Encyclopedia of Russian History

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prominent foreigners such as Bernard Shaw and

Theodore Dreiser, in its initial years it played host

primarily to international labor delegations as part

of the movement to acquire foreign technical as-

sistance. Only in the post-World War II period did

Intourist experience rapid growth and an expan-

sion of its services. This was the result, first, of the

general postwar spirit of internationalism and faith

in international organizations and, second, of the

new friendships between the Soviet Union and the

socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Intourist be-

came a member of numerous national and inter-

national bodies such as the World Tourism

Organization and participated in various confer-

ences on tourism such as those hosted by the

United Nations. More importantly, however, was

the creation of a unified commercial organization

for international tourism and satellite travel bu-

reaus in each of the socialist Eastern Europe na-

tions. This network facilitated exchanges among

worker delegations, students, theater troupes, trade

unions, kolkhozes, and other social groups. It was

also during this time that Intourist constructed the

basic infrastructure of hotels, autoparks, and

restaurants used by foreign visitors until 1989,

when the organization was withdrawn from the

control of the central state apparatus and restruc-

tured as an independent enterprise.

Intourist’s operations raise numerous ques-

tions about the meaning of leisure and privilege in

a socialist society. Its advertisements and exhibit

materials throughout the Soviet period spur con-

sideration of the various messages the state pro-

moted about itself to the outside world. And its list

of itineraries that, at one point, covered 150 cities

of the Union republics—with cruises along the

Dniepr from Kiev to Kherson, along the Black Sea

to Odessa, along the Dunau to Rus in Bulgaria or

to Dzurduz in Romania—give credence to the geopo-

litical power of the entity that was the Soviet

Union.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Margulies, S. (1968). The Pilgrimage to Russia: the Soviet

Union and the Treatment of Foreigners, 1924–1937.

Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Ostrovskii, I., and Pavlenko, M. (1998). Intourist

1929–1999. VAO Inturist.

State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) Fond

9612, opis 1, delo 2 and 123; opis 3, delo 557.

HAWN

OLOMON

TRADE ROUTES

Three-fourths of Russia is more than 250 miles (400

kilometers) away from seas and oceans; Russia is

the world’s most continental country. Even though

Russia’s coastline is the second longest (after

Canada), the presence of sea ice hampers traffic in

and out of the country’s few ports during much of

the winter. Murmansk, for example, Russia’s only

warm-water port, is plagued by shorefast ice for

two months out of the year. These and other fac-

tors hampered the development of a Russian navy

until the eighteenth century, when Peter the Great

built St. Petersburg, his famed “Window on the

West.” Accordingly, Russian historic trade routes

have been negotiated largely within its vast interior.

EARLY ROUTES

Commerce in the Black Sea Basin may be traced to

intercourse between the Scythians and Greeks circa

250

. Scythian nomads extracted grain, fish,

and slaves from their sedentary subjects and traded

them in the Greek ports for wine, cloth, metalware,

and luxury items. Before the Hun invasion (375

.), Persian Alans and Germanic Goths established

a commercial confederation between the Baltic and

Black Seas.

International trade in Eastern Europe after 850

. literally created Kievan Rus. Using the inter-

locking system of rivers and portages on the Rus-

sian plain, Varangian (Viking) traders and soldiers

sought the markets of the lower Volga and Don

rivers, where they traded fur, slaves, and wood

items for silver coins and spices from Central Asia,

Arabia, and Byzantium. Originally traversing the

Saracen Route between the Gulf of Finland, Lakes

Ladoga and Onega, down the Volga River to the

Caspian Sea and beyond, the Vikings eventually pre-

ferred trade with Byzantium, which was in its hey-

day. After the founding of Kievan Rus in 879, the

Dnieper (Dnipro) trade route from the Varangians

to the Greeks carried flax, hemp, hides, slaves,

honey, wax, grain, and furs from the north in ex-

change for silks, naval equipment, wine, jewelry,

glassware, and art items (particularly icons after the

introduction of Orthodox Christianity in 988).

The collapse of the Khazar Empire (600–900

.) opened the steppes to menacing Kypchak

Turks, who eventually cut off Kievan Rus from the

all-important salt deposits (virtually the only food

preservative) of the Crimea; thus, the major trade

routes shifted from a north-south orientation to

TRADE ROUTES

1563

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

east-west paths. Beginning in the eleventh century,

salt was hauled from Halych in Galicia-Volhynia

to Kiev. Later, the importance of the salt of Gali-

cia-Volhynia to not only the Kievan Rus, but also

the Teutonic Knights of the Baltic coast, brought a

reemphasis of the north-south Baltic-Black Sea

trade west of the Crimea. Galicia-Volhynia’s power

and influence, based on the salt trade, lasted well

into the second century of Mongol-Tatar domina-

tion of the rest of Russia (1237–1387).

The Mongol Yoke (1237–1556) isolated the

Russians from the Renaissance, the Reformation,

and the High Gothic period, among other major

changes in the West. Because they survived on trib-

ute paid by their Russian subjects and the customs

duties paid by those involved in international trade,

the Mongols permitted merchants the use of the

north-south trade routes, this time between the

Baltic, Novgorod, and Muscovy (in the north) and

the Arabic Middle East and the Black Sea (in the

south). They even encouraged the revival of the

Crimean ports, which were then under the leader-

ship of Italian merchants from Venice, Pisa, and

Genoa; cities with Greek names then became Italian.

