Paul Goble
Staunton, October 20 – The situation in the North Caucasus is “dangerous” not only because of the many problems there but also because of the “inadequate” and “superficial” approach that the Russian “political class” has adopted in dealing with it, according to a leading specialist on the region.
At an international conference in Pyatigorsk last week, Khazhismel Tkhagapsoyev, a professor at the Kabardino-Balkaria State University and an advisor to the KBR government, said that Russian officials as a result have focused on dealing with symptoms rather than the underlying problems (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/175630/).
These officials, he continued has sought to counter terrorist activity, to restore Chechnya, and to overcome unemployment by the creation of a large number of workplaces in medium and large industries, but Tkhagapsoyev suggested, “these issues, despite their importance do not cover or exhaust ‘the essence of the Caucasus problem.”
That problem, he argued, is “the re-integration [of the peoples of the North Caucasus] into the [non-ethnic] Russian cultural and civilizational space.”
The reforms the citizens of Russia have experienced over the last two decades, Tkhagapsoyev continued, “have turned out to be ‘especially injurious for the Caucasus’ and for the sphere of nationality relations” there, generating “political separatism, ardent chauvinism, mutual deafness, the alienation of cultures, and the mass outflow of ethnic Russians.”
“Today,” the KBR scholar continued, “Russia de facto is a space of cultures and ethnic groups which co-exist in parallel” worlds, with little interaction. “If Rasul Gamzatov, Kaysyn Kuliyev [or other Soviet-era writers from the region] were living and creating at present, hardly anyone in Russia would have heard of them.”
Moreover, Tkhagapsoyev said, “for the contemporary Russian powers that be, the neglect of the cultural factor is characteristic, something that in the Caucasus region leads to unacceptable losses.” As an example of this, he pointed to Moscow’s recent decision to fight unemployment by investing in large and medium-sized industries.
That sounds good, he said, but it ignores a reality: “in the region there are a sufficient number of vacancies for workers but they remain unfilled because there is no one who wants to take them.” In addition, if a family in the Caucasus has a small business, all the family members will want to work for it, regardless of the specific nature of the job.
“It would seem that everything is clear,” the KBR academic and government advisor says. The powers that be need to go “along the path of family business and small entrepreneurial efforts. However, many things interfere with this.” Among them, he pointed out, is the lack of a resolution of disputes about land, “the main economic resource of the Caucasus.”
As things have worked out, “land is in the hands of major renters or in the shadow economy, but residents of the Caucasus do not see themselves in the role of paid agricultural workers.” As a result, the land isn’t being worked, and social and economic uncertainty and tension are leading to “a lack of faith in the powers that be.”
That is not the only example of Moscow’s inattention to culture, Tkhagapsoyev suggested. Another and equally important kind of neglect involves the history of the peoples of the North Caucasus and especially their clashes with the Russian state in the Caucasus War, the period of Stalinist repressions and the more recent war in Chechnya.
While Moscow has been prepared to condemn the Stalinist repressions in the region and to downplay the Chechen conflict, the scholar noted, there has not been any effort by the Russian powers that be to deal with the Caucasus War, the century-long conflict as the result of which the Russian Empire took control of the region.
This is not a question about “a revision” of the geopolitical results of that war, Tkhagapsoyev continued. Such a step “would be dangerous and fatal for the Caucasus peoples.” Instead, what is needed but not yet forthcoming is “an assessment about the moral aspect of this war and its demographic consequences” – including the expulsion of the Circassians.
A related problem involves “the contemporary situation of ethnic cultures and languages of the Caucasus, to the development of which,” the KBR scholar suggests, “the federal powers that be are not devoting sufficient attention.” Instead, the Duma has passed a law that eliminates language and cultures from the curriculum and at the same time further divides the population.
By introducing into the school special and distinct courses on Orthodox culture or Islamic culture, the powers that be are forcing children to “divide themselves up according to their religious memberships. And in this way, without having resolved the old problems of the mutual alienation of cultures and peoples, they have introduced new ones.”
Yet another problem involves higher education. “In the country a system of elite, privileged higher educational institutions is emerging. There are about 30, but not one institution in the ethnic republics of the region is among this ‘elect’” Instead, there is a sense that Moscow has decided on “a directed provincialization’ of the intellect and culture” of this region.
And finally, Tkhagapsoyev says, there is the problem of the way in which the region is treated in the electronic media of the Russian Federation. As in the past, “the face of the person of Caucasus nationality is repulsive” and clearly intended to be whatever the facts of the case happen to be.
“You will not see any traces of ethnic culture on the all-Russian channels, even on ‘Kultura,’” he points out. Given that, “about what kind of dialogue and consolidation of peoples and cultures can we speak? And how can we move toward an all-national identity of [non-ethnic] Russians.”
If that does not happen, if Moscow doesn’t move beyond its current superficial approach, then, the Kabardino-Balkaria scholar concludes, “the historical prospects of Russia are cloudy indeed.”
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Xenophobic Nationalists Threaten to Make Russia into a Post-1918 Austria, Moscow Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 19 – Russian imperial and xenophobic nationalists, a leading Moscow human rights analysts, are conducting the kind of “political experiments” that threaten their country with “yet another ‘greatest catastrophe,’” albeit one “not of the 20th century but of the 21st,” one that would leave it in a position much like Austria found itself after 1918
In an article on Grani.ru portal today, Yevgeny Ikhlov, the head of the analytic center of the For Human Rights Movement, draws that conclusion on the basis of his reading of the meaning of the efforts by Stavropol residents to leave the North Caucasus Federal District and of Muscovites to block the construction of new mosques (grani.ru/blogs/free/entries/182759.html).
Ikhlov says that from his point of view, “the Stavropol residents are profoundly right” in what they are trying to do. While the southern part of their kray is “geo-economically” part of the North Caucasus, “’everyone understands’ that the North Caucasus Federal District is a governorship general for the control as people said the century before last of unruly natives.”
“The Slavs of Stavropol do not want to be included among the natives,” he continues, because it is obvious that in that case, Stavropol kray “will always be forgotten” compared to hotspots like Daghestan. If they can secure a place in the Southern Federal District, the residents of the kray have good reason to think they can get “more proportionate” attention.”
The people of Stavropol thus find themselves in an awkward position now that “the former larger Southern FD is historically and civilizationally split into two absolutely different segments – a citadel of the south Russian sub-ethnos and the lands of the Caucasian peoples, annexed by the tsarist empire in its centuries-long drive toward the Middle East.”
