Daghestan. London: Frank Cass.
(1882-1945), marshal (1940), general staff officer, military theorist, and chief of the Red Army General Staff.
Originally a career officer in tsarist service, Sha-poshnikov graduated in 1910 from the Nicholas Academy of the General Staff, then served in Turkestan, where he possibly contracted malaria, and in the Warsaw Mlitary District. He attained regimental command during World War I, joined the Red Army in 1918, and occupied high staff positions during the Russian civil war, usually as
planner or intelligence officer. He next served on the Worker’s and Peasants’ Red Army (RKKA) staff, then from 1925 to 1928 commanded the Leningrad and Moscow military districts. From 1928 to 1931 he was RKKA chief of staff, followed by a tour as commander of the Volga Military District. From 1933 to 1935 he headed the Frunze Military Academy, after which he commanded the Leningrad Military District. From 1937 to 1940 he served as second chief of the newly created Red Army General Staff, followed by appointment after the Winter War (1939- 1940) as deputy Defense Commissar. At the end of July 1941, despite ill health, he replaced Georgy Zhukov to serve as chief of the General Staff until May 1942. While recovering from either nervous exhaustion or malaria, he reverted to assignment as deputy defense commissar, followed in 1943-1945 by tenure as chief of the Academy of the General Staff.
An officer of intellect and experience, Shaposh-nikov left his mark on nearly every important military organizational and doctrinal innovation of the 1920s and 1930s. His most important scholarly work was Brain of the Army (published in three volumes, 1927-1929), in which he studied the Austrian model of Conrad von Hoetzendorf and the tsarist experience in 1914 to argue for the creation of a modern Soviet general staff headed by an “integrated great captain.” The consummate general staff officer, Shaposhnikov was one of the few officers who enjoyed Josef Stalin’s open respect, and nearly every subsequent chief of the Red Army/Soviet General Staff considered himself Shaposh-nikov’s disciple. See also: MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Erickson, John. (1962). The Soviet High Command. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
(1934-1997), Soviet economist; advocate of decentralization and market reforms.
Born in a family of upper-level functionaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Stanislav Shatalin graduated from the economics department of the Moscow State University and
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entered academia in the era of the Thaw. In 1965 he joined an influential school of economists at the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute (TsEMI) who were developing and advocating the System of Optimal Functioning for the Economy (SOFE) based on mathematical modeling. He shared the highest-ranking State Award, served as deputy director of the All-Union Institute for Systems Studies and director of the Institute for Economic Forecasting that had separated from TsEMI, and became full member of the Academy of Sciences in 1987. In 1989 and 1990, he emerged as a key advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev and a rival to the government economic team of Leonid Abalkin, and was appointed to the Presidential Council. He coau-thored the Five-Hundred-Day Plan, a reform program that was eventually declined by Gorbachev, partly because of its emphasis on the decentralization of the Union, but was widely acclaimed in the West. This program contained, albeit in a different sequence, the essential elements of the subsequent reforms of the 1990s (although some argue that the five hundred days was more gradual and mindful of the social consequences of drastic deregulation).
After briefly taking part in liberal politics, Shatalin established and chaired the Reforma Foundation. His twilight years were overshadowed by the Audit Chamber’s inquiry into a mutually profitable relationship between a bank affiliated with his foundation and government managers of social security funds. See also: FIVE-HUNDRED- DAY PLAN
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hough, Jerry F. (1997). Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985-1991. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Shatalin, S.; Petrakov, N.; Aleksashenko, S.; Yavlinsky, G.; and Fedorov, B. (1991). 500 Days: Transition to the Market. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
(b. 1948), prominent Jewish dissident.
Anatoly Shcharansky was arrested on March 15, 1977, after being denied permission to emigrate from the Soviet Union. A twenty-nine-year1380 old computer expert at the time, Shcharansky had been a leading figure in the Helsinki Group, the oldest human rights organization in the Soviet Union, founded by Yuri F. Orlov on May 12, 1976, for the purpose of upholding the USSR’s responsibility to implement the Helsinki commitments. The Helsinki Agreement had been promulgated a year earlier (August 1975), its text published in full in both Pravda and Izvestia. The formation of the Moscow Helsinki Group sparked the creation of several human rights organizations throughout the Soviet Union. Shcharansky was a founding member of the group, along with Ye-lena Bonner (Andrei Sakharov’s wife), Anatoly Marchenko, Ludmilla M. Alexeyeva, and others. In the first three years of the group’s work, nearly all of its members were arrested or sentenced to psychiatric hospitalization as a way to repress their activities.
Shcharansky’s arrest was part of a Soviet campaign against dissidents begun in February 1977. Others were arrested before him: Alexander Gins-burg (February 4), Ukrainian dissidents Mikola Rudenko and Olexy Tikhy (February 7), and Yuri Orlov (February 10). In June 1977, Shcharansky was charged with treason, specifically with accepting CIA funds to create dissension in the Soviet Union. After a perfunctory trial, he was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. He was finally released in February 1986, when he and four other prisoners were exchanged for four Soviet spies who had been held in the West. Shcharansky finally emigrated to Israel, where he first changed his name to Natan Shcharan before settling on Natan Shcharansky. He is active in Israeli politics. See also: JEWS; REFUSENIKS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gilbert, Martin. (1986). Shcharansky, Hero of Our Time. New York: Viking. Goldberg, Paul. (1988). The Final Act: The Dramatic, Revealing Story of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group. New York: Morrow. Shcharansky, Anatoly; Bonner, Elena; and Alekseeva, Li-udmilla. (1986). The Tenth Year of The Watch. New York: Ellsworth. Shcharansky, Anatoly, and Hoffman, Stefani. (1998). Fear No Evil: The Classic Memoir of One Man’s Triumph Over a Police State. New York: Public Affairs.
(1788-1863), an actor from the serf estate who revolutionized acting styles with his realistic portrayals.
Born in Ukraine into a family owned by Count G. S. Volkenshtein, the young Mikhail Shchepkin began performing in the private theater maintained on the estate. Indeed, many nobles used their serfs’ skills for entertainment, and Shchepkin represented an important source of talent for the professional stage. Especially gifted, by 1800 he was allowed to participate in amateur productions in nearby Kursk. Though still a serf, he joined several provincial touring companies as he rose to stardom. Finally, in 1822, one of his noble fans, Prince N. G. Repin, persuaded his owner to free him. Later that year Shchepkin made his debut in Moscow, and in 1824 he began his legendary rule at the imperial Maly Theater, where he dominated in comedy and drama, including William Shakespeare’s corpus, for the next forty years. From his theatrical base in Moscow, he also toured the provinces and appeared on St. Petersburg’s imperial stage.
Shchepkin’s artistic significance lies in his influence over the transformation of acting styles, developing