POST-MONGOL TRADE

Ivan the Terrible’s defeat of the Astrakhan Tatars

in 1556 largely sealed the fate of the former Golden

[or Kypchak] Horde. The Volga trade route was

now in Muscovy possession all the way to Central

Asia, from which the tsar could import horses,

which would serve in his Swedish campaigns. Ivan

also sought trade with Great Britain: in the second

half of the sixteenth century, he established com-

merce between the White Sea port of Arkhangelsk

(logs and lumber) and Hull in eastern England (fin-

ished products).

An unlikely servant of Tsar Ivan was a cossack

named Yermak, who raided the Volga riverboats

laden with horses from Central Asia. Yermak and

his minions would later defeat the Siberian Tatars

and claim Western Siberia in the name of the tsar

in the 1580s. This event opened Siberia and the

Russian Far East to Russian expansion and trade.

First using the river and portage method, cos-

sacks and merchants traversed Siberia from west

to east, reaching the Pacific coast within a century.

Along the way, they traded trinkets to the natives

for valuable furs. The Russian quest for fur led

them to Alaska, down the North American Pacific

coast to San Francisco (Fort Ross), and even to

Hawaii. Later, coach transportation was used on

the bone-jarring Great Siberian Tract. Between

1891 and 1916, Russian laborers built the Trans-

Siberian Railway, which is still the only transcon-

tinental thoroughfare in the country. Between the

seventeenth and twentieth centuries, a trade route

flourished between Russia and China at the border

crossing of Kyakhta. Chinese tea, silks, furs, and

luxuries were imported in exchange for Russian

raw materials.

SOVIET TRADE POLICY

For much of the period that it existed, the Soviet

Union was an island that strove for self-sufficiency

while remaining insulated from the rest of the

world. Like that of imperial Russia, Soviet foreign

trade was limited in total value, in quantity of com-

modities exchanged, and in number of trading part-

ners. Between 1917 and 1991, Soviet trade with

other socialist countries never fell below 67 per-

cent. By the late 1980s, trade with the developed

world was approximately 22 percent, with the bal-

ance going to developing countries.

Throughout the Soviet period, military strate-

gists sought to expand the Soviet navy, which by

extension included the merchant marine. An espe-

cially important goal was the development of a

northern sea route through the use of heavy re-

inforced—ultimately atomic—icebreakers. By the

1980s, such icebreakers had successfully negotiated

the Soviet Union’s vulnerable Arctic coast between

Murmansk and the Bering Strait.

By the beginning of the twenty-first century,

Russia’s foreign trade was more open than ever be-

fore, but, as in the distant past, its own exports

continued to be raw materials or crudely processed

finished goods, while its imports consisted of

quality finished products. Major trading partners

include China, Germany, the United States, and

Japan.

See also: EXPLORATION; FOREIGN TRADE; GEOGRAPHY;

TRADE STATUTES OF 1653 AND 1667

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brigham, Lawson W. (1991). The Soviet Maritime Arctic.

Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.

Gibson, James R. (1969). Feeding the Russian Fur Trade.

Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Magocsi, Paul Robert. (1985). Ukraine: A Historical Atlas.

Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

ICTOR

L. M

OTE

TRADE ROUTES

1564

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

TRADE STATUTES OF 1653 AND 1667

The Trade Statutes of 1653 and 1667 governed do-

mestic and foreign trade in seventeenth-century

Russia, and streamlined a highly complex and con-

fusing system of some seventy different internal

customs duties that added to transportation costs

and created ample opportunity for corruption and

cheating. Subjecting all goods and merchants to a

uniform and consistent set of customs duties pro-

moted efficiency by making long-distance trade

more profitable and predictable. The statutes also

became key elements in the implementation of a

mercantilist agenda designed to promote the inter-

ests of domestic merchants.

The commercial code (Torgovy ustav) of Octo-

ber 1653 was adopted in direct response to an Au-

gust 1653 petition by leading Russian merchants

against transit duties and for a unified rate of cus-

toms duty. The code combined a uniform internal

rate with an overall increase in imposts. It further

adopted uniform measures of weight and length

throughout the country. A basic 5 percent impost

was levied on sold goods, with the exception of salt

(double the rate), furs, fish, and horses (old duties

applied). No duties were levied on foreign currency

sold to the government at a fixed rate. A special

duty of 2.5 percent was applied to goods offered

exclusively in border towns for export. Under the

1653 code, foreign merchants were required to pay

a 6 percent duty in the Russian interior, in addi-

tion to a 2 percent transit duty. However, exports

from Arkhangel’sk were taxed at only 2 percent. A

related 1654 decree (Ustavnaya gramota) abolished

transit duties on noble and church lands.

The dual agendas of mercantilism and protec-

tionism culminated in the New Commercial Code

(Novotorgovy ustav) of 1667, again in an apparent

response to a petition by Muscovite merchants.

