Paul Goble
Vienna, April 24 – Moscow may put off the all-Russian census currently scheduled to take place in October 2010 because of budgetary problems brought on by the financial crisis, although the head of the State Statistical Committee said that preparations would continue pending a decision sometime in the next three to four weeks.
If the census is simply postponed, that will create a certain number of difficulties for those who analyze that country and more importantly for those who are responsible for developing social policies in that country. But if it is cut back, the costs could be higher for both because they will have to work with inaccurate or incomplete information.
Rosstat head Vladimir Sokolin told journalists yesterday that he had met with Finance Minister Aleksey Kudrin to discuss whether there will sufficient money in the budget to pay for the upcoming census, now slated to cost 11 billion rubles (320 million US dollars), including eight billion in salaries for the census takers (www.interfax.ru/society/news.asp?id=76119).
“If the finance ministry finds these funds, and they will be reflected in the budget,” Sokolin said, “the census will be preserved; if not, then it won’t be.”
But Sokolin’s remarks are intriguing because the amount of money he said the 2010 census would cost is significantly less than the 17 billion rubles (500 million US dollars) that Irana Zbarskaya, the chief of Rosstat’s department for population and health statistics, had offered earlier (news.hr-nsk.ru/archives/5181).
And that in turn suggests that Rosstat either on its own in an effort to preserve the census or at the direction of some other government agency is already planning to cut back on the amount and detail of information to be gathered, something that could mean the 2010 census will be less complete and less useful than many had hoped.
Unfortunately, there is a post-Soviet precedent for that. In 2002, after census takers contacted approximately two-thirds of the residents of the Russian Federation, Moscow, pleading poverty, came up with data on the remaining third by making use of interior ministry files, something that was doubly problematic.
On the one hand, that tactic meant that the 2002 census did not meet international census norms which require that governments conducting them make a good-faith effort to contact at least 90 percent of the total sample, although in this case, no other country was prepared to challenge what then president Vladimir Putin had done.
On the other, it meant among other things that the numbers the Russian government reported overstated the percentage of ethnic Russians in the population and understated the percentage of non-Russians because as other measurements show the former are declining and the latter increasing in size.
If Rosstat does go ahead with the planned 2010 census but with significantly less funding than the agency had said was necessary to do the job, the likelihood is that Moscow officials will try to take similar shortcuts, a move few will object to given the impact of the economic crisis but one that will deprive those who need it of an accurate enumeration.
And that in turn could set off the kind of debates that censuses have had in other countries, including the United States, with those who benefit from the approach adopted defending the enumeration as entirely legitimate and those who suffer as a result of the strategy used denouncing both that approach and the powers that be standing behind it.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Nations Deported by Stalin Organize to Demand Their Rights
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 24 – Six of the more than a dozen nations Stalin deported during World War II – the Kalmyks, the Chechens, the Ingush, the Balkars, the Karachays, and the Volga Germans -- have formed a Union of Repressed Peoples to demand an apology from Moscow and the return of the lands the powers that be at that time seized and have not yet returned.
This week in advance of the 18th anniversary of the Soviet-era law on the restoration of the rights of repressed peoples on April 26, representatives of six of them met in the Kalmyk capital of Elista to declare that the law has not worked and to form a group that will press for its realization up to and including with appeals to international courts.
The meeting initially attracted little attention inside the Russian Federation, but after Radio Liberty carried a story (www.svobodanews.ru/content/article/1612195.html), domestic Russian outlets picked it up, either in support (www.ingushetia.org/news/19168.html) or very much in opposition (news.km.ru/ot_rossii_potrebovali_pokayaniya).
Arkady Goryayev, the head of the Kalmyk Foundation for the Support of the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples and one of the founders of the new group, told Radio Liberty’s Russian Service that the 1991 law had not worked because it had not led to the return of two of his republic’s “wealthiest regions.”
“But the basic problem is not a material one,” Goryayev said. “We demand repentance. During the 18 years since the law on rehabilitation was adopted, no one from the powers that be have apologized for the crimes committed against our peoples.” He acknowledged that there was one exception to that: Yeltsin publically apologized by “only before the Balkar people.”
Representatives of the other groups expanded on those points: They said their nations were interested both in the return of land but also in getting back or being compensated for other things of value that had been taken away from them and in receiving a formal apology from Moscow for what was done to them.
Dalkhat Kasayev, who spoke on behalf of the Karachays, said that the participants in the Elista meeting “had come together for a noble task – the achievement of the complete rehabilitation of our repressed peoples. The laws of Russia [on this issue] must be completely realized, and our task to act in a coordinated fashion in order to achieve this common goal.”
In order to provide context for this meeting, Radio Liberty interviewed Emil Pain, the head of the Moscow Center of Ethno-political and Regional Research, an interview that both Ingushetia.ru and “Komsomolskaya Pravda” drew on in their subsequent stories about the Elista event.
Pain told the station that he was “somewhat surprised” that the formerly repressed peoples were taking this step “precisely now” and that he was “even more surprised that it was taking place in Kalmykia,” where the issue has historically been far less sensitive than in the republics of the North Caucasus.
While acknowledging that the 1991 law had been “unsuccessful” in achieving all its aims, the Moscow expert said that to “realize the law fully, particularly with regard to territorial arrangements would now be impossible. Indeed, he said, any effort to do so would provoke serious conflicts.
But there are two larger issues, Pain said. On the one hand, given the human losses involved during the deportation, no one can speak about a full return to the status quo ante. That is simply impossible. And on the other, those who were the victims of this policy should recognize that the adoption of the 1991 law itself constituted a form of repentance.
But from the point of view of Yury Filatov of “Komsomolskaya pravda,” there is no reason to make any concessions to these punished peoples because, in his view, they were deported because Stalin found they had collaborated with Hitler, a view that scholars have shown is either completely wrong or dramatically overblown.
