Tag: Soviet Union

Russia in Africa: What the Literature Reveals and Why It Matters

Posted on September 23, 2024 | Policy Brief

Industrial oil factory in Africa symbolizing Russia’s influence on Africa's resources and economy.

Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has become increasingly isolated. In an attempt to counter Western powers’ efforts to suppress its economy and soft power impacts, Russia has tried to increase its influence in other parts of the world. In particular, Russia is increasingly active in Africa, having become a key partner to several African regimes, typically operating in areas with weak institutions and governments. Additionally, Russia’s approach has a different focus and objectives compared to other foreign actors, which may have both short and long term consequences for the continent’s development. Deepening our understanding of Russia’s distinct approach alongside those of other global actors, as well as the future implications of their involvement on the continent is, thus, of crucial importance.

Introduction

The new Foreign Policy Concept, adopted by the Russian government in March 2023, dedicates, for the first time, a separate section to Africa. The previous versions of the policy grouped North Africa with the Middle East and contained only a single paragraph, kept unchanged over time, about Sub-Saharan Africa. In the midst of its war against Ukraine, Russia is getting serious about Africa. What do we know about the reasons for and implications of this trend?

A relatively large literature in economics, political science, international relations, and other related fields has dealt with the Soviet Union’s engagement with African regimes (see overviews in Morris, 1973 and Ramani, 2023). However, the number of studies following the evolution of these relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union is significantly smaller, reflecting Russia’s strategic withdrawal from the region between 1990 and 2015. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s increased interest in and engagement on the African continent has been increasingly discussed by security analysts and think tanks (see for instance Siegel, 2021; Stanyard, Vircoulon and Rademeyer, 2023; Jones, et al., 2021). Primarily highlighted are Russia’s interest in mineral deposits, its large-scale arms’ exports to African regimes, its dominance on the nuclear energy market with resulting dependency on Russian nuclear fuels, and its ambition to undermine Western capacities by the spread of Russian propaganda and anti-Western sentiments (Lindén, 2023). Each of these dimensions carries potentially profound and far-reaching implications for the continent’s development, as underscored by various strands of literature. Research contributions on this specific new trend are however still very limited and predominantly of a qualitative and exploratory nature.

There is, however, substantial general knowledge about the various forms that foreign interests can take, including trade, investment, development aid, propaganda, election interference, and involvement in conflicts, and their potential consequences for development. This brief presents an overview of selected literature that most closely relates to foreign influence in Africa.

Background: Theories of Foreign Policy

Two contrasting approaches are used to describe the way countries engage with the international community. The first one is the so-called realist perspective, which emphasizes the role of power, national interests, and security in shaping foreign policy (Mearsheimer, 1995). In this model, countries act in their self-interest, and often in competition or even conflict with other countries. Strategic alliances and a willingness to use force to advance one’s interests are contemplated under this perspective. The second approach is the idealist perspective, in which foreign policy is used to promote democratic values, human rights, and international cooperation, prioritizing tools such as diplomacy, international law, and multilateral institutions (Lancaster, 2008). For countries at the receiving end of major powers’ foreign policy agendas, and particularly for developing countries, the implications from the contrasting approaches will be widely different. While even a realist foreign policy may ostensibly incorporate concerns about the welfare and development of its allies, these are often not more than a thin disguise for the ultimate objective of buying political support and commercial advantages. A genuine interest in the welfare and development of receiving partners only finds a place under the idealist perspective, although even idealism is at times claimed to “greenwash” state actors’ own interests (Delmas and Burbano, 2011). While this claim has some substance to it, such accusations can also stem from the anti-western rhetoric typically pursued by Russia and aimed at undermining the credibility of actors with good intentions.

In practice, most countries’ foreign policies incorporate elements of both realism and idealism, although the balance between the two may vary. Some countries may have a predominantly realist approach, while others may prioritize idealist goals. Additionally, the same country may shift its approach over time, depending on changing circumstances and priorities. Idealism may be more prominent during periods of stability and prosperity, when countries have the resources and political will to pursue more ambitious foreign policy goals. Realism tends to become more prominent in times of crisis, when countries face serious threats to their national security or economic well-being. Historical examples of the latter are the aftermath of World War II, the Cold War, and even the 2008 global financial crisis (Roberts, 2020).

Comparative Analysis of Foreign Influence

A few studies, recent enough to encompass Russia’s renewed interest in Africa post-2015 but not enough to cover the current day resurgence, explicitly compare the strategy of different actors and their long-term influence. Trunkos (2021) develops a new soft power measure for the time-period 1995–2015, to test the commonly accepted claim in the political science literature that American soft power use has been declining while Russian and Chinese soft power use has been increasing. In the author’s own words, “the findings indicate that surprisingly the US is still using more soft power than Russia and China. The data analysis also reveals that the US is leading in economic soft power actions over China and in military soft power actions over Russia as well.”

Castaneda Dower et al. (2021) take a longer-term perspective and categorize African countries into two blocs one Western-leaning and one pro-Soviet, based on a game-theoretical model of alliances. This categorization aligns well with UN voting patterns during the Cold War, but it does not predict alignment as effectively in the post-Cold War period. The study finds no significant difference in average GDP growth between the two blocs for the period from 1990 to 2016. However, the bloc with Western-like characteristics shows higher levels of inequality and greater reliance on the market economy – as opposed to the planned one. It also has higher human capital, more gender parity (in education), and better democracy scores, but lower infrastructure capital compared to the other bloc.

Another strand of literature has looked into the deep changes that have occurred over time within the global development architecture, highlighting changes in donor and partner motivations after the end of the Cold War (Boschini and Olofsgård, 2007; Frot, Olofsgård and Perrotta Berlin, 2014), through the Arab Spring (Challand, 2014), and more recently under the emergence of new actors, chiefly China (Blair, Marty and Roessler, 2021). Studies in this area aim to highlight what implications the varying ideologies and motivation for cooperation in the donor countries have for countries at the receiving end. Competing aid regimes generate soft power through public diplomacy, often in the form of branding (for instance through putting origin “flags” on aid projects or investments). This type of positive association has been shown to generate ‘positive affect’ toward donors (Andrabi and Das, 2010), and to strengthen recipients’ perceptions of the models of governance and development that such donors promote – liberal democracy, for example, or free market capitalism (Blair, Marty and Roessler, 2021).

Emerging Players on the African Stage

An extensive literature has examined the various facets of established power actors’ presence on the continent, spanning foreign aid, diplomatic relations, and military involvement, revealing significant impacts on local economic development through multiple channels. The United States, along with other former colonial powers and major Western donors, plays a particularly prominent role in this context. Against this background, recent research has increasingly focused on the rise of new actors, and in particular China’s expanding role as a donor and investor in Africa (Bluhm, 2018; Brautigam, 2008; Brazys, Elkink and Kelly, 2017; Dreher et al. 2018). While the consensus is still unclear on whether China’s approach to aid attracts support among African citizens (Lekorwe et al. 2016; Blair, Marty, and Roessler, 2021), recent research also shows that Chinese aid exacerbates corruption and undermines collective bargaining in recipient countries (Isaksson and Kotsadam 2018a; 2018b).

As mentioned, there are as yet very few recent articles concerned with the reasons for Russia’s renewed interest in Africa (see Marten, 2019; Akinlolu and Ogunnubi, 2021; Ramani, 2023), and even fewer analyzing the potential impacts from it. One working paper, not citable due to the authors’ wishes, has quantitatively mapped and explicitly analyzed the impact of Russian military presence (in particular, of the Wagner Group) in Africa. The study found that the infamous paramilitary group faces fewer repercussions for human rights violations and commits more lethal actions than the state actors that employ them. In another recent study on the Central African Republic (CAR), Gang et al. (2023) found not only mortality levels in CAR to be four times higher than what estimated by the UN but also that Wagner mercenaries have contributed to “increased difficulties of survival” for the population in affected areas. Pardyak, M. (2022) explores the communication strategies employed by the key actors in the war, specifically focusing on how these strategies are received in African societies. Based on the analysis of over 140 media articles published in several African countries up to 15 October 2022, complemented by street surveys in Cairo, and in-depth interviews with Egyptians and Sudanese migrants, the study concludes that Russia’s multipolar perspective on the international order is more widely supported in Africa than Western strategies.