The New Commercial Code was apparently pri-

marily authored by Afanasy Lavrentevich Ordin-

Nashchokin, G. Dokhturov, and L. Golosov, and

signed by ninety Russian merchants. The statute

consists of a preamble, ninety-four main articles,

and a seven-article appendix, Ustav torgovle, gov-

erning foreign trade. The introduction of the New

Commercial Code spells out the leading principles

of the government’s commercial policy and con-

stitutes the most elaborate expression of mercan-

tilist ambitions in seventeenth-century Russian

policy making. In addition to increasing govern-

ment revenues, the statute sought to support do-

mestic merchants by organizing facilities for credit

and by promoting companies combining large-

and small-scale merchants in an attempt to reduce

the influence of foreign traders. However, the prac-

tical importance of these pronouncements re-

mained marginal at best.

The new statute significantly increased the tax

burden facing foreign merchants and made a fur-

ther attempt to confine them to border cities

through both restricted access to the interior and

prohibitive transit duties. The New Commercial

Code designated Arkhangel’sk, Novgorod, Pskov,

Smolensk, Putivl’, and Astrakhan’ as “border

towns” beyond which foreigners could operate only

with special permission. Foreign specie receipts

were to be maximized not only through higher tax

rates, even on unsold goods, but also through a

compulsory system of exacting those payments in

foreign specie at a rigged exchange rate. The basic

impost was increased to 5 percent on weighed

goods and 4 percent on unweighed goods. An ad-

ditional 9 percent was levied on transit by for-

eigners into the Russian interior. A sales tax of 6

percent, imposed in the towns of the interior, took

the overall duty facing foreigners to an unprece-

dented 20–21 percent. Exacting the duty in foreign

silver coin at a rigged rate yielded the crown two

rubles in pure profit for every seven rubles col-

lected. Emulating Western practices, the New Com-

mercial Code imposed quality controls on import

and export goods alike, although this measure ap-

pears to have been implemented with mixed suc-

cess at best. Slightly preferential treatment was

given to Asian merchants in the interior.

The immediate impact of the New Commercial

Code was negative. Customs receipts declined, and

tensions between Westerners and hostile gost (priv-

ileged merchant) administrators increased, as con-

fiscations of goods as “contraband” multiplied. The

concessions to Russia’s elite merchants may in fact

have been based on unrealistically rosy expectations

at a time when a commercial treaty with Persia

was set to ensure an increase in silk trade, while a

peace treaty with Poland put an end to prolonged

warfare in the West. A period of protectionism un-

der Fyodor Alexeyevich’s reign severely limited the

right of Western merchants to operate in the Russ-

ian interior and sought to change the terms of

trade at Arkhangel’sk in favor of Russians. This

policy was only relaxed in the 1680s when Peter

I’s government finally conceded some key demands

of Western merchants. The more hostile business

environment at Arkhangel’sk not only deterred

TRADE STATUTES OF 1653 AND 1667

1565

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Western merchants but also contributed to a gen-

eral diversion of Russian trade to the Baltic. The

New Commercial Code remained in force, with mi-

nor modifications, until the adoption of the 1755

customs code.

See also: ECONOMY, TSARIST; FOREIGN TRADE; GOSTI;

MERCHANTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Burton, Audrey. (1997). The Bukharans: A Dynastic,

Diplomatic and Commercial History, 1550–1702. Rich-

mond, Surrey, UK: Curzon Press.

Bushkovitch, Paul. (1980). The Merchants of Moscow,

1580–1650. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Dukes, Paul. (1990). The Making of Russian Absolutism,

1613–1801, 2nd ed. London: Longman.

ARMO

T. K

OTILAINE

TRADE UNIONS

The trade union movement in Russia had its ori-

gins in the strike movements of the nineteenth cen-

tury. Labor organizations, originally modeled on

village institutions, spontaneously formed around

particular grievances, but proved temporary in na-

ture. More permanent labor representation in the

form of delegates, starostas, eventually took hold

at the factory, local, and industry levels. By the late

nineteenth century local broad-based organizations

gave way to associations by industry or occupa-

tion, along with the adoption of more institution-

alized negotiation methods between labor and

capital.

Trade unions first gained legal recognition af-

ter the Revolution of 1905. Unions adopted prin-

ciples of class identity (membership being restricted

to workers) and independence from state institu-

tions and political parties. During the period im-

mediately following the Revolution, attempts to

establish central labor organizations produced both

soviets of workers’ delegates and trade union coun-

cils, which sought to unite extant unions and pro-

vide support for new ones. Unions remained

relatively weak, with union activity declining sig-

nificantly during World War I in response to gov-

ernmental restrictions.

The period from 1917 to 1920 saw the reemer-

gence of the old trade unions in competition with

autonomous factory-level worker councils. Unions

eventually secured power over the councils, but

only as they underwent their own transformation.

As a result, three features were to characterize trade

unions throughout the Soviet period: branch

unionism, union subordination to both the state

and Bolshevik Party, and the assumption of dual

functions on the part of all unions. This meant that

every employee in a particular industry or branch

of the economy belonged to one union and that

trade unions as state organizations were to fulfill

a twin purpose: to mobilize workers to meet pro-

duction targets and to defend workers’ rights, as

defined by the state, against arbitrary managerial

actions. The particular methods employed by

unions shifted over time, with emphasis on disci-

pline and punishment in the 1930s giving way to

positive incentives and greater job protection rights

by the 1950s.

At the enterprise level, union activity was in-

tegrated into a larger triangular relationship,

known as the union-management-party troika.