But if the Stavropol residents succeed in being shifted from the North Caucasus to the Southern FD, then, this “will make the border [one] between the imperial metropolis and imperial acquisitions, between what everyone understands as Russia and that which should be called ‘the Federation’” on the basis with the analogous division in the Roman empire of antiquity.
“The price of preserving the official illusion that the Russian Federation is not an empire but a cleverly devised in 1993 ‘United States of Northern Eurasia’ became the unification of the Stavropol residents to the North Caucasus Federal District which was set up for the struggle with the already 11-year-old North Caucasus guerilla war.”
Ikhlov suggests that “this bureaucratic solution is only a small part of the bill for the ambitions of the Russian tsars” and Soviet leaders, a bill that many Russians complain about when despite everything their ancestors did, they are forced to “pay” for it by getting visas in order to travel to Kaliningrad, the former German land.
“For the conquest and annexation of the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia and for the Westernization of these territories with fire and sword by the communists, it is also necessary to pay,” he argues, just as France, Britain and Germany have had to pay for their past imperial ambitions by being forced to deal with “millions” of culturally distinct immigrants.”
“For its Eurasian empire, Moscow must cope with millions of Muslims in the capital and surrounding territories,” Ikhlov says. “the capital of a universal empire – and the Third Rome by definition is a universal empire – is always a cosmopolitan megalopolis, i.e., a Babylon.” Thus, “Moscow never will be ‘a Russian Orthodox’ metropolis,” whatever the nationalists think.
The huge Muslim community of Moscow “must have a sufficient number of mosques,” he argues, saying that “it is time to get rid of the illusion that if Muslims are left without a mosque, they will first become ethnically and religiously colorless [non-ethnic] Russians and then eventually become [ethnic] Russians and even Orthodox Christians.”
If the communists couldn’t achieve that goal with “two million Soviet Jews,” then the current Russian powers that be won’t be able to achieve such a transformation among “the 20 million people whose ancestors professed Islam.”
Of course, “in principle,” Ikhlov says, “it would be possible to free Moscow and all of central Russia from Muslims by setting up an Orthodox-fascist Muscovite Rus, the territory of which would be somewhat smaller than the current Russian Federation.” But those who think that would be a good idea should remember what happened to Austria after the empire.
Such a prospect for Russia, the human rights analyst argues, “ought to convince angriest Moscow chauvinists and Islamophobes that the flourishing of the capital [of their country] is worth 20 mosques.” But unfortunately, as recent developments in France and Germany with regard to the Roma suggest, they may not recognize that danger.
According to Ikhlov, “the problem is that neither the Russian nor the West European elites have been able to create a universal super-ethnic model which has been so notably established in North America.” And consequently, “our proud imperialists of the Kipplingesque type will continue their political experiments.”
That is until, the For Human Rights expert concludes, they succeed in bringing about “yet another ‘greatest catastrophe,’” a reference to Vladimir Putin’s description of the disintegration of the USSR. “Only this will not be in the 20th century” as that event was but rather sometime “in the 21st.”
Staunton, October 19 – Russian imperial and xenophobic nationalists, a leading Moscow human rights analysts, are conducting the kind of “political experiments” that threaten their country with “yet another ‘greatest catastrophe,’” albeit one “not of the 20th century but of the 21st,” one that would leave it in a position much like Austria found itself after 1918
In an article on Grani.ru portal today, Yevgeny Ikhlov, the head of the analytic center of the For Human Rights Movement, draws that conclusion on the basis of his reading of the meaning of the efforts by Stavropol residents to leave the North Caucasus Federal District and of Muscovites to block the construction of new mosques (grani.ru/blogs/free/entries/182759.html).
Ikhlov says that from his point of view, “the Stavropol residents are profoundly right” in what they are trying to do. While the southern part of their kray is “geo-economically” part of the North Caucasus, “’everyone understands’ that the North Caucasus Federal District is a governorship general for the control as people said the century before last of unruly natives.”
“The Slavs of Stavropol do not want to be included among the natives,” he continues, because it is obvious that in that case, Stavropol kray “will always be forgotten” compared to hotspots like Daghestan. If they can secure a place in the Southern Federal District, the residents of the kray have good reason to think they can get “more proportionate” attention.”
The people of Stavropol thus find themselves in an awkward position now that “the former larger Southern FD is historically and civilizationally split into two absolutely different segments – a citadel of the south Russian sub-ethnos and the lands of the Caucasian peoples, annexed by the tsarist empire in its centuries-long drive toward the Middle East.”
But if the Stavropol residents succeed in being shifted from the North Caucasus to the Southern FD, then, this “will make the border [one] between the imperial metropolis and imperial acquisitions, between what everyone understands as Russia and that which should be called ‘the Federation’” on the basis with the analogous division in the Roman empire of antiquity.
“The price of preserving the official illusion that the Russian Federation is not an empire but a cleverly devised in 1993 ‘United States of Northern Eurasia’ became the unification of the Stavropol residents to the North Caucasus Federal District which was set up for the struggle with the already 11-year-old North Caucasus guerilla war.”
Ikhlov suggests that “this bureaucratic solution is only a small part of the bill for the ambitions of the Russian tsars” and Soviet leaders, a bill that many Russians complain about when despite everything their ancestors did, they are forced to “pay” for it by getting visas in order to travel to Kaliningrad, the former German land.
“For the conquest and annexation of the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia and for the Westernization of these territories with fire and sword by the communists, it is also necessary to pay,” he argues, just as France, Britain and Germany have had to pay for their past imperial ambitions by being forced to deal with “millions” of culturally distinct immigrants.”
“For its Eurasian empire, Moscow must cope with millions of Muslims in the capital and surrounding territories,” Ikhlov says. “the capital of a universal empire – and the Third Rome by definition is a universal empire – is always a cosmopolitan megalopolis, i.e., a Babylon.” Thus, “Moscow never will be ‘a Russian Orthodox’ metropolis,” whatever the nationalists think.
The huge Muslim community of Moscow “must have a sufficient number of mosques,” he argues, saying that “it is time to get rid of the illusion that if Muslims are left without a mosque, they will first become ethnically and religiously colorless [non-ethnic] Russians and then eventually become [ethnic] Russians and even Orthodox Christians.”
If the communists couldn’t achieve that goal with “two million Soviet Jews,” then the current Russian powers that be won’t be able to achieve such a transformation among “the 20 million people whose ancestors professed Islam.”
Of course, “in principle,” Ikhlov says, “it would be possible to free Moscow and all of central Russia from Muslims by setting up an Orthodox-fascist Muscovite Rus, the territory of which would be somewhat smaller than the current Russian Federation.” But those who think that would be a good idea should remember what happened to Austria after the empire.
