Asiacentrism (also Asiacentricity or Eastern-centrism) is a political ideology, an economic perspective, or an academic orientation with "a focus on Asia or on cultures of Asian origin." In some cases, this stance regards Asia to be either unique or superior
to other regions and takes the form of ascribing to Asia ethnocentric
significance or supremacy at the cost of the rest of the world. The
concept is often associated with a projected Asian Century, the expected economic dominance of Asia (primarily China) in the 21st century.
History
In 1902, Chinese scholar Liang Qichao
remarked that Asia is "immeasurably vast and mighty", compared to a
"shallow and small" Europe, as he predicted Asia to regain a powerful
position in the world.
In 1988, Deng Xiaoping coined the term 'Asian Century' during a meeting with Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi.
Some commentators have cited the effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Asia as a sign of superiority of Asia. Indian commentator Parag Khanna and UK politician David Howell noted that Asian societies evolved to technocratic governments which would be better at problem solving and provide more stability.
It is projected that the world's economic center of gravity will move back to Asia, between India and China by 2050, spurred by the economic growth of East Asian economies. Historically, the economic center of gravity is estimated to have been in what is nowadays northern Pakistan in the 11th century then having shifted to Bengal by 16th century and finally having moved west until the 1980s.
The combined GDP
of Asia is also projected to surpass that of the rest of the world
around 2020, a position which the continent had lost in the 19th
century.
According to a McKinsey Global Institute
report, Asia is entering the post-2019 era as 'the word's new
majority,' with Asia "accounting for more than half of the world's key
economic metrics."
Asian American studies
Paul Wong, Meera Manvi, and Takeo Hirota Wong proposed "Asiacentrism" in the 1995 special issue of Amerasia Journal on "Thinking Theory in Asian American Studies." They envisioned Asiacentrism both as a critique of hegemonic Eurocentrism
in theory building in the humanities and social sciences and as a
post-Orientalist epistemological paradigm in Asian American Studies.
There is a need to tap into Asian traditions of thought for analyzing
Asian American behaviors and for advancing global knowledge in the human
interest. The objective is to explore a common core of Asian worldviews
and values that overlap in their influence on particular regions,
nations, and communities. In their view, Asiacentrism may be able to
offer an alternative Asian perspective grounded in an awareness of the
dynamics of a postcolonial world.
It is possible to argue that Asian
American Studies has, since its inception, permitted itself to be
conceptually incarcerated in a hegemonic Eurocentric culture and world
view. Not only is the English language serving as the lingua franca
of Asian American Studies, but it is easily evident that many scholars
in Asian American Studies do not regard the acquisition of at least one
Asian language, as a second language, an important part of their
training, thereby curtailing their communicative and research competence
with the majority of Asian Americans, whose primary language is not
English. While much scholarship has been devoted to "... present voices
from our (Asian American) past which were never silent, but often
ignored, minimalized, and marginalized by traditional historical
accounts of the United States," there has been no serious attempt to
contextualize this scholarship in what may be termed the "deep
structure" of a shared Asiacentric perspective.
Wong, Manvi, and Wong also submitted that Asiacentrism can be a
paradigmatic way of integrating Asian American Studies and Asian Studies
by acknowledging the colonial histories, recognizing the common
interests, and recovering the cultural roots. They stressed that Asian
American Studies should play an important role in decolonizing Asian
Studies by interrogating its Eurocentric legacies.
Scholars committed to the
development of an Asiacentric paradigm face a challenge no less daunting
than the Afrocentrists. The Euro-American colonial history in Asia has
obviously left a deep imprint on Asian Studies Scholarship…. In
theorizing about Asian cultures and societies, the Eurocentric view has
only been subjected to serious critiques in recent decades. By proposing
the development of an Asiacentric perspective, we are consciously
suggesting that Asian American Studies also has a role to play in a
field of Asian Studies stripped of its colonial legacy. Interestingly,
the Pan-Africanists have always recognized the common interests and the
unity of African American Studies and African Studies in decolonization
and the recovery of roots.
Communication studies
Yoshitaka Miike, Professor of Intercultural Communication at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, is considered as the founding theorist of Asiacentricity in the discipline of communication. He was inspired by Molefi Kete Asante, who is one of the early pioneers in the fields of intercultural and interracial communication. Asante's Afrocentric idea as well as Wong, Manvi, and Wong's Asiacentric reflection led Miike to coin the term Asiacentricity and outline an Asiacentric project in culture and communication studies in 2003. He was later influenced by Maulana Karenga’s Kawaida philosophy, which emphasizes the role of culture for self-understanding and
self-assertion and the importance of ethics for human freedom and
flourishing.
Miike defined Asiacentricity as "the thought and practice of
centering Asians as subjects and agents and Asian cultures as reflective
resources in seeing and shaping the Asian world." According to him, Asiacentricity "insists on revivifying and
revitalizing diverse Asian cultural traditions as theoretical resources
in order to capture Asians as subjects and actors of their own cultural
realities rather than objects and spectators in the lived experiences of
others."
Simply put, Asiacentricity
is the idea of centering, not marginalizing, Asian languages,
religions/philosophies, and histories in theory-making and storytelling
about Asian communicative life. Asiacentricity aims to encourage careful
and critical engagements of Asian communicators with their own cultural
traditions for self-understanding, self-expression, communal
development, and cross-cultural dialogue. Intraculturally, it helps
Asians embrace the positive elements of their cultural heritage and
transform negative practices according to their ethical ideals.
Interculturally, it helps Asians find "a place to stand," so to speak,
and provides the basis of equality and mutuality in the global
community.
Borrowing from Daisetz Suzuki's
words, Miike stated that Asiacentricity is essentially "the idea of
being deep and open," that is, the idea of being rooted in our own
culture and, at the same time, open to other cultures. He differentiated Asiacentricity as a particularist position from
Asiacentrism as a universalist ideology and maintained that
Asiacentricity is a legitimate culture-centric approach to cultural Asia
and people of Asian descent, while Asiacentrism is an ethnocentric
approach to non-Asian worlds and people of non-Asian heritage. In
Miike's conceptualization, therefore, Asiacentrists are not cultural
chauvinists and separatists.