When viewed in a historical context, however, Russia’s actions reflect a longstanding adherence to a realist approach in its foreign policy endeavors. Throughout its trajectory, Russia has consistently prioritized national security and economic interests, frequently leveraging military and economic means to safeguard these interests (Tsygankov and Tsygankov, 2010). Presently, amid mounting pressures from the Western democratic world following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia finds itself increasingly reliant on a realist approach. While the Chinese engagement in Africa is also characterized by realist principles, it’s important to emphasize that the Russian approach diverges from that of China. China is focused on a long-term presence, infrastructure building and investments. It has no interest in democracy and human rights, is efficient and cheap though not always loved (Isaksson and Kotsadam, 2018b). Russia’s interest is more short term and opportunistic, seeking out countries rich in natural resources with unstable governments and weak institutions, such as Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, the Central African Republic, Mali, Burkina Faso and Madagascar. Russia typically targets undemocratic elites or military juntas, offering political support, military equipment sales, and security cooperation (in particular through the Wagner Group) in exchange for access to natural resources, concession rights and influence. State of the art research on a previous period (Berman et al., 2017, spanning 1997 to 2010), although not exclusively focused on Russia, finds that rents from mineral contracts, captured by swings in global mineral prices for a causal interpretation, lead to a higher likelihood of local conflicts, and furthermore that the control of mining areas by rebel groups can escalate violence beyond the local level.

Russia is pursuing a range of strategic goals that include diplomatic legitimization, media influence, military presence, elite influence, arms export, and shaping voting patterns in international organizations (Lindén, 2023). Like China, Russia is uninterested in democracy or human rights. Moreover, what Russia stands for is in stark contrast to the Western model. Russia embodies autocracy and backward revisionist values (for instance in areas such as attitudes to gender equality and the sustainability agenda) while the West generally promotes democracy and progressive inclusive solutions (Lindén, 2023). What also especially characterizes Russia is the particular attraction towards the presence of anti-West sentiment, which it fuels through populistic anti-colonial disinformation and propaganda. This approach has been criticized for potentially weakening democratic norms and sidelining African agency (Akinlolu and Ogunnubi, 2021). Additionally, Russia’s disregard for the socio-political realities in Africa, typically associated with a self-interested realist approach, can lead to ineffective engagement and unintended negative consequences, undermining the long-term sustainability of both social and economic developments in the region.

Conclusion

Many African countries find themselves in a delicate balancing act, as they cannot afford to push away Russia nor displease their historical Western partners. This attempt to balance between actors poses several risks and potentially detrimental consequences, including reduced development cooperation, slower democratization, limited progress on human rights, and increased conflicts. Additionally, Russia’s growing presence in Africa can have implications for the interests and policies of the European Union (EU) and its member states as well as global actors, including impacts on migration, terrorism, the energy sector as well as on trade and aid flows.

In light of the diverse strategies foreign powers use in their relations with African countries and the significant impact these strategies have, it is crucial to deepen our understanding of foreign engagements in Africa. By examining Russia’s distinct approach alongside those of other global actors, we can gain valuable insights into the complex dynamics shaping the continent’s political, economic, and social landscape, both now and in the future. Expanding research in this area is not only desirable but essential for informing policy and development strategies.

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

New Insights Concerning the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Posted on November 15, 2021 | Policy Brief

Image with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn representing his work and Nobel Prize

The recently declassified proceedings of the Swedish Academy shed new light on why it awarded Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn the literature prize in 1970. His novels reflected unique experiences of many prisoners. The Academy characterized his work as a renewal of the great Russian literary tradition. On the other hand, Soviet authorities prohibited publication of his novels, however, they were widely circulated underground or published abroad. We now know that his novel In the First Circle as it was published in 1968 was only a shortened version that Solzhenitsyn had hoped would pass the censorship. The complete version, published recently in many languages, gives an even better inside picture of the Soviet state, its leaders and ordinary citizens, and thus strengthen the Academy’s motivations for the award.

The decisions by the Nobel prize committees are declassified after fifty years. Therefore, we recently got a better insight on the motivations by the Academy for giving the 1970 prize in literature to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The proceedings of the Academy add to what was known at the time, from leakages to the press and rumours by initiated persons. Remarkable Western journalists and scholars could describe the main events in the Soviet cultural life surrounding Solzhenitsyn and the Nobel prize. (Saraskina 2008; Scammell 1984). What has now been revealed from the Academy archives are the opinions of the Academy members and in particular the motivations in the propositions submitted in 1969–70 from entitled personalities.

