Encyclopedia of Russian History

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review and supervision of the highest governmen-

tal organs, including the newly established min-

istries. No legislative bill could become law without

the Senate’s approval. However, one year later a

new decree stripped the Senate of these powers. The

founding of the ministerial system and the State

Council (1810) fatally weakened the Senate’s role

in practice. For the remainder of the nineteenth cen-

tury it played the role of a High Court of Review

and along with other institutions exercised limited

administrative supervision. Until 1905 the Senate,

whose forty or fifty members were chosen by the

tsar, rarely met, except on ceremonial occasions.

Six departments that dealt with a myriad of judi-

cial, social, and political issues continued to work

under the supervision of the Senate.

After the Revolution of 1905 the role of the

Senate changed once again. It became the High

Criminal Court dealing with corruption in the bu-

reaucracy. Its first department played a role in the

preparations for the formation of the First Duma,

while its Second Department became the supreme

appellate court for land-related issues.

See also: ALEXANDER I; CATHERINE II; PETER I

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Seton-Watson, Hugh. (1991). The Russian Empire

1801–1917. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Yaney, George. (1973). The Systemization of Russian Gov-

ernment. London: University of Illinois Press.

HAND

P. S

HAKIBI

GRAIN CRISIS OF 1928

The Grain Crisis of 1928 was economic and polit-

ical in nature and was a turning point in the So-

viet regime’s policy toward the peasantry, a

preview of Josef Stalin’s harsh methods of collec-

tivization. Ten years after the Revolution, agricul-

ture was still based on individual farming, with

peasants cultivating more than ninety-seven per-

cent of the land and selling their product to the

state at set procurement prices in order to meet

their tax obligations. The most important product

was grain, and the system of state procurement

supplied grain to feed the cities and the military,

and for export. Under the New Economic Policy

(NEP), the existence of a free market for agricul-

tural products helped keep procurement prices

competitive. Most peasants were at or near the

subsistence level. A small number of richer peas-

ants (the so-called kulaks) supplied most of the

grain sold on the free market. Prices for industrial

products produced by the state sector were kept

relatively high in order to accumulate capital. In

December 1927, the Fifteenth Party Congress of

the Communist Party endorsed the idea of planned

economic development, requiring the state to ac-

cumulate even more capital from domestic sources,

principally the peasantry, while maintaining ex-

ports. Grain procurement prices were lowered in

order to keep state expenditures down. A war scare

in 1927 led people to hoard food.

Within this context, the grain crisis began to

take shape toward the end of 1927. Although it

was an average harvest, grain procurements fell

precipitously at the end of the year; in November

and December of 1927, procurements were about

half of what they had been during the same months

of the previous year. The problem was especially

acute in Siberia, the Volga, and the Urals, even

though the harvest had been good in these areas.

Richer peasants withheld grain from the market,

waiting for prices to rise. Peasants also switched

from producing grain to other agricultural com-

modities. For example, in the Urals, while peasant

grain sales to the state declined by a third, the sale

of meat rose by fifty percent, egg sales doubled,

and bacon sales went up four times.

Stalin insisted that the kulaks were withhold-

ing grain from the market to sabotage the regime,

creating as much a political problem as an economic

problem. He argued that the class struggle was in-

tensifying. In January 1928 he visited the Urals

and West Siberia and called for a series of emer-

gency measures to extract grain from the recalci-

trant peasantry. In direct opposition to the views

of Nikolai Bukharin and other moderates in the

Politburo, quotas for compulsory grain deliveries

were imposed on kulaks and also on middle peas-

ants. Peasants responded by decreasing grain pro-

duction during 1928, but this simply intensified

the crisis. For the year October 1927–October 1928,

grain procurements fell by fourteen percent rela-

tive to the same period a year earlier, although the

harvest was down by only seven to eight percent.

The grain crisis of 1928 was a critical turning

point in Soviet economic and political history. Ap-

plying compulsion to the peasants rather than us-

ing economic incentives meant that NEP was dead.

Most significantly, the events of 1928 showed that

Stalin saw the peasantry as the enemy and estab-

lished the context of a warlike crisis that would

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

justify violence. The outlines of the harsh collec-

tivization drive were already visible.

See also: COLLECTIVIZATION OF AGRICULTURE; KULAKS;

NEW ECONOMIC POLICY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nove, Alec. (1969). An Economic History of the U.S.S.R.

London: Allen Lane.

Tucker, Robert. (1990). Stalin in Power. New York:

Norton.

AROL

AYLE

ILLIAM

OSKOFF

GRAIN TRADE

In Russia the dynamics of the grain trade depended

on demand in the domestic and foreign markets.

