Soviet Sovereignty in the Arctic Seas
Camil Simard
The question of Soviet sovereign rights in the Arctic has always constituted an ambiguous issue. Although the adoption of the so-called "sector theory" has given the Soviet Union a pseudo-legal basis for the acquisition of sovereignty over lands and islands within its arctic sector, the question of Soviet sovereign rights over arctic waters has long remained uncertain.
The development of a new international law of the sea has provided the world community with a revised legal framework for "the governance and management of the world's oceans, including the Arctic Ocean".1 Frequently cited in Soviet legal doctrine, this "charter of the sea"-an impressive document of 320 articles and nine appendices-provides a legal basis for regulation of all aspects of state activity related to exploration, utilization, and exploitation of the maritime spaces and their resources. The U.S.S.R. is the largest maritime power to have signed the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, and, although this "charter" is still not in force, many Soviet jurists have expressed the view that a large number of its provisions have already acquired broad legal and political recognition. The various functional and jurisdictional regimes elaborated in the 1982 convention reflect a trend toward increasing coastal-state control over maritime areas and ocean resources. Thus, they have important implications for the circumpolar states, particularly the Soviet Union.
There is no doubt that Soviet stakes in the Arctic, in terms of security and resources, are high. Economic and strategic interests have constituted, and still constitute, the major factors in the shaping of Soviet legal policy in its arctic region. A glance at the map reveals the enormity of the U.S.S.R.'s maritime arctic frontier: a 10 000-kilometre coastline, stretching from the White Sea to the Bering Strait, encompasses five adjacent seas (Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi), delimited from each other by groups of islands, whose total area is equivalent to almost half the Arctic Ocean. Indeed, in these waters lies the world's largest continental shelf� 4.3 million square kilometres in area.
The tremendous amount of energy and resources invested by the Soviet Union in the Arctic is ample evidence of the economic and strategic significance of the region. The Northern Sea Route, linking Murmansk to Vladivostok across the arctic seas and along the Soviet coast, represents the shortest sea lane between the European and Far Eastern regions of the U.S.S.R. Indeed, owing to a system of internal rivers, the Northern Sea Route provides vital access to the resources of northern Siberia.
In recent years, the long-term prospects for exploitation of the immense hydrocarbon and gas reserves in the Soviet arctic offshore area have focused attention on the region. However, Soviet interests in the Far North are unquestionably more a function of the U.S.S.R.'s "global engagement" and nuclear competition with the United States.2 Geographic factors and the development of weapons technology have enhanced the strategic significance of the Barents Seal/Kola Peninsula area. As the Soviets would probably point out, the U.S.S.R.'s military presence in the Arctic constitutes an inherent component of their concept of "equality and mutual security", including the principle of nuclear parity, in superpower relations.
A New Soviet View
Since the "sector theory" was first formulated, the legal regime in the Arctic has undergone significant development. This evolution is the result of a series of concomitant factors, such as the creation and codification of the international law of the sea, the development of arctic states' views on the region, and the increasing importance of the northern region in terms of economic and strategic considerations. In this context, the Soviet Union has elaborated a new legal regime in the maritime Arctic aimed at protecting its "assets" in the Far North.
Recently, Soviet authors have expressed the view that the contemporary legal regime of the arctic maritime spaces is regulated by the existing norms of international law and by national laws, enacted by arctic states in accordance with those norms.3 This position represents a significant departure from the traditional Soviet view, which has emphasized the particular character of the waters of the Soviet arctic sector (especially the Kara, Laptev, and East Siberian seas) and held them to be historic internal waters of the U.S.S.R. Recent Soviet legal sources have reflected the Soviet state practice concerning sovereign rights in arctic waters. In fact, by integrating various dispositions of the 1982 Law of the Sea convention into internal law, the Soviet Union has extended its coastal-state jurisdiction over a relatively large portion of the Arctic Ocean and has given itself important powers for the regulation of various activities in these waters.
In 1985, the U.S.S.R. drew straight baselines along its arctic coastline and around the three archipelagos (Novaya Zemlya, Severnaya Zemlya, and Novosibirskiye Ostrova) crossed by the Northeast Passage. This represented an important stage in the process of "territorialization" of Soviet arctic waters, since the breadth of the Soviet Union's territorial sea, exclusive economic zone, and continental shelf in these waters would be, henceforth, measured from these baselines. Indeed, by enclosing the waters of the straits of these archipelagos, the decree introduced a new perspective on the question of the legal status of the Northern Sea Route.
