Political Geography and its Problems

Political geography has no separate standing in the Soviet Union as a research or teaching discipline. An advocate of political geography calls for acceptance of this subject as a full-fledged member of the geographical sciences by outlining some of the problems with which such a discipline might deal in the Soviet Union. It would be concerned with the historical evolution and current changes in the political map of the world and the factors that give rise to both quantitative changes (in territory and boundaries) and qualitative changes (in political systems). Wars, diplomatic actions, dynastic alliances and territorial purchases are listed as some of the factors that result in boundary changes of national states. Revolutions and national liberation movements account for changes in political systems. Heavy emphasis is given to the study of internal political developments that may ultimately result in changes on the political map of the world. Political events throughout the world are analyzed in the light of Marxist-Leninist ideology, and political and social processes in the capitalist and socialist (communist) parts of the world are sharply differentiated.     

THE GEOGRAPHY OF OCEANS AND ITS BASIC PROBLEMS

The study of oceans as a subfield of geography has gained acceptance in the Soviet Union. Some universities have introduced courses in marine geography, and geographers have participated in oceanographic research voyages. An effort is made here to define the place of a marine geography within the geographic discipline as a whole, to set the spatial limits for geographical investigations of the oceans and to suggest problem areas suitable for geographical analysis. In keeping with the Soviet dichotomy, physical and economic geographic problems are distinguished. Physical-geographic problem areas would include study of oceanic water masses; large-scale interaction between oceans and atmosphere; study of island environments, and the biogeography of oceans. Economic geographic problems would focus both on theoretical aspects, such as spatial regularities in human activities related to oceans, and on applied aspects, providing a sound basis for economic development of ocean areas.     

SOCIALIST FEDERALISM AND SPATIAL EQUITY: REVIEW OF A DISCUSSION

The proceedings of a wide-ranging discussion at the Institute of Geography, Moscow on current political and territorial issues in the USSR are summarized by one of its participants. The key thrust of the discussion centered on the need to find ways of increasing the involvement of Soviet political and other geographers in the analysis of critical questions of Soviet federalism: the incongruence of political-administrative boundaries with ethnic and economic regions; the search for a viable division of authority among Moscow, the republics, and local soviets; mitigation of growing regional inequality engendered by perestroyka and regional khozraschet (translated by Jay K. Mitchell, PlanEcon, Inc., Washington, DC 20005).     

REPUBLICS OF THE FORMER USSR1 IN THE CONTEXT OF A UNITED EUROPE AND NEW WORLD ORDER

A comparative study investigates how individual Soviet republics would match up, as independent states, with other world countries with respect to various measures of size, economic well-being, quality of life, location, and resources. When a composite U.N. measure of development is employed, the majority of Soviet republics are on par with the poorest countries of the European Community or the most advanced developing states. Possible analogues to the Soviet situation (i.e., disintegrating past empires or states with similar political geographic characteristics) are identified for further study.     

地缘政治关系简析

本文从地缘政治学分析国际政治大国与全球地理环境之间的关系实质,即地理位置、综合国力和战略利益在地域政治体系中的相互联系、制约和影响,及变化规律.     

APPROACHES TO THE USE AND CONTROL OF FORCE THE ART OF POSING STRATEGIC PROBLEMS

There is a risk that the threat of nuclear war will be exaggerated in ways injurious to arms control and will deliver to the Soviet leadership the political returns it may be seeking. This undesirable outcome is the result of logical tricks we play on ourselves in trying to be very precise about factors like the accuracy of missiles. It is also the result of the peculiar assymmetry of the discussion of strategic matters, as all of the publicity work for Soviet weapons accomplishments is done by the press and governments of the West. Proposals for remedy would be to watch our own habits of logic, so that we do not persuade ourselves that our weapons capability or our political resolve are weak, and to force the Soviets to produce more information about their strategic capabilities.     

EVALUATION OF SPATIAL DIFFERENCES IN THE SETTING OF NORMATIVE GUIDELINES FOR PLANNING AND CONSTRUCTION

Official normative guidelines used in the Soviet Union in the design, planning and construction of economic development projects are not adequately differentiated to reflect regional differences in physical and socio-economic conditions. The guidelines are closely tied in with the country's administrative structure, and tend to be spatially more specific in areas where the administrative structure is fine-meshed, and less specific where the structure if wide-meshed. Accordingly, there is a particularly urgent need for enhancing the regional reliability of normative documents in the Asian part of the Soviet Union, especially Siberia, where normative data often apply to vast areas with widely differing physical and socio-economic settings. A set of geographical coefficients is proposed to correct existing normative indicators. Illustrative examples are given.     

