Encyclopedia of Russian History

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Brown, Archie, and Shevtsova, Lilia, eds. (2001). Gor-

bachev, Yeltsin, and Putin: Political Leadership in

Russia’s Transition. Washington, DC: Carnegie En-

dowment for International Peace.

Chernyaev, Anatoly. (2000). My Six Years with Gorbachev.

University Park: Pennsylvania State University

Press.

Gorbachev, Mikhail. (1996). Memoirs. New York: Dou-

bleday.

Gorbachev, Mikhail, and Mlynár



, Zdene



k. (2001). Con-

versations with Gorbachev. New York: Columbia Uni-

versity Press.

Hough, Jerry F. (1997). Democratization and Revolution

in the USSR, 1985–1991. Washington, DC: Brook-

ings Institution Press.

Ligachev, Yegor. (1993). Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin. New

York: Pantheon Books.

McFaul, Michael. (2001). Russia’s Unfinished Revolution:

Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press.

Matlock, Jack F., Jr. (1995). Autopsy of an Empire: The

American Ambassador’s Account of the Collapse of the

Soviet Union. New York: Random House.

Palazchenko, Pavel. (1997). My Years with Gorbachev and

Shevardnadze: The Memoir of a Soviet Interpreter. Uni-

versity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

RCHIE

ROWN

GORBACHEV, RAISA MAXIMOVNA

(1932–1999), “first lady” of the Soviet Union,

spouse of Mikhail Gorbachev.

Raisa Maximovna Titarenko was born on Jan-

uary 5, 1932, in Siberia and died at the age of 67

on September 21, 1999. She married Mikhail Gor-

bachev, a fellow student at Moscow State Univer-

sity in 1953 and achieved fame as the first spouse

of a Soviet leader to accompany him on all his trav-

els. This made a substantial contribution to the fa-

vorable impact the Gorbachevs had on their many

foreign interlocutors.

Raisa Gorbachev became one of the best-known

women in the world, partly because her attractive

appearance, vivacity, and self-assurance were so

much at odds with the image the wives of high-

ranking Soviet politicians had projected hitherto.

Her partnership with her husband was exception-

ally close. It caused a sensation when Gorbachev

revealed, in answer to a question from an Ameri-

can television interviewer, that he discussed every-

thing with his wife, including high-level politics

and the affairs of state.

Raisa, as she became universally known, was

intellectually well equipped for the role she played.

Though she had to attend many different schools

as her father, a railway worker, moved from place

to place, she gained a gold medal for maximum

grades in all subjects and entered the philosophy

department at Moscow State University in 1949.

Later she did pioneering sociological research,

gained the Russian equivalent of a Ph.D., and pub-

lished a book in 1969 on the way of life of the peas-

antry in the Stavropol region (where her husband

was the First Secretary of the Communist Party).

Whereas many Soviet officials had books produced

for them by hired hands, Raisa Gorbachev did her

own field research and writing.

As a very visible “First Lady” in the Soviet

Union between 1985 and 1991, she aroused envy

and resentment at home (for her glamour and

smart clothes) as well as admiration, but she was

much more universally liked and respected abroad.

She played a significant part in projecting both the

new image and new reality of Soviet politics fol-

lowing the accession of her husband to the high-

est post in the Kremlin.

See also: GORBACHEV, MIKHAIL SERGEYEVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brown, Archie. (1996). The Gorbachev Factor. Oxford: Ox-

ford University Press.

Gorbachev, Mikhail. (1996). Memoirs. London: Trans-

world.

Gorbachev, Raisa. (1991). I Hope: Reminiscences and Re-

flections. New York: HarperCollins.

RCHIE

ROWN

GORCHAKOV, ALEXANDER

MIKHAILOVICH

(1798–1883), Chancellor and Foreign Minister of

the Russian Empire, 1856–1881.

A descendant of an illustrious Russian aristo-

cratic family, Alexander Gorchakov was educated

at the lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo that is best known

for his classmate, Alexander Pushkin. He excelled

as a classical scholar and gained more than the

usual fluency in Latin and French. He chose a

GORCHAKOV, ALEXANDER MIKHAILOVICH

583

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

diplomatic career, entering the foreign ministry un-

der the tutelage of Count Karl Nesselrode, serving

as minister to Stuttgart and Württemberg during

the 1830s and 1840s and to the German Confed-

eration, where he first met Otto von Bismarck. His

promotion to Austrian ambassador during the

Crimean War was a more serious test of his diplo-

matic ability and won his recognition as a worthy

successor to Nesselrode. He was, nevertheless, a

sharp critic, not only of the blunders that led to

the war, but also of the peace terms that resulted.

He consistently counseled caution on Russian in-

volvement in the Balkans, a policy unheeded by his

predecessors and successors, to Russia’s and the

world’s misfortune.