These baselines were adopted in accordance with a 1982 law, "On the State Boundary of the U.S.S.R." However, as Professor Donat Pharand of the University of Ottawa has pointed out, this disposition does not repeat the conditions for the establishment of straight baselines determined in the 1951 Anglo-Norwegian Fisheries case, to wit, where a coast is deeply indented or is bordered by a group of islands at proximity to the coast. This concept was subsequently incorporated in the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Territorial Sea, which the Soviet Union has ratified, and in the 1971 amendment of the 1960s version of the law on the state boundary. However, in the 1982 boundary law, it is noted only that the baselines must join appropriate points.4 This would appear to be tacit acknowledgement of the fact that the Soviet argument for straight baselines is problematical and may explain why so little publicity accompanied the adoption of the 1985 Soviet decree.
In international law, the state exercises sovereignty over its internal waters and territorial sea, reserving, in the latter case, the right of innocent passage to foreign ships. The 1982 boundary law, repeating various dispositions of the Law of the Sea convention and some provisions of its 1960 version, reaffirms the 12-mile-limit territorial sea. It also defines the internal waters of the U.S.S.R., establishes a regime of innocent passage for foreign ships, and sets out numerous powers relative to the protection of the Soviet frontiers. This law is of primary importance in the determination of the legal regime of the Northeast Passage, as it provides for the establishment of a 12-mile-limit territorial sea "computed from the lowest ebb-tide line both on mainland and on islands...or from straight baselines joining appropriate points". At Article 6, various bodies of water are designated internal waters of the U.S.S.R.: "waters of bays, inlets, coves...seas and straits, historically belonging to the U.S.S.R." and "sea waters on the landward side of straight baselines adopted to compute the breadth of the territorial waters (territorial sea) of the U.S.S.R.". The law does not specifically name the bodies of water considered historic waters. As stated earlier, Soviet jurists have always considered the Kara, Laptev, and East Siberian seas as waters historically belonging to the Soviet Union. Some have categorized the Sannikov and Dmitriy Laptev straits, connecting the Laptev and East Siberian seas, as historic waters. However, Soviet authorities have always demonstrated prudence on the question of historic waters. Concerning arctic waters, only the White Sea, Cheshskaya Bay in the Barents Sea, and Baidaratskaya Bay in the Kara Sea have been decreed waters historically belonging to the U.S.S.R.
Internal Waters
By enclosing the waters of the archipelagos crossed by the Northern Sea Route, the Soviet decree makes the straits internal waters. In customary international law, waters enclosed by baselines are assimilated to internal waters without right of innocent passage for foreign ships. However, the 1958 convention on the territorial sea, to which the Soviet Union is a signatory, stipulates that the right of innocent passage for foreign ships continues to apply to internal waters that, before being enclosed by straight baselines, were territorial waters or part of the high seas. Article 13 of the law on the state boundary mentions that "foreign non-military vessels shall enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial waters of the U.S.S.R. in accordance with U.S.S.R. legislation...and in effecting innocent passage, follow the ordinary navigational course or the course recommended by competent Soviet agencies." In this sense, the innocent passage of foreign non-military vessels is submitted to various rules established by the Soviet agency that administers the Northern Sea Route. Since 1965, ice-breaker assistance and pilotage has been obligatory for all ships traversing the Vil'kitskiy, Shokal'skiy, Dmitriy Laptev, and Sannikov straits. From the Soviet point of view, the Northern Sea Route does not constitute an ordinary navigational course. Soviet authors have always emphasized the national character of the route, the absence of foreign navigation, and its significance to the economy and defence of the U.S.S.R. In fact, in his Murmansk speech of October 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev expressed clearly the Soviet point of view toward the status of the Northern Sea Route: "I think that, depending on how the normalization of international relations will go, we could open the Northern Sea Route for foreign ships under Soviet ice-breaker escorts."5
In the case of foreign warships, innocent passage through territorial waters is provided for in the "Rules for Navigation and Sojourn of Foreign Warships in the Territorial Waters and Internal Waters and Ports of the U.S.S.R.". This normative act, adopted in 1983 in accordance with Article 13 of the 1982 law on the state boundary, contains important dispositions for the regulation of foreign warships in Soviet territory. Unlike the 1982 Law of the Sea convention, which defines passage as the fact of navigating in the territorial waters in order to enter the internal sea, the 1983 Soviet rules have established two different regimes of navigation for foreign warships: the need for preliminary permission from Soviet authorities if navigation implies entrance into the internal waters of the U.S.S.R., and a right of innocent passage for foreign warships traversing only the territorial waters of the U.S.S.R.6 In the latter case, Article 12 of the rules stipulates that the innocent passage of foreign warships through the territorial waters of the U.S.SR. is permitted on routes normally used for international navigation in the Baltic Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Sea of Japan. Therefore, on the basis of the 1982 Convention, which stipulates the right of the coastal state to establish corridors of navigation in territorial waters required for the security of navigation, the Soviet Union has been able to circumscribe the right of innocent passage for foreign ships within its arctic territorial waters.
