From the Barents to the Bering

Coming to Grips with a Circumpolar Giant

Terence Armstrong

Everyone knows that the Soviet Arctic is the biggest bit of the Arctic. But perhaps not all realize just how big.

The Arctic Circle runs through Soviet territory for 160 of its 360 degrees. Essentially of the Old World, it nevertheless stretches across the 180th meridian into the Western Hemisphere at Chukotka. Its overall area depends on the exact location of the southern boundary, which, in turn, depends on the definition of "Arctic"; but if equated with the "Soviet North", as Soviet geographers use that term, it exceeds 11 million square kilometres, or half the area of the U.S.S.R. If it were independent, it would be the biggest nation in the world. It is, of course, the most sparsely inhabited half of the country; yet its population is denser than that of Canada's territories, Alaska, or Greenland.

From this large piece of the earth's surface one is entitled to expect much: in resources, both material and human; in history; in ideas relevant to other parts of the North. For these reasons, students of the North have always acknowledged the importance of studying the Soviet Arctic. Unfortunately, they often have been frustrated in seeking to satisfy their curiosity, both because of a language barrier and because of a genuine shortage of information. But it would seem that now is an excellent time to start-or start again-the process of learning from the Soviet arctic experience.

In the years after the revolution the young Soviet state strove to render itself virtually independent of external sources of supply, and was therefore willing, indeed keen, to explore the distant comers of its realm for the minerals it required. In this way were discovered the giant nickel deposits at Noril'sk (not then a settlement at all, let alone the city of 200 000 it is today); tin at Deputatskiy and Iul'tin; gold in the far north-east; diamonds in the Lena basin; apatite south of Murmansk. These northern deposits now yield the whole of Soviet production of diamonds and apatite, and more than half its production of gold, nickel, and tin. In addition to these, there have been more recent and more important discoveries. The north-west Siberian oil and gas field, untapped until the 1960s, today provides 65 per cent of the country's oil and 62 per cent of its gas. In support of all this is an efficient transportation system, including the world's largest ice-breaker flotilla (soon to include eight with nuclear power) and a large fleet of ice-strengthened freighters, together with appropriate air and land transportation components.

In a very real sense, then, the northlands are crucial to the Soviet economy. As long ago as 1971, academician N.N. Nekrasov, then chairman of Gosplan's Council for the Study of Productive Forces, said: "It is now quite clear that the future of our productive forces as a whole depends largely on tbe organization and pace of development of our northern territory."

 The human resources of the Soviet North are also very significant. However one draws the global southern boundary of "the North", the Soviet slice will contain more than 80 per cent of the population. That population includes northern natives, and the Soviet slice again holds 80 per cent of the world's northern peoples. Therefore, the reservoir of northern expertise may be expected to be great.

One may surmise that the northern natives of the U.S.S.R. gain from their greater numerical strength when compared with northern natives in the Western world. A few tens of thousands of Inuit or Greenlanders may not make much impression on southern law-givers-or may be more easily palmed off with what is thought to be good for them-but a million Soviet citizens will inevitably require special treatment. It is worth while trying to determine just what role the northern natives play. Administrative authorities may be tempted to use them as a cheap labour force-cheap because they are already on site. But the evidence seems to indicate that this is not so; natives are encouraged to continue their traditional pursuits, presumably because that is the most efficient way to employ them. The extent to which they retain their national culture thus becomes an economic factor.

 At the same time, importance advances have been made in the development of a native educational system.

 Environmental control has become a very significant issue for Western countries. To be fully effective, it must have an international component. Is the U.S.S.R. likely to co-operate in action to reduce pollution in the northlands? There is growing evidence that Soviet authorities are susceptible to pressure in this direction. A recently published photograph in Pravda showed a mass of empty, rusting oil barrels on the arctic coast-a common enough sight in other regions of the Arctic but not one that the Soviet national press has hitherto drawn attention to in a Soviet location. As well, public opinion seems to be playing an increasingly significant role in influencing official policy.

 The history of exploration of the Soviet North is a remarkable story of which Westerners are largely ignorant. The names of Hudson, Baffin, Parry, and Franklin are well known to any with the smallest interest in exploration history. But who knows of Fedot Alekseyev, Ivan Moskvitin, Dmitriy Laptev, or Boris Vil'kitskiy? There is indeed an important gap in Westerners' perception of the history of Arctic discovery-a gap not mirrored in the Soviet perception of the exploration of the Western Hemisphere's Arctic.

 The Soviet Arctic is certain to continue as a focal point in world affairs. The pivotal significance of the Arctic Ocean in strategic thinking is generally accepted: as an operating base for submarines, as a buffer area between the main antagonists, as the closest open ocean area to Murmansk. The "creeping sovereignty" set in motion by international agreements concerning exploitation of the resources of coastal waters and the continental shelf is leading to a striking diminution in the area of the high seas in the Arctic Ocean and its adjacent waters. Thus, the already large slice of arctic land controlled by the U.S.S.R. is significantly enlarged by claims to an Exclusive Economic Zone, and some of these claims are disputed by neighbours-Norway in the Barents Sea and the United States in the Bering Sea. All this reinforces the need for international co-operation, if such disputes are to be settled peaceably.

In recent years the Soviet Union has given the impression of favouring bilateral rather than multilateral agreements in any attempt to regulate such affairs. This impression may be incorrect (the U.S.S.R. is, in fact, party to a number of multilateral agreements relating to the Arctic); but, more important, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev seems to have come down on the side of multilateral agreements when he called for a conference to co-ordinate arctic scientific work in his speech at Murmansk on 1 October 1987. This could, therefore, be the right moment to propose and plan joint action, whether in science or in economic development, and surely a prerequisite for doing this is to study the Soviet record in the Arctic thus far.

 Terence Armstrong is Senior Associate, Northern and Soviet Affairs, with the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge.