This was the genesis of the Air Assault Troops, this also led to the rise of true special purpose forces. After all, while the paratroopers and other formations such as the Naval Infantry (marines) were a cut above the regular conscript infantry, they could hardly be considered “special forces” in the modern sense of the term. As the army began raising its paratroop forces, so too smaller, more specialized units began to be created within them, given the name Special Designation forces (Spet-sialnogo naznacheniya, Spetsnaz for short). Elite units were also formed by the NKVD, the political police force (which had a sizable parallel army of paramilitaries), that instead called its forces Osnaz, for Osobennogo naznachneniya, or Specialized Designation. During World War II, these forces would see extensive action. Army and navy reconnaissance commandos penetrated German lines and, along with NKVD Osnaz saboteurs and infiltrators, organized partisan units, targeted collaborators and attacked supply routes.
This duality continued after the war and into the post-Soviet era. The armed forces maintain substantial Spetsnaz forces under the overall command of the GRU, military intelligence. Their main roles are to operate behind enemy lines gathering intelligence and launching surprise attacks on strategic assets such as headquarters and nuclear weapons. There are eight brigades of regular Spetsnaz and four of Naval Spetsnaz. However, most of these ostensibly elite units are still largely manned by conscripts, albeit the pick of the draft. There is thus an elite within the elite, largely made up of professional soldiers. Generally a single company within each brigade is kept at this standard, as well as a company in each of the paratroop divisions. These elements include athletes and linguists trained to pass themselves off as nationals of target nations and are genuinely comparable to such units as the U.S. Green Berets or British SAS.
Meanwhile, the security apparatus also retains its own smaller Osnaz elements. The KGB created several specialized teams, including Alfa (an anti-terrorist strike force), Zenit and Vympel (trained for secret missions abroad), and Kaskad (a covert intelligence team). All served during the war in Afghanistan (1979-1989), and all survived the end of the USSR and the dismemberment of the KGB, being attached to new, Russian security agencies. The same is true of the Osnaz elements within the Interior Troops and the security arm of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as the Border Troops. Indeed, it has become almost a mark of institutional
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
prestige to have such units, so they have also been joined by such new units as the Justice Ministry’s Fakel commando team (which specializes in breaking prison sieges). Thus, if anything, special purpose forces are becoming even more important in the post-Soviet era. See also: MILITARY INTELLIGENCE; STATE SECURITY, ORGANS OF
Galeotti, Mark. (1992). “Special and Intervention Forces of the Former Soviet Union.” Jane’s Intelligence Review 4:438-440. Schofield, Carey. (1993). The Russian Elite. London: Greenhill. Strekhnin, Yuri. (1996). Commandos from the Sea. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. Suvorov, Viktor. (1987). Spetsnaz. London: Hamish Hamilton. Zaloga, Steven. (1995). Inside the Blue Berets. Novato, CA: Presidio.
(1772-1839), Russian statesman, one-time adviser to Tsar Alexander I.
Mikhail Speransky attempted during the years 1807-1811 to influence the Russian monarch in the direction of instituting major political reform in Russia’s government. Only a few of his carefully drafted plans ever saw the light of day.
Born into a family of a poor Russian Orthodox clergyman, Speransky, called by one Russian historian a “self- made man,” won the attention of the tsar and rose to become a count. He was considered brilliant and well-read in the study of European governmental structures, becoming in effect Alexander’s unofficial prime minister. Working in secret (on the tsar’s orders), he drew up a number of reforms. His idea, which the tsar evidently did not wholly endorse, was to retain a strong monarchy but reform it so that it would be based strictly on law and legal procedures of the type found in some European monarchies of the time.
Speransky’s reform plans did not closely resemble, say, the English or French governmental
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systems. Yet while Speransky could probably not be considered a liberal reformer on West European terms, by Russian standards his reformism bordered on the radical. This made Speransky extremely unpopular with the tsar’s court, causing the tsar to keep such plans under wraps lest they unduly alienate his court.
In 1809 and 1812, Speransky drew up the draft of a Russian constitution that bore some resemblance to those of West European monarchies. In one of his projects Speransky even proposed separation of the powers of legislature (in the Duma), judiciary, and the governmental administration. Yet all three were to branch out from the crown. Suffrage would be based on property, at least in the beginning. Election of the Duma would be indirect and necessitate a cautious, four-stage electoral process. Speransky also supported a program for future abolition of serfdom in Russia, reform that he viewed as crucial for any serious top-to-bottom governmental change.
Historians note that certain measures enacted in 1810-1811 brought “fundamental change to the executive departments of government.” Personal responsibility, it is noted, was to be imposed on ministers, while the functions of executive departments were precisely delimited. Unwarranted interference with legislative and judicial functions would be eliminated. Comprehensive rules were actually enacted for the administration of the ministries.
Although Speransky’s efforts to reform the antiquated Russian court system failed, his administrative reforms overall modernized the whole bureaucratic machine. These structures remained in effect until the Bolshevik coup d’?tat, or October Revolution, of late 1917.
After serving as the tsar’s close adviser for some five years, Speransky left St. Petersburg as the appointed Governor-General of the Siberian region. In that post he continued to author reform plans. Some of these were adopted and changed the governmental structure of that large administrative area. But it was in the period of his service as the tsar’s adviser that Speransky made his name in the annals of Russian history, especially as recounted by the famous early nineteenth-century Russian historian, Nikolai M. Karamzin.
In 1821 Speransky returned to the Russian capital to become a founder of the Siberian Committee for Russian Affairs Beyond the Urals. See also: ALEXANDER I; WESTERNIZERS
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Raeff, Marc. (1956). Siberia and the Reform of 1822. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Raeff, Marc. (1957). Michael Speransky, Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772-1839. The Hague: M. Nijhoff. Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. (1963). A History of Russia. New York: Oxford University Press.
(1884-1941), Socialist Revolutionary terrorist and Left Socialist Revolutionary leader who spent most of her life in prison or exile because of her popular appeal as a revolutionary heroine.
Maria Spiridonova, daughter of a non-hereditary noble in Tambov Province, became a public symbol of heroic martyrdom during the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907. In January 1906 she shot provincial councilor G. N. Luzhenovsky at the Borisoglebsk Railroad Station, carrying out the death sentence that the Tambov Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) had passed on Luzhenovsky for his cruel suppression of peasant unrest in the district. Spiridonova’s case excited national interest, thus distinguishing her from the many other SR terrorists throughout the empire. A letter Spiridonova wrote from prison was published in a liberal newspaper and debated widely in the national press because it described her torture at the hands of police officials, hinting as well at sexual abuse. Liberal newspapers in particular waxed eloquent about the brutalities inflicted on this beautiful and chaste young woman of the Russian upper classes who had killed a sadistic bureaucrat.
In March 1906, however, a court-martial sentenced Spiridonova to hanging, then commuted her sentence to life imprisonment, the usual practice in cases of females convicted of political crimes until mid-1906. Eleven years of incarceration in the Nerchinsk penal complex in Siberia followed, during which Spiridonova suffered from depression, nervous prostration, and frequent flareups of tuberculosis, her chronic illness. The Provisional Government’s