Economic Zone
The institution of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) constitutes, without question, the "cornerstone" of the 1982 Law of the Sea convention. This new concept reflects the compromise that emerged during the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea on the issue of coastal states' access to ocean resources. The dispositions in Part V of the Law of the Sea convention, while providing to coastal states sovereign rights over biological and mineral resources, and national jurisdiction over marine activities within a 200-mile zone, preserve the basic freedoms of the high seas within this area. In accordance with the 1982 convention, the Soviet Union adopted a decree, "On the Economic Zone of the U.S.S.R." in 1984. This decree replaced the 1976-77 provisional measures on a 200-mile fishery zone and constituted the first national act to integrate the dispositions concerning the EEZ from the 1982 Law of the Sea convention. Thus, the Soviet Union established a 200-mile EEZ, including the areas around islands belonging to the Soviet Union, computed from the same baselines as the territorial waters. Through the drawing of these baselines, the Soviet EEZ incorporated a larger portion of the Arctic Ocean. including a 200-mile zone around Franz Josef Land.
Within its EEZ, the Soviets exercise: sovereign rights for the purposes of exploration, exploitation, and conservation of natural resources (living and non-living) on the seabed, in the subsoil, and in superadjacent waters, as well as for the management of these resources; sovereign rights with respect to other types of activity regarding the economic exploration and exploitation of the said zone; and jurisdiction in relation to the construction and use of artificial islands, the conduct of scientific research, and the preservation of the economic environment. For this purpose, the Soviet Union has provided itself with important dispositions regulating numerous marine activities within its EEZ. Without enumerating all the normative acts adopted in accordance with the 1984 decree, it should be noted that the Soviets have enacted dispositions related to the exclusive conservation and utilization of living and non-living resources within their 200-mile EEZ. Like other countries, the Soviet Union maintains exclusive rights to erect, permit, and regulate the construction, exploitation, and use of artificial islands or any kind of installations and structures within its EEZ. Marine scientific research in the EEZ is to be conducted in accordance with the 1985 Soviet law, "Statute on the Procedure for Conducting Marine Scientific Research in the Economic Zone of the U.S.S.R." and the existing norms of international law.
Concerning the protection of the marine environment, the 1984 Soviet decree on the EEZ stipulates that special measures can be enacted to preserve maritime areas, with ecological and oceanographic particularities, against pollution. In March of 1984, the Soviets adopted the "Edict on Intensifying Nature Protection in Areas of the Far North and Marine Areas Adjacent to the Northern Coast of the U.S.S.R.". This legislation established important measures concerning protection of the environment and the prevention of pollution in the entire Soviet Arctic. Article 3 of this edict provides for the adoption of special navigational rules "in the marine areas adjacent to the
Northern Coast of the U.S.S.R., where particularly severe climatic conditions and ice create hindrances or increase danger for shipping and pollution of the marine environment that could cause grave harm to the ecological balance or irreversibly disturb it..."
Although it has been said that this edict has also been adopted in accordance with Article 234 of the 1982 convention, which applies to ice-covered zones, the application of the edict is not only restricted to the 200-mile EEZ. In fact, it is stipulated that the edict applies to the Soviet islands located in the Arctic Ocean, the islands of the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk, the arctic seas adjacent to the Soviet coast, other territories of the U.S.S.R. considered by the Council of Ministers as regions of the High North, and maritime spaces adjacent to the Soviet arctic coast, the position of which influences the ecological well-being of the Soviet North.