Asiacentricity is neither a
hegemonic Asiacentrism nor an Asian version of ethnocentric
Eurocentrism. Asiacentricity does not present the Asian worldview as the
only universal frame of reference and impose it on non-Asians. Hence,
Asiacentrists should be alert to Park's (2001) warning: "An idea is not
good merely because it is old or because it is new. It is not
necessarily good because it is an Eastern idea or a Western idea, or
just because it is ours" (p. 8). Asiacentrists thus should not deny the
value of other non-Asiacentric perspectives on Asians. Nevertheless,
they must reject the hegemonic ideology that non-Asiacentric theoretical
standpoints are superior to Asiacentric ones and therefore can grossly
neglect the latter in the discussion and discourse surrounding Asian
people and phenomena. They must reject the hegemonic ideology that the
Asian version of humanity can be judged solely from the Eurocentric
vision of humanity.
Miike identified six dimensions of Asiacentricity: (1) an assertion
of Asians as subjects and agents; (2) the centrality of the collective
and humanistic interests of Asia and Asians in the process of knowledge
reconstruction about the Asian world; (3) the placement of Asian
cultural values and ideals at the center of inquiry into Asian thought
and action; (4) the groundedness in Asian historical experiences; (5) an
Asian theoretical orientation to data; and (6) an Asian ethical
critique and corrective of the dislocation and displacement of Asian
people and phenomena.
In Miike's comprehensive outline, Asiacentricity (1) generates
theoretical knowledge that corresponds to Asian communication discourse,
(2) focuses on the multiplicity and complexity of Asian communicative
experience, (3) reflexively constitutes and critically transforms Asian
communication discourse, (4) theorizes how common aspects of humanity
are expressed and understood in Asian cultural particularities, and (5)
critiques Eurocentric biases in theory and research and helps Asian
researchers overcome academic dependency.
Miike's contention is that there has been the established
hierarchical relationship between "Western theories" and "non-Western
texts" in Eurocentric scholarship, where non-Western cultures remain as
peripheral targets of data analysis and rhetorical criticism and fail to
emerge as central resources of theoretical insight and humanistic
inspiration. Miike thus insisted that Asiacentric scholarship reconsider Asian
cultures as "theories for knowledge reconstruction," not as "texts for
knowledge deconstruction." Such an Asiacentric approach, according to
him, would make it possible for both Asian and non-Asian researchers to
theorize as Asians speak in Asian languages, as Asians are influenced by
Asian religious-philosophical worldviews, as Asians struggle to live in
Asian historical experiences, and as Asians feel ethically good and
aesthetically beautiful.
For the purpose of elucidating the
psychology of Asian communicators and enunciating the dynamics of Asian
communication, therefore, Asiacentrists ought to revalorize (a) Asian
words as key concepts and their etymologies as cultural outlooks and
instructive insights, (b) Asian religious-philosophical teachings as
behavioral principles and codes of ethics, (c) Asian histories as
multiple layers of contextualization and recurrent patterns of
continuity and change, and (d) Asian aesthetics as analytical frameworks
for space-time arrangement, nonverbal performance, and emotional
pleasure.
Miike also synthesized a large body of literature in the field of
Asian communication theory while paying homage to such pioneers as
Anantha Babbili, Guo-Ming Chen, Godwin C. Chu, Wimal Dissanayake, D. Shelton A. Gunaratne, Satoshi Ishii, Young Yun Kim, D. Lawrence Kincaid, Hamid Mowlana, Louis Nordstrom, Robert T. Oliver, Tulsi B. Saral, Robert Shuter, K. S. Sitaram, William J. Starosta, Majid Tehranian, Muneo Yoshikawa, and June Ock Yum. He urged Asiacentric research to overcome "comparative Eurocentrism" and direct more attention to common insights gained from
non-Eurocentric comparisons. In his opinion, five types of alternative
non-Eurocentric comparisons can enlarge the theoretical horizons of
Asian communication research: (1) continent-diaspora comparisons; (2)
within-region comparisons; (3) between-region comparisons; (4)
diachronic comparisons; and (5) co-cultural domestic comparisons.
Asiacentric studies of South Asia,
Southeast Asia, and West Asia are underrepresented in the current
literature. These regions are at the crossroads of Asian civilizations,
offering rich historical insights into Asian intercultural exchanges and
multicultural co-existence. Future theorizing and research on South
Asia, Southeast Asia, and West Asia from Asiacentric vantage points will
not only enhance an understanding of cultural dynamics in these areas
but also enunciate Asian models of intercultural dialogue and
multicultural society.
Miike asserted that humanity is most deeply felt not through
universal abstractions but through linguistic and cultural
particularities, and that human commonalities in their full
distinctiveness must be theorized within, not outside, cultural
particularities for mutual understanding across cultures. He thus
concluded: Asiacentricity "substantiates the content of humanity and
possibly enhances the vision of humanity." Ultimately, Asiacentricity
"promotes an appreciation of humanity despite differences and because of differences."
Watercolor representing the Second Great Awakening in 1839
The Great Awakening was a series of religious revivals in American Christian history.
Historians and theologians identify three, or sometimes four, waves of
increased religious enthusiasm between the early 18th century and the
late 20th century. Each of these "Great Awakenings" was characterized by
widespread revivals led by evangelicalProtestantministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and redemption on the part of those affected, an increase in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations.