The decision to award Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn the 1970 Nobel Prize in literature was preceded by his own struggle in the USSR to make his novels available to a wider public. In the last year of the Second World War, he was sentenced for allegedly subversive correspondence with another officer in the Red Army. Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to a long term in the camps. However, much of this time he spent in a special design bureau operated by MGB, the secret services’ so-called “sharashki”. After his release, Solzhenitsyn worked as teacher in a distant province. Here, he managed to write novels and short stories, based on what he had himself experienced or heard from other prisoners. He must, of course, keep his writings secret.

With the “thaw” under Nikita Khrushchev in the early 1960s, an opening was found for Solzhenitsyn to get his short story “A Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich” published in the renowned journal Novyi Mir. It seemed that he would then get his novels published; a contract was given for the novel The Cancer Ward (Rakovyi korpus). However, the literature climate changed as Khrushchev was ousted in 1964. The authorities stopped all plans to publish Solzhenitsyn’s works. In those days, there circulated many transcripts of unpublished works, in the so-called samizdat. It is even today an open question, for researchers, just how many hundreds or even thousands of readers throughout the Soviet Union were in those days familiar with literature that the censorship authorities would not allow to be printed.

These hardened attitudes of the Communist authorities only spurred Solzhenitsyn to have his works published abroad. He managed to organize a solid network for smuggling his manuscripts abroad, and to have responsible publishers contracted. In the late 1960s, The Cancer Ward – based on his observations during treatment in a Soviet hospital – and In the First Circle (V kruge pervom) – describing a design bureau where sentenced scientists were to develop high-technological equipment – were published in the USA and many countries in Europe.

His books were not only best-sellers, but highly esteemed by literary critics. Already in 1969, the Swedish Academy received applications from their authorized contributors, that the Nobel prize in literature be awarded to Solzhenitsyn. The Academy member and author Lars Gyllensten formulated a detailed analysis of Solzhenitsyn’s books. He emphasized Solzhenitsyn’s talent for psychologically pertinent portraits of a plethora of individuals in the most extreme conditions. However, in 1969, the Swedish Academy decided to award its literature prize to Samuel Beckett, as a dramatist with a much longer career. The next year, Francois Mauriac (Nobel laureate in 1952) jointly with a group of influential French authors formulated a proposition concerning Solzhenitsyn to the Academy. It had also received an anonymous Prize proposition written by a dozen members of the Soviet Union of Authors who emphasized the pathbreaking character of Solzhenitsyn’s novels. After deliberations within the Swedish academy, with only one dissenting member, it was announced that the 1970 prize in literature was awarded to Solzhenitsyn.

The Soviet authorities had a dilemma. In 1965, the appraised Soviet novelist Mikhail Sholokhov had received the prize in Stockholm and lectured here on his renowned novel And Quiet flows the Don (Tikhii Don). On the other hand, in 1958, the equally famous Boris Pasternak was nominated for his novel Doctor Zhivago. However, Pasternak was forced, under humiliating circumstances, to renounce the prize. The situation in 1970 for Solzhenitsyn thus presented several dilemmas. He rightly feared, as the nowadays available documents also confirm, that if he would go to the Nobel prize ceremony in Sweden, the Communist party leaders would most probably withdraw his citizenship and thus force him into exile. Consequently, he informed the Academy that he was honored and would accept the prize, but that he was not prepared to travel to Stockholm. Discussions with Swedish diplomats in Moscow concerned the alternative to arrange a ceremony at our embassy. Finally, this option was cancelled in 1971 when the chairman of the Swedish academy Karl Ragnar Gierow was denied a visa to the USSR.