Continental Shelf
The question of the legal status of the Siberian continental shelf, lying in the arctic seas, is of particular interest due to its potential economic significance. In international law, sovereignty over land territories automatically confers exclusive jurisdiction over mineral resources on the continental shelf, the latter being an extension of the land territory of the coastal state.7 The Soviet Union, in conformity with the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf, enacted the edict, "On the Continental Shelf of the U.S.S.R." in 1968. Article I states that the Soviet Union exercises exclusive sovereign rights over its continental shelf lying beyond the outer limit of Soviet territorial waters, for the purposes of exploring and exploiting its mineral resources. As stated in this edict, the natural resources of the seabed are the state property of the U.S.S.R. The exploration and exploitation of these resources, and any research activities on the continental shelf, are conducted according to rules based on this edict. Foreign individuals and companies are prohibited from carrying out research, exploration, exploitation of natural resources, and other work on the continental shelf of the U.S.S.R. unless permission has been granted.
Although the 1982 Law of the Sea convention contains new dispositions concerning the seaward limit of the continental shelf, these have yet to be incorporated into Soviet legislation. The 1968 edict fixes the seaward boundary of the Soviet continental shelf, beyond the outer limit of the Soviet territorial sea, as such: up to a depth of 200 metres or "where the depth of the superadjacent waters admits of the exploitation of the natural resources of these areas". It appears that the provisions of the 1968 edict better serve Soviet interests, taking into consideration the very shallow waters of the arctic seas and uncertainty with regard to a possible extension of the Siberian Shelf.
Extending Control
Overall, the Soviet state has managed to profit from the emerging international law of the sea to build a legal framework reflecting its interests in the Arctic. In fact, the increasing process of "territorialization", which was contingent to the emergence of a new legal order of the sea, has given the Soviet Union, as well as other circumpolar states, the opportunity to consolidate control over a relatively large portion of the arctic waters. On one point, the latest Soviet legislation demonstrates that the terms "international law" and "Arctic Ocean" are no more incompatible. The arctic states have always refrained from encouraging any process of internationalization of the region. However, in view of the important progress achieved in the sphere of international law of the sea, it seems that the Soviet Union-like Canada-is probably in no position to re-establish its entire maritime "sphere of influence" on the basis of such anachronisms as the concept of historic waters or the sector theory.
The uncertain future of the 1982 Law of the Sea convention may raise some points for debate concerning the Soviet law of the sea policy vis-a-vis the Arctic Ocean. Indeed, the Soviet Union, in extending its jurisdiction over arctic waters, has been submitted to the same pattern of conflicts of interests between adjacent and opposite states over the delimitation of the maritime zones and rights to ocean resources.8 And while Canada has experienced such problems with the United States, the issue concerning the delimitation of the EEZ and the continental shelf between Norway and the U.S.S.R. in the Barents Sea has injected another conflicting element into an area already saturated by economic, political, and strategic concerns.
Notes
1. Douglas M. Johnston (ed.), Arctic Ocean Issues in the 1980s, Proceedings of the Law of the Sea Institute (Honolulu: I>w of the Sea Institute, 1982), p. 3. 2. Willy Ostreng, The Soviet Union in Arctic Waters, 36 Law of the Sea Institute (Honolulu: Law of the Sea Institute, 1987), p. 1; Barry R. Posen, "The U.S. Military Response to Soviet Naval Developments in the High North", in Jervell Svarre and Kare Nyblom (eds.), The Military Buildup in the High North: American and Nordic Perspectives (Lanham, Maryland, University Press of America 1986), p. 46.
3. N.~. Atasyan, N.I. Afanasyev et. al, Zakon Soyuza Sovetskith Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik "O Gosudarstvennoi Granitse SSSR: politiko-pravovoi kommentariy [The law of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics "On the State Boundary of the U.S.S.R.": a political-legal commentary] (Moscow: 1986), p. 17. In G.C. Gorshkov, G.A. Glazunov, et. al, MezhHunarod,.oe Morskoe PraYoi-seravochnik [International Law of the Sea: a reference book] (Moscow: 1985), p. 232, it is noted that the regime of the maritime spaces situated within the various arctic sectors must be defined on the basis of the existing norms of international law and must take into consideration the specific character of the Arctic Ocean.
4. Donat Pharand, "l'Arctique et le droit international de la mer", in L'Arcticque: espace strategique vital pour les grandes paissances, Centre Quebecois des Relations Internationales, Colloque d'etudes strategiques et militaires, 1986, pp .3 8, 4= 45.
5. Pravda, 2 October 1987, p. 3.
6. For more details, see: William E. Butler, "Innocent Passage and the 1982 Convention: The Influence of Soviet Law and Policy", American Journal of International Law, vol. 81, no. 2 (April 1987), pp. 331-347.