Such a prospect for Russia, the human rights analyst argues, “ought to convince angriest Moscow chauvinists and Islamophobes that the flourishing of the capital [of their country] is worth 20 mosques.” But unfortunately, as recent developments in France and Germany with regard to the Roma suggest, they may not recognize that danger.
According to Ikhlov, “the problem is that neither the Russian nor the West European elites have been able to create a universal super-ethnic model which has been so notably established in North America.” And consequently, “our proud imperialists of the Kipplingesque type will continue their political experiments.”
That is until, the For Human Rights expert concludes, they succeed in bringing about “yet another ‘greatest catastrophe,’” a reference to Vladimir Putin’s description of the disintegration of the USSR. “Only this will not be in the 20th century” as that event was but rather sometime “in the 21st.”
Window on Eurasia: Dushanbe Asks Muslim Countries to Return Tajiks Studying Abroad
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 19 – Earlier this year, Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon asked the parents of Tajiks studying in Islamic universities and medrassahs abroad to have them return to their homes. Now, underscoring Dushanbe’s nervousness the republic’s foreign minister has begun talks with the governments involved to enlist their aid in this effort.
Khamrokhon Zarifi, the foreign minister, told the Regnum.ru news agency that talks are now going on with these countries in the expectation that they will agree to return the young Tajik students so that they will not become, in Rakhmon’s words, “terrorists and extremists” (www.regnum.ru/news/fd-abroad/tajik/1337141.html).
According to the Tajik minister, the problem is a large one. At Cairo’s Al-Azhar University alone, for example, there are some700 Tajiks, all of whom are studying religious subjects like shariat law and theology rather than scientific or technical ones and 90 percent of whom are there illegally, at least from Dushanbe’s point of view (islamsng.com/tjk/news/301).
Indeed at his press conference, Zarifi said that “there is not a single one of our compatriots who is studying in the secular faculties of this higher educational institution which prepare engineers and doctors, although such people are very much needed in our country.” And consequently, Dushanbe wants them back.
According to the Tajik government, there are currently about 1400 Tajik young people studying in Islamic universities and medrassahs abroad, although the actual number is almost certainly far greater than that as many Tajiks, like students from other Muslim groups in the former Soviet space, often declare they are studying one place but then shift to another.
To date, the Tajik government, Foreign Minister Zarifi said, have been able to secure the return of “approximately 50,” an indication that Dushanbe faces an uphill battle unless foreign governments become actively involved, something that few, except for Iran – which has sent Tajiks home – appear all that interested in doing.
But Dushanbe’s efforts in this regard if they are successful may create three problems for the regime at home in addition to any difficulties it may have with its foreign interlocutors. First, because of mass unemployment in Tajikistan, many of those forced to return will be furious at the government and join militant groups seeking to overturn it.
Second, such half-trained Muslim adepts, history has shown, are far more likely to take a radical position than those who may be more fully exposed to Islamic doctrines, especially at places like Cairo’s Al-Azhar, and thus bring back with them exactly the opposite message that the Dushanbe government hopes for.
And third, if young Tajiks are precluded from getting an Islamic education abroad, then more of them are likely to demand Islamic education at home, something the authorities in Dushanbe say they favor but may be hard pressed to support, especially given that country’s economic difficulties at the present time.
But despite those difficulties, the governments of other post-Soviet states, many of whom have even more of their nationals studying at Islamic institutions abroad than does Tajikistan, are likely to follow Dushanbe’s lead. And that by itself makes what the Tajiks are doing even more important.
Staunton, October 19 – Earlier this year, Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon asked the parents of Tajiks studying in Islamic universities and medrassahs abroad to have them return to their homes. Now, underscoring Dushanbe’s nervousness the republic’s foreign minister has begun talks with the governments involved to enlist their aid in this effort.
Khamrokhon Zarifi, the foreign minister, told the Regnum.ru news agency that talks are now going on with these countries in the expectation that they will agree to return the young Tajik students so that they will not become, in Rakhmon’s words, “terrorists and extremists” (www.regnum.ru/news/fd-abroad/tajik/1337141.html).
According to the Tajik minister, the problem is a large one. At Cairo’s Al-Azhar University alone, for example, there are some700 Tajiks, all of whom are studying religious subjects like shariat law and theology rather than scientific or technical ones and 90 percent of whom are there illegally, at least from Dushanbe’s point of view (islamsng.com/tjk/news/301).
Indeed at his press conference, Zarifi said that “there is not a single one of our compatriots who is studying in the secular faculties of this higher educational institution which prepare engineers and doctors, although such people are very much needed in our country.” And consequently, Dushanbe wants them back.
According to the Tajik government, there are currently about 1400 Tajik young people studying in Islamic universities and medrassahs abroad, although the actual number is almost certainly far greater than that as many Tajiks, like students from other Muslim groups in the former Soviet space, often declare they are studying one place but then shift to another.
To date, the Tajik government, Foreign Minister Zarifi said, have been able to secure the return of “approximately 50,” an indication that Dushanbe faces an uphill battle unless foreign governments become actively involved, something that few, except for Iran – which has sent Tajiks home – appear all that interested in doing.
But Dushanbe’s efforts in this regard if they are successful may create three problems for the regime at home in addition to any difficulties it may have with its foreign interlocutors. First, because of mass unemployment in Tajikistan, many of those forced to return will be furious at the government and join militant groups seeking to overturn it.
Second, such half-trained Muslim adepts, history has shown, are far more likely to take a radical position than those who may be more fully exposed to Islamic doctrines, especially at places like Cairo’s Al-Azhar, and thus bring back with them exactly the opposite message that the Dushanbe government hopes for.
And third, if young Tajiks are precluded from getting an Islamic education abroad, then more of them are likely to demand Islamic education at home, something the authorities in Dushanbe say they favor but may be hard pressed to support, especially given that country’s economic difficulties at the present time.
But despite those difficulties, the governments of other post-Soviet states, many of whom have even more of their nationals studying at Islamic institutions abroad than does Tajikistan, are likely to follow Dushanbe’s lead. And that by itself makes what the Tajiks are doing even more important.
Window on Eurasia: Attack on Chechen Parliament Undercuts Kadyrov's Position and Putin's Claims
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 19 – Even more than the August raid on Ramzan Kadyrov’s home village of Tsentoroy, the attack Chechen militants carried out against the republic parliament this morning shows that Chechnya has not become the island of stability in the North Caucasus Kadyrov and his Moscow patron Vladimir Putin routinely claim.