Indeed, Filatov concludes, the new Union of Repressed Peoples, is simply trying to “put ‘a murderous bomb’ under Russia,” by demanding not only an apology which he thinks they do not deserve and the re-division of the country which he believes would not help these peoples in any serious way but would create many and far more serious problems for others.
Vienna, April 24 – Six of the more than a dozen nations Stalin deported during World War II – the Kalmyks, the Chechens, the Ingush, the Balkars, the Karachays, and the Volga Germans -- have formed a Union of Repressed Peoples to demand an apology from Moscow and the return of the lands the powers that be at that time seized and have not yet returned.
This week in advance of the 18th anniversary of the Soviet-era law on the restoration of the rights of repressed peoples on April 26, representatives of six of them met in the Kalmyk capital of Elista to declare that the law has not worked and to form a group that will press for its realization up to and including with appeals to international courts.
The meeting initially attracted little attention inside the Russian Federation, but after Radio Liberty carried a story (www.svobodanews.ru/content/article/1612195.html), domestic Russian outlets picked it up, either in support (www.ingushetia.org/news/19168.html) or very much in opposition (news.km.ru/ot_rossii_potrebovali_pokayaniya).
Arkady Goryayev, the head of the Kalmyk Foundation for the Support of the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples and one of the founders of the new group, told Radio Liberty’s Russian Service that the 1991 law had not worked because it had not led to the return of two of his republic’s “wealthiest regions.”
“But the basic problem is not a material one,” Goryayev said. “We demand repentance. During the 18 years since the law on rehabilitation was adopted, no one from the powers that be have apologized for the crimes committed against our peoples.” He acknowledged that there was one exception to that: Yeltsin publically apologized by “only before the Balkar people.”
Representatives of the other groups expanded on those points: They said their nations were interested both in the return of land but also in getting back or being compensated for other things of value that had been taken away from them and in receiving a formal apology from Moscow for what was done to them.
Dalkhat Kasayev, who spoke on behalf of the Karachays, said that the participants in the Elista meeting “had come together for a noble task – the achievement of the complete rehabilitation of our repressed peoples. The laws of Russia [on this issue] must be completely realized, and our task to act in a coordinated fashion in order to achieve this common goal.”
In order to provide context for this meeting, Radio Liberty interviewed Emil Pain, the head of the Moscow Center of Ethno-political and Regional Research, an interview that both Ingushetia.ru and “Komsomolskaya Pravda” drew on in their subsequent stories about the Elista event.
Pain told the station that he was “somewhat surprised” that the formerly repressed peoples were taking this step “precisely now” and that he was “even more surprised that it was taking place in Kalmykia,” where the issue has historically been far less sensitive than in the republics of the North Caucasus.
While acknowledging that the 1991 law had been “unsuccessful” in achieving all its aims, the Moscow expert said that to “realize the law fully, particularly with regard to territorial arrangements would now be impossible. Indeed, he said, any effort to do so would provoke serious conflicts.
But there are two larger issues, Pain said. On the one hand, given the human losses involved during the deportation, no one can speak about a full return to the status quo ante. That is simply impossible. And on the other, those who were the victims of this policy should recognize that the adoption of the 1991 law itself constituted a form of repentance.
But from the point of view of Yury Filatov of “Komsomolskaya pravda,” there is no reason to make any concessions to these punished peoples because, in his view, they were deported because Stalin found they had collaborated with Hitler, a view that scholars have shown is either completely wrong or dramatically overblown.
Indeed, Filatov concludes, the new Union of Repressed Peoples, is simply trying to “put ‘a murderous bomb’ under Russia,” by demanding not only an apology which he thinks they do not deserve and the re-division of the country which he believes would not help these peoples in any serious way but would create many and far more serious problems for others.
Window on Eurasia: A Central Asian Echo of Russian Aggression in Georgia
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 24 – One of the reasons the Russian invasion of the Republic of Georgia last summer was so dangerous is that it led to a militarization of thinking in many post-Soviet states, with nearly all governments forced to think about how they would defend themselves and some even contemplating the use of force themselves to promote their own agendas.
An example of the latter, one that has so far attracted relatively little attention, is Uzbekistan’s use of military force last Sunday to occupy part of a village in southern Kyrgyzstan near the border of Uzbekistan, an action that has prompted the residents of Chek to appeal to Bishkek for “the defense of their civil rights” (www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=6144).
According to the Ferghana.ru portal, the residents of this small village in Jalalabad oblast said in a letter to Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev that approximately 50 armed Uzbek “law enforcement” officers had entered their border town, “burst into [their] houses, and threatened to force [the residents] from [their] homes.”
The Uzbek forces “went into each house, conducted a search and told us that from this day forward, this territory belongs to Uzbekistan and you will live according to our laws. In a crude way,” the villagers continued, the occupied said they were imposing restrictions on how much food the residents could keep.
“If you like,” the Uzbek officers said according to the authors of the letter, “you can move to the territory of Kyrgyzstan and live there.”
After the majority of the Uzbek forces withdrew, some Kyrgyz district leaders arrived, Ferghana.ru reports, and “calmed the people. But the residents of the village decided to write a declaration to the country’s president.” And the heads of 21 families living there signed on behalf of all the Chek residents.
When Kyrgyz journalists in turn sought to investigate the situation, three Uzbeks armed with automatic weapons intervened to try to block their work. That led to a public quarrel between the Uzbeks and the villagers, but the Uzbeks refused either to back down or to give their names, insisting that this was their land and that they had the right to be there.
Kyrgyz officials argued that the exact line of the border was problematic and that people on one or the other side may have moved border posts for their convenience. But one of them said that “never the less, neither they nor we can take such a decision unilaterally until the border questions between the two countries are completely resolved.”