THE GEOGRAPHY OF ELECTIONS OF USSR PEOPLE'S DEPUTIES BY NATIONAL-TERRITORIAL DISTRICTS AND THE NATIONALITIES ISSUE

A Soviet political geographer analyzes elections to the USSR Congress of People's Deputies (March 26, 1989), based on returns from nationality-based electoral districts from which one-third of all deputies were elected (see Soviet Geography, October 1989 special issue). Topics investigated include problems in the partitioning of electoral districts (including analysis of the tendency toward the under-representation of cities relative to rural areas), the number of candidates vying for each deputy seat in various districts, the backgrounds of winning and losing candidates, and the extent to which elected deputies mirrored the nationality composition of their respective electoral districts. Translated by Jay K. Mitchell, PlanEcon, Inc., Washington, DC 20005.     

Is there a future for the past? An overview of archaeology in western Russia and Ukraine

The current political and economic situation in Russia and Ukraine poses grave dangers for the archaeological and museum professionals who guard these nations' legacies. At the moment that political barriers to Western collaboration were removed, new problems have crippled the post-Soviet archaeological community. Concurrently, Westerners tend to misunderstand Soviet and post-Soviet archaeological theory, forgetting that techniques such as lithic microwear and taphonomic analysis were introduced by Soviet scholars. New discoveries are described in three general categories: the origins of food-producing economies in western Russia and Ukraine, the evolution of surprisingly large towns in Copper Age Ukraine, and the origins of pastoralism in the Russian and Ukrainian steppes.     

SOVIET ASIAN-PACIFIC TRADE AND THE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

During the 1970s and early 1980s it was generally accepted, by both Soviet and Western specialists, that in the Soviet Far East the expansion of exports to the nations of the Pacific Basin offered a solution to the region's economic problems. However, recent policy statements suggest the rejection of this export-led development strategy. This study examines the changing structure and dynamics of Soviet trade with the Asian-Pacific region. At present, for a combination of economic and political reasons, Soviet trade with the Asian-Pacific region is dominated by exports of machinery and equipment and petroleum to the socialist nations of the region, inasmuch as Japanese demand for Soviet natural resources is stagnant. Therefore, because of the resource orientation of the Far Eastern economy, contemporary trade relations do not favor the expansion of the Soviet Far Eastern export base. Consequently, the future role of the region in the national economic system will be determined largely by the availability of domestic capital investment funds.     

The critical geopolitics of the Uzbekistan–Kyrgyzstan Ferghana Valley boundary dispute, 1999–2000

In 1999 the Uzbekistan–Kyrgyzstan Ferghana Valley boundary became a brutal reality in the lives of borderland inhabitants, when it became the key issue in a crisis of inter-state relations. Mainstream explanations have suggested that the Soviet boundary legacy and convergent post-Soviet macro-economic policies made conflict inevitable. Drawing on critical geopolitics theory, this paper questions the implicit determinism in these accounts, and seeks to augment them by a political analysis. It suggests that ‘the border crisis’ was the product of the interaction of complex domestic power struggles in both countries, the boundary itself acting as a material and discursive site where elites struggled for the power to inscribe conflicting gendered, nationalistic visions of geopolitical identity. It concludes by insisting upon a moral imperative to expose and challenge the geographical underpinnings of state violence.     

Results of the Third Congress of the Geographical Society of the USSR

A review of the IGU symposium on the history of geographical thought, held in July 1976 in Leningrad, discusses common themes in papers presented by Soviet geographers and foreign participants. In the view of the Soviet organizers, the foreign presentations were more concerned with the past than with the current impact of geography on socio-economic activities, which is said to distinguish the Soviet school of geography. The work of the symposium demonstrated that the ideas of geographical determinism had been largely abandoned. The presentations of foreign geographers suggested that they were still inadequately informed about the work of Soviet geographers despite ongoing translation programs.     