7. Pharand, "L'Arctique et le droit", p. 31.
8. Uwe Jenisch, "The Arctic Ocean and the New Law of the Sea", Aussenpolitik vol. 35, no. 2 (1984), p. 204.
Camil Simard is a graduate student in the Institute of Soviet and East European Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa.
The Soviet Perspective on Canada's North
An Overview of the Literature, 1947-1988
J. L. Black
Soviet writers have been interested in Canada's northern regions since their pilots first overflew the North Pole in the 1930s, and a very descriptive essay on "Northern Canada," was published in the U.S.S.R. as early as 1941. But it was only after the Second World War that they began to write about the area seriously-and their initial concern was purely strategic.
The epitome of this concern was a Pravda cartoon of 28 June 1947, with the caption, "Eisenhower Defends Himself." The future U.S. president-then Army Chief of Staff-is shown atop a jeep, surrounded by tanks and planes, prepared for an invasion through Canada and Alaska. When asked by a journalist, "What's going on, General?", he replies: "What? Can't you see that the enemy's forces are concentrated here? It is from here that the threat to American freedom will come." His army is confronted by three puzzled-looking Eskimos-two of them children-a reindeer, a fox, a penguin (from Antarctica, perhaps?), a seal, and two bemused polar bears.
During the first decade after the war, the Soviet press was filled with articles decrying U.S. and Canadian plans to militarize the Canadian North. These began on 11 September 1946 when Pravda and Izvestiia ran pieces in which a new Canadian military expedition to the North was deemed a "continuation of Project 'Musk Ox"' and part of a U.S. campaign to initiate a Third World War. The visit to Canada of British Viscount Bernard Law Montgomery at the time was taken as confirmation of that analysis. Similar accusations were carried in Soviet newspapers throughout 1947 and 1948.
Even a new series of weather stations were described in an organ of the Ministry of Defence, Krasnaia zvezda (Red Star), as strictly military outposts.
In March 1947, E. Zhukov wrote in Pravda that a "secret protocol" was affixed to a general agreement between the two countries, which gave the United States control of Canada's Arctic for military purposes. This single-minded vision of Canada's North remained consistent until 1949, and then merely moved up a beat in intensity when Newfoundland joined Canada. From the Soviet perspective, that event was not so much a Canadian matter as it was an attempt by the United States, which had a base in Newfoundland, to acquire more military territory in the North to use as a "platform" for an invasion of the U.S.S.R.
Books and articles in leading journals stressed the same issues. In 1947, G.A. Agranat, the U.S.S.R.'s leading expert on Canada's North in the 1940s, prepared a piece for a teachers' magazine on economic development in Canada's North. He outlined the changes stimulated in Canada's northern regions by the war: a dramatic population increase, helped by a transportation system built for military purposes; the post-war development of an oil industry; and uranium finds for atomic energy. But the most important incentive for growth, he said, was still military manoeuvres. His closing lines were characteristic of all Soviet writing about Canada's North during the period:
One need only look at a map to see against whom these military measures are being taken. The shortest path from America to the Soviet Union lies through Northern Canada. Reactionary circles of the U.S.A. and Canada are attempting to turn Northern Canada into a military strategic platform, but are very little inclined to pay attention to its economic development.
The next year, Agranat produced a much longer study, "Northern Canada", for the U.S.S.R.'s leading journal of geography. He opened the piece with a statement closely resembling the final lines of his earlier essay, and quoted Stalin's right-hand man, Andrei Zhdanov, to the effect that the United States and Canada were "feverishly preparing for the exploitation of the Arctic for the purpose of military aggression". He went on to describe in detail the growth of transportation systems (air, rail, road, and water) in Alaska and Canada's North, the oil industry, uranium mining, fur trapping, and settlement. The latter topic was summed up as follows: "Indians and Eskimos regularly protest against their oppressors-the murder of missionaries, traders, and policemen are a frequent event in Northern Canada." After all the geographic and demographic information, however, he concluded once again that development incentives came solely from and for "the warmongers". But the harshest picture of Canada's North came in 1950, when M. Nikoforov reviewed a collection of essays on the "American North" for Izvestiia. In spite of various attempts by contributors "to disguise the true state of affairs", all was rotten in the North. Hunger, unemployment, and disease ran rampant among the native people, he said, and the United States hoped to take over "Greenland, Iceland, and all of Canada" for a giant military base from which to attack the U.S.S.R.