Before 1762 the export of grain was conducted un-

der government supervision and depended on the

domestic price level. If local prices exceeded an es-

tablished level, export of grain was prohibited be-

cause of fears of further price rises. But even in the

years of low prices, permission for the export of

grain was required. The government considered

grain a strategic commodity and gave this permis-

sion reluctantly. As a result, before 1762 grain

trade was limited mainly to the empire’s frontiers.

Only after the declaration of freedom of grain trade

in 1762 did a systematic growth of grain exports

begin. Before the 1780s the export of grain was

prohibited only in case of a substantial price rise,

and by the 1790s export became virtually free. Do-

mestic demand for grain came from the urban pop-

ulation, the army, industry (mainly distillation),

and the rural population of provinces that experi-

enced a grain deficit.

The demand for marketable grain was com-

paratively small because nearly 75 percent of the

population, even as late as 1897, was engaged in

agriculture and able to satisfy its need for grain

with its own production. The urban population

was not large (in 1914 only 15.3% of the popula-

tion lived in towns, and a portion of the towns-

people engaged in agriculture). The regular army

was comparatively small (in 1719, 2.9% of the

country’s total population; in 1795, 2.5%; in 1850,

1.5%; in 1913, 0.8%). The consumption of vodka

was limited physiologically (in 1913 in Russia the

consumption of vodka converted to spirit was only

3.1 liters per capita) and the technology of distil-

lation was improving. A constant demand for grain

was felt only in the vicinity of big cities, industrial

centers, and where arable land was scarce or soil

poor. According to rough estimates, during the

1800s the urban population consumed 4.7 percent

of all grain produced; in 1851–1860, 5.6 percent;

and in 1912–1913, 9.1 percent; with industry con-

suming 4.1, 3.5, and 0.5 percent correspondingly;

the army, 2.1, 2.1, and 1.2 percent; and exports

1.0, 3.8, and 15.7 percent. During the 1800s the

share of marketable grain was nearly 12 percent of

the gross yield of grain; during the 1850s, 15 per-

cent; and in 1892–1913, 26.4 percent.

The grain trade began to grow markedly after

the abolition of serfdom. Domestic and, even more,

foreign demand increased, both of which were

stimulated by extension of the railway network.

Of three most important factors stimulating the

demand for grain, export was in the first place, in-

dustrialization the second, and urbanization the

third. The export of marketable grain constituted

7 percent of the total grain trade during the early

1800s, 26 percent during the 1850s, and 60 per-

cent in 1892–1893; in terms of weight the average

annual export of grain amounted to 0.2 million

tons, 1.1 million tons, and 10.7 million tons cor-

respondingly. The export of grain acquired vital

importance for Russia. The main export cereals

were wheat, rye, barley, and oats. In the mass of

exported grain in 1762–1802 the share of wheat

was 48 percent; rye, 45 percent; barley, 3.9 per-

cent; oats, 2.8 percent; other cereals, 0.3 percent;

in 1841–1850, 66, 17, 4, 6, and 7 percent corre-

spondingly; in 1912–1913, 37, 8, 41, 11, and 3

percent. Russian grain was mainly exported to

Western European countries. Germany, Holland,

Switzerland, and Italy imported mainly Russian

grain, while England, Belgium, and France im-

ported U.S. grain. Russia and the United States

competed mainly in exports of red cereals: wheat

and some barley. Grey cereals, rye and oats, were

chiefly delivered from Russia and did not encounter

U.S. competition.

During the post-reform period considerable suc-

cess was achieved in the organization of the grain

trade: A whole army of trade agents appeared; credit

for marketable grain was created; great amounts of

capital were mobilized; means of communication,

ports, and the merchant navy were improved; a tar-

iff system was designed; a fairly dense network of

elevators and granaries was formed; a corporative

organization of grain tradesmen emerged; grain ex-

GRAIN TRADE

594

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

changes were founded in major centers of grain

trade (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Voronezh, Elizavet-

grad, Borisoglebsk); information on crops, grain ex-

ports, stocks, prices, and freights became widely

available. Western European commercial ethics and

trade customs were gradually adopted. Despite in-

disputable progress, the organization of Russian

grain trade did not attain the high level of develop-

ment that it did in the United States, Russia’s main

competitor in the world grain market. Elevators and

granaries served merely as storehouses in Russia;

classification of grains was not practiced there. Rail-

ways were not equipped with proper warehouses,

rolling stock, and double track sections. Conse-

quently, in good years, grain piled up at railway

junctions, waiting for loading in the open, some-

times for up to two months. The quality of grain

deteriorated, making it difficult for tradesmen to

meet the conditions of contracts. The state of the

roads along which grain was delivered to railway

stations was unsatisfactory. Macadamized roads

were few. In European Russia in 1912, there were

GRAIN TRADE

595

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Laborers in Odessa walk among the cattle-driven wagons laden with sacks of wheat, 1878. © CORBIS