The union worked chiefly with management to in-

crease labor productivity. Its control over the dis-

tribution of nonwage benefits to the workforce

ensured labor cooperation, while its control over

the grievance process and its mandatory participa-

tion in all personnel decisions provided the means

to defend workers’ legal rights. Simultaneously, the

union coordinated efforts with party officials to di-

rect the cultural life of the factory. In this capac-

ity, the union acted as a transmission belt between

party and society, orientating the workforce to the

goals of the state.

At the national level, the All-Union Central

Council of Trade Unions (AUCCTU) was the

supreme agency within a complex trade union bu-

reaucracy. In its role as administrator, it maintained

control over two parallel hierarchical structures,

one based on branch-level union committees, with

the central committee of each union as the leading

institution, and an all-union hierarchy organized

geographically, with the republican all-union coun-

cils as the governing bodies. The primary union

agency, the factory-level committee, was responsi-

ble to both groups. Union resources came from

three critical sources: membership dues, the na-

tional social insurance fund, and considerable prop-

erty holdings associated with the social and welfare

benefits distributed to the workforce.

The post-Soviet period has been marked by two

important developments: the plurality of trade

union organizations and the declining power of

unions in general. Alternative trade unions, orga-

TRADE UNIONS

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

nized along occupational and professional lines,

have challenged the monopoly of the traditional

union bureaucracy, the Federation of Independent

Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR), the successor to

AUCCTU. Although FNPR remains by far the dom-

inant institution, the alternative unions function as

catalysts for organizational change. In addition,

trade unions have lost considerable power, deepen-

ing their subordination in practice to management

and the state. Declining union membership and the

loss of income and important administrative duties

have undermined the traditional base of union

power.

See also: TRADE STATUTES OF 1653 AND 1667

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ashwin, Sarah, and Clarke, Simon. (2003). Russian Trade

Unions and Industrial Relations in Transition. New

York: Palgrave Macmillan Press.

Ruble, Blair. (1981). Soviet Trade Unions: Their Develop-

ment in the 1970s. New York: Cambridge University

Press.

Turin, S. P. (1968). From Peter the Great to Lenin: A His-

tory of the Russian Labour Movement with Special Ref-

erence to Trade Unionism. New York: A. M. Kelley

Press.

AROL

LARK

TRANSCAUCASIAN FEDERATIONS

Federalism would be a rational enterprise for the

three states that occupy Transcaucasia. The Geor-

gian, Armenian, and Azerbaijani peoples have al-

ways been interconnected by trade, transport, and

even culture, despite religious differences. Under the

Russian Empire, the three peoples were incorpo-

rated into a Caucasian administrative region. After

the 1917 February revolution, the Transcaucasian

leaders tried to maintain political and economic

unity through the formation of regional Trans-

caucasian Soviets, a Transcaucasian Revolutionary

Committee (Revkom), and finally, a few days before

the October Revolution, by a Transcaucasian Com-

mittee of Public Safety.

After the October Revolution, an anti-Bolshe-

vik coalition of Transcaucasian leaders formed a

Transcaucasian Commissariat. This was the first

attempt to create a proper federal structure, though

the vertical and horizontal divisions of authority

were unclear. The Commissariat, which governed

alongside a Transcaucasian Seim (parliament), was

divided within itself by the war with Turkey and

Germany. It collapsed after five months, in April

1918.

Newly independent Transcaucasian states were

formed, but were soon overthrown by the Red

Army. The independent Georgian republic was the

last to fall, in February 1921. Soviet power, with

its emphasis on large, efficient territorial units and

class solidarity, reestablished unified Transcau-

casian organizations, such as the Transcaucasian

Economic Bureau. In March 1922, despite resis-

tance from regional leaders, and the Georgians in

particular, Moscow established a Federation of So-

cialist Soviet Republics of Transcaucasia (FSSRZ) in

February 1922. Its supreme organ was a plenipo-

tentiary conference of Transcaucasian representa-

tives. In December 1922 this loose federation of

republics was transformed into a single federated

republic, or the Transcaucasian Socialist Federal So-

viet Republic (ZSFSR). The new federation was

highly centralized, and the republics were given

only six commissariats (ministries). The remainder

were given to the federal Transcaucasian govern-

ment. The Transcaucasian Central Executive Com-

mittee (ZtsIK) was the executive organ of the

federation and, along with the Transcaucasian

Council of People’s Commissariats (Sovnarkom),

could overrule the republics on almost any issue.

The Transcaucasian republics were subject to dual

authority, from the Transcaucasian central organs

and from Moscow. However, the real power was

in the unitary Communist Party, an organization

hostile to the idea of federation.

In 1936 the Stalin constitution dismantled the

ZSFSR and established separate union republics in

Transcaucasia. Administratively, they were now

directly subordinate to Moscow, with no interme-

diate Transcaucasian administration. However,

within the republics, the autonomous republican

or regional status of a number of national minori-

ties was retained. Azerbaijan included the Nagorno-

Karabagh Autonomous Region and the Autonomous

Republic of Nakhichevan. Georgia incorporated

three separate administrative units: the South Os-

etian Autonomous Region and the Abkhazian and

Ach’aran Autonomous republics. Although Azer-

baijan and Georgia were never described or operated

as federations, they resembled them administra-

tively. There was a division of power which de-

volved considerable social and cultural authority to

the national minority governments within the

TRANSCAUCASIAN FEDERATIONS

1567

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

union republics. This remained the case until the

breakup of the USSR, itself a quasi-federation, in

December 1991.