As a true Russian following a German master,

he rose to the occasion of the Russian defeat in the

Crimean War to be Foreign Minister and Chancel-

lor under Tsar Alexander II. In a period of vulner-

ability and weakness during the reforms of the tsar,

he maintained a conservative-cautious front in Eu-

ropean diplomacy, while gradually managing to

nullify most of the ignominious restrictions of the

Treaty of Paris (1856), such as the restrictions on

warships in the Black Sea. His major subsequent

accomplishments were to shield successfully the

substantial Russian expansion in Central Asia

(Turkistan) and the Far East (the acquisition of the

Maritime Provinces) from European interference

and to dispose of a costly and vulnerable territory

in North America (Alaska) to the United States

in 1867. His greatest accomplishment was the

achievement of a dominant position for Russia in

the Balkans through the treaty negotiations at San

Stefano that concluded the Russo-Turkish War of

1877–1878 and at the Congress of Berlin that fol-

lowed. His over-commitment to pan-Slavic and na-

tionalist Russian goals, however, moved Russia into

the center of Great Power rivalries in the late nine-

teenth and early twentieth centuries, sowing the

seeds for the debacle of World War I.

Much of Gorchakov’s success in advancing

Russia’s European interests, however, could also

be credited to Bismarck, who promoted German-

Russian collaboration, supported Gorchakov’s ini-

tiatives, and whose paramount role in European

diplomacy overshadowed Gorchakov’s. In response,

Gorchakov willingly supported German aggression

in Holstein and in the Franco-Prussian War, thus

promoting Bismarck’s creation of the German Em-

pire. They were partners in both waging limited

wars for expansionist gains and in preserving gen-

eral peace through aggressive diplomacy, but the

Russian chancellor clearly resented the appearance

of a German domination of Russian policy. While

Bismarck suffered dismissal by his own govern-

ment in 1879, Gorchakov overstayed his tenure,

becoming a senile embarrassment by 1881. Un-

fortunately for both major European powers, none

would follow with equal skill, international out-

look, prestige, and ability to compromise and

maintain peace. It is perhaps no surprise that Vla-

dimir Putin’s “new Russia” recognizes Gorchakov

as a statesman who successfully promoted Russ-

ian interests in international relations and, in his

honor, awarded the annual “Gorchakov peace

prize,” in 2002 to United Nations Secretary Gen-

eral Kofi Annan.

See also: ALEXANDER II; NESSELRODE, KARL ROBERT;

PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER SERGEYEVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jelavich, Barbara.(1964). A Century of Russian Foreign Pol-

icy, 1814–1914. Philadelphia: Lippincott.

Kennan, George F.(1979). The Decline of Bismarck’s Euro-

pean Order: Franco-Russian Relations, 1875–1890.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

ORMAN

E. S

AUL

GORDON, PATRICK LEOPOLD

(1635–1699), born in Cronden, Aberdeen, Scotland,

died in Moscow.

Patrick Leopold Gordon, known in Russia as

Petr Ivanovich Gordon, was a descendant of a Scot-

tish Catholic aristocratic family and studied at

Braunberg College in Danzig (Gdan´sk) where he

graduated in 1655. Gordon served in the Swedish

and Polish armies, and then entered Russian service

in 1661 with the rank of major, given the task of

training New Formation regiments. Gordon was

dispatched as an unofficial Russian envoy to Eng-

land in 1666–1667 where he met with James II and

played an important role in reviving Anglo-Russ-

ian relations, including trade which had been of

marginal significance since the expulsion of the

English from the Russian interior in 1649. He ad-

vised the English government and the Muscovy

Company on strategies to adopt for negotiations

with Russia. He also was an active participant in

the Chyhyryn (Chigirin) campaign in 1677–1678

GORDON, PATRICK LEOPOLD

584

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

and the Crimean expeditions of 1687 and 1689.

Gordon headed the Butyrskii Regiment, was pro-

moted to general-major in 1678, and general-lieu-

tenant in 1683.

Having supported the regime of Sof’ia Alek-

seevna, in 1689 he switched sides back to Peter I

(the Great) who deposed his half-sister. Gordon be-

came one of Peter’s close associates and played a

crucial role in the creation of a regular Russian

army. He headed the Kozhukhov campaign of 1694

and obtained Peter’s permission for the presence in

Russia of a Roman Catholic clergy, and in 1694

founded a Catholic church in Moscow. Gordon was

a leader of the Azov campaigns of 1695–1696, and

was in charge of the seizure of the fortress in 1696.

Gordon subdued the Strel’tsy (Musketeer) Uprising

of 1698. He authored an extensive diary describing

his experiences in Sweden, Poland, and Russia,

1655–1699, and also produced a large number of

surviving letters pertaining to Anglo-Russian po-

litical and commercial relations, and late Muscovite

political history.

See also: PETER I

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gordon, Patrick.(1859). Passages from the Diary of Gen-

eral Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries,

. 1635-

1699. Aberdeen: Printed for the Spalding Club.

Konovalov, Sergei. (1963). “England and Russia: Two

Missions, 1666–8,” Oxford Slavonic Papers 10:47–58.

Konovalov, Sergei. (1964). “Patrick Gordon’s Dispatches

from Russia, 1667.” Oxford Slavonic Papers 11:8–16.

Konovalov, Sergei. (1967). “Sixteen Further Letters of

Patrick Gordon,” Oxford Slavonic Papers 13:72–95.

