economic methodology as well as moving letters to his wife on the human condition.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fic, Victor M. (1998). The Rise of the Constitutional Alternative to Soviet Rule. Provisional Governments of Siberia and All-Russia: Their Quest for Allied Intervention. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs; New York: Columbia University Press.
See also: AGRICULTURE; ECONOMIC GROWTH, SOVIET; INDUSTRIALIZATION, SOVIET
Barnett, Vincent. (1998). Kondratiev and the Dynamics of Economic Development: Long Cycles and Industrial Growth in Historical Context. London: Macmillan.
Makasheva, Natalia; Samuels, Warren J.; and Barnett, Vincent, eds. (1998). The Works of Nikolai D. Kon- dratiev. London: Pickering and Chatto.
(1897-1973), military leader and marshal of the Soviet Union.
Born to a peasant family in Viatsky, Konev entered the Old Army in 1916 and rose to the rank of junior officer before joining the Party and the Red Army in 1918 and being appointed commissar of Nikolskii District. During the civil war, he was commander of Armored Train No. 105, attached to the 5 Rifle Brigade, and fought in Siberia and the Far East. From 1921 to 1922 he took part in putting down the Kronshtadt Rebellion and was appointed commissar in the staff in the National Revolutionary Army of the Far East Republic.
Konev attended a higher course in the military academy in 1926 and graduated from the Frunze Academy in 1934. During the 1920s and 1930s he commanded the 2 Rifle Division and later a corps. Untouched by the purges, he was elected to the Supreme Soviet in 1937, and in 1938 he took over as the commander of the newly formed 2 Independent Red Banner Far East Army. Despite rumors to the contrary, Konev was not involved in fighting the Japanese in Lake Khasan or Khalkhin Gol. In 1939 he was elected as a candidate member of the Central Committee. During 1940 and 1941, he commanded the Transbaikal and North Caucasus Military Districts. The latter was reinstituted shortly before World War II as the 19 Army and was transferred to the Western Special Military District to be mauled by the blitzkrieg.
In September, 1941, Konev took over the command of the Western Front, which was pushed back in the Battles of Orel and Viasma by the Germans, and for a few anxious days in October contact was lost with him. Josef Stalin threatened to courtmartial him but was persuaded by Zhukov to appoint Konev as commander of the newly formed neighboring Kalinin Front, which played a significant part in finally stopping the German advance toward Moscow. In August 1942 Konev replaced Zhukov as commander of the Western Front, which failed to defeat the now well-entrenched Germans. For a brief period in March 1943 Konev commanded the Northwest Front before being appointed commander of the Steppe Military District (later Steppe Front), the massive reserve force formed by the Russians in anticipation of the German attack against the Kursk Bulge. Konev’s units were deployed sooner than planned, but managed, with enormous losses, to persuade the Germans to break off their offensive. With the German defeat at Kursk, which Konev called the swan song of the German panzers, the Red Army went on the offensive with Konev commanding the 2 Ukraine (October 1943) and later 1 Ukraine (May 1944) Fronts.
Konev was involved in most of the major battles of the last two years of the war, which included the crossing of several major rivers, including the Dnepr and Vistula-Oder. During the Battle of Berlin, Stalin used the rivalry between Konev and Georgy Zhukov, who now commanded the neighboring 1 Belorussian Front, to advance his military and political goals. In the last phase of the campaign, forces commanded by Konev captured Prague. In both 1944 and 1945 Konev received the title Hero of the Soviet Union. After the war, Konev was appointed commander of the Central Group of Forces, and in 1946 he took over the ground forces, as well as being appointed Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces. He lost the former position in 1950. In 1951 he was appointed commander of the Carpathian Military District.
In late 1952 Konev wrote to Stalin claiming that he had been a victim of the Doctor’s Plot. In December 1953 Konev presided over the military court that sentenced to death Laurenti Beria and his colleagues. In 1955-1956 Konev was once again commander of the Ground Forces. From 1955 to 1960, he was also the first deputy minister of the Armed Forces, and from May 1955 to June 1960 commander of the Warsaw Pact Forces, taking part in putting down the 1956 revolution in Hungry. In 1961-1962 Konev was commander of Soviet forces in Germany before being transferred to the military inspectorate. In 1965 he represented the USSR at Winston Churchill’s funeral. Konev himself is buried at the Kremlin Wall. Konev was a typical Soviet commander in his indifference to losses and was one of Stalin’s favorites. See also: MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET; WORLD WAR II; ZHUKOV, GEORGY KONSTANTINOVICH
KONSTANTIN NIKOLAYEVICH
Polevoi, N. (1974). Polkovodets. Moscow: Politizdat. Portugal’skii, R. M. (1985). Marshal I. S. Konev. Moscow: Voenizdat.
(1827-1892), political and naval figure, second son of Tsar Nicholas I, brother of Tsar Alexander II, and an advocate of liberal reform.
Because Konstantin Nikolayevich was not the tsarevich, his designation as a general admiral at the age of four marked him early for a career in the Imperial Russian Navy. In 1853 he actually began to discharge the functions of his rank, and between 1855 and 1881 he simultaneously headed the Naval Ministry and served as commander-in- chief of Russian naval forces. A reformer of broad vision and originality, he bore responsibility for modernizing the navy, overseeing the transition from sail to steam. After 1845 he was also honorary president of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society, from whose membership sprang a number of future Russian reformers. Characteristically, the grand duke viewed his own naval bailiwick as an engine of change, in contemporary parlance “a ministry of progress,” engaged in training personnel for service in other branches of government. His reform- minded prot?g?s were known as the kon-stantinovtsy.
An opponent of serfdom and government censorship, Konstantin Nikolayevich spurned his father’s legacy to advocate openness, reform, and the cause of liberal bureaucrats such as Nikolai Mi-lyutin and Alexander Golovnin. The grand duke believed that peasants should receive title to their own private holdings. In 1857, to speed deliberations over serf emancipation, Tsar Alexander II appointed him president of the Secret Committee on the peasant question. Following emancipation in 1861, Konstantin Nikolayevich served for two decades as president of the Main Committee on Peasant Affairs, which oversaw implementation of peasant-related reform legislation.
Meanwhile, as a counter to growing Polish opposition to Russian rule, the grand duke in March 1862 also received appointment to Warsaw as viceroy and commander-in-chief. He was removed
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, second son of Nicholas I. © HULTON ARCHIVE in August 1863, after his liberal “policy of pacification” had failed to forestall open rebellion. Nevertheless, throughout the 1860s and 1870s he remained a staunch advocate of his brother’s Great Reforms, supporting them from various influential governmental positions, including presidency of the State Council between 1865 and 1881. In general, the grand duke also backed the military policies of war minister Dmitry Milyutin, while resisting the reactionary policies of Dmitry Tolstoy, the minister of education. In 1866 Konstantin Nikolayevich unsuccessfully sponsored moderate legislation that would have introduced into the State Council representatives from both zemstvo and noble assemblies. During the last years of his brother’s reign, he sided with the liberal policies of Mikhail Loris-Melikov, Minister of the Interior. Upon the accession of Tsar Alexander III in 1881, the grand duke left state service.
A cultivated man, Konstantin Nikolayevich read widely, maintained diverse interests, and played the cello. He was accepted in intellectual circles and
KOPECK
maintained honorary membership in a number of learned societies. He left important memoirs and an impressive correspondence, much of which has been published. See also: ALEXANDER II; GREAT REFORMS;
