ExtraNotes


	RUSSIA - UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS - RUSSIAN FEDERATION I The Making of the Modern Russian State A. Politics in Action B. Geographic Setting C. Critical Junctures Decline of the Russian Tsarist State Bolshevik Revolution and the Establishment of Soviet Power(1917-1929) The Stalin Revolution (1929 - 1953) Attempts at De-Stalinization Perestroika and Glasnost (1985 - 1991) Collapse of the USR and the Emergence of the Russian Federation (1991 to Present) LEADERS: Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin Themes - Implications for Comparative Politics II Political Economy and Development A. State and Economy The Soviet Economic System Russian Reform Efforts B. Society and Economy Soviet Social Policy Economic Reform and Russian Society Russian Political Culture and Economic Change C. Russia and the International Economy III Governance and Policy-Making A. Organization of the State Soviet Political Institutions Russian Political Institutions B The Executive National Bureaucracy C Other State Institutions The Military The Judiciary Subnational Government D Current Challenges - Chechnya Crisis Policy-Making Process Citizen Action: Political Jokes IV Representation and Participation A Legislature B Political Parties and the Party System Russian Left - The Communist Party of the Russian Federation Yabloko and Other Liberal/Reform Parties Nationalist "Patriotic" Parties Centrist Parties Leaders: Yun Luzhkov Elections Political Culture, Citizenship, Identity etc. Interests, Social Movements and Protest V Russian Politics in Transition A Political Challenges and Changing Agendas Russia in the World of States Governing the Economy The Democratic Idea The Politics of Collective Identities B Russian Politics in Comparative Perspective Global Connection: Western Aid to Russia Why was Stalin able to acquire and maintain total domination over the party organisation? Stalin's rise to power is remarkable in a number of senses, not least of which is the fact that with the long list of potential successors to Lenin who had been involved in the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution, Stalin was not the most prominent figure that one would have considered a logical replacement for Lenin. Although one of the central figures in the Bolshevik party, he was not held in the same stature as Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin by other communists throughout Russia. It is thus all the more interesting to note how he managed to use his semi-obscurity to his advantage in gaining control of the party. At the time of the revolution, Russia was a country dominated by peasants; there was little industry, and no unified, working-class proletariat at all. By 1921, despite the ending of the war, the economy had completely collapsed, and it was necessary for the communists to take some action to get the economy back on its feet. This came in the form of the New Economic Programme (or NEP), which involved a mixture of state and private ownership, private agriculture, and attempts to rebuild the terms of trade between the town and the country. However, with the stroke suffered by Lenin in December 1922, and his death in January 1924, the struggle to take his place resulted in the eventual dismantling of the NEP. With Lenin's death, a joint leadership consisting of Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Stalin was formed. At this time, Stalin held the position of Secretary of the party (then much less important then it was to become later). These three were supported by Bukharin; this group aligned themselves against Trotsky, whom they saw as a potential Napoleon in the making. Even on his sick bed, Lenin had seen the dangers ahead, and had published a critique of all those who were involved in the power struggle. This document became known as his testament, and in it he expressed his doubts over Stalin's emerging ruthless personality, and even recommended that the other members of the group eject Stalin from his position as party Secretary. Given that the testament had criticisms of each of the individuals, they collectively decided to put it away, and get on with the business of ruling. Even before Lenin's death, Trotsky and other left-wing opponents had begun to raise doubts over the NEP, and were arguing for a policy shift. They believed that investment in the capital goods sector was needed to enable the economy to provide the goods that the peasants demanded, and that this investment could only be afforded with a tax on the peasants. Extracting resources from the peasants would be combined with the gradual introduction of collectivised large-scale farms, that would be more efficient than small-scale private farming. This opposition view was not popular, and made little headway at the time, with the prevailing view being that investment was needed throughout the whole economy, and not just in the industrial sector. With the expansion of the agricultural sector at the same time as the industrial sector, there would be production on farms of the food needed for the workers in the towns, and the raw materials needed by the industrial sector. It was soon after Lenin's death that Stalin began to strengthen his position in the group of three by undercutting his rivals; he was able to use his powers of appointment to reduce the power base of Kamenev and Zinoviev, and began to launch subtle attacks on them. This forced them to distance themselves from Stalin; they moved to the left and began questioning the NEP in order to achieve this. The divisions were brought to a head at the Fourteenth Party Congress in December 1925, when Kamenev ended a long speech with a personal attack on Stalin, which provoked a split between Stalin's supporters and those loyal to the party above any individual. Stalin won a huge victory in a vote on the leadership, and had forced his two rivals into opposition. They tried to form an alliance with the already-defeated Trotsky, but it was too late, as they were both eventually removed from their important positions in the party, and were thus left impotent. Although the NEP was by now having the effect of increasing harvest yields, consumer goods were in short supply. Stalin reacted to what he believed to be hoarding of grain by the "kulaks," or wealthy peasants, who were holding the towns to ransom by their actions, by ordering troops into the villages in order to seize the grain by force. When censured by the Politburo for his actions, he justified them by arguing that through his actions he could increase the standard of living for the poorer peasants, and provide the food and raw material for the towns. This change of stance marked a divergence between Stalin and Bukharin's positions, and this time it was the latter whom Stalin had managed to isolate by taking over the institutional sources of supports of the right. He had Bukharin and his supporters removed from the Politburo, and the rout of the Right was complete - Stalin now emerged as undisputed emperor of Russia by the end of 1929. He had successfully divided, and then conquered his enemies. He was now free to abandon the NEP, and put in place policies of collectivisation and industrialisation, contained in the first Five Year Plan, along with the introduction of mass terror. Although there is a debate as to whether the structure of the Communist party was such that it made the emergence of a dictatorial one-man rule inevitable, there is also the issue of whether it was Stalin in particular who could have assumed such power and become leader. Examining the events leading to his emergence shows a complex interaction of various factors that contributed to his victory. First of these was his personal characteristics, which as we have seen showed him to possess not only the political and oratorical skills of his opponents (although perhaps not quite in the same division as them), but also his ruthlessness and Machiavellian lust for power for his own purposes. Secondly, it was his strategic position in the Secretariat that allowed him to undermine the political bases of his opponents by placing his allies in key positions among the party. Thirdly, he showed skill in dealing with his opponents in piecemeal fashion, judging precisely how and when to isolate them and label them as "deviations." Finally, it has to be said that many of his opponents displayed a lack of political awareness that only hastened their political downfall. The question is how much importance should be placed on each of these factors. The dominant view in the 1950s was that Stalin's victory could in a large part be explained by Stalin's position as General Secretary, and organisational skill that incorporated his supporters in key positions, which made Stalin himself almost invulnerable to attack. This argument also includes the failures of the Party structure, which in its desire to see a disciplined party apparatus above all, allowed a circular flow of power to emerge. With the party congress choosing the Central Committee, which in turn chose the Politburo and the General Secretary, the man who ran the party apparatus that chose delegates for the congress (i.e. the General Secretary) could build a machine by placing officials in positions to control the entire system, from the selection of delegates to the congress, to the expansion of the Central Committee to ensure the Politburo was composed of members that he desired. More recent historians suggest that these factors have been exaggerated, and although important, they do not offer an entire explanation on their own, contrary to what the 1950's observers believed. Instead, more consideration should be placed on Stalin's ability to present a politically persuasive program and convince the party to accept it. Given the increasing numbers of economic administrators on the Central Committee who were enthusiastic about Stalin's programme of industrialisation, it could be argued that this was as much a part of the explanation for Stalin's rise to dominance as the organisation of the party. By creating a clique of twenty or thirty influential members of the Central Committee who were resolute supporters of his programme, Stalin could be assured of victory in whatever policies he was considering. This argument is strengthened by considering the premise that it is necessary to have a sound political programme to support the strategic ability to build a political machine to one's own advantage. Even the strongest political machine rests upon the self-interest and loyalty of the leader's subordinates, and without these it could collapse, so it was necessary for Stalin to have an appealing