6 kilometers (3.7 miles) of them per 1,000 square

kilometers (386.1 square miles); in the United

States, 53 kilometers (33 miles); in Germany, 516

kilometers (320.6 miles); in Great Britain, 819 kilo-

meters (508.9 miles); and in France, 1,073 kilome-

ters (666.7 miles). Grain was brought to the

stations not when it was profitable to sell it but

when roads permitted. In ports there was a lack of

warehouses for grain storage as well as a lack of

facilities for grain reloading. All this raised overhead

expenses and prices, and reduced the competitive ca-

pacity of Russian grain.

In Russia, foreign grain trade was in the hands

of Western European tradesmen, and domestic

trade remained in the hands of native tradesmen,

mainly Jews, who purchased grain in the country

and delivered it to ports for foreign exporters who

gave credits and therefore dictated the conditions.

The buyers-up were interested only in expanding

and accelerating their turnovers. They did not at-

tach much importance to the price level, since they

made money on the difference between purchase

and sale price. The sellers were peasants overbur-

dened with various payments and landowners with

big debts. They were short of liquid capital and, be-

cause of transportation conditions, not free to

choose the moment of sale. Russian grain produc-

ers could neither wait for a favorable situation in

the market nor exert influence upon prices, the level

of which depended on crops and market competi-

tion of the sellers themselves. Inadequate organi-

zation of the grain trade resulted in the sale of

Russian grain on world markets at less of a profit

than U.S. grain. U.S. producers and sellers were to

some extent able to regulate grain supplies to the

world market, restraining the fall in prices in case

of surplus grain supplies and maintaining high

prices in a profitable market situation.

On account of great export (during the nine-

teenth and early twentieth centuries grain played

the same role as did oil and gasoline during the

late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries) the

level of prices was of great significance for Rus-

sia. Incomes and solvency of peasants and land-

lords, the country’s trade balance, and earnings

from customs duties depended on the price level.

From the eighteenth century to the early twenti-

eth century, the situation in the world grain mar-

kets was for the most part advantageous to Russia.

Russian local grain prices, expressed in grams of

gold, rose 10.2 times from 1,707 grams (60.2

ounces) to 1,914 grams (67.5 ounces) (5.7 times

during the eighteenth century), while the general

index of prices for domestic goods rose 6.6 times

(five times during the eighteenth century). By con-

trast, in European countries, despite cyclic fluctu-

ations, grain prices and the general price index had

a tendency to decline in this period. In eighteenth-

century Russia, a phenomenal rise in grain prices

(and generally in all prices) occurred. During the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Russia had

stood apart from the price revolution in Europe,

but during the eighteenth century Russia entered

world trade, and a belated price revolution took

place. The Russian price revolution resulted in a

leveling of Russian and world prices. At the turn

of the eighteenth century, Russian prices were

about nine to ten times lower than world prices,

and at the turn of the twentieth century only 20

to 30 percent lower.

The leveling of Russian and world prices oc-

curred under the influence of the market economy

laws, which required, first of all, that prices for

Russian goods correspond not only with national

but also with world production costs, and, second,

that they be determined by the relations between

demand and supply both in the Russian and world

markets. As Russia was joining the world market,

local grain prices were becoming less dependent on

local crops and local demand, and more dependent

on the situation in the world market. During the

late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the

dynamics of Russian grain prices were largely de-

termined by the world market situation, and red

grain prices were fully dependent on it. All of this

attests that from the beginning of the eighteenth

century Russia joined the international division of

labor and gradually turned into a full member of

the world economy and world market, and that the

principles of the market economy penetrated the

Russian national economy as early as the eigh-

teenth century, long before the reforms of the

1860s. Hence, from the eighteenth to the early

twentieth century the general line of Russia’s so-

cioeconomic evolution remained unchanged and

consisted in commercialization of the economy and

enhancement of the role of the market as a pro-

duction regulator. Serfdom hampered and slowed

down but did not prevent the development of cap-

italism in Russia, just as prior to 1865 slavery did

not stop the development of capitalism in the

United States. Grain prices exerted substantial in-

fluence upon numerous aspects of the economic,

social, and political life of the country. They played

an important part in the modernization of the na-

tional economy, development of social stratifica-

tion of the peasantry, destruction of the peasant

GRAIN TRADE

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commune, and urbanization and industrialization

of the country.

See also: AGRICULTURE; ECONOMY, TSARIST; FOREIGN

TRADE; PEASANT ECONOMY.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Herlihy, Patricia. (1986). Odessa: A History, 1794–1914.