Poe, Marshall T. (2000). “A People Born to Slavery: Rus-

sia.” In Early Modern European Ethnography, 1476—

1748. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

ARMO

T. K

OTILAINE

GOREMYKIN, IVAN LONGINOVICH

(1839–1917), minister of interior and twice prime

minister under Nicholas II.

Ivan Loginovich Goremykin was the prototyp-

ical bureaucrat and conservative leader of late

tsarist times, and became, especially during World

War I, a symbol of the old regime’s outdatedness

and resistance to change.

Born of a noble family, Goremykin spent his

long life almost entirely in public service. During

the 1860s, while an official in Russian Poland, he

took a special interest in peasant affairs, and later

he was involved in many studies of rural issues.

Characteristic of his record, however, he never pro-

posed any solutions. After various posts in the Sen-

ate, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of

Interior, Goremykin was appointed minister of In-

terior in October 1895 by the new tsar, Nicholas

II, who valued him as a “safe” bureaucrat and a

staunch supporter of the autocracy. Goremykin as-

sured Nicholas that Russian society was basically

stable and only some “completion and repair” was

required to fix minor problems. Goremykin pro-

posed extending the zemstvo system into the em-

pire’s western provinces plus a few borderlands,

but Nicholas, fearing the spread of liberal ideas, de-

cided in October 1899 to replace Goremykin.

After the tsar became disillusioned with Sergei

Witte’s reform efforts in 1905 and 1906, he fired

Witte as prime minister in April 1906 and brought

in Goremykin, then sixty-seven years old. Gore-

mykin discarded the program Witte had intended

to submit to the First Duma and stonewalled the

Duma’s demands. Having decided to dismiss the

Duma and seeking a stronger leader, the tsar sent

Goremykin into retirement in July 1906, replacing

him with Peter Stolypin.

But in January 1914 Goremykin, at the age of

seventy-four, again became prime minister. Be-

cause of his frailty and lack of initiative and be-

cause he rebuffed public attempts to improve the

government’s war effort, Goremykin came to sym-

bolize the regime’s incompetence and callousness.

Despite public pressure, Nicholas II stuck by his de-

crepit prime minister until January 1916, when

Goremykin was finally replaced.

See also: NICHOLAS II; STOLYPIN, PETER AKRADIEVICH;

WITTE, SERGEI YULIEVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hosking, Geoffrey. (1973). The Russian Constitutional Ex-

periment: Government and Duma, 1907–1914. Cam-

bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Kokovtsov, V. N. (1935). Out of My Past. Stanford, CA:

Stanford University Press.

Lincoln, W. Bruce. (1986). Passage through Armageddon:

The Russians in War and Revolution, 1914–1918. New

York: Simon and Schuster.

OHN

M. T

HOMPSON

GOREMYKIN, IVAN LONGINOVICH

585

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

GORKY, MAXIM

(1868–1936), renowned writer and playwright.

Maxim Gorky (Maxim the Bitter) was born

Alexei Maximovich Peshkov in Nizhny Novgorod

during the reign of Tsar Alexander II and died in

the Stalinist Soviet Union. Gorky was orphaned at

an early age, and his formal education ended when

he was ten because his impoverished grandparents

could not support him. He was self-taught in many

areas, including literature, philosophy, and history,

both Russian and Western.

Gorky rose to prominence early in life and

made his mark as a writer, playwright, publicist,

and publisher in Russia and abroad. His literary ca-

reer began in 1892 with the publication of the story

“Makar Chudra.” His articles and stories were soon

appearing in provincial newspapers and journals.

His ideas of the writer’s involvement in the social,

political, and economic problems facing Russia were

close to those of Leo Tolstoy and Vladimir G. Ko-

rolenko, who became his mentor and friend. Some

of his literary works had important political sig-

nificance, such as the poem Burevestnik (The Stormy

Petrel), which in 1901 prophesied the oncoming

storm of revolution. While visiting the United

States in 1906 on a mission to win friends for the

revolution and raise funds for the Russian Social

Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDWP), he wrote the

novel Mat (Mother). Gorky’s revolutionary ideol-

ogy lay in his insistence on the inevitability of rad-

ical change in Russian society.

Disillusioned with the passivity and ignorance

of the peasant, Gorky gradually abandoned narod-

nik (populist) ideology in favor of social democracy.

He financed Vladimir Lenin’s Iskra (The Spark). At

the same time he supported other parties, such as

the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Liberals.

The events of Bloody Sunday and the Revolu-

tion of 1905 induced Gorky to become involved,

for the only time in his life, in revolutionary work.

He wrote articles for the first legal Bolshevik news-

paper, Novaia zhizn (New Life), gave financial as-

sistance, and criticized the tsar’s October Manifesto

for its conservatism. Warned of his imminent ar-

rest, Gorky left Russia for the Italian island of Capri

and did not return until 1913. Alienated by the

Lenin and the RSDWP, Gorky joined a group led by

Alexander A. Bogdanov, who shared his belief in

mass education. With Bogdanov and Anatoly V.

Lunacharsky, he organized a school for under-

ground party workers. This was also the time of

the emergence of a new religion called Bogostroitel-

stvo (God-building), best defined as a theory of the

divinity of the masses. Gorky’s Ispoved (Confession),

written in 1908, served as an exposition of this be-

lief and led to a break with Lenin.

