The February Revolution 1917

• Russia fared so badly in the First World War
  there was a spontaneous uprising against the Tsar
  in February 1917. This was sparked off by food
  riots, poor working conditions and the failure to
  win the war. The Russian army refused to shoot at
  the demonstrators and joined forces with them.
  Lenin, in exile in Switzerland, raced to
  Petrograd so that he could attempt to seize
  control of the revolution.
• In March 1917, without the support of the army,
  the Tsar was forced to abdicate and a Provisional
  Government was set up under Prince Lvov and
  Kerensky. Lenin believed that this new government
  was weak and would not impose communism on the
  Russian people.

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Bolshevik RevolutionOctober 1917

• Vladimir Lenin, exiled in neutral Switzerland,
  arrived in Petrograd on April 3. He immediately
  began to undermine the provisional government,
  issuing his April's Theses the next month. These
  theses were in favor of "revolutionary
  defeatism", as opposed to the "imperialist war"
  (whose "link to the Capital" must be demonstrated
  to the masses).
• In October 1917, Lenin and Trotsky led an armed
  uprising against the Provisional Government. His
  aim was to take control of Russia and turn it in
  to a communist country.

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Bolshevik Revolution of 1917
The first decrees of bolshevik government were
about peace and about land
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Cheka

• In December 1917 Lenin set up a secret police
  force known as the Cheka. Cheka agents spied on
  the Russian people in factories and villages.
• Anyone suspected of being anti-Communist could be
  arrested, tortured and executed without a trial.
• When opponents tried to assassinate Lenin in
  1918, he launched the Red Terror campaign against
  his enemies. It is said that 50,000 people were
  arrested and executed in this period.

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Japanese armies
Finns
Czechs (ex-prisoners of war)
Communist Russia besieged during the Civil War
1918-1921

• Petrograd

• Moscow

Allied armies
White Russian armies
Polish armies
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The Red Army

• Leon Trotsky founder and commander of the Red
  Army
• Every scoundrel who incites anyone to retreat or
  to desert will be shot!
• Every soldier who throws away his rifle will be
  shot!

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War Communism 1918-1921

• War Communism was introduced by Lenin to combat
  the economic problems brought on by the civil war
  in Russia. It was a combination of emergency
  measures and socialist dogma.
• War Communism had six principles
• 1) Production should be run by the state.
  Private ownership should be kept to the minimum.
  Private houses were to be confiscated by the
  state.
• 2) State control was to be granted over the
  labor of every citizen. Once a military army had
  served its purpose, it would become a labor army.
• 3) The state should produce everything in its
  own undertakings. The state tried to control the
  activities of millions of peasants.
• 4) Extreme centralization was introduced.
• 5) The state attempted to become the soul
  distributor as well as the sole producer.
• 6) War Communism attempted to abolish money as
  a means of exchange.

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War Communism

• The state took control of the factories and
  appointed managers to run them. Work was hard and
  long, food was rationed to only those who worked
  and trade unions were banned.
• To get enough food, the Cheka seized all surplus
  grain from the peasants. The peasants hid food or
  preferred to grow less rather than give it away
  free to feed the towns.
• War Communism was a disaster. In all areas, the
  economic strength of Russia fell below the 1914
  level. Drought and famine hit Russia in 1921
  over 4 million people died.

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Success of the New Economic Policy 1921 To regain
popular support, Lenin relaxed War Communism with
the New Economic Policy (NEP). Smaller industries
were returned to private ownership and peasants
could sell their surplus on the open market. This
was a return to capitalism and competition. Lenin
hoped that NEP would give Russia a breathing
space to get back on its feet. Most of the
Communist Party saw the need for NEP, but some
were against it. On the whole NEP was a success.
But it did create some problems. Some peasants,
the Kulaks, became rich, while Nepmen or
businessmen made a profit in the towns. Some saw
NEP as a betrayal of communism and return to the
old system.
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When Lenin died in 1924, he had been very
successful in imposing a communist dictatorship
in Russia. He had defeated all of his opponents
and established a strong communist government. As
each of the areas formerly belonging to the Tsar
came under communist control, they were turned
into socialist republics. In 1923 these became
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
But, Lenin failed to provide a clear successor on
his death. This led to four years of bitter
struggle.
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The U.S.S.R.
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Succession problem

• After the death of Lenin in 1924, there was a
  four year power struggle between Josef Stalin and
  Leon Trotsky over the succession to the Russian
  leadership.
• Trotsky believed that under his leadership Russia
  would become a catalyst for the spread of
  communism across the world. He had been very
  successful as commander of the Red Army in the
  civil war and appeared to have Lenins support.

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The struggle for power

• Stalin had not played a significant part in the
  revolution of 1917, but since then he had
  gathered control of a number of key posts in the
  Communist Party. Stalin was determined to win
  control of Russia for himself. He was not
  interested in international communism, he wanted
  to make Russia strong and with himself at its
  head.
• By 1928 Stalin emerged as the successor to Lenin
  and Trotsky was forced into exile.