Unfortunately for the villagers, Bishkek has not been in a position to react quickly, Raya Kadyrova of the For International Tolerance Group said, adding that “the lack of a timely response has given birth to rumors which are being transformed into dissatisfaction of the people with the authorities.”
“Residents and local organs of power should know precisely where and to whom they should turn in such circumstances in order to inform institutions in the [Kyrgyzstan] capital about such things,” Kadyrova said. But in places like Chek which is 60 kilometers away even from its oblast capital, such information is seldom available.
The village of Chek is an especially problematic place, Ferghana.ru said. Both its territory and its people are divided by the international border. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, 24 of its 180 families were left on the territory assigned to Uzbekistan. All of the 24 families were citizens of Kyrgyzstan but most were ethnic Uzbeks.
Prior to 1991, villagers moved back and forth without difficulties, but now that Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are independent countries, such movement is more difficult, since the two countries have not yet reached agreement either on the final demarcation of the border or on a special regime for people living in the border areas.
Yesterday, Kyrgyzstan Prime Minister Igor Chudinov said that the two countries have agreed on 80 percent of the 1375 kilometer-long border, but they have not been able to resolve their differences on approximately 70 districts, including Chek and enclaves on both sides of the border.
Settling those differences won’t be easy: If it were, these questions already would be resolved. But now, as a result of Russia’s invasion of Georgia and the apparent unwillingness of the international community to hold Moscow to account, other capitals, including Tashkent, may use force as well, a trend that could spark more violence across this entire region.
Vienna, April 24 – One of the reasons the Russian invasion of the Republic of Georgia last summer was so dangerous is that it led to a militarization of thinking in many post-Soviet states, with nearly all governments forced to think about how they would defend themselves and some even contemplating the use of force themselves to promote their own agendas.
An example of the latter, one that has so far attracted relatively little attention, is Uzbekistan’s use of military force last Sunday to occupy part of a village in southern Kyrgyzstan near the border of Uzbekistan, an action that has prompted the residents of Chek to appeal to Bishkek for “the defense of their civil rights” (www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=6144).
According to the Ferghana.ru portal, the residents of this small village in Jalalabad oblast said in a letter to Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev that approximately 50 armed Uzbek “law enforcement” officers had entered their border town, “burst into [their] houses, and threatened to force [the residents] from [their] homes.”
The Uzbek forces “went into each house, conducted a search and told us that from this day forward, this territory belongs to Uzbekistan and you will live according to our laws. In a crude way,” the villagers continued, the occupied said they were imposing restrictions on how much food the residents could keep.
“If you like,” the Uzbek officers said according to the authors of the letter, “you can move to the territory of Kyrgyzstan and live there.”
After the majority of the Uzbek forces withdrew, some Kyrgyz district leaders arrived, Ferghana.ru reports, and “calmed the people. But the residents of the village decided to write a declaration to the country’s president.” And the heads of 21 families living there signed on behalf of all the Chek residents.
When Kyrgyz journalists in turn sought to investigate the situation, three Uzbeks armed with automatic weapons intervened to try to block their work. That led to a public quarrel between the Uzbeks and the villagers, but the Uzbeks refused either to back down or to give their names, insisting that this was their land and that they had the right to be there.
Kyrgyz officials argued that the exact line of the border was problematic and that people on one or the other side may have moved border posts for their convenience. But one of them said that “never the less, neither they nor we can take such a decision unilaterally until the border questions between the two countries are completely resolved.”
Unfortunately for the villagers, Bishkek has not been in a position to react quickly, Raya Kadyrova of the For International Tolerance Group said, adding that “the lack of a timely response has given birth to rumors which are being transformed into dissatisfaction of the people with the authorities.”
“Residents and local organs of power should know precisely where and to whom they should turn in such circumstances in order to inform institutions in the [Kyrgyzstan] capital about such things,” Kadyrova said. But in places like Chek which is 60 kilometers away even from its oblast capital, such information is seldom available.
The village of Chek is an especially problematic place, Ferghana.ru said. Both its territory and its people are divided by the international border. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, 24 of its 180 families were left on the territory assigned to Uzbekistan. All of the 24 families were citizens of Kyrgyzstan but most were ethnic Uzbeks.
Prior to 1991, villagers moved back and forth without difficulties, but now that Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are independent countries, such movement is more difficult, since the two countries have not yet reached agreement either on the final demarcation of the border or on a special regime for people living in the border areas.
Yesterday, Kyrgyzstan Prime Minister Igor Chudinov said that the two countries have agreed on 80 percent of the 1375 kilometer-long border, but they have not been able to resolve their differences on approximately 70 districts, including Chek and enclaves on both sides of the border.
Settling those differences won’t be easy: If it were, these questions already would be resolved. But now, as a result of Russia’s invasion of Georgia and the apparent unwillingness of the international community to hold Moscow to account, other capitals, including Tashkent, may use force as well, a trend that could spark more violence across this entire region.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Rulers Now Act Much as Stalin Did, ‘Disorienting’ Again Many in Russia and the West, Pavlova Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 23 – Dmitry Medvedev’s actions in recent weeks have “disoriented” many in both Russia and in the West, according to a leading Moscow commentator, because such people have failed to understand that in its operations, the leaders of today’s “power vertical” are acting in ways that resemble those of Stalin and his henchmen in the past.
That should be obvious given the simultaneous talk in Moscow now “about the need to improve the image of Russia abroad,” Irina Pavlova argues, and even more the plans to hold a forum in Washington to advance that cause later this month featuring speakers like Andranik Migranyan and Gleb Pavlovsky (grani.ru/Politics/Russia/President/m.150145.html).