Cambridge, MA: Distributed by Harvard University

Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

Mironov, Boris N. (1992). “Consequences of the Price

Revolution in Eighteenth-Century Russia.” Economic

History Review 45(3):457–478.

ORIS

N. M

IRONOV

GRAND ALLIANCE

Officially termed the Anti-Hitlerite Coalition by the

Soviet Union, the Grand Alliance (1941–1945) was

a military and political coalition of countries fight-

ing against the Axis (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy,

Imperial Japan), and their satellites. The alliance

evolved during World War II through common un-

derstandings and specific formal and informal

agreements negotiated between the Big Three

(United States, Soviet Union, and Great Britain) at

wartime conferences, ministerial meetings, and pe-

riodic summits between the respective heads of

state. In addition to the Big Three, the alliance in-

cluded China, members of the British Common-

wealth, France, and many other countries. While

some formal agreements and modest liaison and

coordinating bodies existed within the context of

these agreements, particularly between the United

States and Great Britain, the alliance as a whole

formed few formal official policy organs.

Evolving step by step after the German inva-

sion of the Soviet Union, the alliance was a virtual

marriage of necessity between the two Western

democracies and Stalin’s communist government,

impelled by the reality of war and a common threat

to all three powers, as well as the necessity of join-

ing military and political forces to achieve victory

in the war. The motives and attitudes of alliance

members varied over time according to the mili-

tary situation and the member states’ political

aims. To varying degrees, the Big Three shared cer-

tain wartime goals in addition to victory: for in-

stance, mutual military assistance, formulation of

a common unified wartime military strategy, es-

tablishment of a postwar international security or-

ganization, and elimination of any future threats

from Germany and Japan.

The decisive stage in the formation of the Grand

Alliance occurred after the German invasion of the

Soviet Union in June 1941, when, prompted by fear

that Germany might win the war, British Prime

Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President

Franklin D. Roosevelt declared their support for the

Soviet Union as “true allies in the name of the peo-

ples of Europe and America.” Great Britain and the

Soviet Union signed a mutual aid treaty in July

1941, and Stalin endorsed the peace aims of Roo-

sevelt’s and Churchill’s Atlantic Charter in Septem-

ber. In November the United States solidified the

alliance by extending lend-lease assistance to the So-

viet Union. Thereafter, a steady stream of agree-

ments and periodic meetings between unofficial

representatives, ministers, and heads of state of the

three countries formalized the alliance. The most

important ministerial meetings took place in Lon-

don (September–October 1941) and Moscow (Octo-

ber 1941 and October 1943) and at the Big Three

summits at Tehran (November 1943–January

1944), Yalta (Crimea) (February 1945), and Pots-

dam (July–August 1945). During wartime, tensions

emerged within the alliance over such vital issues as

the adequacy of lend-lease aid, military coordination

among Allied armies, the opening of a second front

on mainland Europe, the postwar boundaries of the

Soviet Union, the political structure of liberated Eu-

ropean countries, Soviet participation in the war

against Japan, European reconstruction, and the

shape and nature of postwar peace.

See also: CHINA, RELATIONS WITH; FRANCE, RELATIONS

WITH; GREAT BRITAIN, RELATIONS WITH; UNITED

STATES, RELATIONS WITH; WORLD WAR II

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Churchill, Winston S. (1950). The Grand Alliance. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin.

Feis, Herbert. (1957). Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin: The War

They Waged and the Peace They Sought. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press.

Kimball, Warren F. (1997). Forged in War: Roosevelt,

Stalin, Churchill and the Second World War. New

York: Morrow.

Stoler, Mark A. (2000). Allies and Adversaries: The Joint

Chiefs of Staff, the Grand Alliance, and U.S. Strategy

in World War II. Chapel Hill: University of North

Carolina Press.

AVID

M. G

LANTZ

GRAND ALLIANCE

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

GRAND PRINCE

The title of “grand prince” designated the senior

prince of the Rurikid dynasty in Rus principalities

from the era of Kievan Rus until 1721.

In scholarly literature on Kievan Rus the term

grand prince is conventionally used to refer to the

prince of Kiev. Succession to the position of grand

prince was determined by principles associated with

the rota system, according to which the position

passed laterally from the eldest member of the se-

nior generation of the dynasty to his younger

brothers and cousins. When all members of that

generation died, those members of the next gener-

ation whose fathers had actually held the position

of grand prince of Kiev became eligible to inherit

the position in order of seniority.