After the collapse of the USSR, the Transcau-

casian states reclaimed their independence; Armenia

and Azerbaijan fought a war over Nagorno-

Karabagh. This war, and intense competition over

scarce resources, made the concept of a new Trans-

caucasian Federation unrealized, although there

were half-hearted discussions and calls from the

new leaders for a common Caucasian Home or Fo-

rum of Caucasian Peoples. President Shevardnadze

of Georgia spoke of a federation within Georgia to

end the country’s interethnic problems. However,

despite encouragement from Western powers for

more Transcaucasian cooperation, there is no sig-

nificant Transcaucasian political movement calling

for federation today.

See also: ARMENIA AND ARMENIANS; AZERBAIJAN AND

AZERIS; CAUCASIA; GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS

TEPHEN

ONES

TRANS-DNIESTER REPUBLIC

The label Transnistria has historically applied to

lands that today lie inside both the Republic of

Moldova and Ukraine, but it now refers specifically

to the area between the Dniester River and the

Ukrainian border. Since 1990, residents of this ter-

ritory have claimed independence from Moldova.

Despite a lack of international recognition, the

Dniester Moldovan Republic (DMR) functions as a

de facto sovereign state.

The DMR sits upon a thin strip of land, less

than thirty kilometers wide and only 4,118 square

kilometers in area. Although the political and eco-

nomic elite is primarily of Slavic origin, 39.9

percent of the population are ethnic Moldovan (Ro-

manian speaking). Ukrainians form the largest mi-

nority with 28.3 percent, and 25.5 percent of the

population claim Russian heritage. There is a Slavic

concentration in the urban centers, particularly in

the capital of Tiraspol. The Moldovan population

constitutes a majority in the countryside.

Despite its plurality of Romanian speakers,

Transnistria has never been part of the greater Ro-

manian lands to the west of the Dniester. The re-

gion formed part of Kievan Rus and then the Gali-

cia-Volhynian Kingdom between the ninth and

fourteenth centuries. It was subsequently drawn

into the Ottoman Empire before being annexed by

the Russian Empire in 1812. Following the Bolshe-

vik Revolution and ensuing civil war, Transnistria

was briefly incorporated into Soviet Ukraine.

In 1924, land stretching from the Dniester in

the west to the Bug River in the east was carved

off of Soviet Ukraine to form the Moldovan Au-

tonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR). The

creation of the MASSR formed part of the Soviet

Union’s policy of national liberation, which was

designed to draw bordering states (Bessarabia)

away from the influence of bourgeois neighbors

(Romania). Tiraspol was named capital of the

MASSR in 1929, though the right was reserved to

shift the capital to Chisinau upon reunification

with rump Moldova. Following the Soviet Union’s

annexation of Bessarabia in 1940, six western dis-

tricts were integrated with Bessarabia to form the

Moldovan Soviet Social Republic (MSSR). The re-

maining MASSR territory reverted to Soviet

Ukraine.

Despite the merging of Transnistria and Bessara-

bia between 1940 and 1991, social, political, and

economic differences between the two regions

remained. Having been significantly sovietized be-

tween World War I and World War II, the Transnis-

trian political elite was considered by Moscow to

be more reliable than its Bessarabian counterpart.

Moldovan Communist Party (CPM) members from

Transnistria were, therefore, relatively overrepre-

sented in the Moldovan Soviet structure. Transnis-

tria was the focus of Soviet industrial expansion in

the region, particularly the steel industry, while

Bessarabia remained agrarian. Sizable Ukrainian

and Russian immigration also shifted the demo-

graphic balance during this period, though ethnic

Moldovans remained in the majority.

From 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of per-

estroika allowed ethnic Moldovans to seek a redress

of the socioeconomic imbalance in the MASSR. A

devolution of power from Moscow to the con-

stituent republics, and the introduction of direct

elections to the Moldovan Supreme Soviet in 1989,

enabled Bessarabians to increase their influence over

national policy.

Conflict between Chisinau and Tiraspol began

to mount from 1989. Tensions were exacerbated

TRANS-DNIESTER REPUBLIC

1568

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

by the introduction of a number of restrictive lan-

guage laws that favored the Moldovan language

over Russian. Sporadic violence began in 1989 and

continued intermittently until a peace accord was

signed in July 1992.

Transnistrian resistance was initially led by the

United Council of Work Collectives, under the lead-

ership of Ukrainian national Igor Smirnov. Protests

swiftly became violent, as industrial managers mo-

bilized their workers against Moldovan police

forces. An autonomous Dniester Moldovan Soviet

Socialist Republic was proclaimed on September 2,

1990. This proclamation was followed by a decla-

ration of full independence on August 27, 1991,

with Smirnov as president.