That in turn increases the likelihood that some in Moscow will begin asking pointed questions about Kadyrov’s approach as the best model for other republic leaders in the North Caucasus, a model that he and Putin have been pushing -- and even about Kadyrov’s fitness to continue in office in Grozny.
And while the difficulties Moscow would face in displacing Kadyrov are enormous – he controls a large armed force and has few obvious successors who would not pursue an even more anti-Russian approach – the likelihood that such possibilities are going to be discussed will inevitably erode Kadyrov’s power and authority.
Chechen, Russian and Western news outlets have offered somewhat contradictory accounts of what has taken place, but an examination of a variety of them suggests that at least three people were killed and more than a dozen hospitalized as a result of the attack and that after a hour-long firefight, four of “the bandits” were, in Kadyrov’s words, “liquidated.”
Initial reports that militants had taken hostages within the parliament building itself or that they had attacked other Chechen government buildings have not been confirmed. But as “Svobodnaya pressa” put it, “the seriousness of the situation” is reflected in the fact that Putin spoke with Kadyrov even as it was going on (svpressa.ru/accidents/article/32346/).
More details may become available over the coming days because investigators from the North Caucasus and Southern Federal Districts jointly have formed a special group to find out what took place, although it is entirely possible that they will throw a veil of secrecy over today’s events.
Chechen officials have already tried to play down the event, although the comments of some may have just the opposite effect. Anzor Davletuniyev, a journalist at Grozny’s “Vesti respubliki,” told “Svobodnaya pressa” that “our people have been accustomed to such things for a long time.”
And Moscow media outlets, both electronic and print, have devoted most of their comments to what they describe as “the end of a counter-terrorist operation” against the militants rather than on why the militants have taken this action now, although some have linked it to recent conflicts within the Caucasus Emirate.
But in an interview “Svobodnaya pressa” had, Geydar Dzhemal, the president of the Islamic Committee of Russia, suggested that any discussions about what had occurred should not involve a focus on this or that individual but on what he called “a much larger problem … [the use of] this operation to discredit Ramzan Kadyrov” and more generally the policies he espouses.
By this action, even more than the Tsentoroy attack, the militants of those behind them, Dzhemal argued, are seeking to prove that Kadyrov and the policy of “Chechenization” can be “a panacea for the armed resistance in the Caucasus,” a policy Putin and his allies among the siloviki have pushed for the last several years.
According to Dzhemal, someone needs the situation to develop in such a way that “Kadyrov will be discredited in order to prepare the conditions for his departure. Therefore, the action was conducted when Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev was in Grozny” and when there were parliamentarians from Sverdlovsk oblast there who could serve as witnesses.
The Muslim commentator said that he “considers that this was not an ordinary action and even not one of the caliber of the attack on Tsentoroy.” Rather, he suggested, that “in this case, we are dealing with a far reaching political operation which is related to processes which are taking place in Russia at the federal level.”
Kadyrov, Dzhemal continued, is “a powerful trump card” in the hands of the Russian siloviki, and consequently and entirely naturally “someone is interested that this resource of the party of the siloviki be taken away from them and that [as a result] problems for the entire system of power sharply increase.”
In the coming days and weeks, the Moscow analyst continued, Kadyrov is going to find himself under “growing political pressure” because “the attack on the parliament demonstrated that he is not in control of the situation in his own home” and that “the system of security which he has organized” isn’t working.
Dzhemal’s comments likely overstate the threat to Kadyrov – again, Moscow has few good options – but they are suggestive of a shift in attitudes toward him in the Russian capital, a shift that the militants are likely to exploit and that the Chechen leader will now have to try to do something to reverse.
Staunton, October 19 – Even more than the August raid on Ramzan Kadyrov’s home village of Tsentoroy, the attack Chechen militants carried out against the republic parliament this morning shows that Chechnya has not become the island of stability in the North Caucasus Kadyrov and his Moscow patron Vladimir Putin routinely claim.
That in turn increases the likelihood that some in Moscow will begin asking pointed questions about Kadyrov’s approach as the best model for other republic leaders in the North Caucasus, a model that he and Putin have been pushing -- and even about Kadyrov’s fitness to continue in office in Grozny.
And while the difficulties Moscow would face in displacing Kadyrov are enormous – he controls a large armed force and has few obvious successors who would not pursue an even more anti-Russian approach – the likelihood that such possibilities are going to be discussed will inevitably erode Kadyrov’s power and authority.
Chechen, Russian and Western news outlets have offered somewhat contradictory accounts of what has taken place, but an examination of a variety of them suggests that at least three people were killed and more than a dozen hospitalized as a result of the attack and that after a hour-long firefight, four of “the bandits” were, in Kadyrov’s words, “liquidated.”
Initial reports that militants had taken hostages within the parliament building itself or that they had attacked other Chechen government buildings have not been confirmed. But as “Svobodnaya pressa” put it, “the seriousness of the situation” is reflected in the fact that Putin spoke with Kadyrov even as it was going on (svpressa.ru/accidents/article/32346/).
More details may become available over the coming days because investigators from the North Caucasus and Southern Federal Districts jointly have formed a special group to find out what took place, although it is entirely possible that they will throw a veil of secrecy over today’s events.
Chechen officials have already tried to play down the event, although the comments of some may have just the opposite effect. Anzor Davletuniyev, a journalist at Grozny’s “Vesti respubliki,” told “Svobodnaya pressa” that “our people have been accustomed to such things for a long time.”
And Moscow media outlets, both electronic and print, have devoted most of their comments to what they describe as “the end of a counter-terrorist operation” against the militants rather than on why the militants have taken this action now, although some have linked it to recent conflicts within the Caucasus Emirate.
But in an interview “Svobodnaya pressa” had, Geydar Dzhemal, the president of the Islamic Committee of Russia, suggested that any discussions about what had occurred should not involve a focus on this or that individual but on what he called “a much larger problem … [the use of] this operation to discredit Ramzan Kadyrov” and more generally the policies he espouses.
By this action, even more than the Tsentoroy attack, the militants of those behind them, Dzhemal argued, are seeking to prove that Kadyrov and the policy of “Chechenization” can be “a panacea for the armed resistance in the Caucasus,” a policy Putin and his allies among the siloviki have pushed for the last several years.
According to Dzhemal, someone needs the situation to develop in such a way that “Kadyrov will be discredited in order to prepare the conditions for his departure. Therefore, the action was conducted when Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev was in Grozny” and when there were parliamentarians from Sverdlovsk oblast there who could serve as witnesses.