On his return to Russia in 1913, Gorky devoted

his time, ability, and resources to advancing Russian

education and culture, projects brought to an end

by World War I and the revolutions of 1917. Gorky

was enthusiastic about the February Revolution,

hoping that Russia would become a liberal democ-

ratic state. Soon after Lenin’s return to Russia in

April 1917, Gorky, writing in Novaia zhizn (New

Life), criticized the Bolshevik propaganda for a so-

cialist revolution. These views appeared in articles

called Nesvoevremennye mysli (Untimely Thoughts).

Russia, wrote Gorky, was not ready for the social-

ist revolution envisioned by the Bolsheviks.

Under Lenin and the Bolsheviks, Gorky saw it

as his task to save Russia’s cultural treasures and

intellectual elite. In 1921, horrified by the cruelty

and bloodshed of the civil war, he decided to leave

Soviet Russia but not before he succeeded in ob-

GORKY, MAXIM

586

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Writer Maxim Gorky established the Socialist Realism genre.

RCHIVE

HOTOS

, I

./H

ERBERT

. R

EPRODUCED BY PERMISSION

taining American aid for the country’s famine vic-

tims.

His second exile was spent mostly in Sorrento,

Italy. Among his political writings of this period is

the essay O russkom krestianstve (On the Russian

Peasantry), which appeared in 1922 in Berlin and

during the 1980s in the Soviet Union. A bitter in-

dictment of the Russian peasantry, it was resented

by both the Russian émigré community and Soviet

leaders. In 1928, under pressure from Josef Stalin,

Gorky returned to the Soviet Union. The years from

1928 to1936 were trying for him, for he could see

but not speak of the realities of Stalinist Russia. He

became an icon and cooperated with the regime,

apparently believing that socialism would mod-

ernize Russia.

The cause of Gorky’s death in 1936 is still de-

bated, some maintaining that he died of natural

causes, others that he was a victim of a Stalinist

purge. Similarly, opinion in today’s Russia is di-

vided on the question of Gorky as a political ac-

tivist. Gorky was a great political activist and

writer of short stories, plays, memoirs, and nov-

els such as Foma Gordeev, The Artamonovs, the tril-

ogy My Childhood, In the World, and My Universities,

and The Life of Klim Samgin.

See also: KOROLENKO, VLADIMIR GALAKTIONOVICH; SO-

CIAL DEMOCRATIC WORKERS PARTY; SOCIALIST REAL-

ISM; TOLSTOY, LEO NIKOLAYEVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Scherr, Barry P. (1988). Maxim Gorky. Boston: Twayne.

Weil, Irwin. (1966). Gorky: His Literary Development and

Influence on Soviet Intellectual Life. New York: Ran-

dom House.

Yedlin, Tovah. (1999). Maxim Gorky: A Political Biogra-

phy. Westport, CT: Praeger.

OVAH

EDLIN

GOSBANK

Gosbank (the State Bank of the USSR) was the So-

viet Union’s monobank. Characteristic of com-

mand economies, monobanks combine central and

commercial banking functions into a single state-

owned institution. Gosbank’s primary tasks were

to issue cash and credit according to government

directives, and to operate the payments and clear-

ing system. The Soviet government created Gos-

bank in October 1921 as the State Bank of the Rus-

sian Federation and changed its name to the State

Bank of the USSR (Gosbank) in July 1923. The So-

viet government permitted communal and cooper-

ative banks to exist separately during the New

Economic Policy period of the 1920s, but a series

of banking reforms from 1930 to 1932 ended these

last vestiges of commercial activity.

Several organizational changes ensued in the

following years, and by the mid-1960s Gosbank’s

structure had crystallized. The USSR Council of

Ministers directly controlled Gosbank. Gosbank’s di-

rector sat on the Council of Ministers, and the Coun-

cil nominated the members of Gosbank’s board.

Besides its main branches in each of the fifteen union

republics and sub-branches in autonomous re-

publics, territories, and regions, Gosbank controlled

three subordinate banks: Stroibank USSR (the All-

Union Bank for Investment Financing), Sberbank

USSR (the Savings Bank), and Vneshtorgbank (the

Foreign Trade Bank). In addition, Gosbank and

Vneshtorgbank controlled foreign subsidiary banks

in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, and Vi-

enna. The oldest and most prominent were Moscow

Narodny Bank, founded in London in 1919, and Eu-

robank, founded in Paris in 1925.

As a part of General Secretary Mikhail Gor-

bachev’s perestroika (restructuring) program, the

Soviet government dismantled the monobank in

January 1988 and created a two-tiered banking

system. Gosbank became a central bank, and re-

tained only its major offices in the republics, large

cities, and oblasts. The state foreign trade bank

(now renamed Vneshekonombank) and Sberbank

remained under Gosbank’s direct control. The rest

of Gosbank split off into three specialized banks.

Agroprombank (the Agro-Industrial Bank) and

Zhilsotsbank (the Housing and Social Development

Bank) emerged from Gosbank proper, while

Stroibank became Promstroibank (the Industrial-

Construction Bank).