New Emphasis
The tone has changed in more recent times. Currently, the most prolific Soviet writer on Canada's North is Arkadi Ivanovich Cherkasov, Doctor of Geography at the Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada in Moscow, who has travelled extensively in Canada. In 1972, seven years before he completed his Kandidat dissertation, "The Canadian North: Contemporary Problems of Geography and Economic Development", Cherkasov published his first article on transportation issues in Canada's Far North. He then prepared detailed research for print on questions of Canadian northern development generally, the territorial organization of industry, native populations, and energy policy.
In reviewing Richard Rohmer's The Arctic Imperative in 1974, Cherkasov showed himself to be familiar with a wide cross-section of Canadian writing on northern resources and their development. He praised Rohmer for arguing on behalf of Canadian self-sufficiency in gas and oil. He quoted Rohmer's observation that Canada was "selling its heritage" to U.S. oil companies, noted his antipathy toward "continentalism", and welcomed his warning that the Canadian government was in danger of losing control of the Arctic altogether. Rohmer's advocacy that the rights and habitat of the northern native peoples be protected also attracted favourable comment from Cherkasov, who concluded that Canada must act quickly or "its wealth of resources will be put to bad use" by foreign capital.
This note of urgency was repeated regularly in the 1970s. In 1975, V.P. Ulasevich quoted a myriad of Canadian statistical sources and resource-oriented journals to demonstrate the increasing role of the Canadian government in arctic development. Ulasevich explained this trend as a consequence of the Canadian bourgeoisie's recognition that an enforcement of Canada's sovereignty in the North would be to their material advantage. He stressed as well that there was a deeply rooted sentimental attachment to the North among the Canadian people, who strongly opposed any sell-out to U.S. capital. Indeed, he depicted the Canadian North as a final testing site of the Canadian government's willingness and ability to "Canadianize" its own territory in the face of increasing U.S. pressure. He implied that control of the North was the one thing on which nearly all Canadians could agree.
Cherkasov was back in 1979 with a piece on the native population in Canada's North. He outlined in detail the dilemma faced by the Inuit and other northern peoples, who could see their way of life threatened by southern developers. This time, he relied exclusively on Canadian sources, including a large number of government publications and items from the mainstream press. Farley Mowat's favourable commentary about reindeer management in the Soviet Far North (Sibir: My Discovery of Siberia, 1970) was highlighted. Cherkasov concluded with a remark to the effect that the Canadian North was the "largest of the last territorial-resource reserves within the imperialist camp", which embodies quite well a basis of Soviet concern for the future of Canada's North.
In another major essay in 1979, "Developing the North", Cherkasov wrote that Canada was just beginning to initiate full-scale development of northern resources, with special emphasis on arctic oil and gas reserves. He attributed this thrust to the "energy crisis in the capitalist world" of 1973-74, and cited a myriad of statistics from Canadian sources to demonstrate the sharp increase in investment in the North between 1960 and 1978. Of particular interest to Cherkasov was the participation of the federal government in all aspects of northern development, which strengthens the "state-monopoly regulatory" character of the Canadian economy. He was pessimistic about further growth, however, because of the inability of Canada to provide the Far North with a permanent, non-native work-force, or to create a diversified northern economy to sustain a larger population in the region.
Fully one-third of this Cherkasov essay dealt with "the North and problems in strengthening Canadian independence". He attributed the rise in the Canadian government's interest in northern development as much to political as to economic reasons. The question of Canadian sovereignty over arctic territories became acute in the early 1970s, said Cherkasov, because of the active interest of U.S. investors in the area. Large U.S. oil companies set out plans to send supertankers through the Canadian Arctic, and the case of the Manhattan in 1969-70 was described as a source of panic in Parliament and the Canadian press. He noted that, in the matter of "sectorial sovereignty in the Arctic", the Canadian and Soviet positions were "identical".
The old issue of U.S.-Canadian military co-operation in the North was blamed for much of the confusion. Canada had long since allowed the United States to take control of the "defence of the North". The predominance of U.S. capital in the oil, nickel, and other industries had led to a U.S. "economic conquest" of non-military regions of Canada's North as well. Thus Canada would have a difficult time re-establishing a sovereignty lost by default, unless the government were to make a "social contract" with the Canadian bourgeoisie, which had become strong enough to lead the struggle for a sphere of influence with its foreign competitors. The establishment of "Petro-Canada" in 1976 was seen by Cherkasov as a healthy sign, as was the debate about control over the proposed Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline and the report of the Berger commission which, Cherkasov was pleased to add, was strongly supported by the Communist Party of Canada. The problem of an "American corridor" in Canada's North remained, however, and would not go away of its own accord. Thus, although Cherkasov had access to considerably more sophisticated information than that available to his predecessors (and quoted mainly Canadian sources), his vision of Canada's Arctic was overwhelmed, as it is for many Canadians, by his vision of the United States.