The Muslim commentator said that he “considers that this was not an ordinary action and even not one of the caliber of the attack on Tsentoroy.” Rather, he suggested, that “in this case, we are dealing with a far reaching political operation which is related to processes which are taking place in Russia at the federal level.”
Kadyrov, Dzhemal continued, is “a powerful trump card” in the hands of the Russian siloviki, and consequently and entirely naturally “someone is interested that this resource of the party of the siloviki be taken away from them and that [as a result] problems for the entire system of power sharply increase.”
In the coming days and weeks, the Moscow analyst continued, Kadyrov is going to find himself under “growing political pressure” because “the attack on the parliament demonstrated that he is not in control of the situation in his own home” and that “the system of security which he has organized” isn’t working.
Dzhemal’s comments likely overstate the threat to Kadyrov – again, Moscow has few good options – but they are suggestive of a shift in attitudes toward him in the Russian capital, a shift that the militants are likely to exploit and that the Chechen leader will now have to try to do something to reverse.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Primorsky Kray Deputies Suggest Reviving a Regional Currency
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 18 – Several deputies in the Legislative Assembly of Primorsky kray in Russia’s Far East recently suggested re-introducing a regional currency much as that region and more than 20 others had in the early 1990s in order to make social payments and thus avoid public protests when there is a delay in the physical transfer of rubles from Moscow.
While there is no indication that that legislators there are prepared to take a step that would violate a 1995 Russian Federation law, Ruslan Gorevoy says in today’s “Novaya versiya,” the proposal shows that “subjects of the Federation are [even now] keeping their own currency from the early 1990s” (versia.ru/articles/2010/oct/18/poyavlenie_v_rossii_regionalnih_valut).
And that makes an examination of what many of the country’s regions and republics did at that time not only a matter of historical interest but quite possibly a model that some regional elites may follow in the event of the onset of a serious financial or political crisis in the Russian capital at some point in the future.
After the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, Gorevoy writes, the value of the ruble fell so rapidly that Moscow was often incapable of supplying the regions with the physical currency to pay what the government owed the population. And as a result, he says, “the Russian government secretly permitted 20 some regional leaders to print their own money.”
Other regional leaders soon followed, and had any of them shown real initiative, businessman Artyom Tarasov says, after only a few years no one in the Russian Federation would even have had a memory about the ruble. But most, locked in Soviet-style caution, didn’t push these regional currencies very hard, and they circulated right alongside the ruble.
“Only in 1995,” Gorevoy continues, did Moscow adopt a law on the Russian Central Bank, one of whose provisions (Article 27) was that “the introduction on the territory of the Russian Federation of other monetary units and the production of monetary surrogates is prohibited.”
But as the “Novaya versiya” writer suggests, “if in the Far East or in Kaliningrad there isn’t enough money to deal with budget allocations, the local powers that be could perfectly well say to Moscow that there isn’t enough cash and thereby provoke in this way new conversations about their own money, ‘not tied’ to Moscow.”
Tatarstan was “one of the first” to introduce its own currency, taking that step already in the summer of 1990. It then imported currency printed in Britain in February 1992 with plans to introduce it on January 1, 1994. The reason, Tarasov says, is that Kazan didn’t want to take that step at the same time as others and thus prompt Moscow to come down on all of them at once.
At that time, the businessman continues, Yegor Gaidar had a plan for such currencies: they were supposed to function “on an equal basis with the ruble but only on the territory of the Russian Federation.” They were not to be used internationally – “in any case, according to the federal powers that be.”
Such local money was “immediately issued” in Nizhny Novgorod, Khakasia, Blagoveshchensk “and a number of other cities” and regions across Russia. There were many problems and curiosities: In Nizhny, the bills were so poorly printed that counterfeiting was simple and thus widely practiced.
Because of that, they were quickly replaced by government bonds. The bonds were then paid off, “and the unsuitable rubles destroyed – and this is the only case when ‘separatist’ money was not carefully saved until better times.” Elsewhere the physical bills generally have been retained, even if they are not honored as legal tender.
Meanwhile, in Blagoveshchensk, the local authorities wanted to avoid Moscow’s anger and so they had the currency they needed issued by an industrial concern as internal accounting funds. The name of the firm was SOPPIT, and that became the name of the denominations. “Sopps circulated alongside the ruble until 1995.”
The most famous case of regional currency involved the Urals francs printed up by Governor Eduard Rossel after he secured Gaidar’s approval. He said he had warned the Moscow official that planned reforms would leave Western Siberian governments without the currency they needed to make payments, and Gaidar agreed to the issuance of that regional currency
Many “Urals francs” are still around. “In 1996 and again in 1998, the Office of the Procurator General sanctioned the destruction of these bills,” Gorevoy says, “but this was not done.” And people there, he implies, appear to be retaining them less as curiosities from the past but as potentially valuable pieces of paper.
The most curious case of regional currency involves Chechnya. In early May 1993, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and the National Bank of the Chechen Republic, at a time when Dzhokar Dudayev was president, signed an agreement on money, “in which was de facto recognized the financial-credit sovereignty of the republic.”
Six months later, the Chechen authorities decided to issue their own bills and ordered them from a British firm. The bills were printed but the war prevented their widespread introduction. More recently, Gorevoy says, there have been rumors that current Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov has had all the rest of the print run transferred.
If that is the case, the “Novaya versiya” journalist asks rhetorically, “why did he do so?”
But if Chechnya is not thinking about having its own currency again, others apparently are. Tarasov told Gorevoy that “at the present time, the prospects for the appearance in Russia of regional currencies exist,” and those prospects will only brighten if the economic and political clouds over Moscow darken.
Staunton, October 18 – Several deputies in the Legislative Assembly of Primorsky kray in Russia’s Far East recently suggested re-introducing a regional currency much as that region and more than 20 others had in the early 1990s in order to make social payments and thus avoid public protests when there is a delay in the physical transfer of rubles from Moscow.
While there is no indication that that legislators there are prepared to take a step that would violate a 1995 Russian Federation law, Ruslan Gorevoy says in today’s “Novaya versiya,” the proposal shows that “subjects of the Federation are [even now] keeping their own currency from the early 1990s” (versia.ru/articles/2010/oct/18/poyavlenie_v_rossii_regionalnih_valut).
And that makes an examination of what many of the country’s regions and republics did at that time not only a matter of historical interest but quite possibly a model that some regional elites may follow in the event of the onset of a serious financial or political crisis in the Russian capital at some point in the future.
After the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, Gorevoy writes, the value of the ruble fell so rapidly that Moscow was often incapable of supplying the regions with the physical currency to pay what the government owed the population. And as a result, he says, “the Russian government secretly permitted 20 some regional leaders to print their own money.”