In 1990 the Russian government transformed

a Moscow branch of Gosbank into the Central Bank

of Russia (CBR) during the battle for sovereignty

between the Soviet and Russian governments. The

CBR and Gosbank operated in parallel until after

the failed coup attempt against Gorbachev in Au-

gust 1991, when the Soviet governing bodies lost

their hold on power. On August 23, Russian pres-

ident Boris Yeltsin ordered the USSR Council of

Ministers to complete the transfer of Union-level

organizations on Russian territory to the custody

GOSBANK

587

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

of the Russian state by the end of the year. On No-

vember 15, Yeltsin took over, by decree, the USSR

Ministry of Finance and the USSR Chief Adminis-

tration for the Production of State Bank Notes,

Coins, and Medals. The Presidium of the Russian

Supreme Soviet then unilaterally passed a resolu-

tion dissolving Gosbank and transferring its “facil-

ities, documents, and specialists” to the CBR. On

January 1, 1992, the CBR officially took over the

rest of Gosbank’s resources in Russia, and Gosbank

ceased to exist.

See also: BANKING SYSTEM, SOVIET; CENTRAL BANK OF

RUSSIA; SBERBANK; STROIBANK

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Garvy, George. (1977). Money, Financial Flows, and

Credit in the Soviet Union. New York: National Bu-

reau of Economic Research.

Hellman, Joel. (1993). Breaking the Bank: The Political

Economy of Banking Reform in the Soviet Union.

Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Political Science,

Columbia University, New York.

Kuschpèta, Olga. (1978). The Banking and Credit Sys-

tem of the USSR. Leiden, Netherlands: Nijhoff Social

Sciences Division.

Zwass, Adam. (1979). Money, Banking, and Credit in

the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. White Plains,

NY: M. E. Sharpe.

ULIET

OHNSON

GOSIZDAT

State publishing house of the Russian Republic.

Gosizdat was the most important publishing

house in Soviet Russia between 1919 and 1930, and

played an important role in the creation of the So-

viet publishing system. After coming to power, the

Bolsheviks nationalized most private book publish-

ers and printers, transferring their assets to local

party and state organizations, which used them to

set up their own publishing operations. When the

new publishing system proved too disorganized

and chaotic, Gosizdat was founded in May 1919 to

provide a centralized alternative. Gosizdat started

as a contract-printer, receiving most of its editor-

ial content from other Soviet institutions, though

it did produce some titles independently. It also

acted as a regulatory body overseeing the work of

remaining local publishing houses, controlling their

access to raw materials and enforcing political cen-

sorship. Gosizdat’s production during this period

consisted primarily of short agitational and mili-

tary titles, though it also published some longer

scientific works. These books and pamphlets were

state-funded and distributed at no charge. Gosiz-

dat’s output was almost entirely in the Russian lan-

guage.

With the onset of the New Economic Policy

(NEP) in 1921, the Soviet publishing industry and

Gosizdat underwent dramatic changes. Publishing

was decentralized, as Soviet institutions were per-

mitted to open their own publishing operations, and

books became priced commodities. Gosizdat lost its

regulatory functions and focused on producing its

own books, though it continued to do some con-

tract printing. Unlike most Russian-language pub-

lishing houses, whose production was specialized

(at least in theory), Gosizdat remained a universal

publishing house, issuing works on a wide variety

of subjects, including fiction, children’s literature,

scientific texts, propaganda, and works on Marx-

ism and Leninism. It had monopolies on the publi-

cation of Russian literary classics and textbooks.

Gosizdat issued between 25 and 40 percent of So-

viet Russian-language book production (measured

by pages) each year in the 1920s. Gosizdat also pub-

lished a number of important periodicals. During

the 1920s, Gosizdat absorbed a number of promi-

nent Soviet publishing houses, including Krasnaya

nov, Priboy, and Zemlya i fabrika.

Gosizdat was techically part of the Commis-

sariat of Enlightenment, though in practice it an-

swered directly to the Communist Party’s Central

Committee, which appointed its board of directors,

reviewed editorial appointments, and monitored its

work. Gosizdat acted as the Central Committee’s

main book publisher and was afforded special priv-

ileges, including large state subsidies and freedom

from external ideological censorship.

In August 1930, Gosizdat provided the foun-

dation for a new, centralized publishing conglom-

erate, the Association of State Publishing Houses

(OGIZ), into which most existing Soviet publishing

houses were merged. Even after this time, it was

not uncommon for Soviet sources to use the term

gosizdat to describe the Russian Republic’s main

publishing operation, whatever its official name.

Variants of the term were also used to describe the

main publishing house serving some republics or

languages: The Tatar State Publishing House, for

instance, was known as Tatizdat or Tatgiz. Spe-

GOSIZDAT

588

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

cialized Russian-language publishing houses were

also popularly known by similar acronyms; for ex-

ample, the State Technical Publishing House was

Gostekhizdat.

See also: CENSORSHIP; CENTRAL COMMITTEE; SAMIZDAT

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Friedberg, Maurice. (1962). Russian Classics in Soviet Jack-

ets. New York: Columbia University Press.