Solzhenitsyn’s Later Path-breaking Contributions

In the meantime, Solzhenitsyn would continue his writing of the multi-volume historical novel The Red Wheel (Krasnoe Koleso) on the last period of Imperial Russia and his interpretation of the 1917 February revolution. He was also more engaged than before in publishing manifestoes and letters to the authorities, in a struggle against the oppressive regime. Much changed as more dissident voices in the Soviet Union manifested themselves in the early 1970s. A new landmark in Soviet literature would come in early 1974, with the publication of the first parts of The GULAG Archipelago. Although concerned Western readers had a vague notion of the Soviet camp system, Solzhenitsyn had managed to assemble hundreds of eye-witness stories from former prisoners that really shocked the public. In France and several other countries, the intellectual climate changed dramatically as The GULAG Archipelago made its imprint. In the 1980s, it was not yet possible to undertake serious historical research on the Soviet penitential, prison and camp system. Only with glasnost and Gorbachev’s perestroika was the seal on the secret archives opened and many of Solzhenitsyn’s originally earth-shaking revelations could be put into a solid factual framework. We now know who the more than two hundred personalities were who had sent Solzhenitsyn their stories in the early 1960s, as they had read his “Ivan Denisovich” short story. Solzhenitsyn’s guesswork, in the absence of statistics, concerning the economic significance of the GULAG camp system can instead be analyzed by the solid documentary collections from the archives (Jesipov 2018). A major contribution was made by the French historian Nicolas Werth and his colleagues, who jointly with archivists in Russia, assembled and wrote commentaries to the exhaustive, seven volumes Istoriia stalinskogo GULAGa. Solzhenitsyn’s original work undertaken under the direst possible circumstances stand out as pioneering. He could not even dream of having his manuscript fact-checked by experts, let alone read in wider circles. It deserves emphasis therefore that President Putin took the initiative to have an abridged version of The GULAG Archipelago edited for the Russian school. Solzhenitsyn’s widow, Natalia Dmitrovna accomplished this careful selection and added commentaries as necessary for young readers.

The 1970 Nobel Literature Prize Reconsidered in Hindsight

Finally, a reflection on how Swedish opinions on Solzhenitsyn has changed over time – from the enthusiastic reception in the 1960s of his novels to the skeptical attitude in the 1990s and early 2000s to Solzhenitsyn’s allegedly nationalistic worldview. It cannot enough be emphasized under how horrible circumstances he wrote classical contributions to world literature. To take only one example. If the Swedish Academy – hypothetically – had known the original version of The First Circle, and not only the abridged version published in the late 1960s, with its far less political implications, they could with even greater emphasis have nominated him for the Literature Prize. It demands a lot from contemporary readers to imagine how one man like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who even in his early age in the late 1930s dreamt of writing novels on the Russian revolution, after much suffering in the camps managed to vividly describe, in the novels here presented, the many-faceted Soviet system from inside its prisons, camps and deportation cities.

References

  • Carlisle, Olga, Solzhenitsyn and the Secret Circle, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1978.
  • Jesipov, Valerii, Kniga, obmanuvshaya mir: Ob “Arkhipelage GULAG” A. Solzhenitsyna nachistotu, Moscow: Letnii Sad, 2018; Swedish abbridged translation Boken som lurade världen: Om Aleksandr Solzjenitsyns GULAG-arkipelagen, Stockholm 2020.
  • Ostrovskii, Aleksandr, Solzhenitsyn – Proshchanie s mifom, (Farewell to the Myth) Moscow: Jauza 2004.
  • Samuelson, Lennart, ”Nya ingångar i Solzjenitsyns Nobelpris när sekretessen hävs”, Respons, 3/2021, http://tidskriftenrespons.se/artikel/nya-ingangar-i-solzjenitsyns-nobelpris-nar-sekretessen-havs/.
  • Saraskina,:Liudmila, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Moscow: Molodaya Gvardija 2008;
  • Saraskina, Liudmila (ed.), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Vzgliad iz XXI veka: materialy Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii, posviashchennoi 100-letiiu so dnia rochdeniia, Moscow, Russkii Put, 2019.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Enemies of the People

Posted on May 24, 2021 | Policy Brief

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From the early days of the Soviet Union, the regime designated the educated elite as Enemies of the People. They were political opponents and considered a threat to the regime. Between the late 1920s and early 1950s, millions of enemies of the people were rounded up and forcedly resettled to remote locations within the GULAG, a system of labor camps spread across the Soviet Union. In recent research (Toews and Vezina, 2021), we show that these forced relocations have long-term consequences on local economies. Places close to camps that hosted more enemies of the people among prisoners are more prosperous today. We suggest that this result can be explained by the intergenerational transmission of education and a resulting positive effect on local development, which can still be observed to this day.