Other regional leaders soon followed, and had any of them shown real initiative, businessman Artyom Tarasov says, after only a few years no one in the Russian Federation would even have had a memory about the ruble. But most, locked in Soviet-style caution, didn’t push these regional currencies very hard, and they circulated right alongside the ruble.
“Only in 1995,” Gorevoy continues, did Moscow adopt a law on the Russian Central Bank, one of whose provisions (Article 27) was that “the introduction on the territory of the Russian Federation of other monetary units and the production of monetary surrogates is prohibited.”
But as the “Novaya versiya” writer suggests, “if in the Far East or in Kaliningrad there isn’t enough money to deal with budget allocations, the local powers that be could perfectly well say to Moscow that there isn’t enough cash and thereby provoke in this way new conversations about their own money, ‘not tied’ to Moscow.”
Tatarstan was “one of the first” to introduce its own currency, taking that step already in the summer of 1990. It then imported currency printed in Britain in February 1992 with plans to introduce it on January 1, 1994. The reason, Tarasov says, is that Kazan didn’t want to take that step at the same time as others and thus prompt Moscow to come down on all of them at once.
At that time, the businessman continues, Yegor Gaidar had a plan for such currencies: they were supposed to function “on an equal basis with the ruble but only on the territory of the Russian Federation.” They were not to be used internationally – “in any case, according to the federal powers that be.”
Such local money was “immediately issued” in Nizhny Novgorod, Khakasia, Blagoveshchensk “and a number of other cities” and regions across Russia. There were many problems and curiosities: In Nizhny, the bills were so poorly printed that counterfeiting was simple and thus widely practiced.
Because of that, they were quickly replaced by government bonds. The bonds were then paid off, “and the unsuitable rubles destroyed – and this is the only case when ‘separatist’ money was not carefully saved until better times.” Elsewhere the physical bills generally have been retained, even if they are not honored as legal tender.
Meanwhile, in Blagoveshchensk, the local authorities wanted to avoid Moscow’s anger and so they had the currency they needed issued by an industrial concern as internal accounting funds. The name of the firm was SOPPIT, and that became the name of the denominations. “Sopps circulated alongside the ruble until 1995.”
The most famous case of regional currency involved the Urals francs printed up by Governor Eduard Rossel after he secured Gaidar’s approval. He said he had warned the Moscow official that planned reforms would leave Western Siberian governments without the currency they needed to make payments, and Gaidar agreed to the issuance of that regional currency
Many “Urals francs” are still around. “In 1996 and again in 1998, the Office of the Procurator General sanctioned the destruction of these bills,” Gorevoy says, “but this was not done.” And people there, he implies, appear to be retaining them less as curiosities from the past but as potentially valuable pieces of paper.
The most curious case of regional currency involves Chechnya. In early May 1993, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and the National Bank of the Chechen Republic, at a time when Dzhokar Dudayev was president, signed an agreement on money, “in which was de facto recognized the financial-credit sovereignty of the republic.”
Six months later, the Chechen authorities decided to issue their own bills and ordered them from a British firm. The bills were printed but the war prevented their widespread introduction. More recently, Gorevoy says, there have been rumors that current Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov has had all the rest of the print run transferred.
If that is the case, the “Novaya versiya” journalist asks rhetorically, “why did he do so?”
But if Chechnya is not thinking about having its own currency again, others apparently are. Tarasov told Gorevoy that “at the present time, the prospects for the appearance in Russia of regional currencies exist,” and those prospects will only brighten if the economic and political clouds over Moscow darken.
Window on Eurasia: Islamist Radicals Waging ‘Aggressive Religious War’ Against Traditional Islam in the Middle Volga Region, Mordvin Mufti Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 18 – Islamist radicals, often with roots in foreign countries, are now waging “an aggressive religious war” against the traditional Muslim communities of the nations of the Middle Volga, a conflict that could ultimately involve violence and chaos, according to the head of the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Mordvinia.
In an interview with Interfax-Religion.ru, Mufti Fagim Shafiyev argues that “the virus of religious radicalism is an effective weapon and instrument” of those who seek to gain power by weakening others, and he acknowledges that “this spiritual illness” at present has spread throughout the Muslim community more than any other.
The reason for that is “the naïve economic experience [of that community], its lower level of education, patriarchal way of life and political passivity,” Shafiyev continues, and those who want to conduct “’a dirty little war’” thus have chosen that community to “create administered chaos” (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=interview&div=293&domain=3).
Until recently, this conflict existed most obviously among the Muslims of the North Caucasus between the Salafis and the Sufis; but now, the mufti says, it has spread to and is intensifying in the Middle Volga, the traditional home of the most moderate form of Islam, one fully compatible with Russian political life.
And what makes this virus so dangerous is that those who make use of it as a weapon often lose control of their creation, and “having led the genie out of the bottle,” find that they are harming “not only innocent people but even the creators” of such ideas, “most of all, the Muslims of a traditional direction who do not share the views of the extremists.”
In this scenario, Mufti Shafiyev argues, it is precisely the traditional Muslims who become the first innocent victory of the informational, political and economic wars that have been unleashed and that rapidly shift into armed confrontation. Today, the danger of the transition to this phase is greater than ever before for the Middle Volga.”
According to Shafiyev, this situation also reflects the choice that Muslims in Russia have had to make “between unrestrained freedom and spiritual security.” As a result of the appearance of freedom of conscience and belief, the threat of religious radicalism and splits has grown. In other words, everyone received freedom but many did not add conscience to it.”
Shafiyev notes that the extremists or “new Muslims” as he calls them insist on purity of belief, something they argue can be achieved only a return to the principles of the time of the Prophet and “the Arabization of Muslims,” an argument many Muslims of the Middle Volga find superficially attractive.
The Muslims of the Middle Volga, the mufti points out, “consider any Arab or arrival from the East a real Muslim even though among the latter are also to be found Christians, representatives of various sects and tendencies of Islam and even unbelieving, completely secular people.”
These people, he notes, “preserve their identity even here in Russia,” even though they insist that other Muslims give up their national distinctions” Why must we Russian Muslims who represent various nationalities lose our unique national identity in favor of that of those who have come to us? This is impermissible.”
But unfortunately, he says, the Muslims of Russia are not in a good position to resist because as a result of this “aggressive religious war,” they are being forced to take part in “a discussion about which we earlier did not have any idea but which [as a result of this lack of preparation] leads to splits and divisions.”
