STEVEN A. GRANT
(c. 1742-1775), Russian cossack rebel and imperial impostor, leader of the Pugachevshchina.
Emelian Pugachev headed the mass uprising of 1773-1774 known as Pugachevshchina (loosely translated as “Pugachev’s Dark Deeds”). The bloodiest rebellion against central state authority and serfdom between 1618 and the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, it disrupted an immense territory and momentarily threatened the Muscovite heartland. Thousands of individuals from disparate social groups and ethnicities challenged Catherine II’s legitimacy and aggravated international tension from prolonged Russo-Turkish hostilities. Many suspected upper-class, religious, or foreign inspiration behind the upheaval, widely reported by the European press. Particularly provocative was Pu-gachev’s impersonation of Peter III (1728-1762), which recalled Catherine’s usurpation of power.
The revolt originated among the Yaik (Ural) cossacks, a frontier “warrior democracy” that re1245
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sisted pressure from state expansion. Disputes over the elected leadership led to government suppression of a cossack mutiny in January 1772, which left the community divided and resentful. Pu-gachev, a Don cossack fugitive, visited the area in late 1772. A typical primitive rebel, Pugachev was illiterate and his biography obscure. His imposture was not original; he was one of some seven pretenders since 1764. Shrewd, energetic, and experienced in military affairs, he was also charismatic. It is unclear whether he initiated renewed revolt or was persuaded to lead it by the cossacks.
About sixty rebels issued a first manifesto in late September 1773, presumably dictated by Pu-gachev or cossack scribes, calling on cossacks, Kalmyks, and Tatars to serve Peter III in pursuit of glory, land, and material reward. The rebels focused on frontier freedom or autonomy, but Peter III’s name lent national stature to the burgeoning movement. Within weeks their forces exceeded two thousand besieging the fortress of Orenburg and spreading the revolt into the Ural Mountains with specific appeals to diverse social and ethnic groups. Turkic Bashkirs joined in force as the regional rebellion evolved into three chronological-territorial phases.
The Orenburg-Yaitsk phase lasted from October 1773 until April 1774, when the rebel sieges of Orenburg, Yaitsk, and Ufa were broken, Pugachev barely escaping. Shielded by spring roadlessness, the rebels replenished ranks while fleeing northward through the Urals. This second phase culminated in the plunder of Kazan on July 23 before the horde was defeated and scattered. With rebel whereabouts unknown, panic seized Moscow, but news of peace with the Turks soon allayed fears.
Pugachev fled southward down the Volga, exterminating the nobility and government offi-cials-the third and final phase. This rampage sparked many local outbreaks sometimes called “Pugachevshchina without Pugachev.” The main rebel force was decisively defeated south of Tsarit-syn on September 5. To save themselves, some cossacks turned Pugachev over to tsarist authorities at Yaitsk on September 26, 1774. After lengthy interrogation he was beheaded and then quartered in Moscow on January 21, 1775. To erase reminders of the revolt, Yaitsk, the river, the cossacks, and Pugachev’s birthplace were all renamed, his wife and children exiled. Late in life Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) popularized Pugachev in history and fiction. “The Captain’s Daughter” became an instant classic, famously declaiming “God save us from seeing a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless.” But agrarian anarchist dissidents found inspiration in Pugachev for grassroots rebellion. After 1917 the Soviet regime endorsed Pugachev’s fame, recasting the revolt as a peasant war against feudal society and autocratic government. See also: CATHERINE II; PEASANTRY; PETER III; PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER SERGEYEVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexander, John T. (1969). Autocratic Politics in a National Crisis: The Imperial Russian Government and Pu- gachev’s Revolt, 1773-1775. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Alexander, John T. (1973). Emperor of the Cossacks: Pu-gachev and the Frontier Jacquerie of 1773-1775. Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press. Pushkin, Alexander. (1983). “The Captain’s Daughter” and “A History of Pugachev.” In Alexander Pushkin: Complete Prose Fiction, ed. Paul Debreczeny. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Raeff, Marc. (1970). “Pugachev’s Rebellion.” In Preconditions for Revolution in Early Modern Europe, eds. Robert Forster and Jack P. Greene. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
(1937-1991), Party official involved in the 1991 coup attempt against Boris Yeltsin.
Born in Latvia, Boris Karlovich Pugo was a Communist Party and state functionary whose career was shaped by Leonid Brezhnev’s “mature socialism.” This was a time of ossification in the leadership and mounting economic crisis that gave way to attempts to reform the system from within under the direction of Yuri Andropov, former head of the KGB, and then, after a brief interval, to more systemic reforms under Mikhail Gorbachev. Like many leaders of the Brezhnev era, Pugo began his career as an official in the Komsomol. His career was closely connected with Soviet power in his native Latvia, where he served as head of the local KGB and later as first secretary of the Latvian Communist Party.
Pugo came to prominence with the advent of glasnost and perestroika. In 1988 he was appointed chairman of the powerful CPSU Control Commis1246
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Interior Minister Boris Pugo bows his head during the press conference held by the leaders of the August 1991 coup. He committed suicide days later. © SHEPARD SHERBELL/CORBIS SABA sion in Moscow, a post he held for two years. This was a time of struggle within the Communist Party, for Gorbachev’s effort to use it as a vehicle for reform had failed and only managed to split the Party along pro- and anti-reform lines. In the Baltic republics even the local Communist parties were joining in the call for independence by the summer of 1990. In December, Gorbachev appointed Pugo minister of internal affairs.
The appointment came at a time of crisis for perestroika. There were increasing calls for independence in the Baltic republics. Opponents of reform in Moscow, such as the “Black Colonel” Viktor Alk-snis, were calling for a crackdown against anti-Soviet elements, especially in the Baltic republics. Hardliners argued that the impending war between the United States and Iraq would distract international opinion from a Soviet crackdown. As one of his first acts as minister of internal affairs, Pugo took a leading role in the attempt to reassert Soviet power in the Baltic republics. The crackdown in Vilnius, poorly organized and indecisive, collapsed in the face of popular resistance in the republics and Gorbachev’s failure to support it publicly. In August 1991 Pugo joined in the desperate attempt by the State Committee for the State of Emergency to remove Gorbachev and prevent the approval of a new union treaty that would bring about a radical shift in power from all-union institutions to the constituent republics, especially the Russian Federation under its popularly elected president, Boris Yeltsin. The so-called putsch in which the committee attempted to seize power was poorly organized and badly prepared. Within a matter of days it collapsed. Boris Pugo committed suicide on August 22, together with his wife, Valentina. His suicide note contained a brief explanation of his actions: “I put too much trust in people. I have lived my life honestly.” See also: AUGUST 1991 PUTSCH; SOYUZ FACTION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Albats, Yevgeniia. (1994). The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia-Past, Present, and Future. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Aron, Leon. (2000). Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Lieven, Anatol. (1993). The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Path to Independence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Medevev, Roy. (2002). “Yesteryear: Three Suicides.” Moscow News No. 023 (August 21).
The term Great Purges does not accurately designate the chaotic chain of events to which it is applied and was never used by the Soviet authorities. The regime tried to cover up the large-scale violence it had deployed between the summer of 1936 and the end of 1938. Although scholars apply the term purges to this period, many of them agree that the appellation is misleading. It implies that the Bolshevik attempts to eliminate the system’s presumed enemies were a carefully planned, faithfully executed series of punitive operations, and this was far from