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Reasons for Stalins successAlthough Lenin had
not supported him, Stalin was in a strong
position. As General Secretary of the Communist
Party Stalin had responsibility for appointing
posts in the Party. This meant he could remove
opponents and replace them with his supporters.
He was also popular in the Party as he wanted to
concentrate on turning Russia into a modern,
powerful state this approach was called
Socialism in one country.In contrast Trotsky
was much less popular. He had been a Menshevik
and had only joined the Bolsheviks in 1917.
Trotsky was dismissed as Commissar for War in
1925 and from the Central Committee in in 1926.
In 1927 he was expelled from the Communist Party
and forced into exile in 1929. Stalin had Trotsky
assassinated in Mexico in 1940.Other leading
figures of 1917, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Bukharin,
were also removed by Stalin.
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Stalin Dictatorship

• Even with his opponents removed, Stalin still
  felt insecure. He conducted a policy of purges
  between 1934-1938. Millions were arrested,
  executed or sent to labor camps.
• Stalin used the NKVD, the secret police, to
  undertake the Great Terror. Stalin purged
• 90 of the armys top officers, every admiral
  in the navy, 1 million Communist Party members,
• some 20 million ordinary Russians. At the same
  time Stalin encouraged a cult of personality.
  Propaganda was used to make people aware of the
  part Stalin was playing in every aspect of life
  work, home and leisure.

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Collectivization

• Agriculture is developing slowly, comrades. This
  is because we have about 25 million individually
  owned farms. They are the most primitive and
  undeveloped form of economy. We must do our
  utmost to develop large farms and to convert them
  into grain factories for the country organized on
  a modern scientific basis. (Stalin, 1928)

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Collectivisation In the late 1920s, Russia
suffered a food crisis. To feed starving workers,
Stalin ordered the seizure of grain from the
farmers. But, just as happened under War
Communism, the peasants hid food or produced
less. In 1929 Stalin announced the
collectivisation of farms. The most common was
the Kolkhoz in which land was joined together and
the former owners worked together and shared
everything. Stalin persuaded peasants to join by
attacking the Kulaks, peasants that had grown as
a result of the NEP. Collectivisation had limited
success and a terrible human cost, between 10 to
15 million people died as a result. Between 1931
and 1932, there was a famine in Russia as not
enough food was being produced. By 1939, Russia
was producing the same amount of food as it had
in 1928. Collectivisation was clearly a disaster
and the problem was even worse as its population
had increased by 20 million - all of whom needed
feeding.
"
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The Five Year Plans

• We are 50-100 years behind the advanced
  countries. We must make up this gap in ten years.
  Either we do it or they crush us. Stalin 1931
• Stalin believed that industry could only develop
  through state control. Under GOSPLAN, three Five
  Year Plans set targets between 1928-1941 to
  increase production.
• Russian industry changed enormously. New towns
  such as Magnitogorsk grew up and large projects
  such as the Dnieper hydroelectric dam were
  developed. The USSR became a major industrial
  country.
• The human cost was high.

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Propaganda of the Five Year Plans
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The effects of Stalins rule on men and
women Millions of people suffered in Stalins
purges workers, peasants and members of the
Communist Party itself. There was brutality,
persecution, executions and forced labour.
Millions died of starvation and over-work. The
shops were empty clothes were dull and badly
made and household items difficult to find. But
despite these appalling tragedies, there were
some positive aspects to Stalins rule. For
example schools were built and social insurance
schemes were introduced. Russia became a modern
industrial country.
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The Great Patriotic War1941-1945

• As was the case with the Napoleonic Wars, the
  Soviet Union emerged from World War II
  considerably stronger than it had been before the
  war. Although the country suffered enormous
  devastation and lost more than twenty million
  lives, it had gained considerable territory and
  now ranked as one of the two great world powers
  along with the United States.

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Khrushchev rule 1958-1964

• The new power emerging in the Kremlin was Nikita
  S. Khrushchev (19581964), first secretary of the
  party. The Soviet Union exploded a hydrogen bomb
  in 1953, developed an intercontinental ballistic
  missile by 1957, sent the first satellite into
  space (Sputnik I) in 1957, and put Yuri Gagarin
  in the first orbital flight around Earth in 1961.

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Khrushchev rule

• Khrushchev's downfall stemmed from his decision
  to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba and
  then, when challenged by the U.S., backing down
  and removing the weapons. He was also blamed for
  the ideological break with China after 1963.
  Khrushchev was forced into retirement on Oct. 15,
  1964, and was replaced by Leonid I. Brezhnev as
  first secretary of the party and Aleksei N.
  Kosygin as premier.

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1964-1982 - Brezhnev era the stagnation period

• U.S. president Jimmy Carter and Brezhnev signed
  the SALT II treaty in Vienna on June 18, 1979,
  setting ceilings on each nation's arsenal of
  intercontinental ballistic missiles. The U.S.
  Senate refused to ratify the treaty because of
  the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops on
  Dec. 27, 1979. On Nov. 10, 1982, Leonid Brezhnev
  died.

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1982-1985

• Yuri V. Andropov, who had formerly headed the
  KGB, became his successor but died less than two
  years later, in Feb. 1984. Konstantin U.
  Chernenko, a 72-year-old party stalwart who had
  been close to Brezhnev, succeeded him. After 13
  months in office, Chernenko died on March 10,
  1985. Chosen to succeed him as Soviet leader was
  Mikhail S. Gorbachev.