Russia: Old and Young

he earliest Russian state, Kievan Rus, arose in the 9th century, with the different Slavonic tribes molded into an ambitious Russian nation within its borders. In the year 988, the young state adopted Christianity.

The state, however, fell apart in the 12th century through the efforts of feuding princes and princelings, who came to rule over their home-turf principalities (and a republic in Novgorod) at Vladimir-Suzdal, Galicia-Volynia, and a host of smaller lands.

With the princes constantly intriguing against one another, the Russian lands failed to pool enough forces together and coordinate their efforts in repelling the invasion by Tatars in the opening decades of the 13th century. The Russians paid the price for their princes' feud with nearly 250 years of life under Tatar control, known in Russian history as the Tatar Yoke, which brought immeasurable suffering and incalculable losses among the population and inflicted tremendous damage on the land's economic, political and cultural development. A crippling blow to the invaders was dealt in 1380 by the united forces of allied Russian lands under Grand Prince Dmitry of Moscow, better known as Dmitry Donskoi in tribute for his resounding victory over the enemy on the Kulikovo Field in the upper reaches of the Don River. Another 100 years were to elapse, however, before the Russians cast off the Yoke.

Between the 14th and 16th centuries, Moscow gathered around it a centralized state that included all Russian lands in the Northeast and Northwest. In historic terms, this was the core of the Great Russian nation.

Early in the 17th century, Russia fought off the Polish-Lithuanian and Swedish intervention, and in mid-century Ukraine wrested itself free from Polish domination to join Russia in a unified and greatly expanded state.

Traditionally introvert and self-reliant, Russia received a powerful boost in political, economic, social and cultural development, including revolutionary reforms in the army, in the reign of Peter the Great, who ruled from the late 17th century into the third decade of the 18th century. The Russians' momentous victories in the Northern War between 1700 and 1721 gave the nation free access to the Baltic sea it had been seeking and fighting for over centuries. The country's bulging muscles and its newly acquired "window on the West", stirred diplomatic activity and closer links between Russia and other countries, particularly in Western Europe.

By pursuing a policy of expansion and development of territories in the North, down the full length of the Volga River, the Ural Mountains and beyond, Siberia and as far as the Pacific coast, with many non-Russian areas joining the dynan-dc state of their own free will, Russia became a sprawling empire.

In the early 19th century, the Russian Empire stopped and rolled back, to their ultimate end, the armies of the French Emperor Napoleon I in what went down in Russian history as the 1812 Patriotic War.

A watershed in Russian history came in 1861 with the Peasant Reform which abolished serfdom, imposed since the late 16th century, and jolted Russia into a tempestuous economic development. In the closing decades of the 19th century, manufacturing burst forth, private business burgeoned, and banking and trade flourished. Also in that period, social disparities were coming to a head and discontent with autocracy was spreading.

The World War of 1914-1918 strained the powers of the Russian economy to the snapping point, and exhausted the country's material and financial resources. The setbacks and blunders tipped the social balances and plunged the nation into a deep crisis.

In October 1917, the Bolsheviks of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party under Vladimir Lenin came to power in a revolution that sealed the country's fate for decades ahead. The revolution was purported to eliminate social inequalities and build a socialist society, that was, in a longer run, to evolve into communism.

The different republics joined together to form a union, known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or the USSR, in December 1922.

Over the next 15 years, the ruling elite under Josef Stalin seized all the reins of power, forcing a totalitarian rule on the country. Dissidents were victimized and millions more were repressed. The top brass of the Red Army, the country's armed forces, was ruthlessly purged, sapping the nation's defensive potential. The political terror and lawlessness notwithstanding, the industries were rapidly modernized, the armed forces equipped with latter-day hardware, and industrial construction was launched on a vast scale.

An hour of trial for the nation struck in 1941, when the Soviet Union was attacked by Nazi Germany which had, after almost two years into World War II, most of Europe conquered. The war effort rallied the country to resist the aggression. Within a very short space of time, the country's resources were marshalled to repel the enemy. The gallantry of the fighting men, the skills of their generals, and the all-out effort of the entire nation contributed greatly to Germany's defeat in early May 1945.

The socialist idea peaked in the '60s, and then tumbled down to stagnation and eventual crisis. Managed by self-willed and smug bureaucrats, the country's economy was awash with red ink, hardly managing to trudge along by injections of hard currency earned by mineral exports; it was groaning under the heavy burden of defense expenditure and smarting under the criticism the world markets heaped on it for the uncompetitive quality of its products, especially consumer goods; many constructive initiatives were frowned upon, all aspects of society's life including foreign policy were squeezed into a tight ideological mold contrary to common sense, and dissidents were persecuted again. All this tied poorly with the trumpeted ideas of a bright future the country was out to build.

In the mid-80s, the country was confronted with the need to launch radical reforms in its economy and social and political structure. Mikhail Gorbachev, the Communist Party's General Secretary who later became the USSR President, led the drive to reform society. The refomis were an uphill struggle, however. As new social relations were taking hold, the economy sliunped, inflation heated up, the various political forces were locked in confrontation, social tensions rose, and ethnic conflicts erupted.

The agreement signed in the Belaya Vezha forest in Belorussia in mid-1991 by the leaders of several Soviet republics spelled the end of the Soviet Union. Russia became a successor to the Union's assets and liabilities.

Boris Yeltsin elected the first Russian President is solidly behind reforms and plans to revitalize Russian society. Privatization has since the election been pursued on a vast scale and private enterprise is asserting itself, not without hurdles to clear, in manufacturing, trade, banking and the service industry. The inflation rates have slowed down in recent months, the ruble exchange rate has stabilized, the slump in production has moderated its plummeting rate, bottoming out and even looking up in some industries.