But instead, the Moscow commentator continues, “many are concluding that the powers that be [in the Russian Federation] are sending signals [to their own people and the West] about the beginning of a change in policy direction and perhaps about the coming or a new ‘thaw’ or even ‘perestroika.’”
To think in that way, Pavlova argues, is to be taken in by the regime because “all these conversations about signals testify, to put it mildly, about the lack of any appreciation of how the much-ballyhooed ‘vertical’ of power actually operates,” a failure of perception that is especially sad in the case of those Western scholars who have studied the Stalinist regime.
Were Sheilah Fitzpatrick, the author of “Everyday Stalinism,” to talk about “signals” today, that would be “unforgivable,” the Grani.ru commentator suggests, because the American professor knows on the basis of her research that Russian leaders don’t send “signals,” they show their intent by actions that they have often taken great pains to separate themselves from.
“The real powers that be [in Stalin’s time] acted according to the laws of conspiracy, in secret not only from the people but from their own party and outside the bounds of the Constitution.” Only when people saw what took place, Pavlova suggests, could they begin to divine what the leaders really intended.
Russia’s “present powers that be,” the Grani.ru writer adds, “operate in exactly the same way. Is much known to society now, including the members of the United Russia Party about the secret and top secret directives of the hidden behind the scenes politburo of the FSB, MVD, MFA or the Ministry of Defense which are then presented in the directives of these agencies?”
“It is completely certain that many of these directives are given orally so that it will be possible to reconstruct them only on the basis of the actions that follow.” And thus, the Moscow analyst says, “the inalienable aspects of such a conspiratorial type of powers that be are the lie and conscious disinformation.”
To make her point, Pavlova points out that Russian and Western historians have been “struggling for decades trying to establish Stalin’s intentions in 1939 to 1941.” Even now that some of the archives have been open, on many questions, “there are no traces of [Stalin’s] directive activity even in the ‘special file’ of the Politburo.”
“Was he prepared for an aggressive war against Hitler with the goal of the subsequent seizure of Europe?” is a question those archives can’t answer, Pavlova notes, because “in the traditions of conspiracy, Stalin and Zhukov did not put their signatures” on key documents that might otherwise provide the answer.
“Exactly the same history was repeated not long ago at the time of the [Russian] war with Georgia,” she continues. “Where are those directive documents which came from the highest echelons of power which would reveal its intentions and concrete steps in the preparation for this war?” Only the course of events provides an indication of what this guidance consisted of.
Unfortunately, she writes, “society again believed the words of Putin-Medvedev and thus became again the victim of disinformation.” And “those who do not want to be deceived will be forced to devote a great deal of effort if they are to re-establish historical truth” about the Russian-Georgian war.
Now, as in the past, “blind faith in the powers that be without any indication of its secret directive activity is a particular feature of Russian existence,” Pavlova argues. Many Russians, for example, were “shocked” at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s when they found out even what the Stalin-era archives showed about the leadership.
But tragically, “today those who are deciding for themselves whether to serve or not serve the Kremlin have forgotten about this. They are prepared to trust the powers that be about the decisions of which they do not know and cannot even guess” now and even more so in the future.
Pavlova concludes her essay with the following observation: The situation in the upper echelons of power in Moscow today “corresponds to the period of the 1930s. Just as at that time, the regime was still young but it was strengthening itself and ready for action.” And it enjoyed the sympathy of “all who had decided that this was the best choice for the country.”
And as some people have also forgotten, “in Stalin’s time there were not only repressions. There was also a hidden preparation for war, and a well-fed Stalinist elite which closed its eyes both on the domestic and foreign policies of the [Stalinist] leadership of the country.”
Vienna, April 23 – Dmitry Medvedev’s actions in recent weeks have “disoriented” many in both Russia and in the West, according to a leading Moscow commentator, because such people have failed to understand that in its operations, the leaders of today’s “power vertical” are acting in ways that resemble those of Stalin and his henchmen in the past.
That should be obvious given the simultaneous talk in Moscow now “about the need to improve the image of Russia abroad,” Irina Pavlova argues, and even more the plans to hold a forum in Washington to advance that cause later this month featuring speakers like Andranik Migranyan and Gleb Pavlovsky (grani.ru/Politics/Russia/President/m.150145.html).
But instead, the Moscow commentator continues, “many are concluding that the powers that be [in the Russian Federation] are sending signals [to their own people and the West] about the beginning of a change in policy direction and perhaps about the coming or a new ‘thaw’ or even ‘perestroika.’”
To think in that way, Pavlova argues, is to be taken in by the regime because “all these conversations about signals testify, to put it mildly, about the lack of any appreciation of how the much-ballyhooed ‘vertical’ of power actually operates,” a failure of perception that is especially sad in the case of those Western scholars who have studied the Stalinist regime.
Were Sheilah Fitzpatrick, the author of “Everyday Stalinism,” to talk about “signals” today, that would be “unforgivable,” the Grani.ru commentator suggests, because the American professor knows on the basis of her research that Russian leaders don’t send “signals,” they show their intent by actions that they have often taken great pains to separate themselves from.
“The real powers that be [in Stalin’s time] acted according to the laws of conspiracy, in secret not only from the people but from their own party and outside the bounds of the Constitution.” Only when people saw what took place, Pavlova suggests, could they begin to divine what the leaders really intended.
Russia’s “present powers that be,” the Grani.ru writer adds, “operate in exactly the same way. Is much known to society now, including the members of the United Russia Party about the secret and top secret directives of the hidden behind the scenes politburo of the FSB, MVD, MFA or the Ministry of Defense which are then presented in the directives of these agencies?”
“It is completely certain that many of these directives are given orally so that it will be possible to reconstruct them only on the basis of the actions that follow.” And thus, the Moscow analyst says, “the inalienable aspects of such a conspiratorial type of powers that be are the lie and conscious disinformation.”
To make her point, Pavlova points out that Russian and Western historians have been “struggling for decades trying to establish Stalin’s intentions in 1939 to 1941.” Even now that some of the archives have been open, on many questions, “there are no traces of [Stalin’s] directive activity even in the ‘special file’ of the Politburo.”
“Was he prepared for an aggressive war against Hitler with the goal of the subsequent seizure of Europe?” is a question those archives can’t answer, Pavlova notes, because “in the traditions of conspiracy, Stalin and Zhukov did not put their signatures” on key documents that might otherwise provide the answer.
“Exactly the same history was repeated not long ago at the time of the [Russian] war with Georgia,” she continues. “Where are those directive documents which came from the highest echelons of power which would reveal its intentions and concrete steps in the preparation for this war?” Only the course of events provides an indication of what this guidance consisted of.
Unfortunately, she writes, “society again believed the words of Putin-Medvedev and thus became again the victim of disinformation.” And “those who do not want to be deceived will be forced to devote a great deal of effort if they are to re-establish historical truth” about the Russian-Georgian war.
Now, as in the past, “blind faith in the powers that be without any indication of its secret directive activity is a particular feature of Russian existence,” Pavlova argues. Many Russians, for example, were “shocked” at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s when they found out even what the Stalin-era archives showed about the leadership.
But tragically, “today those who are deciding for themselves whether to serve or not serve the Kremlin have forgotten about this. They are prepared to trust the powers that be about the decisions of which they do not know and cannot even guess” now and even more so in the future.
Pavlova concludes her essay with the following observation: The situation in the upper echelons of power in Moscow today “corresponds to the period of the 1930s. Just as at that time, the regime was still young but it was strengthening itself and ready for action.” And it enjoyed the sympathy of “all who had decided that this was the best choice for the country.”
And as some people have also forgotten, “in Stalin’s time there were not only repressions. There was also a hidden preparation for war, and a well-fed Stalinist elite which closed its eyes both on the domestic and foreign policies of the [Stalinist] leadership of the country.”
Window on Eurasia: Daghestani President Seeks to Stabilize His Republic by Reversing Putin Policy
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 23 – In order to prevent the situation in his North Caucasus republic from spinning out of control, Mukhu Aliyev, the president of Daghestan, is preparing amendments to the election law that will reverse Vladimir Putin’s plans and allow Makhachkala to allocate positions in the government according to a system of ethnic quotas.
For most of Soviet and post-Soviet times, Moscow permitted Daghestan to reserve particular positions in that republic’s executive and legislative branches for representatives of particular ethnic groups, an arrangement that preserved balance and largely kept the peace in that most multi-ethnic of regions.
But former Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that Daghestan follow the same rules as in other parts of the country with selections to these offices being decided by majority vote alone, a change that meant many smaller groups lost representation in and attachment to the government.
That has exacerbated ethnic tensions in Daghestan in recent years, and now President Aliyev has announced that he wants to amend Russian legislation so that his republic at least can go back to a quota system in which far more groups will be represented in thus feel a greater attachment to Makhachkala and even Moscow (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/153286).
In comments to Gazeta.ru and Kavkaz-uzel.ru, Aliyev noted that “there are many peoples in Daghestan, with 30 of them alone being indigenous. Four are the largest, and they have traditionally been represented in the organs of power.” That is something that those organizing the political system “must not fail to consider.”
“If [in Daghestan] the president and prime minister and the head of the parliament are members of a single nationality” – something that could happen given the radically different size of ethnic groups there if a pure majoritarian system is put in place – “there will never be stability,” Aliyev continued.
What is needed if Daghestan is to be both stable and democratic is the restoration of the pre-Putin arrangement under the terms of which, as Kavkaz-uzel.ru pointed out, “Avars traditionally received the post of president, Dargins the position of parliamentary speaker, and the prime minister was a Kumyk.”
“What kind of a democracy is it if peoples who live here do not have representation in that organ whose members they supposedly choose? They will think up their own parliament,” he continued, one that will be not only separate from but opposed to the republic and federal structures.
Aliyev said that the arrangements now in place have forced him to repeatedly intervene in the electoral process in his republic, asking some people not to run for office and others to refuse the posts they were elected to, in order to preserve the ethnic balance and thus political stability as best he could.
In the future, of course, Daghestan should “depart from the nationality question in the formation of the organs of power,” Kavkaz-uzel.ru summarized Aliyev’s view, “but the time for that has not yet arrived.” “National feelings just like religious ones” the Daghestan president said, “are very strong. Time and patience are needed.”
While saying that he is preparing amendments that would allow the restoration of the ethnic quota system in Daghestan, Aliyev insisted that he “wasn’t talking about a return to the past. That is impossible.” Instead, he said, he was seeking “amendments which follow the course of contemporary Russian legislation.”
It is unlikely that many in Moscow will see Aliyev’s proposals in that way, but the central government may accept them as a price it is willing to pay lest the situation in the country’s most ethnically fragmented republic spins out of control – even though other non-Russian republics are certain to raise similar demands if Moscow meets those of Makhachkala.
Vienna, April 23 – In order to prevent the situation in his North Caucasus republic from spinning out of control, Mukhu Aliyev, the president of Daghestan, is preparing amendments to the election law that will reverse Vladimir Putin’s plans and allow Makhachkala to allocate positions in the government according to a system of ethnic quotas.
For most of Soviet and post-Soviet times, Moscow permitted Daghestan to reserve particular positions in that republic’s executive and legislative branches for representatives of particular ethnic groups, an arrangement that preserved balance and largely kept the peace in that most multi-ethnic of regions.
But former Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that Daghestan follow the same rules as in other parts of the country with selections to these offices being decided by majority vote alone, a change that meant many smaller groups lost representation in and attachment to the government.
That has exacerbated ethnic tensions in Daghestan in recent years, and now President Aliyev has announced that he wants to amend Russian legislation so that his republic at least can go back to a quota system in which far more groups will be represented in thus feel a greater attachment to Makhachkala and even Moscow (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/153286).
In comments to Gazeta.ru and Kavkaz-uzel.ru, Aliyev noted that “there are many peoples in Daghestan, with 30 of them alone being indigenous. Four are the largest, and they have traditionally been represented in the organs of power.” That is something that those organizing the political system “must not fail to consider.”
“If [in Daghestan] the president and prime minister and the head of the parliament are members of a single nationality” – something that could happen given the radically different size of ethnic groups there if a pure majoritarian system is put in place – “there will never be stability,” Aliyev continued.
What is needed if Daghestan is to be both stable and democratic is the restoration of the pre-Putin arrangement under the terms of which, as Kavkaz-uzel.ru pointed out, “Avars traditionally received the post of president, Dargins the position of parliamentary speaker, and the prime minister was a Kumyk.”
“What kind of a democracy is it if peoples who live here do not have representation in that organ whose members they supposedly choose? They will think up their own parliament,” he continued, one that will be not only separate from but opposed to the republic and federal structures.
Aliyev said that the arrangements now in place have forced him to repeatedly intervene in the electoral process in his republic, asking some people not to run for office and others to refuse the posts they were elected to, in order to preserve the ethnic balance and thus political stability as best he could.
In the future, of course, Daghestan should “depart from the nationality question in the formation of the organs of power,” Kavkaz-uzel.ru summarized Aliyev’s view, “but the time for that has not yet arrived.” “National feelings just like religious ones” the Daghestan president said, “are very strong. Time and patience are needed.”
While saying that he is preparing amendments that would allow the restoration of the ethnic quota system in Daghestan, Aliyev insisted that he “wasn’t talking about a return to the past. That is impossible.” Instead, he said, he was seeking “amendments which follow the course of contemporary Russian legislation.”
It is unlikely that many in Moscow will see Aliyev’s proposals in that way, but the central government may accept them as a price it is willing to pay lest the situation in the country’s most ethnically fragmented republic spins out of control – even though other non-Russian republics are certain to raise similar demands if Moscow meets those of Makhachkala.
Window on Eurasia: Kremlin Begins Rehabilitation of Yeltsin
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 23 – Two years after his death, Boris Yeltsin, whom many Russians blame for their problems, is being politically rehabilitated by the Kremlin, a reflection of what the first Russian president in fact accomplished and of the desire of some in the current leadership to distance themselves from the policies of Yeltsin’s hand-picked successor, Vladimir Putin.
When Yeltsin died on April 23, 2007, he was one of the most hated men in Russia, routinely blamed by Russians and their leaders for the demise of the Soviet Union, their own country’s loss of status, and many of their own problems. And even now he remains a divisive figure whom many in that country dislike (newsland.ru/Polls/Detail/id/359800/).
But now there are indications that some in the Russian elite are reconsidering his role, either because they recognize what Yeltsin did and did not do in a most difficult time or because they, like Russian and Soviet leaders before them, are seeking a basis for legitimacy even as they distance themselves from some of the policies of their immediate predecessor.
Gleb Pavlovsky, the president of the Foundation for Effective Politics and someone close to the Kremlin, said this week that “Yeltsin was able to do all that was necessary so that Russia did not follow a Yugoslav scenario in the development of events after the Soviet Union ceased its existence” (www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=278174).
“And in this,” Pavlovsky continued, undoubtedly is Yeltsin’s great contribution. … He came to power, after having destroyed the Soviet state but he left his post as president without having destroyed Russia. Had he been more in love with power, [Russia] certainly would not have been able to avoid a civil war.”
Yeltsin was thus a president “without blood” on his hands, the Kremlin political technologist and commentator said. And in the history of Russia, both before and after his two terms in office, that is no small achievement, however much many would disagree, given Yeltsin’s own launch of the war in Chechnya.
Aleksey Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center agreed. Under Yeltsin, he told “Vesti,” what should have been destroyed was and what should have been put in its place began to be. And the Carnegie expert pointedly noted that if Yeltsin had enjoyed the oil prices Putin did, “Russia in the 1990s would have been able to avoid many economic difficulties.”
In many ways, this apparent decision of the Kremlin recalls Nikita Khrushchev’s anti-Stalin campaign, a major if not always remarked feature was his call for the country to return to the principles of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state and the man who clearly inspired Khrushchev’s own youth.
That is how Stalin’s successor sought to distance himself from Stalin’s most egregious crimes while protecting himself and his system by appealing to the man Stalin replaced – even though as many historians quickly pointed out to Khrushchev’s horror, much of what Stalin did was simply carrying out Lenin’s teachings.
And that unwelcome “discovery” ultimately became the basis for the ouster of Khrushchev and his replacement by Leonid Brezhnev, who recognized that the Soviet system was in terrible trouble if its own leaders suggested that the man who had dominated it for most of its existence was a bloodthirsty tyrant.
Consequently, even implicitly attacking one’s own immediate predecessor by building up his predecessor can be a high risk game politically because such an approach can lead some to conclude that the system itself is the problem since the person being built up is the one who chose the one implicitly or in some cases explicitly being criticized.
And just as Khrushchev’s attacks on Stalin ultimately led Soviet citizens to reflect that Lenin had appointed him and that the system itself rather than any one man was the problem, so too it is at least possible that any rehabilitation of Yeltsin could lead some to conclude that the first Russian president’s greatest crime was in fact his selection of his successor.
But however that may be, today, friends and colleagues honored Yeltsin by attending a service at Moscow’s Novodeviche cemetery. Yeltsin’s widow came together with her daughters and they shook hands and spoke with those in attendance, thus displaying precisely the kind of modesty so often lacking in such circumstances (www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=278316).
Vienna, April 23 – Two years after his death, Boris Yeltsin, whom many Russians blame for their problems, is being politically rehabilitated by the Kremlin, a reflection of what the first Russian president in fact accomplished and of the desire of some in the current leadership to distance themselves from the policies of Yeltsin’s hand-picked successor, Vladimir Putin.
When Yeltsin died on April 23, 2007, he was one of the most hated men in Russia, routinely blamed by Russians and their leaders for the demise of the Soviet Union, their own country’s loss of status, and many of their own problems. And even now he remains a divisive figure whom many in that country dislike (newsland.ru/Polls/Detail/id/359800/).
But now there are indications that some in the Russian elite are reconsidering his role, either because they recognize what Yeltsin did and did not do in a most difficult time or because they, like Russian and Soviet leaders before them, are seeking a basis for legitimacy even as they distance themselves from some of the policies of their immediate predecessor.
Gleb Pavlovsky, the president of the Foundation for Effective Politics and someone close to the Kremlin, said this week that “Yeltsin was able to do all that was necessary so that Russia did not follow a Yugoslav scenario in the development of events after the Soviet Union ceased its existence” (www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=278174).
“And in this,” Pavlovsky continued, undoubtedly is Yeltsin’s great contribution. … He came to power, after having destroyed the Soviet state but he left his post as president without having destroyed Russia. Had he been more in love with power, [Russia] certainly would not have been able to avoid a civil war.”
Yeltsin was thus a president “without blood” on his hands, the Kremlin political technologist and commentator said. And in the history of Russia, both before and after his two terms in office, that is no small achievement, however much many would disagree, given Yeltsin’s own launch of the war in Chechnya.
Aleksey Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center agreed. Under Yeltsin, he told “Vesti,” what should have been destroyed was and what should have been put in its place began to be. And the Carnegie expert pointedly noted that if Yeltsin had enjoyed the oil prices Putin did, “Russia in the 1990s would have been able to avoid many economic difficulties.”
In many ways, this apparent decision of the Kremlin recalls Nikita Khrushchev’s anti-Stalin campaign, a major if not always remarked feature was his call for the country to return to the principles of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state and the man who clearly inspired Khrushchev’s own youth.
That is how Stalin’s successor sought to distance himself from Stalin’s most egregious crimes while protecting himself and his system by appealing to the man Stalin replaced – even though as many historians quickly pointed out to Khrushchev’s horror, much of what Stalin did was simply carrying out Lenin’s teachings.
And that unwelcome “discovery” ultimately became the basis for the ouster of Khrushchev and his replacement by Leonid Brezhnev, who recognized that the Soviet system was in terrible trouble if its own leaders suggested that the man who had dominated it for most of its existence was a bloodthirsty tyrant.
Consequently, even implicitly attacking one’s own immediate predecessor by building up his predecessor can be a high risk game politically because such an approach can lead some to conclude that the system itself is the problem since the person being built up is the one who chose the one implicitly or in some cases explicitly being criticized.
And just as Khrushchev’s attacks on Stalin ultimately led Soviet citizens to reflect that Lenin had appointed him and that the system itself rather than any one man was the problem, so too it is at least possible that any rehabilitation of Yeltsin could lead some to conclude that the first Russian president’s greatest crime was in fact his selection of his successor.
But however that may be, today, friends and colleagues honored Yeltsin by attending a service at Moscow’s Novodeviche cemetery. Yeltsin’s widow came together with her daughters and they shook hands and spoke with those in attendance, thus displaying precisely the kind of modesty so often lacking in such circumstances (www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=278316).
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Will Non-Russians of the Altai Unite into a Single Nation for the Census?
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 22 – The indigenous ethnic groups of the Altai Republic are thinking about uniting into a single Altai nation in advance of the 2010 Russian census, lest Moscow decide given how few members there are of any one of them to decide to liquidate the republic and combine it with the neighboring Altai kray.
One of the reasons some officials in the republic say they are pushing the idea is that a recent federal law providing assistance to numerically small communities led some members of the formerly united Altai people to declare themselves Kumandins, Tubulars, Chelkans, Telengits and Altais in order to receive aid (www.narodru.ru/smi20756.html).
But while the individual members of these communities perhaps gained individually, Ivan Belekov, the speaker of the republic’s legislative assembly, told the Regnum news agency yesterday, their individual decisions put the future of the republic they call home very much at risk.
According to the legislative speaker, “before the peoples of the Altai stands the task of preserving the unity of the Altai people and avoiding the loss of federal support which today he indigenous numerically small peoples have.” But the leaders of some of these small groups say that the aid may be more important than the ethnic self-identification.
Nikolai Malchinov, the president of a group promoting the development of the Telengit people, suggested that the authorities were about eight years too late in deciding to talk “directly and openly” about the relationship between the status of the republic as a national home and financial assistance from Moscow. For many, he said, the aid is often more important.
Aleksandr Krachnakov, the head of the Chelkan community, said that 557 people in one district had successfully gone to court in order to secure that ethnic identity and that more were waiting for a final adjudication of their requests. “Stopping this progress,” he said, “is very complicated because people are getting real benefits by doing so.”
And Mariya Sakova, an activist from the Choy district, said that in her region some 387 people had secured the legal right to “consider themselves Tubalars” and thus receive aid. To turn the clock back, she said, would be hard if not impossible. “As a result of the law, we have now our own forest region.”