Historical Background

Targeting the educated elite, collectively referring to them as Enemies of the People and advocating their imprisonment, can be traced back to the beginning of the Russian Revolution in 1917. After consolidating power a decade later, Stalin launched the expansion of the GULAG system, which at its peak consisted of more than a hundred camps with over 1.5 million prisoners (see Figure 1). A large number of historians extensively described this dark episode in Russian history (Applebaum (2012), Khlevniuk (2004), and Solzhenitsyn (1974)). During the darkest hours of this episode, the Great Terror, 1.5 million enemies were arrested in just about two years. While half were executed immediately, the other half were forcedly allocated to GULAG camps spread across the Soviet Union and mixed with non-political prisoners (see Figure 2). Enemies accounted for about a third of GULAG prisoners after the Great Terror. As a result, education levels were higher in the GULAG than in society. In 1939, the share of GULAG prisoners with tertiary education was 1.8%, while, according to the Soviet Census of the same year, only 0.6% of the population had tertiary education.

After Stalin’s death, labor camps started closing rapidly, but many ex-prisoners settled close to the campsites. New cities were created and existing cities in the proximity of camps started growing fast (Mikhailova, 2012). Enemies remained once freed for a combination of political, economic, and psychological reasons. Politically, they were constrained in their choice of location by Stalin-era restrictions on mobility. Economically, they had few outside options and could keep on working for the camps’ industrial projects. On the psychological level, prisoners had become attached to the location of the camp, as Solzhenitsyn (1974) clearly puts it: “Exile relieved us of the need to choose a place of residence for ourselves, and so from troublesome uncertainties and errors. No place would have been right, except that to which they had sent us.”.

Figure 1. Location and size of camps in the Soviet Gulag system

Notes: The circles are proportional to the prisoner population of camps. The data is from the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) and Memorial

Enemies of the People and Local Prosperity

At the heart of our analysis is a dataset on GULAG camps which we collected at the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). It allows us to differentiate between prisoners who were imprisoned for political reasons (Enemies of the People) and those arrested for non-political crimes. The share of enemies varied greatly across camps, and we argue that this variation was quasi-random. We back this up by the historical narrative, according to which the resettlement process was driven by political rather than economic forces, suggesting that strategic placements played little role in the allocation of enemies (Khlevniuk (1995) and Ertz (2008)). Moreover, while the forced nature of allocation to camps allows us to rule out endogenous location decisions, we also show that neither economic activities nor geographic attributes, such as climatic conditions, soil quality, or the availability of resources, predict the share of enemies across camps.

To estimate the long-run effects of enemies on local prosperity, we link the location of camps in 1952, the year before Stalin’s death and at the peak of the GULAG system, to post-Soviet data covering the period 2000-2018.

Figure 2. The rise and fall of the Gulag

Notes: The solid line shows the number of Gulag camps while the dashed line shows the total number of prisoners in the Gulag. The two vertical dash lines indicate the years that can define the start and end of the Gulag, starting with Stalin’s 5-year plan in 1928 and ending with Stalin’s death in 1953. The shaded areas show specific periods of marked change for the Gulag, starting with dekulakization in 1929, when when Stalin announced the liquidation of the kulaks as a class and 1.8 million well-off peasants were relocated or executed. The Great Terror of 1936-1938, also referred to as the Great Purge, is the most brutal episode under Stalin’s rule, when 1.5 million enemies were arrested, and half of them executed. The Gulag’s prisoner population went down during WW2, as non-political prisoners were enlisted in the Red Army, and as the conditions in camps deteriorated and mortality increased. Source: Memorial.

In particular, the camp level information is linked to the location of firms from the Russian firm census (2018), data on night-lights (2000-2015), as well as data from household and firm-level surveys (2016 and 2011-2014, respectively). Our results suggest that one standard deviation (28 percentage point) increase in the share of enemies of the people increases night-lights intensity per capita by 58%, profits per employee by 65%, and average wages by 22%. A large number of specifications confirm the relationship depicted in Figure 3, which illustrates the positive association between the share of enemies across camps and night-lights intensity per capita.