Pulling away from ritual and ceremony, the Great Awakening made
religion more personal by fostering a sense of spiritual conviction of
personal sin and need for redemption, and by encouraging introspection
and a commitment to personal morality. It incited rancor and division
between traditionalists, who insisted on the continuing importance of
ritual and doctrine, and revivalists who encouraged emotional
involvement and personal commitment. It had a major impact in reshaping
the Congregational church, the Presbyterian church, the Dutch Reformed
Church, and the German Reformed denomination, and strengthened the small
Baptist and Methodist denominations. It had less impact on Anglicans
and Quakers. Unlike the Second Great Awakening, which began about 1800
and reached out to the unchurched, the First Great Awakening focused on
those who were already church members. It changed their rituals, their
piety, and their self-awareness.
The First Great Awakening began in the 1730s and lasted to about
1740, though pockets of revivalism had occurred in years prior,
especially amongst the ministry of Solomon Stoddard, Jonathan Edwards's grandfather. Edwards's congregation was involved in a revival later called the
"Frontier Revivals" in the mid-1730s, though this was on the wane by
1737. But as American religious historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom noted, the Great Awakening "was still to come, ushered in by the Grand Itinerant", the British evangelist George Whitefield.
Whitefield arrived in Georgia in 1738 and returned in 1739 for a second
visit of the Colonies, making a "triumphant campaign north from
Philadelphia to New York, and back to the South". In 1740, he visited New England, and "at every place he visited, the
consequences were large and tumultuous". Ministers from various
evangelical Protestant denominations supported the Great Awakening. In the middle colonies, he influenced not only the British churches, but the Dutch and German.
Additionally, pastoral styles began to change. In the late
colonial period, most pastors read their sermons, which were
theologically dense and advanced a particular theological argument or
interpretation. Nathan O. Hatch argues that the evangelical movement of the 1740s played a key role in the development of democratic thought, as well as the belief of the free press and the belief that information
should be shared and completely unbiased and uncontrolled. Michał Choiński argues that the First Great Awakening marks the birth
of the American "rhetoric of the revival" understood as "a particular
mode of preaching in which the speaker employs and it has a really wide
array of patterns and communicative strategies to initiate religious
conversions and spiritual regeneration among the hearers". All these theological, social, and rhetorical notions ushered in the
period of the American Revolution. This contributed to create a demand
for religious freedom. The Great Awakening represented the first time African Americans embraced Christianity in large numbers.
The Second Great Awakening (sometimes known simply as "the Great
Awakening") was a religious revival that occurred in the United States
beginning in the late eighteenth century and lasting until the middle of
the nineteenth century. While it occurred in all parts of the United
States, it was especially strong in the Northeast and the Midwest. This awakening was unique in that it moved beyond the educated elite of
New England to those who were less wealthy and less educated. The
center of revivalism was the so-called burned-over district
in western New York. Named for its overabundance of
hellfire-and-damnation preaching, the region produced dozens of new
denominations, communal societies, and reform.
Among these dozens of new denominations were free black churches,
run independently of existing congregations that were predominantly of
white attendance. During the period between the American revolution and
the 1850s, black involvement in largely white churches declined in great
numbers, with participation becoming almost non-existent by the
1840s–1850s; some scholars argue that this was largely due to racial
discrimination within the church. This discrimination came in the form of segregated seating and the
forbiddance of African Americans from voting in church matters or
holding leadership positions in many white churches. Reverend Richard Allen, a central founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church,
was quoted describing one such incident of racial discrimination in a
predominantly white church in Philadelphia, in which fellow preacher and
a former slave from Delaware, Absalom Jones, was grabbed by a white church trustee in the midst of prayer and forcefully told to leave.
Closely related to the Second Great Awakening were other reform movements such as temperance, abolition, and women's rights.
The temperance movement encouraged people to abstain from consuming
alcoholic drinks in order to preserve family order. The abolition
movement fought to abolish slavery in the United States. The women's
rights movement grew from female abolitionists who realized that they
could fight for their own political rights, too. In addition to these
causes, reforms touched nearly every aspect of daily life, such as
restricting the use of tobacco and dietary and dress reforms. The
abolition movement emerged in the North from the wider Second Great
Awakening 1800–1840.
The Third Great Awakening in the 1850s–1900s was characterized by new denominations, active missionary work, Chautauquas, and the Social Gospel approach to social issues. The YMCA
(founded in 1844) played a major role in fostering revivals in the
cities in the 1858 Awakening and after. The revival of 1858 produced
leaders such as Dwight L. Moody who carried out religious work in the Civil War armies. The Christian and Sanitary Commissions and numerous Freedmen's Societies were also formed during the war.
The Fourth Great Awakening is a debated concept that has not received
the acceptance of the first three. Advocates such as economist Robert Fogel say it happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Jesus Movement is cited as evidence of this awakening, and it created a shift in church music styles.
Mainline Protestant denominations weakened sharply in both
membership and influence while the most conservative religious
denominations (such as the Southern Baptists)
grew rapidly in numbers, spread across the United States, had grave
internal theological battles and schisms, and became politically
powerful.
Terminology
The
idea of an "awakening" implies a slumber or passivity during secular or
less religious times. Awakening is a term which originates from, and is
embraced often and primarily by, evangelical Christians. In recent times, the idea of "awakenings" in United States history has been put forth by conservative American evangelicals.
In the late 2010s and 2020s the term Great Awakening has been used by promoters of the QAnonconspiracy theory to denote awareness of their theory.
Following the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR of 1922, the Russian SFSR, Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR and the Transcaucasian SSR
established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The treaty
established the government, which was later legitimised by the adoption
of the first Soviet constitution in 1924. The 1924 constitution made the government responsible to the Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union. In 1936, the state system was reformed with the enactment of a new constitution. It abolished the Congress of Soviets and established the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
in its place. At the 1st Plenary Session of the II Supreme Soviet in
1946, the government was renamed Council of Ministers. Minor changes
were introduced with the enactment of the 1977 constitution. The CPSU's 19th All-Union Conference voted in favor of amending the constitution. It allowed for multi-candidate elections, established the Congress of People's Deputies and weakened the party's control over the Supreme Soviet. Later, on 20 March 1991, the Supreme Soviet on Mikhail Gorbachev's suggestion amended the constitution to establish a semi-presidential system, essentially a fusion of the American and French styles of government. The Council of Ministers was abolished and replaced by a Cabinet of Ministers that was responsible to the president of the Soviet Union.
The head of the Cabinet of Ministers was the prime minister of the
Soviet Union. The government was forced to resign in the aftermath of
the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, which Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov participated in. In its place, the Soviet state established what was supposed to be a transitory committee headed by Silayev to run the basic governmental functions until a new cabinet was appointed. On 26 December 1991, the Supreme Soviet dissolved the union and therefore, the government of the USSR shut down permanently.
Etymology
The name Council of People's Commissars was chosen to distinguish the Soviet government from its bourgeois counterparts, especially its tsarist predecessor the Council of Ministers. However, scholar Derek Watson states that "the term 'commissar' was
regarded as interchangeable with 'minister', and there seems little
doubt that the Bolshevik leaders meant 'minister'." Joseph Stalin,
in a speech to the II Supreme Soviet in March 1946, argued to change
the name of government from Council of People's Commissars to Council of
Ministers because "The commissar reflects the period of revolutionary
rupture and so on. But that time has now passed. Our social system has
come into being and is now made flesh and blood. It is time to move on
from the title 'people's commissar' to that of 'minister.'" Scholar Yoram Gorlizki writes that "Notwithstanding the reversion to
bourgeois precedents, the adoption of the new nomenclature signaled that
the Soviet order had entered a new phase of postrevolutionary
consolidation."
History
Revolutionary beginnings and Molotov's chairmanship (1922–1941)
A governmental badge from 1930.
Lenin and Trotsky (both photographed in 1920) were viewed as the leading figures in the first Soviet government
The Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union saw the establishment of the All-Union Congress of Soviets and its Central Executive Committee
(CEC). The Congress of Soviets held legislative responsibilities and
was the highest organ of state power, while the CEC was to exercise the
powers of the Congress of Soviets whenever it was not in session, which
in practice comprised the majority of its existence. It stated that the
government, named the Council of People's Commissars, was to be the
executive arm of the CEC. This governmental structure was copied from
the one established in the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic
(Russian SFSR), and the government was modeled on the Council of
People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR. The government of the Russian
SFSR led by Vladimir Lenin
governed the Soviet Union until 6 July 1923, when the CEC established
the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union. Lenin was
appointed its chairman, alongside five deputy chairmen and ten people's commissars (ministers). On 17 July 1923 the All-Union Council of People's Commissars
notified the central executive committees of the union republics and
their respective republican governments that it had begun to fulfill the
tasks entrusted to it.
The original idea was for the Council of People's Commissars to
report directly (and be subordinate) to the CEC, but the working
relations of the two bodies were never clearly defined in depth. Eventually, the powers of the Council of People's Commissars outstripped those of the CEC. However, the 1924 constitution defined the Council of People's Commissars as the "executive and administrative organ" of the CEC. The ability to legislate was restricted by the powers conferred to it
by the CEC, and on the Statute of the Council of People's Commissars. The legislative dominance of the Council of People's Commissars
continued despite the 1924 constitution's insistence on its relationship
to the CEC. Mikhail Kalinin of the CEC and Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee noted in 1928 that one needed to differentiate between the Presidium of the CEC, which he considered the "organ of legislation", and the administrative role of the Council of People's Commissars.
The 1924 constitution differentiated between All-Union and
unified (referred to as republican from 1936 onwards) people's
commissariats. The people's commissariats for justice, internal affairs, social
security, education, agriculture and public health remained
republican-level ministries. In the meantime the commissariats for foreign affairs, commerce and
industry, transport, military and navy affairs, finance, foreign trade,
labour, post and telegraphs, supply and the interior were granted
All-Union status. This system created troubles at first since neither the constitution or
any legal document defined the relations between All-Union
commissariats, their organs in republics and the separate unified
republican commissariats. However, this system was kept with minor changes until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The 1936 constitution
defined the Council of People's Commissars as the Soviet government,
and conferring upon it the role of the "highest executive and
administrative organ of state power". The constitution stripped the Council of People's Commissars of powers
to initiate legislation, and instead confined it to issuing "decrees and
regulations on the basis and in execution of the laws currently in
force". Only the Supreme Soviet and its Presidium, having replaced the Congress of Soviets and the Central Executive Committee respectively, could alter laws.
Stalin's power grab in the 1930s weakened the formal institutions of governance, both in the party and government. Scholar T. H. Rigby writes that
"all institutions had gradually dissolved in the acid of despotism",
and from 1946 until Stalin died in 1953 "only the most minimal of
gestures were made to reverse the atrophy of formal organs of authority,
in both party and state." British academic Leonard Schapiro
contended that "Stalin's style of rule was characterised by how rule
through regular machinery (party, government apparatus) gave way
increasingly to the rule of personal agents and agencies, each operating
separately and often in conflict, with Stalin in supreme overall control." The government, which was at this point the most formalised Soviet state institution, developed neopatrimonial features due to Stalin's habit of ruling through "the strict personal loyalty of his lieutenants".
Stalin was elected to the government chairmanship on 6 May 1941. The government continued to function normally until World War II (known as the Great Patriotic War in Russia) when it was subordinated to the State Defense Committee (SDC), formed on 30 June 1941 to govern the Soviet Union during the war. Joseph Stalin concurrently served as SDC head and as chairman of the Soviet government until 1946. On 15 March 1946 the 1st Plenary Session of the 2nd Supreme Soviet
transformed the Council of People's Commissars into the Council of
Ministers. Accordingly, the people's commissariats were renamed ministries, and the people's commissars into ministers. On 25 February 1947, appropriate changes were made to the Constitution of the Soviet Union.
