Window on Eurasia: Russians in August 1991 Missed ‘Beautiful Chance’ for Democracy

Paul Goble

Vienna, August 21 – Sixteen years after the failed August 1991 coup which effectively put an end to the USSR, Russians now must confront the unpleasant fact that they missed “a beautiful chance” to achieve what most of their East European neighbors did at that time: break with the communist past and institutionalize democracy.
In an essay in advance of Russian Flag Day, which takes place tomorrow, Sergei Markedonov, one of Moscow’s most thoughtful commentators on ethnicity and identity, offers a commentary on why things went right in Eastern Europe and why they did not in the Russian Federation (http://www.politcom.ru/print.php?id=4970).
Unlike many Russian democrats who nostalgically mark these anniversaries by behaving like first wave Russian emigrants or post-1991 Communists, Markedonov calls for an objective assessment of why the experiences of Russia and its neighbors have been so different than most expected at the time.
His fundamental argument is straightforward: In those cases where the struggle for democracy and the struggle for the Motherland were viewed as closely linked, there was a chance for a democratic breakthrough. But where they were not, democracy had few if any chances to flourish.
That is because in the absence of any sense among the population that democracy was part and parcel of the national struggle, people would almost inevitably come to “view democracy as something alien, imposed from abroad, and lacking the legitimation” even authoritarian traditions provide.
Most of the nations of Eastern Europe, including the Baltic states, have succeeded in institutionalizing democracy, Markedonov argues, precisely because their leaders and their populations always considered democracy to be a central goal of their various national projects.
In August 1991, he suggests, it appeared for a brief time that Russians might follow the same path, the Moscow analyst continues, because at that time Boris Yeltsin and the RSFSR government refused to play the roles that the Soviet authorities had assigned to them in the past.
That opened the door, Markedonov says, for the Russian government go break completely with that past and thus to reverse the relationship between people and state that had been true throughout Russian history up to that point. But for three reasons, the analyst suggests, that did not happen.
First, he says, “the victors of August” chose not to make an effort to understand why they had won and why the defenders of the old system had lost. Instead, most of the “reformers” often encouraged by the West who came into the government turned out to be “Marxists who absolutized economics and ignored the socio-cultural sphere.”
As a result, when things went wrong, the country’s ideological space came to be dominated by “the opponents of reform, supporters of ‘the uniqueness’ [of Russia], and xenophobes,” who blamed democracy for what was happening – a message no one at the very top of the Russian political elite did much to counter.
Second, Markedonov acknowledges, “the situation in Russia was “much more complex than that in Poland and the Baltic countries.” For people in the latter, “there was no particular difference between the Russian Empire, the USSR and the Russian Federation” – precisely the distinction the Russian political class needed to make.
Moreover, this political class had to make this distinction not with an axe but rather by careful “microscopic surgery,” in order to separate “communism from power, the state from the Fatherland, [and] the bureaucracy from the state (as a national symbol).”
“Alas,” Markedonov concludes, “Russian politicians [since 1991] were not prepared for such an effort.”
And third – and he argues that this is “the most important” of the three – “the August revolution awoke the Russian people and demonstrated that a political nation can form in Russia.” But very quickly, “representatives of the party nomenklatura” hijacked “the fruits of the victory” of August.
As has become more obvious with time, “the August revolution turned out to be a nomenklatura-bureaucratic one.” And for the nomenklatura, “the nation as the subject of the political process was [not only] uninteresting” but even at odds with their own goals and requirements.
“It is much easier to administer the population of the country as atomized groups (classes, ethnic communities, professional corporations, elite groups)” than to respond to the nation as a whole and serve its interests as a well-functioning democracy inevitably requires.
And that tragedy was compounded by others, Markedonov insists. In post-1991 Russia, no counter-elite has arisen whose member did not also have their origins in precisely the same communist-era nomenklatura, including the country’s business leaders.
Most of them were content to avoid involvement in politics and focus on making the fortunes nomenklatura control of the state made possible, and the few who were not – Mikhail Khodorkovskiy is a rare symbol of the latter – were quickly and even brutally put in their place.
Unlike in Eastern Europe, Russia’s human rights activists turned out to be “incapable of government work. Their focus after 1991 was largely directed not so much against the CPSU but rather against the state as such” – something that as Chechnya and the status of Russian compatriots abroad showed – destroyed their influence.
In that environment, Markedonov suggests, there is now no effective force to support democracy against the far more powerful forces that benefit from its suppression. And consequently, on the 16th anniversary of the coup, he says, there is little reason for optimism, although he suggests he very much hopes the situation will change.