Kassof, Brian Evan. (2000). “The Knowledge Front: Pol-

itics, Ideology, and Economics in the Soviet Book

Publishing Industry, 1925–1935.” Ph. D. diss., Uni-

versity of California, Berkeley.

Kenez, Peter. (1985). The Birth of the Propaganda State:

Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

RIAN

ASSOF

GOSKOMSTAT

The term Goskomstat is the abbreviation used to

designate the State Committee for Statistics (Gosu-

darstvennyi Komitet Statistiki, or Goskomstat),

which, in July 1997, replaced the Central Statisti-

cal Agency (TsSU). Founded in 1918, the Soviet

office for statistics went through various institu-

tional transformations starting in January 1930,

when central planning was established. The office

lost its institutional independence that year and

was subsumed under Gosplan, the State Planning

Administration. Its missions were redefined. From

then on its main task would be to supply Gosplan

with the numbers it needed to create the indicators

necessary to the planned management of the So-

viet economy and society. Conflicts erupted as early

as the end of the 1920s between TsSU statisticians

and the political leadership on a number of issues,

particularly on the measurement of crop levels and

the analysis of social differences in the countryside.

During the 1930s, disagreements on population

numbers led to the purges that touched most of

the officials in charge of the census of 1937. In

1948, TsSU once again became independent from

Gosplan, but its activity remained essentially fo-

cused on the production of numbers for the plan-

ning and improvement of indicators.

Following the launching of perestroika policies,

in 1985, a decree dated July 17, 1987, stated the

necessity to “rebuild the foundations for statistical

activity in the country.” Nevertheless, planned

management of the economy was not abandoned

right away. The year 1991 marked a breaking off

in this respect with Goskomstat entering a period

of reforms clearly oriented toward the abandon-

ment of planning and the transition to a market

economy. First, the disappearance of the Soviet

state caused the breakup of USSR’s Goskomstat fol-

lowed by the transfer of its various services to each

new state born out of the former USSR: each cre-

ated its own statistics committee or department.

After the founding of the Commonwealth of Inde-

pendent States (CIS), on December 30, 1991, a sta-

tistics committee was created to coordinate the

activities of statistics committees of CIS member

states.

Adjustment to the new constraints imposed

upon the production of statistical data resulting

from the transition to a market economy brought

about a number of different programs affecting

Goskomstat starting in 1992. The recasting of

economic indicators, the elaboration of new mon-

itoring tools—notably for trade and financial

activities—and methods for gathering economic

data from a growing number of companies out-

side the state sector, as well as the construction of

a new national accounting system, were all ac-

complished thanks to the support of experience

from statistical administrations of Western coun-

tries. Concern for the ability to compare Russian

statistical data with those released by other coun-

tries explains the attention that was given to the

elaboration of principles for the calculation of GNP

and such indicators as price, population, labor,

foreign trade, and financial activity statistics that

match the practices adopted by Western nations

in this domain.

See also: CENTRAL STATISTICAL AGENCY; ECONOMY, CUR-

RENT; GOSPLAN

ARTINE

ESPOULET

GOSPLAN

Gosplan SSSR (Gosudarstvenny planovy komitet

SSSR—the State Planning Committee of the USSR),

the core state committee of the Soviet economic bu-

reaucracy, was created in 1921. During the first

Five-Year Plan (1928–1932) Valerian Kuybyshev

headed Gosplan. Gosplan was responsible for exe-

cuting the directives of the Council of Ministries,

GOSPLAN

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translating general directives into operational plans

for the ministries, and advising the Council of Min-

istries on a wide range of issues. Gosplan planned

for the ministries, not for enterprises, although

some large enterprises were planned directly by

Gosplan. Gosplan communicated extensively with

the ministries in the process of drafting the plan.

It was subdivided into industrial departments, such

as coal, ferrous metals, and machine building, and

also had summary departments, such as finance,

to deal with functions that crossed functional bod-

ies. The early recognition of Gosplan’s importance

came in 1925 and 1926, when it began to prepare

the annual preliminary plan targets, or so-called

control figures. During the 1930s the principle of

guidance of economic policy on an annual basis

was established, although much publicity was de-

voted to nonoperational five-year plans. Annual

plans, including production and financial targets,

so-called promfinplany, were drawn up sector by

sector. By 1926 and 1927, promfinplany that were

originated by ministries became dependent on the

control figures. Formally, the plan era began in

1928 with the First Five-Year Plan for intensive eco-

nomic growth. The Five-Year Plan was a compre-

hensive plan that set the major economic goals for

a five-year period. The five-year goals were not put

into operation in the shorter-term operational

plans. Once the Soviet regime stipulated the plan

figures, all levels of the economy from individual

enterprises to the national level were theoretically

obliged to meet those goals (“The plan is the law”).