political programme to cement his position after he had achieved power; in order to take advantage of the "circle of power," he would have to find enough supporters to place in the key positions, which would require an appealing programme. Without this, it would have been difficult to manipulate the party, and thus we may deduce that the populist programme and organisational skill were both significant in different ways; the former to attract important supporters, and the latter to place them in important positions. It is difficult to label either factor as more important. One needs an appealing programme, but it could come either before the seizure of power (which would facilitate the gaining of power by manipulation of the party apparatus), or afterwards to secure the position (by eliminating opposition and building more loyal and hardened support within the party). However, you cannot have one without the other; Stalin did have both, and it seems he was able to use both simultaneously to build support and remove opposition at the same time, which combines both of the above arguments as being important in his rise to power. Finally, there is the issue of terror, which allowed Stalin to dominate both the party and the country for the rest of his rule. This terror continued right up until his death, although at a reduced level than under the initial phase known as the Great Purge. To show how terror was applied to the party, we need only examine the changes between the Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934 and the Eighteenth in 1939. Of the 2,000 delegates present in 1934, only 59 remained five years later. In the interim, over 1,000 had been arrested (and the majority were shot), while 98 of the 149 members of the Central Committee elected at the Seventeenth Congress had been arrested and shot. Anyone seen as a threat to Stalin ended up dead, either through arrest and show trial (e.g. Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Bukharin), or assassination (Kirov and Trotsky). There was also a campaign that decimated the upper echelons of the military. The need to protect the state against its enemies became a cover for getting rid of anyone who appeared to deviate in any way that Stalin perceived as a threat. Up to 20 million people were killed. The threat of arbitrary arrest, torture, exile to the gulags in Siberia, or execution ensured that Stalin was easily able to maintain the power he had gained, and thus he remained in power until his death in 1953. Lenin Comes to Power � The Creation of the Soviet Union Key Terms: Nicholas II; Duma; late developer; Lenin; Bolsheviks; CPSU; February Revolution; October Revolution; Provisional Government; Civil War; War Communism; NEP � The pre-revolutionary situation in Russia � Politics: Empire ruled by Nicholas II (Romanovs) � Dilemma: having weak autocrat at time of world turmoil � Coping with internal and external threats � First experiment with democracy (1905) � Economics: Russia as a �late developer� � Negative consequences of being a �late developer� � Levels of industrialization, division of population (rural/urban) � Organization of production � Serfs � �freed� in 1861 � but little practical change � Positive consequences of being a �late developer� � Arguably not necessary to make the same mistakes as did those who went before you. � Gerschenkron � �leap-frogging� � Present-day parallels � transition to market democracy � Reality � Need more money to catch up (capital investment) � Enhanced role of state & foreign capitalists � Tremendous strides in 1890s and first part of 20th c. BUT hampered by lack of skilled workers and underdevelopment of infrastructure � 1917: The revolutions & the rise of Lenin � Events of 1917 took place in the context of WWI � February Revolution � Workers strike in Petrograd (St Petersburg) � Motivation: food shortages & inflation � Strikes followed by street demonstrations & disorder � Military response emboldens protestors � Soldiers refused to help police restore order � Tsarist regime was unable to restore order � The tsar abdicates � formation of the Provisional Government � Holds power for 8 mo � until Oct 1917 � Provisional Gov�t fails: liberalism + incompetence + holding onto unpopular policies � The October Revolution & the rise of the Communists � The rise of Communism � 19th century in Russia � several radical political movements arise. � What ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) began as the Social Democratic Party of Russia � Split into 2 factions: Bolsheviks and Mensheviks � Bolsheviks ultimately prevail � Organizing principles of the CPSU: �vanguard party� � How do the Bolsheviks come to power? � Advocated popular positions � Take advantage of the continuing instability in the capital (Petrograd) to whip up support � Take decision to seize control of key points within Petrograd on Oct 25 � bloodless revolution � What do Communists / Bolsheviks do once in power � Follow through on few promises � BUT stay in power through repression and intimidation � Creation of secret police (Cheka) � Press censorship � Circulation of elites � Post-1917: Consolidation of Power � Civil War: Reds (Bolsheviks) vs. Whites (everyone else) � Trotsky: Bolshevik military leader � Class element � Whites were likely to be from the former nobility � Reds were more