To counter this, Shafiyev argues, “we must strive to achieve canonical unity in each particular country while there is not hope for the achievement of unity of the worldwide umma.” And the Muslims of Russia must launch “an attack on all fronts,” one that takes into account the fact that “the forms of struggle by the enemies of traditional Islam have changed.”
That will require the distribution of more and better information about Islam and its enemies. At present, the mufti notes, “there is no regular Muslim programming on television, no major professional federal Muslim newspaper, and no reliable information source about orthodox Muslims in Russia.”
Those shortcomings, he insists, not only “disorient many foreign Muslims” about the nature of Islam in Russia but also “push Russia’s Islamic youth to search for spiritual values outside” of that community, a trend that Islamist radicals are all too ready to exploit and turn against the Muslim community of Russia.
Some may inclined to dismiss Mufti Shafiyev’s remarks as the latest effort of a Muslim leader to put pressure on the Russian government to provide more resources or to support the formation of a single MSD with tighter controls over individual parishes across the Russian Federation.
But that would be a mistake because his most important message is that the struggle within Islam that has been taking place in the North Caucasus has now spread to the Middle Volga, the heartland of traditionally moderate Russian Islam, and that this struggle, more than attacks from outside Islam, is likely to dominate events there in the coming months and years.
Staunton, October 18 – Islamist radicals, often with roots in foreign countries, are now waging “an aggressive religious war” against the traditional Muslim communities of the nations of the Middle Volga, a conflict that could ultimately involve violence and chaos, according to the head of the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Mordvinia.
In an interview with Interfax-Religion.ru, Mufti Fagim Shafiyev argues that “the virus of religious radicalism is an effective weapon and instrument” of those who seek to gain power by weakening others, and he acknowledges that “this spiritual illness” at present has spread throughout the Muslim community more than any other.
The reason for that is “the naïve economic experience [of that community], its lower level of education, patriarchal way of life and political passivity,” Shafiyev continues, and those who want to conduct “’a dirty little war’” thus have chosen that community to “create administered chaos” (www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=interview&div=293&domain=3).
Until recently, this conflict existed most obviously among the Muslims of the North Caucasus between the Salafis and the Sufis; but now, the mufti says, it has spread to and is intensifying in the Middle Volga, the traditional home of the most moderate form of Islam, one fully compatible with Russian political life.
And what makes this virus so dangerous is that those who make use of it as a weapon often lose control of their creation, and “having led the genie out of the bottle,” find that they are harming “not only innocent people but even the creators” of such ideas, “most of all, the Muslims of a traditional direction who do not share the views of the extremists.”
In this scenario, Mufti Shafiyev argues, it is precisely the traditional Muslims who become the first innocent victory of the informational, political and economic wars that have been unleashed and that rapidly shift into armed confrontation. Today, the danger of the transition to this phase is greater than ever before for the Middle Volga.”
According to Shafiyev, this situation also reflects the choice that Muslims in Russia have had to make “between unrestrained freedom and spiritual security.” As a result of the appearance of freedom of conscience and belief, the threat of religious radicalism and splits has grown. In other words, everyone received freedom but many did not add conscience to it.”
Shafiyev notes that the extremists or “new Muslims” as he calls them insist on purity of belief, something they argue can be achieved only a return to the principles of the time of the Prophet and “the Arabization of Muslims,” an argument many Muslims of the Middle Volga find superficially attractive.
The Muslims of the Middle Volga, the mufti points out, “consider any Arab or arrival from the East a real Muslim even though among the latter are also to be found Christians, representatives of various sects and tendencies of Islam and even unbelieving, completely secular people.”
These people, he notes, “preserve their identity even here in Russia,” even though they insist that other Muslims give up their national distinctions” Why must we Russian Muslims who represent various nationalities lose our unique national identity in favor of that of those who have come to us? This is impermissible.”
But unfortunately, he says, the Muslims of Russia are not in a good position to resist because as a result of this “aggressive religious war,” they are being forced to take part in “a discussion about which we earlier did not have any idea but which [as a result of this lack of preparation] leads to splits and divisions.”
To counter this, Shafiyev argues, “we must strive to achieve canonical unity in each particular country while there is not hope for the achievement of unity of the worldwide umma.” And the Muslims of Russia must launch “an attack on all fronts,” one that takes into account the fact that “the forms of struggle by the enemies of traditional Islam have changed.”
That will require the distribution of more and better information about Islam and its enemies. At present, the mufti notes, “there is no regular Muslim programming on television, no major professional federal Muslim newspaper, and no reliable information source about orthodox Muslims in Russia.”
Those shortcomings, he insists, not only “disorient many foreign Muslims” about the nature of Islam in Russia but also “push Russia’s Islamic youth to search for spiritual values outside” of that community, a trend that Islamist radicals are all too ready to exploit and turn against the Muslim community of Russia.
Some may inclined to dismiss Mufti Shafiyev’s remarks as the latest effort of a Muslim leader to put pressure on the Russian government to provide more resources or to support the formation of a single MSD with tighter controls over individual parishes across the Russian Federation.
But that would be a mistake because his most important message is that the struggle within Islam that has been taking place in the North Caucasus has now spread to the Middle Volga, the heartland of traditionally moderate Russian Islam, and that this struggle, more than attacks from outside Islam, is likely to dominate events there in the coming months and years.
Window on Eurasia: Russian General Staff to Experiment with ‘Mono-Ethnic’ and ‘Mono-Religious’ Units
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 18 – Confronted by growing violence in the ranks often along ethnic and religious lines and by calls from the Russian Soldiers’ Mothers Committees not put their sons in units with people of other nationalities, Moscow is planning to set up as an experiment some “mono-ethnic” and “mono-religious” battalions, according to a Moscow newspaper.
In “Nezavisimaya gazeta” today, Vladimir Mukhin reports that because of the growth of “dedovshchina” in the Russian military – officials say it is up by more than a third over the last year – the General Staff is studying the experience of “the Savage Divisions” as the mono-ethnic units at the end of the Russian Imperial period were known (www.ng.ru/printed/246560).
An anonymous source in the General Staff told Mukhin that the high command sees the formation of such units in which would serve “individuals of a single nationality or followers of a single religion” as “a way out of the situation” in which violence and indiscipline has become commonplace.
The source added that these units will be formed as “an experiment” in several of the strategic commands and will resemble the already existing East and West battalions in Chechnya, yet another way in which Chechnya is having an impact on Russian life far beyond the borders of the North Caucasus.