During the 1980s, Soviet concern about the U.S. military presence in the Arctic continued in much the same form as it had in the 1940s, though with less frequency. One need only turn to a long article published in Krasnaia zvezda by a Captain V. Roshchupkin in 1980 to hear echoes of the post-war years. Complaining that Canadian Brig. Gen. Clayton Beattie was calling for a special military organization "to gain effective control" over the arctic regions, Roshchupkin asked rhetorically: "Who threatens the northern regions of Canada?" The answer, of course, was "not the Soviet Union!" Therefore, Canada still served as a "flunkey" for the United States and NORAD in its own Arctic. And in June 1987, Soviet newspaper criticism of C a n a d a ' s White Paper on defence was focused directly on its "obviously aggressive" policy of adopting nuclear submarines for use in the Arctic. At a Novosti Press Agency briefing held for foreign journalists in Moscow in July 1987, Soviet Admiral Nikolai Amelko, of the Ministry of Defence, said that Canada was wasting its money if the purchase of atomic-powered submarines was "to defend oneself against 'Soviet expansionism"'. He insisted that the U.S.S.R. had no submarines off Canada's coast or in its straits, and that it had no intention of sending any there. He spoke favourably of the Canadian-Soviet agreement on joint exploration of the arctic regions and hoped for continued co-operation in the area.
Such themes continued early in 1988, when the Pravda correspondent in Ottawa, V. SheLkov, quoted an Inuit group to the effect that an agreement with the United States on the Northwest Passage was little more than "giving the North to the Americans". In later pieces, Shelkov has written that Canada maintained her position on sovereignty in the North during a visit by George Shultz, but still tends to be a "submissive" partner on the question of cruise-missile testing in the North.
Mikhail Gorbachev's call for a denuclearized Arctic in a speech delivered in Murmansk on 1 October 1987, received considerable attention in the Soviet press and rather mixed press in Canada. One unusual consequence of the Soviet campaign in this regard has been the recent appearance in the prestigious journal, SShA (U.S.A.), of an essay by Hanna Newcomb, a Canadian advocate of a demilitarized Arctic. Thus, the militarization of Canada's North under U.S. guidance has been a consistent theme in Soviet writing about the region for 40 years.
Arctic Co-operation
In contrast to the 1940s, however, the 1980s have witnessed repeated calls in the Soviet press for Canadian-Soviet cooperation in the Arctic. Indeed, such cooperation had already been given pride of place in an article prepared by L.A. Bagramov, economist and head of the Canada section in the Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada, and a junior associate, V.B. Povolotskii, in 1977. They placed "the development of the North and other nearly inaccessible areas" in first place on a long list of matters on which the U.S.S.R. and Canada could work together. In support of their assumptions about Canada's interest, they quoted favourable observations on Noril'sk by Pierre Trudeau.
In spite of the periodic trade and scientific exchange sanctions levied by Canadian Conservative governments against the U.S.S.R. (after Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, the crisis in Poland, and the destruction of Korean Airlines flight 007), the desire for northern and other forms of co-operation with Canada remained consistent in Soviet writing. V. Matveev, political commentator for Pravda, prepared a long essay in December 1982 in which he said that a U.S. threat to Trudeau's National Energy Program ("Canadianization") could be offset by more Canadian trade with the U.S.S.R. Among his several points was a clear call for co-operation in arctic development.
We have a good many common problems in developing the Arctic regions. Canada is showing a great interest in Soviet methods of developing these areas. The Canadian territory that lies north of the 60th parallel...is the least populated part of the planet after Antarctica, though it contains enormous natural resources....
In May 1983, before he became General Secretary of the Communist Party, Gorbachev led a delegation of the Supreme Soviet to Canada. His emphasis on a Soviet desire "to see the arctic region used jointly for scientific research and development, and not as a theatre for military activity", was granted attention in the Soviet press. When V.I. Vorotnikov, member of the Soviet Politburo and the Russian Soviet Federation Socialist Republic Council of Ministers, visited Canada in May and June 1985, the question of arctic co-operation again was referred to regularly in Soviet reporting as one of the most important common interests between the two countries.