But Artem Sumachakov, the president of the Association of Indigenous Numerically Small Peoples of the Altai Republic, said everyone concerned about their fate in that region needs to try to change things. “Under contemporary continues, we are simply obligated, while striving to protect ethnic diversity to try to preserve national unity.”
He said that the leaders of the ethnic communities in the Altai need to reflect on what will happen if they choose to declare themselves members of these various micro-communities rather that part of “a united front of Altais.” On their decision, he said, will depend “whether the republic will survive or not.”
This is not the first time this discussion has broken out in the Altai Republic, officials say. Prior to the 2002 Russian census, republic officials pushed for having indigenous residents declare themselves Altais rather than members of any other group, fearful that if the percentage of Altais was too small, Moscow would abolish the republic.
Russian government officials pointed out that there is nothing in federal legislation that sets a minimum percentage of indigenous people as a condition for the creation or survival of a republic within the federation. But few Altais appear to have believed that, and probably fewer do today given Vladimir Putin’s push for the amalgamation of republics and regions.
Whether as a result of these concerns or simply inertia, 62,192 residents of the Altai Republic, just over 30 percent of the total, declared themselves Altais, with another four percent saying they were members of one or another of the smaller groups whose members republic officials are now seeking to have rejoin the Altais.
Most people are likely to be inclined to dismiss this situation as unimportant given the relatively tiny numbers of people involved. But it is important in at least two respects. On the one hand, it highlights the plasticity of ethnic identity in the Russian Federation and the ability of officials, central and republic-level, to lead people to re-identify for one purpose or another.
And on the other, the Altai case calls attention to something else: Many residents of the Russian Federation believe that only groups with a plurality or even a majority on a particular territory should have an ethnic republic. In the past, that would have worked in favor of the ethnic Russians; but given their numerical decline, it now could work for non-Russian groups.
Consequently, the campaign to secure identification or re-identification of some of the members of the Altai or other groups and its success as measured in the census returns of 2010 are likely to be watched closely both by those who hope to preserve current federal arrangements and those who are interested in changing them.
Vienna, April 22 – The indigenous ethnic groups of the Altai Republic are thinking about uniting into a single Altai nation in advance of the 2010 Russian census, lest Moscow decide given how few members there are of any one of them to decide to liquidate the republic and combine it with the neighboring Altai kray.
One of the reasons some officials in the republic say they are pushing the idea is that a recent federal law providing assistance to numerically small communities led some members of the formerly united Altai people to declare themselves Kumandins, Tubulars, Chelkans, Telengits and Altais in order to receive aid (www.narodru.ru/smi20756.html).
But while the individual members of these communities perhaps gained individually, Ivan Belekov, the speaker of the republic’s legislative assembly, told the Regnum news agency yesterday, their individual decisions put the future of the republic they call home very much at risk.
According to the legislative speaker, “before the peoples of the Altai stands the task of preserving the unity of the Altai people and avoiding the loss of federal support which today he indigenous numerically small peoples have.” But the leaders of some of these small groups say that the aid may be more important than the ethnic self-identification.
Nikolai Malchinov, the president of a group promoting the development of the Telengit people, suggested that the authorities were about eight years too late in deciding to talk “directly and openly” about the relationship between the status of the republic as a national home and financial assistance from Moscow. For many, he said, the aid is often more important.
Aleksandr Krachnakov, the head of the Chelkan community, said that 557 people in one district had successfully gone to court in order to secure that ethnic identity and that more were waiting for a final adjudication of their requests. “Stopping this progress,” he said, “is very complicated because people are getting real benefits by doing so.”
And Mariya Sakova, an activist from the Choy district, said that in her region some 387 people had secured the legal right to “consider themselves Tubalars” and thus receive aid. To turn the clock back, she said, would be hard if not impossible. “As a result of the law, we have now our own forest region.”
But Artem Sumachakov, the president of the Association of Indigenous Numerically Small Peoples of the Altai Republic, said everyone concerned about their fate in that region needs to try to change things. “Under contemporary continues, we are simply obligated, while striving to protect ethnic diversity to try to preserve national unity.”
He said that the leaders of the ethnic communities in the Altai need to reflect on what will happen if they choose to declare themselves members of these various micro-communities rather that part of “a united front of Altais.” On their decision, he said, will depend “whether the republic will survive or not.”
This is not the first time this discussion has broken out in the Altai Republic, officials say. Prior to the 2002 Russian census, republic officials pushed for having indigenous residents declare themselves Altais rather than members of any other group, fearful that if the percentage of Altais was too small, Moscow would abolish the republic.
Russian government officials pointed out that there is nothing in federal legislation that sets a minimum percentage of indigenous people as a condition for the creation or survival of a republic within the federation. But few Altais appear to have believed that, and probably fewer do today given Vladimir Putin’s push for the amalgamation of republics and regions.
Whether as a result of these concerns or simply inertia, 62,192 residents of the Altai Republic, just over 30 percent of the total, declared themselves Altais, with another four percent saying they were members of one or another of the smaller groups whose members republic officials are now seeking to have rejoin the Altais.
Most people are likely to be inclined to dismiss this situation as unimportant given the relatively tiny numbers of people involved. But it is important in at least two respects. On the one hand, it highlights the plasticity of ethnic identity in the Russian Federation and the ability of officials, central and republic-level, to lead people to re-identify for one purpose or another.
And on the other, the Altai case calls attention to something else: Many residents of the Russian Federation believe that only groups with a plurality or even a majority on a particular territory should have an ethnic republic. In the past, that would have worked in favor of the ethnic Russians; but given their numerical decline, it now could work for non-Russian groups.
Consequently, the campaign to secure identification or re-identification of some of the members of the Altai or other groups and its success as measured in the census returns of 2010 are likely to be watched closely both by those who hope to preserve current federal arrangements and those who are interested in changing them.
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