During the period from 1928 to 1932, the basic

principles of Soviet planning were established. Gos-

plan was to be the central coordinating body to

which all other planning bodies were to submit

their proposals. The control figures would provide

the general direction for the economy. The actual

detailed operational plans for enterprises (promfin-

plany) were to conform to the control figures. Ma-

terials were to be allocated through a system of

balances, which would elaborate the sources and

uses of basic industrial materials. The long-term

planning horizon was set at five years, the aver-

age period required for the completion of invest-

ment projects. Operational plans were prepared

in cooperation with the planning departments of

ministries, the most important of which were the

all-union ministries. In day-to-day operations,

inter-ministry cooperation was limited in such

matters as equipment delivery and construction

planning. Soviet law gave Gosplan substantial re-

sponsibilities concerning supply planning. Gosplan

was charged with preparing and confirming plans

for the distribution of production among min-

istries. It was Gosplan who prepared general ma-

terial limits (limityu) for the ministries. Later these

material limits would be broken down into prod-

uct profiles by the State Committee for Material

Technical Supply, Gossnab, which was formed in

1947 to assist in supply planning. Gosplan re-

mained the primary planning body of the Soviet

Union until its collapse in December 1991.

See also: ECONOMIC GROWTH, SOVIET; FIVE-YEAR PLANS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gregory, Paul R., and Stuart, Robert C. (2001). Russian

and Soviet Economic Performance and Structure.

Boston, MA: Addison Wesley.

Hewett, Edward A. (1988). Reforming the Soviet Economy:

Equality Versus Efficiency. Washington, DC: Brook-

ings Institution.

AUL

R. G

REGORY

GOSTI

The gosti (singular: gost) were great merchants

who enjoyed high social status. They are encoun-

tered in the Kievan and later Mongol period, but

are best known as a corporate group that emerged

in the sixteenth century and figured prominently

in the economic, political, administrative, and court

life of seventeenth-century Russia.

In the last half of the sixteenth century, the

leading merchants of Muscovy were organized

into three privileged corporations: the gosti, the

gostinnaya sotnya, and the sukonnaya sotnya. They

were obliged to render services to the government

and were compensated with certain privileges. The

gosti, whose number averaged around thirty

throughout the seventeenth century, stood at the

top of the merchant hierarchy. The rank was not

hereditary, so the government periodically desig-

nated replacements for those who had died or be-

came incapable of rendering service.

They were obliged, among other burdensome

duties, to serve as the tsar’s factors, to collect cus-

toms at the port of Archangel and at Moscow, to

oversee the state liquor monopoly, and to partici-

pate in ceremonial functions at the court. In return

for the exercise of these duties, the gosti were freed

of the obligation to quarter troops, and permitted

to brew and keep stocks of liquor. They were not

GOSTI

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required to pay taxes imposed on other townsmen,

and they were the only Russian merchants per-

mitted to travel abroad on business.

Representatives of the gosti participated in the

land assemblies (zemskie sobory) and advised the

rulers on questions of war and peace. They were

leaders of a long-running campaign to abolish priv-

ileges granted to foreign merchants and to secure

uncontested control of the domestic market. Peter

the Great, dissatisfied with their perceived want of

dynamism, phased them out in the first quarter of

the eighteenth century.

See also: GOSTINAYA SOTNYA; MERCHANTS; SUKKON-

NAYA SOTNYA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baron, Samuel H. (1980). “The Fate of the Gosti in the

Reign of Peter the Great.” In Muscovite Russia: Col-

lected Essays, ed. Samuel H. Baron. London: Vario-

rum.

Baron, Samuel H. (1980). “Who Were the Gosti?” In Mus-

covite Russia: Collected Essays, ed. Samuel H. Baron.

London: Variorum.

AMUEL

H. B

ARON

GOSTINAYA SOTNYA

Literally “Guest Hundred,” a privileged corporation

of Russian merchants between the late sixteenth

and early eighteenth centuries.

The name Gostinaya sotnya derives from the

word gost (guest), which was used to refer to pros-

perous merchants in medieval Russia. The Gosti-

naya sotnya was the second most important

corporation of elite merchants after the gosti (pl.

of gost). Members of the Gostinaya sotnya tended

to be relatives of gosti, former members of the

Sukonnaya sotnya (a lower corporation of mer-

chants), prominent local merchants, and prosper-

ous peasant-traders. Three categories of Gostinaya

sotnya members were defined in terms of wealth.

Members of the Gostinaya sotnya performed

official duties for the government, usually once

every six years for half a year at a time. They typ-

ically served as heads or officials of local customs

and taverns. They assisted gosti in large cities and

conducted similar functions independently in

smaller towns. They sold treasury goods at fairs

and abroad. In return, Gostinaya sotnya members

were exempted from direct taxes, minor customs

duties, and the responsibility to quarter soldiers.

They were excluded from the jurisdiction of local

authorities and granted other privileges, including

the right to distill liquor for personal consumption.

Elevated fines of ten to twenty rubles were assessed

in cases of dishonor committed against Gostinaya

sotnya members. Unlike the status of a gost, mem-

bership in the Gostinaya sotnya was hereditary and

typically shared with other family members en-

gaged in a joint enterprise.

A 1613 charter issued to members of the Gosti-

naya sotnya closely resembled the charter of the

gosti; however, it did not authorize travel abroad.

Foreign travel was subsequently permitted through

government-issued passes. The Gostinaya sotnya

typically sent two representatives to Assemblies of

the Land (zemskie sobory).

