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Peter's provision that provided for single-male
inheritance was repealed, a victory for gentry
members who would be otherwise forced to
turn to government service for a living. In 1736,
gentry service—previously a lifetime obliga-
tion—was reduced to 25 years and exempted
one son from service so that he could tend to the
family estate. In 1762
PETER III
abolished all com-
pulsory gentry service. Anna's reign witnessed
the continued deterioration of the status and
conditions of Russia's enserfed peasantry. They
were now forbidden to own property, establish
factories, or enter into contracts with the gov-
ernment. Russia continued to expand its borders
by finally subjugating the Bashkirs in the lower
Volga region, obtaining a loyalty oath from the
Kazakhs, and promoting Vitus
BERING
's second
Arctic expedition, which reached
ALASKA
in
1741. To the west, Russia continued to embroil
itself in European affairs, allying itself with
Austria against France in the War of the Polish
Succession (1733-35) and against the Ottoman
Empire (1736-39). Childless at death, she
appointed her niece's infant son, who reigned as
IVAN VI
, as her successor, but within nine months
he was overthrown, jailed, and succeeded by
ELIZABETH
, Peter the Great's younger daughter.
eration. The choice for a new anthem was the
melody of the “Patriotic Song,” an unfinished
work by the 19th-century composer Mikhail
Ivanovich
GLINKA
, which was most likely written
in 1833. The anthem remained wordless until
President Vladimir
PUTIN
held a competition to
provide new words to the national anthem.
anti-Party group
The name applied to the group of old-guard
Communists in the Politburo (then known as
Presidium) who attempted unsuccessfully to
remove Nikita
KHRUSHCHEV
as first secretary
(general secretary) of the
COMMUNIST PARTY
in
June 1957. The leaders of the “anti-Party”
group—Georgi
MALENKOV
, Lazar
KAGANOVICH
,
Vyacheslav
MOLOTOV
, Nikolai
BULGANIN
, and
Kliment Voroshilov—had all occupied promi-
nent positions under
STALIN
, and behind their
ritual declarations of party unity were watching
with alarm the growing concentration of power
in Khrushchev's hands and his ongoing de-Stal-
inization campaign. The name given to their
conspiracy arose from the fact that they all rep-
resented government ministries and opposed the
transfer of power back to the party, where Khrus-
hchev had his power base. In June 1957, they
struck by forming a majority within the Presid-
ium in support of Khrushchev's removal as party
first secretary. Khrushchev outmaneuvered
them by calling for an emergency plenary meet-
ing of the Central Committee, which voted to
expel three of the main conspirators (Malenkov,
Kaganovich, and Molotov) from the Presidium
and Central Committee. Bulganin, serving as
prime minister at the time, was reprimanded
after a confession of guilt and removed from the
Presidium a year later. Voroshilov, official head
of state of the Soviet Union, remained in this
purely ceremonial post until 1960 in great part
owing to his long-term association with Khrush-
chev. As further punishment, anti-Party group
members were demoted to minor posts in
remote areas. Malenkov was sent to Kazakhstan
to manage a hydroelectric plant, Kaganovich to
anthems
For the first two decades of Soviet rule, the
anthem of Russia was the “Internationale,” the
theme song of the international socialist move-
ment. In 1944 it was replaced by a more martial
and nationalist anthem, which began with the
words “Indestructible union of free republics.”
The words to this Soviet anthem were written by
G. El-Registan and Sergei Mikhalkov, the latter
the father of two well-known film directors from
the late Soviet era, Andrei Konchalovsky and
Nikita
MIKHALKOV
. The music was by Aleksandr
V. Aleksandrov. This anthem continued, with
some revisions in 1977, through the rest of the
Soviet period. With the dissolution of the Soviet
Union, it became necessary to adopt a new
anthem for the newly independent Russian Fed-
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