The government's Bureau was established in 1944. After the war, the bureau was split into two. These bureaus were merged on 20 March 1946, reestablishing the government's Bureau. The party Politburo adopted on 8 February 1947 the resolution "On the
Organization of the Council of Ministers", which sought to explain the
role of the Council of Ministers, its internal operations, and its
relationship with the party. It stated that the party politburo had the right to decide on all
political matters, which included such topics as governmental
appointments and defense, foreign policy, and internal security. It went on to define the government solely as an institution of administering the economy. The non-economic ministries, such as the Ministry of State Security, reported to the politburo.
In addition, the 8 February resolution established eight sectoral
bureaus; Bureau for Agriculture, Bureau for Metallurgy and Chemicals,
Bureau for Machine Construction, Bureau for Fuel and Electric Power
Stations, Bureau for Food Industry, Bureau for Transport and
Communication, Bureau for Light Industry and Bureau for Culture and
Health. This decision transformed the government's working methods. The new resolution delegated authorities to the bureaus and away from
the deputy chairmen of government and high-standing ministers. Every sectoral bureau was headed by a deputy chairman of the
government, but decision-making was devolved into these collegial
decision-making organs. The net effect of these changes was to greatly increase the legislative activity of the government.
Stalin, who had not attended a meeting of the Bureau since 1944, resorted to appointing acting government chairmen. Molotov was first appointed, but could rarely fulfill his duties since
he was simultaneously Minister of Foreign Affairs and often away on
business. On 29 March 1948 the politburo resolved to create a rotational chairmanship headed by Lavrentiy Beria, Nikolai Voznesensky and Georgy Malenkov. Lacking a formal leader, most controversial issues were solved at meetings of the Bureau. On 1 September 1949 power was even more dispersed. The Bureau changed its name to the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, and Beria, Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar Kaganovich and Maksim Saburov were handed the chairmanship. This mode of operating lasted until Stalin's death in 1953.
Post-Stalin Era (1953–1985)
Alexei Kosygin was the longest-serving chairman of the Soviet government, holding office from 1964 until his death in 1980.
The Post-Stalin Era saw several changes to the government apparatus, especially during Nikita Khrushchev's leadership. At first, the new leadership sought to solve problems within the
existing bureaucratic framework, however, by 1954 the government
initiated reforms which devolve more economic decision-making to the
republican governments. Around this time Khrushchev suggested abolishing the industrial and
construction ministries and distributing their duties and
responsibilities to republican governments and regional bureaucrats. The end-goal was to reduce the size of the All-Union government and increase economic growth. A similar idea was proposed to the CPSU Presidium in January 1957. The proposal sought to switch the function of the All-Union government
from active management of operational management of industry to active
branch policy-making. Operational management was to be decentralised to republican governments and local authorities.
The CPSU Presidium adopted Khrushchev's proposal. By July 1957 the management functions of the construction and
industrial ministries had been transferred to 105 newly established Soviets of the National Economy. Republican planning committees were given more responsibility, while the State Planning Committee was given responsibility over companies that could not be decentralised to republican governments. The Soviet media began propagating the idea of developing complex,
regional economies and comparing them to the old ministerial system. The belief was that the Soviets of the National economy would increase inter-branch cooperation and specialization. However, the reforms did not manage to cure the failings of the Soviet
economy, and actually showed shortcomings in other areas as well. Khrushchev's government responded by initiating reforms that reversed
decentralisation measures, and sought to recentralise control over
resource allocation.
The removal of Khrushchev was followed by reversing his reforms of
the government apparatus. The first move came in early 1965 when Alexei Kosygin's First Government when the All-Union Ministry of Agriculture
was regifted responsibility for agriculture (which it lost in one
Khrushchev's earlier reforms). By October the same year the Council of
Ministers abolished the industrial state committees and regional
economic councils and reestablished the system of industrial ministers
as they existed before 1957. Of the 33 newly appointed construction- and
industry ministers appointed in 1965, twelve had served as ministers in
1957 or before and ten had worked and risen to the rank of deputy
minister by this time. This was followed by the establishment of the All-Union Ministry of Education and the All-Union Ministry of Preservation of Public Order
in 1966. Four All-Union construction ministries were established in
1967 and a fifth in 1972. In addition, in 1970 the government
reestablished the All-Union Ministry of Justice.
In the decade 1965 to 1975, twenty-eight industrial ministries were
established. Of these seven were All-Union ministries and the remainder
seventeen were republican ministries. In addition, the Kosygin
Government sought to reform the economy by strengthening enterprise
autonomy while at the same time retaining strong centralised authority.
The 1979 Soviet economic reform
also sought to de-regulate the economy to give state enterprises more
autonomy, while giving state enterprises more room to discuss their
production goals with their respective ministries.
The Brezhnev Era also saw the adoption of the 1977 constitution. It defined for the first time the responsibilities and membership of the government's Presidium. The constitution defined the Presidium as a permanent governmental
organ responsible for establishing and securing good economic leadership
and to assume administrative responsibilities. It stated that the government chairman, alongside the first deputy
chairmen, deputy chairmen and the republican governmental heads made up
the Presidium's membership.
Presidentialism and the Cabinet of Ministers (1990–1991)
Gorbachev at the 1st Plenary Session of the I Congress of People's Deputies in 1989.
Gorbachev had been speaking critically of the idea of a Soviet presidency until October 1989. He had argued that a presidency could lead to the reestablishment of the cult of personality and one-man leadership. However, Gorbachev was meeting stiff resistance from bureaucrats and anti-reformist elements against his reformist policies. The establishment of the office of President of the Soviet Union was seen as an important tool to strengthen Gorbachev's control over the state apparatus. Gorbachev proposed to the 3rd Plenary Session of the XXI Supreme Soviet
in February 1990 to establish the Office of the President of the Soviet
Union. The Supreme Soviet passed the motion, and in March an Extraordinary
Session of the Congress of People's Deputies was convened to amend the
constitution. The Law on the Presidency which was adopted by the Congress of People's
Deputies stated that the president had to be elected in a nationwide
election, but Gorbachev argued that the country was not ready for
divisive election. Therefore, the Congress of People's Deputies held a vote in which 1329
voted to elect Gorbachev as President of the Soviet Union, while 916
voted against him.