Despite common usage of the term in scholarly

literature, the absence of the title “grand prince”

and even the title “prince” in contemporary sources,

including chronicles, treaties, charters, diplomatic

documents, seals, and coins, suggests that they

were rarely used during the Kievan era. The title

“grand prince” in tenth-century treaties concluded

between the Rus and the Byzantines has been in-

terpreted as a translation from Greek formulas

rather than a reflection of official Rus usage. The

title also occurs in chronicle accounts of the deaths

of Yaroslav the Wise (1054), his son Vsevolod

(1093), and Vsevolod’s son Vladimir Monomakh

(1125), but this usage is regarded as honorific, bor-

rowed from Byzantine models, and possibly added

by later editors.

“Grand prince” was first used as an official ti-

tle not for a prince of Kiev, but for Vsevolod “the

Big Nest” of Vladimir-Suzdal (ruled 1176–1212).

Within their principality it was applied to his sons

Konstantin and Yuri as well. Outside of Vladimir-

Suzdal, however, recognition of Vsevolod as grand

prince, despite his dynastic seniority, was incon-

sistent, and during the very late twelfth and early

thirteenth centuries the title was occasionally at-

tributed to rulers of Kiev.

The title “grand prince” came into more com-

mon and consistent use during the fourteenth cen-

tury. In addition to its use by the prince of

Vladimir, it was also adopted by the princes of Tver,

Riazan, and Nizhny Novgorod by the second half

of the century. The princes of Moscow, who ac-

quired an exclusive claim to the position of grand

prince of Vladimir during this period, joined the ti-

tle to the phrase “of all Rus” to elevate themselves

above the other grand princes. During the fifteenth

and sixteenth centuries, as they absorbed the other

Rus principalities into Muscovy and subordinated

their princes, they not only monopolized the title

“grand prince,” but also began to use other titles

conveying the meaning of sovereign (gosudar or

gospodar). From 1547, when Ivan IV “the Terri-

ble” was coronated, until 1721, when Peter I “the

Great” adopted the title “emperor,” the rulers of

Muscovy used “grand prince and tsar” as their of-

ficial titles.

See also: KIEVAN RUS; ROTA SYSTEM; RURIKID DYNASTY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Poppe, Andrzej. (1989). “Words That Serve the Author-

ity: On the Title of ‘Grand Prince’ in Kievan Rus.”

Acta Poloniae Historica 60:159–184.

ANET

ARTIN

GREAT BRITAIN, RELATIONS WITH

Russia’s relations with Great Britain have been

marked by chronic tension. During the nineteenth

century, the British were keenly aware of tsarist

Russia’s expansion into Central Asia and of the

menace it might hold for lands in the British Com-

monwealth, particularly India. Twice during that

century the British invaded Afghanistan to forestall

what they perceived as a Russian threat to occupy

the country and use it as a staging area for an at-

tack on India. Prophetic of George Kennan’s “X”

telegram of 1946 and the U.S. policy of contain-

ment, the British foreign minister Lord Palmerston

said in 1853: “The policy and practice of the Rus-

sian government has always been to push forward

its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy

or want of firmness of other governments would

allow it to go, but always to stop and retire when

it was met with decided resistance and then to wait

for the next favorable opportunity.” That same

year the British decided to resist the effort by Tsar

Nicholas I (1796–1855) to enhance Russian power

and influence over the Black Sea region and the Ot-

toman Empire. War broke out between Russia and

Turkey in October 1853 over a dispute about reli-

gious rights in the Holy Land. Great Britain and

France joined forces with Turkey and laid siege to

Sevastopol, Russia’s naval base in the Crimea, and

in September 1855 the Russians were forced to ac-

cept defeat. The Treaty of Paris (March 30, 1856),

GRAND PRINCE

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

ending the war, was a serious diplomatic setback

for Russia, because it guaranteed the integrity of

Ottoman Turkey and obliged Russia to surrender

southern Bessarabia, at the mouth of the Danube.

The Crimean War failed to settle the Russian-British

rivalry, but it impressed upon Nicholas’s succes-

sor, Alexander II, the need to overcome Russia’s

backwardness in order to compete successfully

with Britain and the other European powers.

As a further result of the Crimean War, Aus-

tria, which had sided with Great Britain and France,

lost Russia’s support in Central European affairs.

Russia joined the Triple Entente with Britain and

France in 1907, more as a result of the widened

gap between it and the two Germanic powers and

improved relations with Britain’s ally, Japan, than

out of any fondness for Britain and France. When

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated (June

28, 1914), Russia was not prepared to see Austria-

Hungary defeat Serbia, a Slavic country, and the

mobilization systems and interlocking alliances of

the great powers undermined all attempts to avert

a general war. The general disruption caused by

World War I contributed to the revolutions in Feb-

ruary and October 1917.

The Bolshevik Revolution enraged the British.