Conflict peaked in the summer of 1992 fol-

lowing the intervention of the Russian Fourteenth

Army, which was stationed in Transnistria. Al-

though Moscow claimed credit for taking swift ac-

tion, the decision to engage was likely taken by

Fourteenth Army commander Yuri Netkachev,

without official sanction from the Russian gov-

ernment. Netkachev was soon replaced by Alexan-

der Lebed. Throughout the conflict, the Fourteenth

Army provided troops and armaments to the

Transnistrian forces. With a disorganized defense—

led by poorly armed police forces—Moldovan

troops were unable to retain control of their posi-

tions in Transnistria and suffered considerably

more casualties than Transnistrian and Russian

forces. Overall casualties have been estimated at be-

tween seven hundred and one thousand. A pact

signed on July 21, 1992, between Russian presi-

dent Boris Yeltsin and Moldovan president Mircea

Snigur ended armed hostilities, and Russian forces

began to withdraw in 1994.

At the turn of the century, the DMR remained

autonomous, though the international community

refused to recognize its claims to statehood.

See also: LEBED, ALEXANDER IVANOVICH; MOLDOVA AND

MOLDOVANS; PRIMAKOV, YEVGENY MAXIMOVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hill, Ronald J. (1979). Soviet Political Elites: The Case of

Tiraspol. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

King, Charles. (2000). The Moldovans: Romania, Russia,

and the Politics of Culture. Stanford, CA: Hoover Press.

Kolstø, Pal. (1993). “The Dniester Conflict: Between Ir-

redentism and Separatism.” Europe-Asia Studies

45(6):973–1000.

O’Loughlin, J.; Kolossoc, V.; and Tchepalyga, A. (1998).

“National Construction, Territorial Separatism, and

Post-Soviet Geopolitics in the Transdniester

Moldovan Republic.” Post-Soviet Geography and Eco-

nomics 39(6):332–358.

OHN

LEDHILL

TRANSITION ECONOMIES

The term transition has been applied to the coun-

tries that have abandoned the Soviet-type political

and economic system at the end of the twentieth

century. As it suggests a passage from one state to

another, it is important to define both the point of

departure and the point of arrival.

The point of departure may be considered the

communist system that appeared in Russia follow-

ing the October 1917 Revolution, and which was

imposed on the countries of Central and Eastern Eu-

rope under Soviet rule after World War II. The core

of this system may be described in terms of three

features. First, economic life was under the control

of a single party. In the USSR, this was the CPSU

(Communist Party of the Soviet Union). All the na-

tional parties in Central and Eastern Europe were

subordinate to the CPSU until the very end of the

system, notwithstanding some crises, even though

not all were officially labeled communist. The two

exceptions were Yugoslavia and Albania, whose

leaders broke with the Soviet system in 1948 and

1961, respectively. The second feature was that the

economic institutions were based upon state own-

ership of the means of production. The private sec-

tor was nonexistent or negligible, and market ways

of operating could only be found in an illegal un-

derground economy. Finally, the third feature was

compulsory central planning that regulated pro-

duction, trade, and distribution of incomes.

The transition process began as a rejection of

these three foundations of the communist economic

system. The initial shock came with the fall of the

Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, which triggered

the collapse of the communist parties and the be-

ginning of a threefold process: from one-party rule

to democracy, from state ownership to private

property, and from plan to market. In the Soviet

case, the transition process also included the col-

lapse of the Soviet state as a federation of republics;

this led to the independence of the three Baltic

states, and later of the other twelve former re-

publics. Officially the Soviet Union was dissolved

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in December 1991. The Russian Federation was the

biggest Soviet Republic and the dominant one, both

economically and politically.

All the former communist countries in the

world, with the exceptions of North Korea and

Cuba, became engaged in a transition process. In

the case of the Asian countries, particularly China

and Vietnam, the transition process was well un-

der way in the beginning of the twenty-first cen-

tury. Although perhaps more advanced economically

than in some former European communist coun-

tries, the transition did not touch the political sys-

tem, which remained communist. Can one still

speak of transition? The question is debated.

In all the countries the basic transition policies

were identical in their economic design. They were

prepared by the new governments with the help of

Western experts and international organizations,

with the dominant influence of the International

Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the European

Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the first

institution created solely for the purpose of assist-

ing the transition). The building blocks of the tran-

sition were again threefold. First, there was an

overall liberalization of the economic activities.

Prices that had been fixed or controlled by the state

were freed, as were the rates of exchange (for con-

verting foreign into local currencies and vice-versa)

and the rates of interest. People became free to un-

dertake business activities and engage in domestic

and foreign trade. Second, a stabilization program

was instituted to eradicate inflation, control the

budget deficit, and limit the foreign debt. Third, a

structural transformation was intended to create

the institutions of a market economy. The main

component of the transformation was privatiza-

tion: the task not only of putting the former state

ownership into private hands—individual or cor-

porate—but also of creating a new private sector.

Transformation also implied a banking reform,

which would put an end to the monopoly of a sin-

gle state bank and allow the new private sector to

be financed by credit. Tax reform and the building

of a modern financial market were on the agenda.

In order to replace the former social security sys-

tem where the citizens were in complete charge of

the state through subsidized health, education,

housing, and even recreation systems, a market-

type social security safety net only partly financed

by the state was needed.

These measures were applied in Russia as in

most of the Central and East European countries,

under a program that started with Boris Yeltsin’s

first term on January 2, 1992, and was conducted

by a team of reformers headed by Yegor Gaidar.

Liberalization was swift and stabilization was

achieved, albeit with difficulties and some crises.