Study of the History of Geographical Ideas

Two recent books on the history of geographical ideas, by A. G. Isachenko of Leningrad University, and by Preston James of Syracuse University, are reviewed in the general context of the need for a textbook for courses now being taught at Soviet universities. The Isachenko book is criticized on the ground that it reduces the history of geographical ideas to a history of physical geography, ignoring the impact of human activity. James, who deals with the history of geographical ideas as a whole, is praised for having included a chapter on the new geography in the Soviet Union and on the innovative aspects of theoretical geography, such as systems theory, spatial systems, diffusion on studies, etc. In the reviewer's opinion, the two books need to be examined critically in connection with preparation of a text for a Soviet university course on the history and methodology of geography.     

Managing National Diversity through Political Structures and Ideologies: The Soviet Experience in Comparative Perspective

Abstract. The nationalisms faced by Gorbachev after 1985 were an outcome of Soviet policies, and most of them were not secessionist. Why, then, couldn't the Soviet state accommodate them? This article puts Soviet attempts to manage ethnic diversity into a comparative perspective, and looks at some of the ways in which the ideology and political structures of the USSR contributed to its failure to overcome its ethnic problems. Like other authoritarian states, the Soviet state was not based on consensus, and some of its policies exacerbated rather than diminished differences between ethnic groups. Moreover, the absence of intellectual and political pluralism, and the inflexibility of Soviet political structures made it difficult for the Soviet leadership to reconcile differences between the centre and the union republics and between ethnic groups, and this rigidity contributed to the disintegration of the USSR.     

Futurology in Soviet Geography

A review article of recent Soviet futurological articles in the geographical literature, suggesting the increased activity of Soviet geographers in the prognostication of the environmental effects of human activity. Several of the papers under review appeared in Soviet Geography: Review and Translation.     

国民党引入军队政工制度原因考

俄共十月革命后建立的”以党领军”的统军制度,为孙中山重新考量”以主义集合”军队提供了鲜活的参照物。受俄共政治工作的启发,孙中山1921—1922年特别注重对官兵进行政治教育。1922年6月,陈炯明的背叛说明,孙中山的政治工作观念存在致命缺陷。在苏俄的引导下,孙中山决心由党建军,1923年8月,以蒋介石为首的考察团赴俄。此次考察对国民党创建黄埔军校、改党建军,影响巨大。苏俄红军的政工制度成为国民党进行政治工作的模本,党代表制与政治部制是政工制度的两大组成部分。     

‘If the Teacher were a Man’: Masculinity and Power in Stalinist Schools

This article explores questions about identity among Soviet men teachers, about the construction of masculinity in the Stalinist context and more broadly about the significance of power in structuring gender identities. By examining the personal experience, classroom practices and political perspectives of a man teacher in a ‘women's profession’, this article demonstrates how masculine identity involved the exercise of power even in the context of a repressive political system. Focusing on the multiple layers embedded in the identity of one teacher makes possible a gender analysis of the political processes, social relations, and educational practices characteristic of the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Using an interview to understand the formation of masculinity illustrates how individual agency and subjectivity shaped and were shaped by the broader patterns and processes characteristic of Stalinism.     

地名变迁中的文化政治阐释——以从化温泉为例

最近三十年出现的地名研究的批判性转向,使地方命名的政治过程成为地名研究的核心议题。在此背景下通过从化温泉这一著名旅游地的地名变更过程的研究,对我国地名变迁的政治进行探讨。研究发现,一个地方的命名是一场复杂的政治经济角力过程。"从化温泉"这一地名在历史的演变中拥有了令人瞩目的"符号资本"价值,成为中国政治体制中不同尺度行动者积极争取的对象。处于上层尺度的行动者通过政治事件与营销不断累积"从化温泉"的政治符号意义,使其成为国家尺度的地方范畴。而处于下层的地方政府则通过地名转移使用赋予"从化温泉"以新的地方意义。在这场围绕地名的争夺中,地方社区与地名的历史联系被边缘化甚至消除。     

Geographical Problems in Climatology,Hydrology and Glaciology over the Last 50 Years

A survey of Soviet research focuses on climatic fluctuation and its causes, the geographical aspects of hydrology, and work on Arctic, Antarctic and mountain glaciation. The Physical-Geographic Atlas of the World, published in 1964, is used as an illustration of the result of Soviet research in these fields. Problems of transformation of the water budget and of climate are viewed as research fields of the future.