Figure 3. Share of enemies vs. night lights per capita across Gulags

Notes: The scatters show the relationship between the share of enemies in camps in 1952 and night lights per capita within 30 km of camps in 2000 and 2015. Each circle is a 30km-radius area around a camp, and the size of the circles is proportional to the camps’ prisoner populations. The biggest circle is Khabarovsk. The solid lines show the linear fit, and the shaded areas show the 95% confidence interval. Areas near camps with a higher share of enemies have brighter night lights per capita both in 2000 and 2015. The data on Gulags is from the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) and the data on night lights is from the DMSP-OLS satellite program and made available by the Earth Observation Group and the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center. The data on population is from the gridded population of the world from SEDAC.

Intergenerational Transmission

We suggest that the relationship between enemies and modern prosperity is due to the long-run persistence of high education levels, notably via intergenerational transmission, and their role in increasing firm productivity. For the identification of the intergenerational link, we rely on a household survey collected by the EBRD in which interviewees are explicitly asked whether their grandparents have been imprisoned for political reasons during Soviet times. Exploiting this information, we show that the grandchildren of enemies of the people are today relatively more educated. We also find that grandchildren of enemies are more likely to be residing near camps that had a higher share of enemies of the people among prisoners in 1952. An alternative explanation for our results could be that the leadership of the Soviet Union may have strategically chosen to invest more during the post-GULAG period in locations that had received more enemies to exploit complementarities between human and physical capital. We find no evidence for this mechanism. We document that Soviet investment in railroads, factories of the defence industry, or universities was, if anything, lower in places with a large share of enemies.

Conclusion

We show that the massive and forced re-allocation of human capital that took place under Stalin had long-run effects on local development. Sixty years after the death of Stalin and the demise of the GULAG, areas around camps that had a higher share of enemies are richer today, as captured by firms’ wages and profits, as well as by night-lights per capita. We argue that the education transferred from forcedly displaced enemies of the people to their children and grandchildren partly explains variation in prosperity across localities of Russia. This can be seen as a historical natural experiment that identifies the long-run persistence of higher education and its effect on long-run prosperity. Sadly, it also highlights how atrocious acts by powerful individuals can shape the development path of localities over many generations.

Bibliography

  • Applebaum, A., Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps, Penguin Books Limited, 2012.
  • Ertz, Simon. Making Sense of the Gulag: Analyzing and Interpreting the Function of the Stalinist Camp System. No. 50. PERSA Working Paper, 2008.
  • Khlevnyuk, Oleg, “The objectives of the Great Terror, 1937–1938.” In Soviet History, 1917–53, pp. 158-176. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1995.
  • Khlevnyuk, Oleg, The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror Annals of Communism, Yale University Press, 2004.
  • Mikhailova, Tatiana, “Gulag, WWII and the long-run patterns of Soviet city growth,” 2012.
  • Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-56: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, New York: Harper Row, 1973.
  • Toews, Gerhard, and Pierre-Louis Vézina. “Enemies of the people.” (2021).

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

New Light on the Eastern Front – Contributions from Russia to the 70th Anniversary of the Victory in Europe in World War Two

Posted on May 4, 2015 | Policy Brief

Author: Lennart Samuelson, SITE.

Interesting results of the post-Soviet research on the Second World War are now presented in 12 imposing volumes, Velikaia Otechestvennaia Voina 1941 –1945 (Great Patriotic War 1941–45) written by specialists in military, political, international and economic history. Each chapter reflects the research frontier. Their style contrasts positively against Soviet works during the Cold War, and also against renewed anti-Russian historical campaigns in the West in recent years. Open archives, abolition of censorship, freedom of print as well as joint projects with Western scholars are the preconditions for progress in the historiography of Russia in the 20th century in general and of the Eastern Front during World War Two in particular.

Does Immigration Help Diffuse Knowledge? Evidence from Russian Scientists

Posted on November 24, 2014 | Policy Brief

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Author: Ina Ganguli, SITE.

Immigration is a hotly contested policy issue in many countries. Often, the debate centers on whether immigration is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for the receiving country. A growing literature in economics focuses on understanding whether immigrants can be beneficial for a receiving economy by helping spread knowledge and increasing innovative activities. In this policy brief, I discuss new evidence showing that immigrants can be an important channel for diffusing knowledge across national borders. Drawing upon the influx of Russian scientists to the United States after the end of the Soviet Union, I present compelling evidence that immigrants contributed to cross-border knowledge flows, which are the basis for innovation and ultimately economic growth.