G.A. Agranat reappeared in the 1980s as a Soviet expert on northern development, with an article, "Northern Development in the U.S.A. and Canada", written for SShA. This time, he emphasized the "qualitative development of the northern regions of Canada and the U.S.A.", and military issues were not mentioned. Repeating opinions expressed by Ulasevich in 1975 and by Cherkasov in 1979, he said that these regions were the "largest (and last!) reserves in the capitalist world of practically unsettled land...filled with various types of natural wealth." The fact that the Canadian North was also politically secure made it especially attractive to U.S. investors. The essay contained many statistics, from U.S. and Canadian sources, about the potential of untapped resources (especially energy-related) in Alaska and the Canadian North.
Ecological concerns were outlined by Agranat as one of the obstacles to rapid development of northern resources, in a tone which implied that the United States and Canada might not have fully considered such matters. Ronald Reagan's "anti-conservationist" policies were described as threatening. The policy of leaving such resources untapped, "in reserve for a black day", was also deemed to be influential, and the United States was chastised somewhat for its willingness to use up resources from other countries by means of transnational corporations while keeping its own potential supply in reserve. Agranat suggested that diversification was the wave of the future in the North, in part because such a policy might attract settlers. In the Canadian case, development of the North has political implications. Trudeau is quoted as saying that the North was a symbol of "Canadianization", and Agranat saw the region as an area for potential clashes between Canadian and U.S. investors. He concluded this rather descriptive piece by suggesting that "bourgeois economic sciences" had not yet worked out a balanced methodology for northern development. "The world of imperialistic monopolies", he said, "has its own built-in obstacles against rational development."
Other Soviet writers have concentrated on specific dimensions of Canada's North, among them Iu. M. Feigan, who in 1983 discussed the great difficulties faced by those who wished to protect the natural habitats of northern and arctic wildlife from the by-products of development. Canada's part in NORAD has also received considerable attention from Soviet writers, usually within the context of Canadian-Soviet and Canadian-U.S. relations. But the most prolific Soviet author on Canada's North during the 1980s remains Cherkasov. Between 1983, when he published an essay on the policies of northern development, and 1987, when he and S. Iu. Danilov prepared a book on 12 Canadian regions-with a section entitled, "Canadian North: Storeroom of Resources"-he has been the author of one book and six major articles on Canada's North. Development generally, and the fate of the native population specifically, have been the focus of his attention. In the most recent book, Cherkasov and Danilov allocated two chapters to Canada's northern regions. They haul out statistics to illustrate once again the predominance of foreign capital, the lack of economic diversity, problems faced by the native inhabitants, the failure to attract non-native workers to settle in the North, threats to the environment, and the increasing role of the government in northern development. However, the activity of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is described as a very "positive" force in northern development. The most "negative" by-product of growth has been the "destruction of the traditional society of the native peoples of the North", which has been replaced by a "shallow pseudoculture" (i.e., bourgeois culture). The two authors conclude that Canadians and Soviets have much to learn from each other, since they share the Arctic and have similar northern regions. Canadian successes in transportation (e.g., use of snowmobiles) and in small technical and equipment projects are of interest to the U.S.S.R.; and the Soviets, who "truly lead" in the field of large projects and in the diversity of their northern development (e.g., reindeer farming), have much to offer Canadians. The signing, in April 1984, of a Canadian-Soviet protocol for co-operation in northern research and development is singled out as testimony to that mutual interest.
It is in Cherkasov and Danilov's epilogue, however, that the current Soviet assumption of the importance of the North to Canada is best expressed. They suggest that Canada can find its true identity only in its "northernness", or as L. E. Hamelin termed it, its "nordicit�". They point to strangely diverse and chronologically scattered examples from Canadian literature and culture as evidence for this contention: Farley Mowat, the Group of Seven, Ernest Thompson-Seton, Yves Th�riault, Gilles Vigneault, and even the national anthem ("True North, strong and free").
From the perspective of Soviet writing, a Canada that is deemed to be truly northern looking, economically "strong and free" of U.S. "monopoly capital", and willing to co-operate with the Soviet Union would be an ideal neighbour with which to share the North. Only then would the fear of U.S. domination of the North, which the cartoon of 1947 both revealed and helped to shape, slowly dissipate.
J. L. Black is Director of the Institute of Soviet and East European Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa.