Vladimir Lenin and other communists called on the

workers in all countries to overthrow their capital-

ist oppressors and characterized the war as caused

by rivalries between capitalist and imperialist coun-

tries like Britain. Lenin withdrew Russia from the

war and signed a separate peace treaty with Ger-

many at Brest-Litovsk in 1918. In the aftermath,

Soviet support for national liberation movements in

the empire, and of anti-British sentiment and ac-

tivity in the Middle East, was a special source of an-

noyance to Britain. To avenge the Brest-Litovsk

treaty, and alarmed that the Germans might trans-

fer troops to the Western Front, the British, French,

and Japanese intervened in Russia’s Civil War, de-

ploying troops to Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, and

Vladisvostok, and later funneling material and

money to the White armies opposing the Red Army.

Winston Churchill (minister of munitions in 1917)

made no secret of his antipathy toward Bolshevism,

aiming to “strangle the infant in its crib.”

Soviet policy toward Britain during the 1920s

and 1930s was marked by contradictions. On the

one hand, Josef Stalin tried to expand his diplo-

matic and commercial contacts with this arche-

typical imperialist power, as part of an effort to

win recognition as a legitimate regime. On the other

hand, he and his colleagues in the Kremlin remained

wary of an anti-Soviet capitalist alliance and

worked for the eventual demise of the capitalist

system. Then, with the League of Nations weak-

ened by the withdrawal of Japan and Germany, the

Versailles Peace Treaty openly flaunted by Adolf

Hitler’s rearming of Germany, and the world econ-

omy crashing in the Great Depression, Stalin began

thinking of an alliance with Britain as protection

against Germany. When Prime Minister Neville

Chamberlain capitulated to Hitler at Munich in

1938, Stalin decided to make a pact with the Nazis

and did so the following year. But on June 22,

1941, Hitler renounced the nonaggression treaty

and invaded the Soviet Union, thus precipitating

the Grand Alliance between Britain, the Soviet

Union, and United States. Churchill’s cynical words

reveal his true feelings about Stalin and the Slavic

country to the east: “If Hitler had invaded Hell, I

would find something nice to say about the Devil

in the House of Commons.”

The USSR lost twenty million lives and suffered

incalculable destruction during World War II. The

conflict ended in the total defeat of the Axis pow-

ers, with the Red Army occupying Albania, Czecho-

slovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania,

and Hungary. Relations between Britain and the So-

viet Union chilled rapidly. Churchill warned of the

hazards of growing Soviet domination of Europe

(a descending “iron curtain”) in a historic March 5,

1946, speech at Westminster College in Fulton,

Missouri. The formation of two military alliances,

NATO (1949) and the Warsaw Pact (1955). solid-

ified the Cold War, which lasted until 1989.

In the postwar era, the Soviet Union perceived

Britain as an imperialist power in decline, especially

after it relinquished most of its colonies. Neverthe-

less, Britain remained an important power in So-

viet eyes because of its nuclear forces, its leadership

of the British Commonwealth, and its close ties

with the United States. In general, however, Soviet

relations with Britain took a back seat to Soviet

relations with France (especially during the presi-

dency of Charles de Gaulle) and West Germany (es-

pecially during the administration of Willy Brandt).

This may have been because Britain, unlike West

Germany, was a united country and thus not sus-

ceptible to Soviet political pressure exerted through

the instrument of a divided people, and because the

British Communist Party, because of its small size,

had less influence in electoral politics than the

French Communist Party. Given its close trade ties

with the United States, Britain was less dependent

economically than other West European states on

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Soviet and East European trade and energy re-

sources. Britain also fulfilled its obligations as a

NATO member, whereas France withdrew in 1966

from the military side of the alliance.

Even after the collapse of communist regimes

throughout Eastern Europe in 1989 and the end of

the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Soviet-era

division of Europe continued to influence Russia’s

foreign policy toward Britain and other West Eu-

ropean countries. Although the Warsaw Pact was

disbanded, NATO extended its reach, admitting

three former Soviet allies (Hungary, Poland, and

the Czech republic) in 1999. Some Russian hard-

liners feared that NATO would embrace all of Rus-

sia’s former allies and deprive it of its traditional

European buffer zone. Nevertheless, the al Qaeda

terrorist attack on New York’s World Trade Cen-

ter on September 11, 2001 fostered closer ties be-

tween Russian president Vladimir Putin and other

Western leaders, including British prime minister

Tony Blair. New security threats that transcend

state borders, such as global networks of suicidal

terrorists, chemical and biological warfare, inter-

national organized crime, cyberwar, and human

trafficking, all underscore the need for greater co-

operation among sovereign states.

