The First Congress (opened in Moscow on May 25, 1989, and chaired by Gorbachev), almost entirely broadcast live on national TV, was the peak event of democratization “from above,” as well as the first major disappointment with the realities of democracy, among both the reform-minded establishment and the wider strata. Cultural gaps and disparities in development between parts of the Union were reflected in the composition of the Congress that not only was extremely polarized in ideological terms (from Stalinists to radical West-ernizers and anti-Russian nationalists from the Baltics), but also bristled with social and cultural hostility between its members (e.g., representatives of premodern Central Asian establishments versus the emancipated Moscow intelligentsia). Advocates of further democratization (mostly representing Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Baltic nations, Ukraine, and the Caucasus, and ranging from moderate Gor-bachevites to revolutionary-minded dissidents), who later united in the Interregional Deputies Group (IDG) and were widely described as “the democrats,” had less than 250 votes in the Congress and even a smaller proportion in the Supreme Soviet. The bulk of the deputies had no structured political views but were instinctually conservative; they were famously branded by an IDG leader Yuri Afanasiev as “the aggressively obedient majority.” The resulting stalemate compelled Gorbachev to abandon legislative experiments and shift to a presidential system, while the democrats (many of them recently high-ranking CPSU officials, with only a handful of committed dissidents) also turned their backs on the Congress to lead street rallies and nascent political organizations, eventually winning more votes and positions of leadership in republican legislatures and city councils.
Thus, democratization’s center of gravity shifted away from the all-Union level. The key events of this stage were the unprecedentedly democratic republican and municipal elections (February-March 1990), with all deputies now elected directly by voters, and the abolition of Article 6 of the USSR Constitution that had designated the CPSU as “the leading and guiding force of Soviet society and the nucleus of its political system” with the right to
DEMOGRAPHY
determine “the general policy of the country.” The elimination of this article, demanded by the IDG and mass rallies and eventually endorsed by Gorbachev, was approved by the Congress on March 13, 1990, thus removing constitutional obstacles for a multi-party system-arguably the major and perhaps the only enduring institutional change of the period achieved through public pressure.
From that time issues of democratization yielded center stage to institutional collapse and economic reforms. A major transitional point was Gorbachev’s decision to become USSR president through a parliamentary vote, instead of running in direct nationwide elections. As a result, his presidency and other Union-wide institutions lagged behind republican authorities in terms of their democratic legitimacy. This was accentuated by Yeltsin’s election as Russian president (June 1991), the first direct popular election of a Russian ruler, which initially endowed him with exceptional legitimacy, but with no effective mechanisms of accountability and restraint. And the disbanding of the Soviet Union (December 1991) had an ambivalent relationship to democratization, for while it was decided by democratically elected leaders, Yeltsin had no popular mandate for such a decision; to the contrary, it nullified the results of the Union-wide referendum of March 1991, where overwhelming majorities in these republics voted for the preservation of the Union.
As a result of the events of the years 1988-1991, Russia acquired and institutionalized the basic facade of a minimalist, or procedural democracy, without providing citizens with leverage for wielding decisive influence over the authorities. The disillusionment with democratization has been shared both in the elite-some viewing it as a distraction or even an obstacle in the context of market re-forms-and among the population presented with the impotence and malleability of representative institutions in the face of economic collapse. Lilia Shevtsova describes post-Soviet Russia as “elective monarchy”; others emphasize a gradual reversal of democratic achievements since 1991, under Vladimir Putin in particular. The judgement about the ultimate significance of democratization on its own terms will hinge upon the extent to which a new wave of democratizers learns the accumulated experience and is able to benefit from this knowledge. See also: COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION; PERESTROIKA; GORBACHEV, MIKHAIL SERGEYEVICH; YELTSIN, BORIS NIKOLAYEVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brown, Archie. (1996). The Gorbachev Factor. New York: Oxford University Press. Chiesa, Giulietto, and Northrop, Douglas Taylor. (1993). Transition to Democracy: Political Change in the Soviet Union, 1987-1991. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Cohen, Stephen F., and vanden Heuvel, Katrina, eds. (1989). Voices of Glasnost. New York: Norton. Dunlop, John B. (1993). The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hough, Jerry F. (1997). Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985-1991. Washington, DC: Brook-ings Institution. Kagarlitsky, Boris. (1994). Square Wheels: How Russian Democracy Got Derailed. New York: Monthly Review Press. Reddaway, Peter, and Glinski, Dmitri. (2001). Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms: Market Bolshevism against Democracy. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press. Starr, S. Frederick. (1988). “Soviet Union: A Civil Society.” Foreign Policy. Steele, Jonathan. (1994). Eternal Russia: Yeltsin, Gorbachev, and the Mirage of Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Theen, Rolf H. W., ed. (1991). The U.S.S.R. First Congress of People’s Deputies: Complete Documents and Records, May 25, 1989-June 10, 1989. Vol. 1. New York, NY: Paragon House. Urban, Michael E. (1990). More Power to the Soviets: The Democratic Revolution in the USSR. Aldershot, UK: Edward Elgar.
DMITRI GLINSKI
The demography of Russia has influenced, and been influenced by, historical events. Demographic shifts can be seen in the population pyramid of 2002. The imbalance at the top of the chart indicates many more women live to older ages than men. The small numbers aged 55-59 represents the drastic declines in fertility from Soviet population catastrophes during the 1930s and 1940s, followed by a postwar baby boom aged 40-55. The relatively smaller number of men and women aged 30-34 reflects the echo of the 55-59 year old cohort. The larger cohorts at younger ages reflect the echo effect of Soviet baby boomers. The Russian population pyramid is unique in its dramatic variation in cohort
size, and illustrates how population has influenced, and been influenced by, historical events.
Trends in migration, fertility, morbidity and mortality shaped Russia’s growth rate, changed the distribution of population resources, and altered the ethnic and linguistic structure of the population. The implications of demographic change varied by the historical period in which it occurred, generated different effects between individuals of different age groups, and influenced some birth cohorts more than others. Throughout Russia’s history, demographic trends were largely determined by global pandemics, governmental policies and interventions, economic development, public health practices, and severe population shocks associated with war and famine.
As in other countries, population trends provided a clear window into social stratification within Russia, as improvements in public health tended to be concentrated among elites, leaving the poor more susceptible to illness, uncontrolled fertility, and shorter life spans. Two unique aspects concerning Russia’s demographic history warrant note. During both the Imperial and Soviet periods, demographic data were manipulated to serve the ideological needs of the state. Second, Russia’s demographic profile during the 1990s raised questions concerning the permanence of the epidemiological transition (of high mortality and deaths by infectious disease to low mortality and deaths by degenerative disease). Life expectancies fell dramatically and infectious diseases re-emerged during the 1990s as demographic concerns became significant security issues.
SOURCES OF DEMOGRAPHIC DATA
The Mongols instituted the first population registry in Russia, but few large-scale repositories of demographic information existed before the late Imperial period. Regional land registry (cadastral) records provided household size information and could be used with church records, tax assessment documents, serf work assignments, and urban hosDEMOGRAPHY pital records to provide indirect and localized estimates of population, and in some cases, family formation, fertility, and mortality data. In 1718, the focus of enumeration shifted to an enumeration of individuals, with adjustments or revizy, conducted for verification. The move to local self-government, and the creation of zemstvos in 1864, also provided a wealth of historical data, particularly regarding the demographic situation within peasant households, but as previous sources, the data were limited to small scale regional