As President of the Soviet Union Gorbachev could appoint and dismiss government ministers. However, he grew concerned about his inability to control All-Union ministries. On 24 September 1990 Gorbachev managed to get the Supreme Soviet to
grant him temporary powers of unrestricted decrees on the economy, law
and order and appointment of government personnel until 31 March 1992. Still feeling stifled by anti-reformist elements, Gorbachev proposed in
November 1990 to radically reorganise the Soviet political system,
being greatly inspired by the presidential system of the United States and the semi-presidential system of France. Gorbachev sought to reorganise institutions at the All-Union level by subordinating executive power to the presidency.
By November 1990 Gorbachev was calling for the dissolution of the
Council of Ministers and its replacement with a Cabinet of Ministers. Formerly executive power had been divided into two separate
institutions; the presidency and the Council of Ministers. Both reported
to the Supreme Soviet. The Cabinet of Ministers would report directly to the President of the
Soviet Union, and be accountable to both the presidency and to the
Supreme Soviet. While the term of the Council of Ministers had been tied to the
election of the Supreme Soviet, the Cabinet of Ministers was obliged by
law to tender its resignation if the sitting president stepped down. Similar to the Council of Ministers, the leading decision-making organ of the Cabinet of Ministers was the Presidium. It was to be chaired by the newly created office of Prime Minister of the Soviet Union. In accordance with law the Presidium had to consist of the prime minister, his first deputies, deputies and an Administrator of Affairs.
The duties and responsibilities of the Cabinet of Ministers overlapped with the former Council of Ministers. It was responsible for formulating and executing the All-Union state budget,
administrating defense enterprises and overseeing space research,
implementing Soviet foreign policy, crime-fighting, and maintaining
defense and state security. It also worked alongside the republican governments to develop
financial and credit policy, administer fuel and power supplies and
transport systems, and developing welfare and social programs. In addition the Cabinet of Ministers was responsible for coordinating
All-Union policy on science, technology, patents, use of airspace,
prices, general economic policy, housing, environmental protection and
military appointments. At last, the Law on the Cabinet of Ministers granted the Cabinet of Ministers the right to issue decrees and resolutions, but not of the same power and scope of those formerly issued by the Council of Ministers.
The Council of Ministers had been the sole permanent executive and administrative body in the Soviet Union during its existence. The Cabinet of Ministers existed alongside the Federation Council, the Presidential Council and other executive organs that reported directly to the president. However, as the sole executive organ responsible for the economy and the ministries it was the most important.
The Cabinet of Ministers was by law forced to work more closely with republican governments than the Council of Ministers. Republican governments could petition the Cabinet of Ministers at any
time, and the Cabinet of Ministers was forced to take all questions from
republican governments into consideration. To foster better relations ministers moved to create collegiums with their republican counterparts. For instance, the All-Union Ministry of Culture established the Council of Ministers of Culture to better coordinate policies, while the All-Union Ministry of Foreign Affairs established the Council of Foreign Ministers of the USSR and Union Republics.
The 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, better known as the August coup attempt, was initiated by the State Committee on the State of Emergency in a bid to oppose the enactment of the New Union Treaty. Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov was one of the leaders of the coup. The Cabinet of Ministers and most All-Union power organs supported the coup attempt against Gorbachev. In the aftermath of the coup attempt, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR) led by Boris Yeltsin sought to weaken Gorbachev's presidential powers. The State Council was established. It superseded the government in terms of power by giving each republican president a seat on the council. In addition, every decision had to be decided by a vote–a move that greatly weakened Gorbachev's control. In tandem, the Russian SFSR seized the building and staff of the All-Union Ministry of Finance, the State Bank and the Bank for Foreign Economic Relations. With the central government's authority greatly weakened, Gorbachev established a four-man committee, led by Ivan Silayev, that included Grigory Yavlinsky, Arkady Volsky, and Yuri Luzhkov, to elect a new Cabinet of Ministers. This committee was later transformed into the Committee for the
Operational Management of the National Economy (COMSE), also chaired by
Silayev, to manage the Soviet economy. On 28 August 1991 a Supreme Soviet temporarily gave the COMSE the same authority as the Cabinet of Ministers, and Silayev became the Soviet Union's de facto Premier. The All-Union government tried to rebuff the seizure attempts by the
Russian government. Still, by September 1991 the Soviet government had
broken down.
On 25 December 1991 Gorbachev announced in a televised speech his resignation from the post of President of the Soviet Union. On the following day, the Soviet of the Republics
voted to dissolve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a state
and subject of international law, legally terminating the Soviet
government's existence.
Duties, functions and responsibilities
The government was the highest executive and administrative body of the Soviet state. It was formed at the 1st Plenary Session of the Supreme Soviet (the joint meeting of the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities), and had to consist of the government chairman, his first deputies, deputies, ministers,
state committees chairmen and the republican governmental chairmen. The
premier could recommend individuals who he found suitable for
membership in the governmental council to the Supreme Soviet. The
government tendered its resignation to the first plenary session of a
newly elected Supreme Soviet.
The government was responsible to the Supreme Soviet and its Presidium. It regularly reported to the Supreme Soviet on its work, as well as being tasked with resolving all state administrative duties
in the jurisdiction of the USSR which were not the responsibility of the
Supreme Soviet or the Presidium. Within its limits, the government had
responsibility for:
Management of the union's economy and socio-cultural construction and development.
Formulation and submission of the five-year plans for "economic and social development" to the Supreme Soviet along with the state budget.
Defence of the interests of state, socialist property, public order and to protect the rights of Soviet citizens.
Ensuring state security.
General policies for the Soviet armed forces and determination of how many citizens were to be drafted into service.