See also: CRIMEAN WAR; GRAND ALLIANCE; NORTH AT-

LANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION; WORLD WAR II

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, Ralph James Q. (1993). British Politics and For-

eign Policy in the Age of Appeasement, 1935–39. Stan-

ford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Blackwell, Michael. (1993). Clinging to Grandeur: British

Attitudes and Foreign Policy in the Aftermath of the Sec-

ond World War. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Eudin, Xenia Joukoff, and Slusser, Robert. (1967). Soviet

Foreign Policy, 1928–1934; Documents and Materials.

University Park: Penn State University Press.

Keeble, Curtis. (1990). Britain and the Soviet Union,

1917–1989. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Kennan, George F. (1960). Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1941.

Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.

Pravda, Alex, and Duncan, Peter J. S., eds. (1990). So-

viet-British Relations since the 1970s. New York:

Cambridge University Press.

Ross, Graham. (1984). The Foreign Office and the Kremlin:

British Documents on Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1941–45.

New York: Cambridge University Press.

Ulam, Adam B. (1968). Expansion and Coexistence: The

History of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–67. New York:

Praeger.

Ullman, Richard. (1961–1972). Anglo-Soviet Relations,

1917–1921, 3 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni-

versity Press.

OHANNA

RANVILLE

GREAT NORTHERN WAR

The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was the

main military conflict of Peter the Great’s reign,

ending in a Russian victory over Sweden that made

Russia an important European power and expanded

Russia’s borders to the Baltic Sea, including the site

of St. Petersburg. The war began in the effort of

Denmark and Poland-Saxony to wrest control of

territories lost to Sweden during the seventeenth

century, the period of Swedish military hegemony

in northern Europe. When the rulers of those coun-

tries offered alliances to Peter in 1698 and 1699,

he saw an opportunity to recover Ingria, the small

territory at the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland

that Russia had lost to Sweden in 1618. Possession

of Ingria would once again give Russia access to

the Baltic Sea, which seems to have been Peter’s

principal aim. To achieve this aim Peter built a

European-style army and a navy based in the

Baltic. The war also served as a major stimulus to

Peter’s reforms.

The initial phase of the war (1700–1709) was

marked by Swedish successes. Peter’s attempt to

capture the port of Narva in Swedish-held Estonia

ended in catastrophic defeat on November 30,

1700, at the hands of Charles XII, king of Sweden.

The defeat meant the destruction of most of Peter’s

new army, which he then had to rebuild. Fortu-

nately, Charles chose to move south into Poland,

hoping to unseat August II from the throne of

Poland and expand Swedish influence. In 1706

Charles succeeded in forcing August II to surren-

der and leave the war and to recognize Stanislaw

Leszczynski, a Swedish puppet, as king of Poland.

In 1707 Charles moved east through Poland toward

Russia, apparently hoping to both defeat and over-

throw Peter and replace him with a more compli-

ant tsar from among the Russian boyars. Charles

also managed to convince Ivan Mazepa, the Het-

man of the Ukrainian Cossacks, to join him against

Peter, but in Russia itself there was no move in

favor of Charles. Instead, the Russian army re-

treated before the Swedes, acquiring experience and

mounting ever more effective resistance. Charles

was forced south into Ukraine during the fall of

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1708, and Peter’s defeat of the Swedish relief col-

umn at Lesnaya (October 9, 1708) left him with-

out additional food and equipment.

The battle of Poltava (July 8, 1709) proved the

turning point of the war. The Swedish army suf-

fered heavy casualties and fled the field southwest

toward the Dnieper River. When they reached the

banks with the Russians in hot pursuit, they found

too few boats to carry them across and had to sur-

render. Only Charles, his staff, and some of his per-

sonal guard escaped into Ottoman territory. Thus

the way was clear for Peter to occupy the Baltic

provinces and southeast Finland, then a Swedish

possession, in 1710.