However, structural transformation progressed

slowly and unevenly, and, ten years later, it could

not be considered finished. The private sector was

dominant, but the restructuring of the former state

enterprises had not been completed, and monopo-

lies prevailed in such crucial sectors as energy. The

private companies were not applying the rules of

a transparent corporate governance. The banking

reform continued, with the banking sector suffer-

ing as a result of the financial crisis of 1998. The

social security reform was not implemented.

The former Soviet Republics were in a still more

difficult position. They were hit by the collapse of

the USSR. Their links with Moscow and among

themselves, defined by the former central plan,

were disrupted. Most of them, except for states rich

in oil and natural resources, such as Kazakhstan or

Turkmenistan, could only rely on foreign assis-

tance to conduct their reforms. Some of them, such

as Belarus, or to a lesser extent Ukraine, hardly be-

gan their structural transformation. Some others,

such as the Caucasian states, or the southern re-

publics of Central Asia, are still plagued by ethnic

conflicts or border wars.

The full transition to a market economy was

not yet completed in Russia ten years after its be-

ginning. Why has it been a much more chaotic

process than in the countries of Central Europe, or

even Eastern Europe? Several factors may explain

these differences: the length of the Communist rule

in Russia; Russia’s size and diversity; paradoxically,

its huge natural resources, which relieved the state

of the need for more radical reforms and allowed

a small minority of corrupt businessmen to grab

these resources through the mechanisms of priva-

tization; and, the lack of incentives and assistance,

which were provided to Central and Eastern Eu-

rope through the European Union enlargement

process but were not available to the CIS coun-

tries.

See also: ECONOMY, POST-SOVIET; MARKET SOCIALISM;

PRIVATIZATION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aslund, Anders. (1995). How Russia Became a Market Econ-

omy. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.

TRANSITION ECONOMIES

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Braguinsky, Serguey, and Yavlinsky, Grigory. (2000).

Incentives and Institutions: The Transition to a Market

Economy in Russia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-

sity Press.

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

(1999). Transition Report 1999: Ten Years of Transi-

tion. London: EBRD.

Kolodko, Grzegorz W. (2000). From Shock to Therapy: The

Political Economy of Postsocialist Transformation. Ox-

ford: Oxford University Press.

Lavigne, Marie. (1999). The Economics of Transition: From

Socialist Economy to Market Economy, 2nd ed. New

York: St. Martin’s Press.

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. (2000).

Economic Survey of Europe, vol. 1. New York: UNECE.

ARIE

AVIGNE

TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY

The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway be-

tween 1891 and 1916 ended the era of great

transcontinental railway building. The Trans-

Siberian stretches 5,776 miles between Moscow’s

Yaroslavsky Station and Vladivostok (6,117 miles

from St. Petersburg). It takes a minimum of a week

to traverse that distance by train.

The longest railway in the world, the Trans-

Siberian project was mired in controversy from the

moment Tsarevich Nicholas shoveled an inaugural

spade full of dirt into an awaiting wheelbarrow in

Vladivostok on May 31, 1891, until the comple-

tion of the Amur River Bridge at Khabarovsk in

1916. A technological marvel at the time, it soon

bore the reputation of “a monument to bungling.”

The rails and crossties were too light, causing fre-

quent derailments; the wooden bridges were

flimsy; and, since the builders were mostly exiles

and convicts, there was justifiable reason to believe

that much of the line had been sabotaged.

Moreover, the estimated costs in 1916 U.S. dol-

lars ranged from $770 million to $1 billion, which

represented one-fifth of Russia’s national debt at the

time. During its construction, the Trans-Siberian

was a serious drain on the Russian economy and,

between 1914 and 1916, on the war effort. Despite

the criticism, the great railway more than paid for

itself during the twentieth century. Still the only

transportation artery to span Siberia and the

Russian Far East, the Trans-Siberian has solidified

Moscow’s hold on Russia’s eastern periphery.

Fanatically supported by high-ranking tsarist

officials like Count Sergei Witte (1849–1915) and

Anatoly Kulomzin (1838–1924), the Trans-Siber-

ian’s influence was immediate. The annual num-

ber of migrants to Siberia and the Russian Far East

doubled (to 88,000) between 1896 and 1904 and

then doubled again (to 174,000) between 1905 and

1914. Between 1895 and 1916, a total of 2.5 mil-

lion land-poor peasants migrated to the region

from European Russia. This Great Siberian Migra-

tion represented 57 percent of everyone who had

migrated to Siberia and the Russian Far East since

1796. Additionally, the Siberian economy, which

had been almost nonexistent, exploded. New set-

tlers rapidly cultivated West Siberia’s virgin black

earth, doubling the sown area. The region quickly

became one of Russia’s major breadbaskets. Flour

mills sprang up like mushrooms. West Siberia’s

butter industry jumped from nonexistence to be-

coming the second leading butter exporter behind

Denmark. Virtually every railhead had sawmills,

stockyards, and slaughterhouses. Without the

Trans-Siberian Railroad, Siberia’s industrial revolu-

tion never would have succeeded.

The Trans-Siberian’s principal commodities are

coal, oil and oil products, and wood and wood

products. Major non-Russian users of the railway,

which is now double-tracked and electrified for

much of its distance, are China, Japan, and South

Korea.

