SEND International Christian World Missions - Siberia

Russian Conquest

Although Russian traders from Novgorod crossed the Urals to the east as early as the 13th century to trade in furs with native tribes, the Russian conquest of Siberia began much later. Czar Ivan IV's capture of the Kazan khanate in 1552 opened the way for Russian expansion into Siberia. In 1581, a band of Cossacks under Yermak crossed the middle Urals and took the city of Sibir (near modern Tobolsk), capital of the Sibir khanate, which gave its name to the entire region. Russia's conquest of the Tatar khanate was completed in 1598, and during the 17th century, Russia annexed all of western Siberia.

The Cossacks rapidly penetrated eastward by land and river, building a string of small fortresses and levying tribute for Moscow from the sparse population in the form of precious furs. By 1640, they had reached the Sea of Okhotsk, an arm of the Pacific Ocean, and soon afterward, they collided with Chinese troops. By the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689), Russia abandoned to China the region later known as the Far Eastern Territory (Russian Far East), which was ceded to Russia only from 1858 to 1860. The Chinese still have a claim over parts of the border, including islands in the Ussuri River.

Russian Settlement and Administration

Russian settlement of Siberia was spurred by groups of zemleprokhodtsy (literally, "crossers of land"), who came mostly from north European Russia and traversed the easy portages linking the east-west Siberian river systems to pioneer new forts and trading communities. A colony of the Russian Empire, Siberia was administered by a colonial office based first in Moscow and later (after its founding in 1703) in the new Russian capital of St. Petersburg.

Although military governors collected tribute, they interfered little with native Siberian customs and religions. The smaller, weaker ethnic groups succumbed to Russian influence, and larger tribes such as the Kazakhs and Yakuts thrived, reaping material benefits under Russian administration. Siberian furs constituted an important source of wealth for Russia and figured prominently in Russian trade with Western Europe. These furs, along with customs duties levied on all Siberian raw materials acquired by Russian entrepreneurs, more than reimbursed the state for the costs of its Siberian conquest and administration.

With the decline of the fur trade in the early 18th century, mining became the chief economic activity in Siberia. The state was the chief entrepreneur, but wealthy private families were also involved. Silver, lead, and copper mining began around 1700; gold mining did not develop until the 1830s. Forced labor in the mines (often using convicts), proved generally unproductive. The gold miners were usually free laborers. Siberian agriculture was stimulated in the late 16th and 17th century by the needs of the Russian military and administrative personnel who were stationed there.

From the early 17th century, Siberia was used as a penal colony and a place of exile for political prisoners. Among the latter, there emerged a small but vocal Siberian intelligentsia, who agitated for an end to Siberia's colonial status. Meanwhile, Russian colonizers continued to push southward, establishing forts along the steppes to thwart nomadic raids. Newly emancipated (1861) Russian serfs were allowed to take free possession of Siberian land, but they received little state assistance and suffered intolerable hardships.

Russian settlement of Siberia on a large scale began only with the construction (1892––1905) of the Trans-Siberian railroad, after which the eastward migratory movement reached major proportions. P. A. Stolypin, the interior minister under Nicholas II, made a special effort to reduce rural overpopulation in European Russia by encouraging Siberian colonization. The railroad also enabled European Russia to obtain cheap grain from western Siberia and butter from the Baraba Steppes. The railroad's needs spurred the development of coal mining and the opening of repair shops. Before the Russian Revolution, however, Siberia contributed only a minute fraction to Russia's industrial output, mainly in the form of gold.

During the Revolution

Siberia played a key role in the Russian civil war of 1918––20. An autonomous Siberian government formed in early 1918 was soon superseded by the regime of the counterrevolutionary Admiral A. V. Kolchak, who made his capital at Omsk. The White forces were aided by contingents of czarist political exiles and by the Czech Legion, a group of Austrian army deserters who had hoped to fight alongside the czarist army. In August of 1918, a U.S., British, French, and Japanese expeditionary force joined the anti-Bolshevik units in Siberia. The main purpose of this allied expedition was probably to prevent the German use of Siberian resources during World War I. Most of Siberia was in White hands by late 1918, but Czar Nicholas II and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks at Yekaterinburg that year. Early in 1920, Admiral Kolchak's government collapsed, and he was executed.

Under the Soviets

Under the Soviet government, Siberia, especially the Ural-Kuznetsk complex, underwent dramatic economic development. Under the First Five-Year Plan (1928––33), forced labor was instrumental in mining coal and building the iron and steel complex of the Kuznetsk Basin. In addition, part of the agricultural colonization of Siberia was carried out by the forced resettlement of large segments of the Russian rural population, notably the expropriated kulaks (wealthier peasants). As a result, Siberia's population doubled between 1914 and 1946. Forced labor was also employed extensively in the east Siberian gold mines. Parts of the vast Siberian concentration and forced labor camp network established by Stalin may still exist, but many of the political prisoners have been released by Mikhail Gorbachev.

Siberia's economic development increased dramatically during World War II with the transfer of many industries from European USSR to the other side of the Urals, where they would be less vulnerable to German seizure. Siberian grain was essential in enabling the Soviet Union to resist the German wartime onslaught despite the loss of valuable agricultural areas in western USSR.

Postwar industrialization of Siberia continued at a rapid pace, with special concentration on southwest Siberia and the Lake Baikal region. Siberian agriculture, which suffered during the Stalinist collectivization campaign, was revived in the mid-1950s by Premier Khrushchev's "virgin lands" program, which focused on cultivation of the steppes of southwest Siberia and northern Kazakhstan. The Seven-Year Plan (1958––65) emphasized construction of large thermal and hydroelectric power plants in Siberia and elsewhere.

The resulting destruction of natural areas and the gross waste of natural resources led to a strong environmental opposition. Centered on the issue of the polluting of Lake Baikal, Siberian environmental groups became some of the first organizations to challenge the Communist party's decisions openly. Indigenous peoples also protested the destruction of their autonomous regions. With the fall of the USSR, Siberia became more open to foreign travel and trade, while local Siberians sought to distance themselves from the Russian government in Moscow.