The Gostinaya sotnya had 345 members in

1601 and 1602; membership fell to 185 in 1630

and 158 in 1649. A total of 2,100 individuals joined

the Gostinaya sotnya during the seventeenth and

early eighteenth centuries, with a particular

marked growth in the 1680s. With the introduc-

tion of the poll tax in the 1720s, members of the

Gostinaya sotnya, along with townsmen, joined

the stratum of merchants.

See also: GOSTI; FOREIGN TRADE; MERCHANTS; SUKON-

NAIA SOTNYA;TAXES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hellie, Richard. “The Stratification of Muscovite Society:

The Townsmen.” Russian History 5(2):119–175.

Hittle, J. Michael. (1979). The Service City: State and

Townsmen in Russia, 1600–1800. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press.

ARMO

T. K

OTILAINE

GOSUDARYEV DVOR

Literally, “sovereign’s court,” a hierarchical insti-

tution made up of the ruler’s elite servitors during

the late twelfth through seventeenth centuries.

Courts of east Slavic princes usually included

close members of the retinue, service cavalrymen,

and household officials. Members of boyar families

with established ties to the prince of Moscow

GOSUDARYEV DVOR

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

formed the basis of the Muscovite court during the

fourteenth century. The growing political power of

the Muscovite ruler attracted numerous distin-

guished newcomers, including members of the

Lithuanian and Tatar ruling families, to his court

in the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries.

Muscovite rulers also incorporated the princes of

territories annexed by Moscow into their court, al-

though some of them, known as service princes,

retained some organizational autonomy within the

court until the end of the sixteenth century.

As a result of the reforms of the 1550s, the sov-

ereign’s court functioned on the basis of a mixture

of hierarchical and territorial principles. During the

second half of the sixteenth century, the court ac-

quired a clear hierarchy of ranks: boyars, okolnichie,

counselor cavalrymen, counselor secretaries, the

household ranks and chancellery secretaries, the

ruler’s personal guard (stolniki, stryapchie, zhiltsy),

service princes, and the lowest ranks (dvorovye deti

boyarskie, later vybornye dvoryane). Service relations

between courtiers were subject to rules of prece-

dence (mestnichestvo), a complex system that defined

the status of a courtier on the basis of the promi-

nence and service appointments of his ancestors and

relatives. Territoriality was crucial to the court’s

lowest strata, which included members of collateral

branches of boyar families, people who had ad-

vanced through faithful service, and newcomers of

lower status. The people who held the lowest court

ranks were leading members of local cavalrymen

communities and were listed by the town where

they had service lands. They served in Moscow on

a rotating basis. Secretaries entered the court thanks

to their literacy and the patronage of the ruler or

influential courtiers. A servitor’s career at court

thus dependent on his pedigree, his position in the

local cavalrymen community, his personal skills

and merits, and the favor of his patrons.

The princes of Moscow used a variety of means

to secure the integrity of their court. Members of

the court swore an oath of allegiance and received

land grants on condition that they served the

prince. Muscovite rulers secured the loyalty of dis-

tinguished newcomers by granting them superior

status over the boyars, manipulating their land

possessions, encouraging marriages with members

of the royal family and the local elite, and subject-

ing the disloyal to disgrace and executions. Ivan

IV’s reign saw the climax of repressions against

members of the court, which was divided in two

parts during the Oprichnina. The social and ge-

nealogical composition of the court, however, re-

mained stable until the middle of the seventeenth

century, when people of lower origin began enter-

ing the court’s upper strata. At the same time, the

leaders of local cavalrymen communities were ex-

cluded from the court. Peter I stopped making ap-

pointments to the upper court ranks during the

early 1690s.

The sovereign’s court included the most combat-

worthy Muscovite troops and provided cadres for

administrative and diplomatic tasks. An efficient

military and administrative institution, the sover-

eign’s court was vital to the victory of the princes

of Moscow over their opponents and to the func-

tioning of the Russian state during the sixteenth

and seventeenth centuries.

See also: BOYAR; CHANCELLERY SYSTEM; IVAN III; IVAN

IV; OPRICHNINA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alef, Gustave. (1986). The Origins of Muscovite Autocracy:

The Age of Ivan III. Forschungen zur Osteuropäischen

Geschichte, vol. 39. Berlin: Osteuropa-Institut;

Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.

Poe, Marshall T. (2003). The Russian Elite in the Seven-

teenth Century, 2 vols. Helsinki: The Finnish Acad-

emy of Science and Letters.

ERGEI

OGATYREV

GOVERNING SENATE

The Governing Senate was founded in 1711. Its ini-

tial primary responsibility was to govern the em-

pire when the emperor was on military campaigns.

The establishment of the Senate was also part of a

government re-organization undertaken by Peter I

(1689–1725) who wished to make the government

structure more responsive to his wishes and more

effective at tapping society’s resources for military

purposes. In 1722 it was transformed from a higher

governing organ to a higher supervisory one re-

sponsible for resolving legal and administrative dis-

putes. Catherine II (1763–1796) further systemized

the Senate by dividing it into six departments with

relatively clear institutional responsibilities related

to administrative oversight.

The governmental reforms undertaken by

Alexander I (1801–1825) fundamentally changed

the role of the Senate. According to his decrees of

1801 and 1802 the Senate had the right to judicial

GOVERNING SENATE

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