Yury Netkachev, a retired lieutenant journal and frequent commentator on military affairs, told the Moscow daily that “in essence, this is a return to the experience of ‘the Savage Divisions’ which existed first in the army of the Russian Empire and then for a certain time in Soviet forces.” And he suggested that the idea had merit.
The Russian military leadership shares that view and sees the formation of such units as a means of avoiding a continuing rise in the number of criminal cases involving clashes between the increasingly numerous non-Russian and non-Orthodox troops and Russian soldiers, who as a result of demographic decline form an ever smaller share of those in uniform.
Over the past months there have been a number of clashes along ethnic and religious lines in the Russian army, most recently at the Sokol Air Base near Perm where soldiers from the North Caucasus refused to obey orders and the commander turned to the local mufti for assistance.
According to Colonel Vladimir Popov, a historian and specialist on the Caucasus, the reported cases are only the tip of the iceberg, and the extent of this problem is far greater than many assume. He noted that in the formation of units in Chechnya, the General Staff had even established a special rule on the balance of Caucasians and Russians.
If there are too many soldiers from the Caucasus relative to the number of Russian commanders, the former often refuse to obey the latter. And that problem is now spreading, he said. “With the deteriorating demographic situation and the higher birthrate in the North Caucasus, Muslim draftees from there will soon form more than half of the entire contingent of the Russian Army.”
“On the one hand,” he said, “it would be better if they all served in one unit and were commanded by officers from their own region” But such an approach carries with it problems of its own: What happens if at some point “entire battalions” formed in this way “refuse to subordinate themselves to the Ministry of Defense as happened in June 1941.”
Retired Major General Vladimir Bogatyrev, a member of the Association of Units of Reserve Officers, is even more worried about the consequences of forming mono-ethnic or mono-religious units. Doing so, he said, “will not save [the army] from the problems” of insubordination and violence.
Those can be overcome only if officers learn how to better work with soldiers as educators as well as commanders, something he suggested the current leadership of the defense ministry does not appear to understand. And he said that restoring “the Savage Divisions” would be a mistake: A century ago, many of the peoples of the empire “did not know Russian.”
But today, he continued, “the situation is different. Russia is trying to build a democratic society. And corresponding to that, its army must be both democratic and international.” If it isn’t, he clearly implied, then the Russian Federation faces an increasingly problematic future, one that might involve either collapse or even greater authoritarianism.
The “Nezavisimaya” article did not discuss in any detail the history of the Savage Division of the last years of the Russian Empire, but there is one aspect of their history that may also be playing a certain role in the thinking of those at the top of the Russian military and political system now.
The units that made up the Savage Division were among the most disciplined and combat ready in the Russian Imperial Army, and perhaps most relevant now, they were the last to be infected by the revolutionary spirit that ultimately destroyed not only the Russian Imperial Army but the Russian Empire itself.
Staunton, October 18 – Confronted by growing violence in the ranks often along ethnic and religious lines and by calls from the Russian Soldiers’ Mothers Committees not put their sons in units with people of other nationalities, Moscow is planning to set up as an experiment some “mono-ethnic” and “mono-religious” battalions, according to a Moscow newspaper.
In “Nezavisimaya gazeta” today, Vladimir Mukhin reports that because of the growth of “dedovshchina” in the Russian military – officials say it is up by more than a third over the last year – the General Staff is studying the experience of “the Savage Divisions” as the mono-ethnic units at the end of the Russian Imperial period were known (www.ng.ru/printed/246560).
An anonymous source in the General Staff told Mukhin that the high command sees the formation of such units in which would serve “individuals of a single nationality or followers of a single religion” as “a way out of the situation” in which violence and indiscipline has become commonplace.
The source added that these units will be formed as “an experiment” in several of the strategic commands and will resemble the already existing East and West battalions in Chechnya, yet another way in which Chechnya is having an impact on Russian life far beyond the borders of the North Caucasus.
Yury Netkachev, a retired lieutenant journal and frequent commentator on military affairs, told the Moscow daily that “in essence, this is a return to the experience of ‘the Savage Divisions’ which existed first in the army of the Russian Empire and then for a certain time in Soviet forces.” And he suggested that the idea had merit.
The Russian military leadership shares that view and sees the formation of such units as a means of avoiding a continuing rise in the number of criminal cases involving clashes between the increasingly numerous non-Russian and non-Orthodox troops and Russian soldiers, who as a result of demographic decline form an ever smaller share of those in uniform.
Over the past months there have been a number of clashes along ethnic and religious lines in the Russian army, most recently at the Sokol Air Base near Perm where soldiers from the North Caucasus refused to obey orders and the commander turned to the local mufti for assistance.
According to Colonel Vladimir Popov, a historian and specialist on the Caucasus, the reported cases are only the tip of the iceberg, and the extent of this problem is far greater than many assume. He noted that in the formation of units in Chechnya, the General Staff had even established a special rule on the balance of Caucasians and Russians.
If there are too many soldiers from the Caucasus relative to the number of Russian commanders, the former often refuse to obey the latter. And that problem is now spreading, he said. “With the deteriorating demographic situation and the higher birthrate in the North Caucasus, Muslim draftees from there will soon form more than half of the entire contingent of the Russian Army.”
“On the one hand,” he said, “it would be better if they all served in one unit and were commanded by officers from their own region” But such an approach carries with it problems of its own: What happens if at some point “entire battalions” formed in this way “refuse to subordinate themselves to the Ministry of Defense as happened in June 1941.”
Retired Major General Vladimir Bogatyrev, a member of the Association of Units of Reserve Officers, is even more worried about the consequences of forming mono-ethnic or mono-religious units. Doing so, he said, “will not save [the army] from the problems” of insubordination and violence.
Those can be overcome only if officers learn how to better work with soldiers as educators as well as commanders, something he suggested the current leadership of the defense ministry does not appear to understand. And he said that restoring “the Savage Divisions” would be a mistake: A century ago, many of the peoples of the empire “did not know Russian.”
But today, he continued, “the situation is different. Russia is trying to build a democratic society. And corresponding to that, its army must be both democratic and international.” If it isn’t, he clearly implied, then the Russian Federation faces an increasingly problematic future, one that might involve either collapse or even greater authoritarianism.
The “Nezavisimaya” article did not discuss in any detail the history of the Savage Division of the last years of the Russian Empire, but there is one aspect of their history that may also be playing a certain role in the thinking of those at the top of the Russian military and political system now.
The units that made up the Savage Division were among the most disciplined and combat ready in the Russian Imperial Army, and perhaps most relevant now, they were the last to be infected by the revolutionary spirit that ultimately destroyed not only the Russian Imperial Army but the Russian Empire itself.
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