likely to be workers � Domestic policy consequences of the Civil War. � Social unrest, shortages, decreased industrial production � Response: War Communism � Substitution of administrative mechanisms for market allocation in order to marshal adequate resources for the Civil War. � Forcible requisition of agricultural surpluses � nationalization of industry � abolition of private trade � state control over labor allocation � Evaluating War Communism: � Pro: Allowed Bolsheviks to win the Civil War � Con: Left country exhausted � Serves as lesson for Communists when they return to these sorts of policies under Stalin � New Economic Policy (NEP) � 1921 � Lenin described NEP as a temporary step backward � away from socialism � necessary in order to take two steps forward in future. � Bolsheviks troubled by reintroduction of market mechanisms � Agriculture was left in the hands of the peasant � less forced requisitioning � moved to a system of proportional taxing � Most industry was denationalized � NEP was a popular program � only made Bolsheviks hate it more � Evaluating NEP: � Pro: increased output � Con: ideologically untenable for Bolsheviks � Lenin�s death (1925) � intervening factor � Question: What would have happened if he had lived? � Reality: NEP was abandoned in 1928 � USSR rejects market � adopts a planned economy Socialist Democracy: Was it Anything Like Democracy? Terms: Constituent Assembly; soviets; Supreme Soviet, Presidium; democratic centralism; nomenklatura � Elections in the Soviet Union � Constituent Assembly (1918) � scheduled by Provisional Government � Bolsheviks allow it to go forward � results: Bolsheviks win only about 25% of seats � assembly meets for one day � doors barred on second day � no societal protest when assembly disbanded � Soviets become legislative bodies for USSR � exist at all levels � for USSR: Supreme Soviet � bicameral � 750 members of each chamber � 4 yr terms � meets 2 times per year � Presidium � elected from Supreme Soviet � 40 members � permanent body w/ law-making authority � Voting � universal suffrage � some class-based discrimination � disappears by 1920s � direct election to soviets (including Supreme Soviet) � Candidates � selected by Communist Party � criteria? � Pros & cons of electoral system � Role of Legislatures � On superficial level � promulgate legislation � In reality � legislatures have little power � policy decisions made by Communist Party � Supreme Soviets rubber stamp CPSU decisions � Consequences of having hollow legislature � for society? � for legislators? � Executive branch � national level � ministries � Council of Ministers (100+ members) � Presidium of Council of Ministers (10 members) � Premier � Lenin�s job � beginning with Stalin, job lost luster & power � Communist Party � not a mass organization � never intended to become mass organization � vanguard party � membership was privilege not right � application => candidate membership => full membership � preceded by membership in Pioneers & Komsomol � purges � reasons for joining � ideological � careerist � decision-making is quickly centralized � debates permitted at time of October Revolution � by 1921 (Tenth Party Congress) � no more debates � democratic centralism � party line � internal organization � party committees (partkom) existed at every level of social organization & within every workplace � party committees elected delegates to party congresses � BUT party congresses are not held regularly � result: congresses are not real decision-making bodies � Central Committee (300 members) � Politburo � Putting the Legislative / Executive / Party Organizations Together � Accountability? � Duplication of effort? Russia�s Present-Day Challenges From Yeltsin to Putin & Beyond the Borders Terms: Putin, asymmetrical federalism, Duma, Dudayev � Yeltsin (1991-99) � Background � Born 1931 in Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg) � Worker family � no fancy education � Entered Party bureaucracy in his 30s � 1976: First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk oblast (region) � 1985: First Secretary of Moscow City Party Committee � 1987: Dismissed as First Secretary of Moscow � Career revived � 1989 elections to legislature � Elected to Congress of People�s Deputies (March 1989) � Elected as president of Russian parliament (vote of legislators) � Elected as president of Russian Federation by popular vote (June 12, 1991) � Quits Party (Summer 1991) � Parliament of the Russian Federation � Yeltsin as president (Analogous to Gorbachev as president of USSR parliament) � unique period � USSR and RF legislatures are battling with each other � �war of laws� � Yeltsin is on RF side (Gorbachev on USSR side) � Creation of Commonwealth of Independent States (Dec 1991) � Making sense of the 1990s � what happened & what didn�t happen � Decade of amazing changes � but did they go far enough? � Institutional structure � form vs. substance � Stalemate between executive & legislative branches � Disagreement over pace of reforms � Culminates in stand-off at White House (home of legislature) � Yeltsin prevails � tanks fire on White House (Oct 1993) � New constitution (1993) � New legislature � Duma � Competitive elections have been regularized � New kind of federalism � asymmetrical � intentional or not? � Economy � form vs. substance � Yeltsin