By the end of 1710 Peter had achieved his prin-

cipal war aims, for these conquests secured the ap-

proaches to St. Petersburg. In 1711 the outbreak

of war with the Turks provided an unwelcome dis-

traction, and he was able to turn his attention to

the Northern War only in 1712. His allies now in-

cluded the restored August II of Poland-Saxony, as

well as Denmark and Prussia. Russian troops moved

into northern Germany to support these allies, and

Sweden’s German possessions, Bremen, Stralsund,

and Stettin, fell by 1714. In 1713 Peter managed

to occupy all of Finland, which he hoped to use as

a bargaining chip in the inevitable peace negotia-

tions. Charles XII, who returned to Sweden from

Turkey in 1714, would not give up. Ignoring Swe-

den’s rapidly deteriorating economic situation, he

refused to acknowledge defeat. Peter’s small but de-

cisive naval victory over the Swedish fleet at Hangö

peninsula on the Finnish coast in 1714 preserved

Russian control over Finland and allowed Peter to

harass the Swedish coast. A joint Russo-Danish

project to invade Sweden in 1716 came to nothing,

and the war continued until 1721 with a series of

Russian raids along the Swedish coast. The death

of Charles XII in 1718 even prolonged the war, for

Great Britain, worried over Russian influence in the

Baltic region and northern Germany, began to sup-

port Sweden, but it was too late. In 1721 the treaty

of Nystad put an end to the war, allowing Russia

to keep southeast Finland (the town of Viborg), In-

gria, Estonia, and the province of Livonia (today

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ETTMANN

/CORBIS

southern Estonia and Latvia north of the Dvina

river).

Peter’s victory in the Great Northern War rad-

ically altered the balance of power in northern and

eastern Europe. The defeat of Sweden and the loss

of most of its overseas territories other than Fin-

land and Stralsund, as well as the collapse of

Swedish absolutism after 1718, rendered Sweden a

minor power once again. The events of the war re-

vealed for the first time decisively the political and

military weakness of Poland. Russia, by contrast,

had defeated the formerly hegemonic power of

the region, recovered Ingria, acquired the Baltic

provinces and part of Finland, and founded St.

Petersburg as a new city and new capital. These ac-

quisitions gave Russia a series of seaports to sup-

port both trade and a naval presence in the Baltic

Sea, as well as a shorter route to Western Europe.

Victory in the war justified Peter’s military, ad-

ministrative, and economic reforms and the West-

ernization of Russian culture. It also enormously

reinforced his personal prestige and power.

See also: LESNAYA, BATTLE OF; PETER I; NARVA, BATTLES

OF; POLTAVA, BATTLE OF; SWEDEN, RELATIONS WITH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bushkovitch, Paul. (2001). Peter the Great. Lanham, MD:

Rowman and Littlefield.

Hatton, Ragnhild. (1968). Charles the Twelfth. London:

Weidenfeld and Nicholson.

Frost, Robert I. (2000). The Northern Wars: War, State,

and Society in Northeastern Europe. Harlow, UK:

Longman.

AUL

A. B

USHKOVITCH

GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR See WORLD WAR II.

GREAT REFORMS

At the accession of Alexander II in 1855, some

twenty-two million Russian peasants were serfs;

their status was like slavery. “State peasants” were

similarly constrained. In 1861, serfdom was abol-

ished. Other reforms followed. Together they are

called the “great reforms.” How did they emerge

from a conservative regime? How did they relate

one to another? What was their impact on Russia’s

development?

The explanations most often given for the abo-

lition of serfdom do not work. Russia’s defeat in the

Crimean War left the regime discredited and impov-

erished, ill positioned to challenge the serfholding

elite. The regime believed that peasant rebellions were

more likely a result of reform. It expected economic

growth if serfdom were abolished, but dreaded eco-

nomic disruption. It understood that serfdom was

outmoded, but it seemed to work. When, in August

1857, a secret committee pronounced that “not only

the peasants but even the Government itself is not

prepared for a general emancipation” of the serfs,

Alexander expressed satisfaction.

Three months later, the government began to

reform serfdom. The turnabout occurred because

serfdom was weak. The serfholders were dependent

upon the state, to which they had mortgaged two-

thirds of their serfs and on which they relied to

keep the serfs subordinate. They had no political

experience. Most of them shared a culture oriented

to western Europe, where serfdom had disap-

peared. No articulate voice in Russia could praise

serfdom. Thanks to censorship, nothing critical or

supportive of serfdom, appeared in print. Russia

had no Garrison, but also no Calhoun; serfdom

had no ideology.

The breakthrough took the form of directives

to the governor-general of three northwestern

provinces. These incoherent documents were the

by-product of an abandoned initiative, but their

publication committed the government to the re-

form of serfdom. And they contained the germ of

a resolution to the key problem. The government

believed that a noble’s land was inalienable private

property; peasants believed the land was theirs be-

cause they tilled it. Freedom without land would,

from a peasant perspective, be a monstrous injus-

tice. To give privately-owned land to the peasants

would, from an elite perspective, be no less mon-

strous. The directives reaffirmed the serfholders’

property rights, but provided peasant households

with the use of allotments of land.

Ostensibly, the nobility of each province was to

participate in drafting the reform. The government

learned that there was no flim-flam the nobility

would not tolerate. It made a series of promises to

the nobility and withdrew or ignored each one. The

nobles barely responded, confident because most top

positions in government were held by men as hos-

tile to reform as they were.

The abolition legislation was not created by these

dignitaries, but by a group of zealous reformers

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