General policies concerning Soviet foreign relations and trade,
economic, scientific-technical and cultural cooperation of the USSR
with foreign countries as well as the power to confirm or denounce
international treaties signed by the USSR.
Creation of necessary organisations within the government concerning economics, socio-cultural development and defence.
The government could issue decrees and resolutions and later verify
their execution. All organisations were obliged to obey the decrees and
resolutions issued by the government. The All-Union Council also had the power to suspend all mandates and
decrees issued by itself or organisations subordinate to it. The Council coordinated and directed the work of the union republics
and union ministries, state committees and other organs subordinate to
it. The competence of the government and its Presidium with respect to
their procedures and activities and the council's relationships with
subordinate organs were defined in the Soviet constitution by the Law on
the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
Each union republic and autonomous republic
had its own governments formed by the republican legislature of the
respective union republic or autonomous republic. Republican governments
were not legally subordinate to the All-Union government, but they were
obliged in their activities to be guided by the decrees and decisions
of the All-Union government. At the same time, the union-republican
ministries had double subordination – they simultaneously submitted to
the union republican government, within the framework of which they were
created, and to the corresponding all-union government, orders and
instructions which should have been guided in their activities. In
contrast to the union republican ministries of the union republic, the
republican ministries were subordinate only to the government of the
corresponding union republic.
Party-government relations
Lenin sought to create a governmental structure that was independent of the party apparatus. Valerian Osinsky echoed Lenin's criticism, but Grigory Zinoviev responded to criticism in 1923 by stating that "Everyone understands that our Politburo is the principal body of the state." Boris Bazhanov, the private secretary of Joseph Stalin, echoed the same sentiments. According to Bazhanov appointment of people's commissars were made by the party Politburo and ratified later by the Council of People's Commissars. This informal system of government, in which the party decides and the government implements, lasted until Mikhail Gorbachev's tenure as leader.
The government chairman was until the establishment of the Cabinet of Ministers in 1991 the Soviet head of government. The officeholder was responsible for convening the government and its
Presidium, reporting to the Supreme Soviet on behalf of the government
and leading the work on formulating the five-year plans. The "Law on the Council of Ministers of the USSR" states that the
chairman "heads the Government and directs its activity... coordinates
the activity of the first deputy chairmen and deputy chairmen [and] in
urgent cases, makes decisions on particular questions of state
administration."
The government appointed first deputy chairmen and deputy chairmen to assist the work of the government chairman. These deputies worked with the responsibilities allocated to them by the government. They could coordinate the activities of ministries, state committees
and other organs subordinated to the government, take control of these
organs and issue day-to-day instructions. At last, they could give prior consideration to proposals and draft decisions submitted to the government. For example, Kirill Mazurov was responsible for industry, and Dmitry Polyansky was responsible for agriculture in Kosygin's Second Government. In the case of the government chairman not being able to perform his
duties one of the first deputy chairmen would take on the role of acting
head of government until the premier's return.
The Administrator of Affairs was tasked with co-signing decrees and resolutions made by government with the government chairman. The government apparatus prepared items of policy, which the
officeholder would check systematically against decrees of the
party-government. This function consisted of several departments and other structural
units. In addition the Administrator of Affairs headed the government
apparatus and was a member of the government's Presidium.
Presidium
The
Presidium of the Council of Ministers consisted of the chairman, First
Deputy Chairmen, and the deputy chairman. It is important to note that
the Presidium of the Council of Ministers is different than the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.
USSR state committees were different from the ministries in that a
state committee was primarily responsible for several parts of
government as opposed to the one specific topic for which a ministry was
solely responsible. Therefore, many state committees had jurisdiction over certain common
activities performed by ministries such as research and development,
standardisation, planning, building construction, state security,
publishing, archiving and so on. The distinction between a ministry and a
state committee could be obscure as for the case of the Committee for State Security (KGB).
According to the Soviet constitution, ministries were divided into
all-union and union-republican. All-Union ministries managed the branch
of state administration entrusted to them throughout the entire Soviet
Union directly or through the organs appointed by them, while the
union-republican ministries operated, as a rule, through the same-named
ministry of the specific union republic in question. It managed only a
certain limited number of activities directly according to the list
approved by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.
The government had the right to create, reorganize and abolish
subordinate institutions, which were directly subordinate to the
government itself.
"Bulletin of the Central Executive Committee, the Council of
People's Commissars and the Council of Labor and Defense of the Soviet
Union" (1923–1924);
"Collection of laws and regulations of the Workers' and Peasants' Government of the Soviet Union" (1924–1938);
"Collection of decrees and orders of the Government of the Soviet Union" (1938–1946).
Viral eukaryogenesis has been controversial for several reasons.
For one, it is sometimes argued that the posited evidence for the viral
origins of the nucleus can be conversely used to suggest the nuclear origins of some viruses. Secondly, this hypothesis has further inflamed the longstanding debate over whether viruses are livingorganisms.
Hypothesis
The
viral eukaryogenesis hypothesis posits that eukaryotes are composed of
three ancestral elements: a viral component that became the modern
nucleus; a prokaryotic cell (an archaeon according to the eocyte hypothesis) which donated the cytoplasm and cell membrane of modern cells; and another prokaryotic cell (here bacterium) that, by endocytosis, became the modern mitochondrion or chloroplast.
In 2006, researchers suggested that the transition from RNA to DNA genomes first occurred in the viral world. A DNA-based virus may have provided storage for an ancient host that
had previously used RNA to store its genetic information (such host is
called ribocell or ribocyte). Viruses may initially have adopted DNA as a way to resist RNA-degradingenzymes in the host cells. Hence, the contribution from such a new component may have been as significant as the contribution from chloroplasts or mitochondria. Following this hypothesis, archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes each obtained their DNA informational system from a different virus. In the original paper, it was also an RNA cell at the origin of eukaryotes, but eventually more complex, featuring RNA processing.