moves decisively in the direction of market economy � Gorbachev resigns on Dec 25, 1991 � Yeltsin eliminates price controls in Jan 1992 � Privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOE) � massive shift in ownership � shareholders � psychological change � plan to profit � Bumpy transition � drastic decline in production � rise in barter � Aug 1998 �crash� � bankruptcy as second wave of privatization � answers? � Changing role of Russia on the world stage � Continuity between Yeltsin & Gorbachev � pursue good relations w/ West (especially US) � Summits yield arms control agreements � Tone shifts � Russia seeks financial assistance from West � Disagreements between Russia & West � Yugoslavia � NATO expansion � Putin: Where did he come from? � legal education � career in KBG � helped by political patrons in St. Petersburg (Sobchak, Chubais) � unexpected choice as prime minister � then becomes acting president � apologetic tone of Yeltsin�s resignation (Dec 1999) � Challenges facing Putin � Political reforms � center-periphery relations � reenergize the center � creation of �super regions� w/ presidential representatives � reforms to Federal Assembly � governors kicked out � role of political parties � Economy � already turning around by the time Putin takes over � oil revenues � simplification of tax system � 1998 financial crisis � bankruptcy reform � Foreign relations � basic message: Russia wants to play constructive role in world � ups & downs to US-Russia relationship � reenergized by September 11 � US needs Putin�s help � Chechnya � first war � 1994 � contentious relationship between Yeltsin & Dudayev � Dudayev � long career in Red Army � returns to Chechnya � elected president (Nov 1990) � result � quagmire � Putin renews war � learns lessons from first war � strict restrictions on media � long bombardment of cities before ground troops sent in Marxist theory, and in particular its use in media analysis, is outmoded in a world where a capitalist consumer culture holds sway. Explain why you agree or disagree with this statement. Below is a short sample of the essay "Marxist theory, and in particular its use in media analysis, is outmoded in a world where a capitalist consumer culture holds sway. Explain why you agree or disagree with this statement.". If you sign up you could be reading the rest of this essay in under two minutes. Registered users should log in to view the full essay. ... ical opinion or highly specialized subjects will reach a mass audience because it isn't within the mainstream 'consensus' of society. The idea of consensus is one advocated by Functionalist theory. Consensus in any given society means that most people are generally content with the way the society is run, otherwise it wouldn't 'function' properly. According to functionalism, most people are 'happy' with capitalist society otherwise they would overthrow it either by voting in anti-capitalist politicians or by revolution. Marxists would obviously counter-act this by saying that the hegemonic bourgeois ideological control that is dominant in capitalism prevents workers from realizing they're being oppressed. Ian Nicholls Page 5 A factor which is increasingly damaging Marxism's credibility as a tool for media analysis is its crude determinism; the idea that the working class are completely passive in their consumption of the media is one that is widely derided. In fact, modern audiences who have grown up on a steady diet of various media are increasingly cynical of what they see, and TV ratings are declining, as is newspaper circulation. Postmodernist theory is one which has started to take a central role in media studies over Marxism. It has several advantages: the postmodern ideas arise out of a society where the media - and particularly electronic ... Post-Cold War Realities Below is a short sample of the essay "Post-Cold War Realities". If you sign up you could be reading the rest of this essay in under two minutes. Registered users should log in to view the full essay. ... e relations with Iran presented the opportunity to collaborate once again. Due to Persian culture's important ties with the predominantly Islamic majorities in many of these new states, Russia sees the opportunity to culturally contract Iran for its own influential benefit. Similar to Russia, Iran has nothing to gain from the re-emergence of a power struggle in the region. But by cooperating with Russia, it can also extend its own political and cultural influence, establishing economic ties in the process. The distinct lack of cultural and national identities provides Tehran, with its historical ties, a singular ability to take advantage of the situation and possibly further its long held belief in a "great Iran" spreading into the larger Middle East. For many of these countries, Iran could represent a means to gaining alternatives to Moscow's control. At the same time, Russia believes that it could use Iran as a conduit for indirectly influencing the region on uncooperative issues and as a means to strengthen ties with the Muslim populations.[31] As a result, "with a 'Moscow-centric' policy, Iran became more understanding of Russia's interests in the region, and Russia in turn accepted a greater role for Iran in Central Asia."