Window on Eurasia: Russian Women in Moscow Attracted to Muslim Men as Marriage Partners

Paul Goble

Vienna, August 21 – A significant fraction of ethnic Russian women in Moscow are choosing to marry Muslim men -- at least in part because the latter typically do not smoke or drink, want several children, and are prepared to work to suppor t their families, according to researchers at the Russian Academy of Science.
During the first half of 2007, there were more than 60,000 marriages in the Russian capital, a quarter of which were between native Muscovite – typically an ethnic Russian woman -- and a citizen of a neighboring country – more often than not a man from Azerbaijan or Central Asia.
And partially as a result of this trend – and not just the Kremlin’s current pro-natalist policies -- Russian demographers say, the number of births is increasing: During the first six months of this year, there were 48,225 newborns in Moscow, some 2438 more than in the same period a year earlier (http://islamnews.ru/news-6868.html).
For many observers who are familiar with the hostility many Russians and especially residents of Moscow display toward immigrants from these countries – including support for discriminatory measures against “persons of Caucasus nationality” – this development seems at best counter-intuitive.
But scholars who have looked into the question say that is makes perfect sense given that people generally choose marriage partners not on the basis of generalizations about this or that ethnic community but rather on the personal qualities that the potential partner brings to the table.
Olga Kurbatova, a senior scholar at the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, noted that “girls in the capital see in migrants precisely the model of a real man: in practice, they don’t drink, especially Muslims like the Chechens, Ingush and Azerbaijanis,” they work hard, they are able to support a family and they want children.”
“Many of our [ethnic] Russian men,” she noted, are “exactly the opposite” with regard to each of these highly valued characteristics.
And Elena Spirkina, the rector of the Moscow Institute of Practical Psychology and Psychoanalysis, added, “Moscow women are seeking stability” when they marry “an Eastern man. They seek that which they did not have in their own childhood with their own parents.”

Window on Eurasia: Duma Fraction Sets Up Islamic Research Center

Paul Goble

Vienna, August 21 – The 45 member Duma parliamentary group interested in promoting better relations between the Russian Federation and Muslim countries has established a center for strategic research on that topic and launched a website where its findings are to be posted.
A week ago, Shamil Sultanov, the Duma deputy who heads this parliamentary group, announced the opening of the center, the appointment of Iskander Batyrov as its head, and the creation of its website, http://www.Russia-IslamicWorld.ru (http://www.islamnews.ru/index.php?name=News&op=view&sid=6864).
Sultanov said that “one of the main tasks” of the center is “to prepare specialized analytic reports, develop medium and long-term scenarios, [and] draw up strategic assessments concerning the growing role of the Muslim world and particular Islamic states in the international arena.”
The frequently outspoken Muslim Duma leader said that the new center stood ready to provide a full range of professional services to all those interested in these questions and to draw on its ties “in practically all regions of Russia” in order to promote ties between these regions and Muslim countries abroad.
An indication of the actual direction the new body may take is provided by the titles of some items already posted on the center’s website: “Al Qaeda – A Tale for Idiots,” “’Israel’ has Already Lost. The Islamic World Has Not Fallen on Its Knees,” and “The Threats of the US are a Bluff – Iran will Become a Leader of the Islamic World.”