Although this is in contrast to nowadays' more probable eocyte
hypothesis, viruses seem to have contributed to the origin of all three
domains of life ('out of virus hypothesis'). It has also been suggested
that telomerase and telomeres, key aspects of eukaryotic cell replication, have viral origins. Further, the viral origins of the modern eukaryotic nucleus may have relied on multiple infections of archaeal cells carrying bacterial mitochondrial precursors with lysogenic viruses.
The viral eukaryogenesis hypothesis depicts a model of eukaryotic evolution in which a virus, similar to a modern pox virus, evolved into a nucleus via gene acquisition from existing bacterial and archaeal species. The lysogenic virus then became the information storage center for the cell, while the cell retained its capacities for gene translation
and general function despite the viral genome's entry. Similarly, the
bacterial species involved in this eukaryogenesis retained its capacity
to produce energy in the form of ATP while also passing much of its genetic information into this new virus-nucleus organelle. It is hypothesized that the modern cell cycle, whereby mitosis, meiosis, and sex occur in all eukaryotes, evolved
because of the balances struck by viruses, which characteristically
follow a pattern of tradeoff between infecting as many hosts as possible
and killing an individual host through viral proliferation.
Hypothetically, viral replication cycles may mirror those of plasmids and viral lysogens.
However, this theory is controversial, and additional experimentation
involving archaeal viruses is necessary, as they are probably the most
evolutionarily similar to modern eukaryotic nuclei.
The viral eukaryogenesis hypothesis points to the cell cycle of eukaryotes, particularly sex and meiosis, as evidence. Little is known about the origins of DNA or reproduction in prokaryotic
or eukaryotic cells. It is thus possible that viruses were involved in
the creation of Earth's first cells. The eukaryotic nucleus contains linear DNA with specialized end
sequences, like that of viruses (and in contrast to bacterial genomes,
which have a circular topology); it uses mRNA capping, and separates transcription from translation. Eukaryotic nuclei are also capable of cytoplasmic replication. Some large viruses have their own DNA-directed RNA polymerase. Transfers of "infectious" nuclei have been documented in many parasiticred algae.
Recent supporting evidence includes the discovery that upon the infection of a bacterialcell, the giant bacteriophage201 Φ2-1 (of the genus Phikzvirus)
assembles a nucleus-like structure around the region of genome
replication and uncouples transcription and translation, and synthesized
mRNA is then transported into the cytoplasm where it undergoes
translation. The same researchers also found that this same phage encodes a eukaryotic homologue to tubulin (PhuZ) that plays the role of positioning the viral factory in the center of the cell during genome replication. The PhuZ
spindle shares several unique properties with eukaryotic spindles:
dynamic instability, bipolar filament arrays, and centrally positioning
DNA.
Analogous to the phage nucleus is the viroplasm, also known as a "virus factory" and "virus inclusion". Viroplasms are inclusion bodies wrapped in lipid membranes and aggregates of viral proteins, and they serve as sites for viral replication and assembly. The viroplasm may serve to protect the viral genome from host cell defense mechanisms, and it also contains viral polymerases for mRNA transcription and DNA
replication and repair, separating these processes from the cytoplasm,
much like the cell nucleus. Expression of this structure is prevalent
among most members of the phylum nucleocytoviricota, notably the nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDVs).
Central dogma proteins
Phylogenetic
analysis determined that the presence of certain eukaryotic proteins in
nucleocytoviricota – particularly, ones responsible for DNA replication
and repair, mRNA transcription, and mRNA capping – may have preceded
the evolution of the last eukaryotic common ancestor,
suggesting the evolution of these proteins in eukaryotes and
nucleocytoviruses may have been a result of horizontal gene transfer
between ancient nucleocytoviruses and proto-eukaryotes or Asgard archaea. The eukaryotic DNA polymerasePol δ, for example, was found to be phylogenetically nested within the clade of nucleocytovirus, mirusvirus, and herpesvirus DNA polymerases, with medusavirus polymerases being the closest relative to the Pol δ clade; Pol α and Pol ε, on the other hand, are more closely related to archaeal PolB DNA polymerases, with Pol ε being derived from Asgard Pol ε. Similarly, the phylogenetic study suggests that eukaryotic and viral RNA polymerases (RNAPs) are deeply related – with RNAP I and RNAP III being basally branching to this viral/eukaryotic RNAP II
clade, and are themselves being derived from or are closely related to
archaeal RNA polymerases. The evolution of these proteins may have been
rapid, and may have resulted from interactions between these viruses and
proto-eukaryotes.
Further, many classes of NCLDVs such as mimiviruses
have the apparatus to produce m7G capped mRNA and contain homologues of
the eukaryotic cap-binding protein eIF4E. Those supporting viral
eukaryogenesis also point to the lack of these features in archaea, and
so believe that a sizable gap separates the archaeal groups most related
to the eukaryotes and the eukaryotes themselves in terms of the
nucleus. In light of these and other discoveries, Bell modified his
original thesis to suggest that the viral ancestor of the nucleus was an
NCLDV-like archaeal virus rather than a pox-like virus. Another piece of supporting evidence is that the m7G capping apparatus (involved in uncoupling of transcription from translation) is present in both Eukarya and Mimiviridae but not in Lokiarchaeota that are considered the nearest archaeal relatives of Eukarya according to the Eocyte hypothesis (also supported by the phylogenetic analysis of the m7G capping pathway).
Implications
Several precepts in the theory are possible. For instance, a helical virus with a bilipidenvelope bears a distinct resemblance to a highly simplified cellular nucleus
(i.e., a DNA chromosome encapsulated within a lipid membrane). In
theory, a large DNA virus could take control of a bacterial or archaeal
cell. Instead of replicating and destroying the host cell,
it would remain within the cell, thus overcoming the tradeoff dilemma
typically faced by viruses. With the virus in control of the host cell's
molecular machinery, it would effectively become a functional nucleus.
Through the processes of mitosis and cytokinesis, the virus would thus recruit the entire cell as a symbiont—a new way to survive and proliferate.
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