See also: RAILWAYS; SIBERIA; TRADE ROUTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Marks, Steven G. (1991). Road to Power. Ithaca, NY: Cor-

nell University Press.

Mote, Victor L. (1998). Siberia: Worlds Apart. Boulder,

CO: Westview Press.

Treadgold, Donald. (1957). The Great Siberian Migration.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Tupper, Harmon. (1965). To the Great Ocean. Boston: Lit-

tle, Brown.

ICTOR

L. M

OTE

TRIANDAFILLOV, VIKTOR KIRIAKOVICH

(1894–1931), military theorist and intellectual.

Triandafillov was one of the key intellectual

leaders of the Red Army during the inter-war pe-

riod (1918–1939). Triandafillov was instrumental

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

in formulating a new and revolutionary under-

standing of modern war. Up until the Industrial

Revolution, military campaigns had consisted of

a single decisive battle or series of inconclusive

combats. The industrialization of war set in mo-

tion a revolutionary change in the means and

methods of waging war. Campaigns became more

protracted, battles were less decisive, and armies

were more widely distributed in a theater of op-

erations. Triandafillov, along with Mikhail N.

Tukhachevsky, Alexander A. Svechin, Boris M.

Shaposhnikov, Mikhail V. Frunze, and G. S. Is-

serson, recognized that the material transmuta-

tion of war demanded a corresponding conceptual

transformation. He believed that one could no

longer think about modern war using a Napoleonic

paradigm.

Triandafillov’s unique contribution was to help

overturn the old Napoleonic cut that framed war

in the dual strategy-tactics creative structure. The

German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz

(1780–1831) had associated each of the levels of

military art with a particular activity. Strategy was

concerned with campaigns and tactics with battles.

Other Soviet theorists argued that the complexity

of war demanded a new creative component that

they referred to as operational art (operativnoe

iskusstvo). The creative domain of operational art

became the operation (operatsiia). Triandafillov

made his seminal theoretical contribution concern-

ing the modern operation in a book entitled The Na-

ture of the Operations of Modern Armies (1929, 1932,

1936, and 1937). Triandafillov defined the modern

operation as a distinct military activity consisting

of a “mosaic” of battles and maneuvers, distributed

in space and time but unified by aim and purpose,

conducted for the object of strategy. Triandafillov

was killed in a plane crash in July 1931 while he

was in the process of revising his work to consider

the practical problems of creating a mass mecha-

nized Red Army.

See also: MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Naveh, Shimon. (1996). In Pursuit of Military Excellence.

Schneider, James J. (1994). The Structure of Strategic Rev-

olution: Total War and the Roots of the Soviet Warfare

State.

Triandafillov, Viktor K. (1994). The Nature of the Opera-

tions of Modern Armies.

AMES

J. S

CHNEIDER

TRINITY ST. SERGIUS MONASTERY

Sergius and his brother Stefan founded the

monastery in 1342 in an uninhabited forest, thirty

five miles northeast of Moscow, now the city of

Sergiev Posad, and dedicated it to the Trinity. When

Stefan left, Sergius lived as a hermit. His piety at-

tracted disciples who in 1353 made him abbot. As

their numbers grew, Sergius introduced a cenobite

rule based on that of the Studios Monastery in Con-

stantinople. It mandated communal property,

prayer, work, and meals presided over by an elected

abbot. Until his death in 1392, Sergius maintained

strict discipline and vows of poverty. His example

inspired the founding of other houses. Destroyed

by the Mongols in 1408, Trinity was reestablished

by Sergius’s disciple Abbot Nikon. In 1422 Nikon

inaugurated worship of Sergius’s sanctity. Helped

by the local prince and the brother of Moscow’s

ruler, whom Sergius had baptized, he built a stone

church to house Sergius’s tomb and commissioned

Andrei Rublev and Danyl Cherny to decorate it with

frescoes. Andrei painted his famous icon of the

Trinity for its iconostasis. Thenceforth pilgrims

flocked to Trinity to be healed, to request feasts and

prayers for their souls and those of their family

and ancestors, and to be buried. In return they gave

Trinity land and money. Princes also favored Trin-

ity with immunities from taxes and other obliga-

tions. In 1446 Grand Prince Vasily II of Moscow

unsuccessfully sought refuge at Trinity during a

dynastic war. Nevertheless, after his victory in

1447, he returned to bask in Sergius’s charisma

and be its patron. Tsaritsas went to Trinity to pray

for heirs. Tsar Ivan IV “the Terrible” made many

pilgrimages and provided state monies for con-

struction and lavish personal gifts. Tsar Boris Go-

dunov was buried there. During the Time of

Troubles the monastery’s walls withstood a Polish

siege from September 1608 to January 1610.

Afterward Archimandrite Dionisy and Cellarer

Avramy Palitsyn sent appeals throughout Russia

to organize an army to free Moscow from the Poles

and reconstitute the Russian state. In gratitude

Mikhail Romanov stopped at Trinity in 1613 en

route to his coronation in Moscow.

By the 1640s Trinity housed 240 monks or-

ganized in a social order that was a microcosm of

Russian society. It controlled numerous subsidiary

monasteries and owned over 570,000 acres of tilled

land, 100,000 serfs, and many urban properties

throughout European Russia. The original com-

munal order became relaxed, and wealthy monks

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