[32] Iran and Russia's both have long borders along many of these disputed areas. The possibility of conflict spillover is then a mutual fear more easily mitigated by cooperation. Such conflicts can produce millions of refugees and possible separatist influences in there own countries. For example, the Chechen region has proved to be a recurring nightmare for Moscow's politicians and Iran would like nothing less than to see its population of 20 million Azeri's (more than twice that of Azerbaijan itself) pulled into the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabagh. In the latter conflict, both Russia and Iran have backed Armenia by providing military and political support.[33] However, economic interests have been the determining factor, exemplified by the fact that the Azeri's are Shiite Muslims and roughly a quarter of Iran's population hails from Baku. As I will explain later in more detail, both Russia and Iran are seeking to gain primacy for their own oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea over the Western-backed pipeline from Azerbaijan. In other areas of conflict, Iran has been markedly reserved and allowed Russia to settle disputes on its own, as was the case in Tajikistan.[34] Tehran realizes that it must advance its influence in ways that will not antagonize regional regimes, or Russia for that matter. For example, Moscow is likely to respond negatively to Iranian attempts to undercut it economically or in the spread of Islamic fundamentalism to the detriment of ethnic Russians in the region. However, they have realized that the more successful they both are in consolidating relations with regional governments, the more likely economic cooperation becomes between one another. So, Iran has unprovocatively begun to establish infrastructural ties with regional countries as a way to take advantage of the new markets. For example, it has set up rail lines from Mashad to Turkmenistan; air routes to Baku, Almty, Ashgabat, Tashkent and Dushanbe; Caspian ports to Baku and Turkmenistan; pursued efforts to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan; and been the driving force behind the expansion of regional organizations like CASCO and ECO to include the newly independent states.[35] Undoubtedly, both sides would like to have a cooperation from the other if ethnic tensions should arise in the former republics as well as for economic reasons, but the underpinning theme of anti-Westernism still plays an important role in their relationship. Central Asia has not only opened to the West politically and culturally, but also economically. It's vast oil reserves, untapped markets, and capitalist vacuums have attracted significant attention from Western business interests. Russia and Iran have realized the benefit of cooperation in an effort to hinder the development of Western influence. While they would both like a monopoly of the region's economic resources, they still believe that a joint venture would be more beneficial and effective in the long run at thwarting the alternative-America and the West. CASPIAN OIL AND PIPELINES Over the past decade, the Caspian Sea (see appendix 2) has been found to contain between 70 to 200 billion barrels of oil, or roughly 10% percent of the world's reserves.[36] As a result, it has become the latest playing field for Russia, Iran and the West in the Great Game. Not only do they all dispute who has the legal drilling rights to its oil fields, but they are also entrenched in a nasty competition to gain primacy for their respective pipelines and transportation routes. While Russia and Iran would certainly prefer to control all of the Caspian, they have once again seen the mutual benefit that cooperation provides. One would think that international law clearly dictates which part of the sea belongs to which country, however with such an immense economic windfall at stake, it is unsurprising that this has now become a major point of contention. On the one side is Western-backed Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where Western oil companies have invested heavily. They claim, quite sensibly really, that the Caspian Sea is, in fact, a sea. As such, the maritime borders entitle them to their own respective territorial zones. Not surprisingly, this legal tack would place the huge southern Caspian Alov structure in Azeri waters and the northern Kashagan field (second largest find in 30 years) under Kazak control. Iran, Russia and Turkmenistan, on the other hand, claim that Soviet-era treaties make the Caspian a lake, which under international law would mean that most of it would be jointly owned and managed-effectively giving them more oil. Another point of contention has arisen concerning who will transport the oil to market, and gain a hefty transit fee in the process (see appendix 3). In March of 2001, the governments of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding on a proposed 1,075-mile pipeline, to run from the Azeri capital of Baku via Georgia's capital Tbilisi to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.[37] Although it is far from a final agreement and simply provides a framework for including the Kashagan, Tengiz and other Kazak fields, this American and British backed route is the leading alternative to those proposed by Iran and Russia. Iran, however, has not taken kindly to these proposals due ... All formatting has been removed from