Paul Goble
Staunton, October 27 – The Moscow media are having a field day with the declaration by Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov, speaker of the Chechen parliament, that his republic will deliver more than 100 percent of the vote to the ruling United Russia Party if it should require that to win elections.
Most Russian commentators are treating this story as little more than latest extravagance of the Chechens, following as it does close on the heels of Ramzan Kadyrov’s call for Vladimir Putin to return to the Russian presidency in 2012 and remain in that office forever. But in fact, it has a more serious and sinister side, one that highlights the degradation of Russian elections.
In Soviet times, officials routinely reported that 99.9 percent of the electorate had backed Communist candidates, but even under Stalin, there was a sufficient sense of restraint that no official dared to suggest that he could do the impossible and provide more votes than there were voters.
And in post-Soviet times, while the falsification of election results has been rampant -- especially in the North Caucasus, where the reported percentages have approached Soviet levels -- officials up to now have defended the results as accurate rather than flaunting their obvious ability to provide whatever numbers the powers that be above them might want.
But now, in an action that invites the question “have they no shame?” Abdurakhmanov, according to the Ekho Moskvy report, demonstrated by his remarks that “when one is talking about elections in the Chechen Republic, the laws of mathematics cease to operate,” at least according to the Chechen speaker (echo.msk.ru/news/721620-echo.html).
“If United Russia needs to receive 115 to 120 percent of the votes,” he continued, “we will be able to achieve that result,” at least as long as Ramzan Kadyrov and Vladimir Putin stand at its head. If someone else were there, he said, “no one would vote for it,” yet another indication of what that party in fact is.
Abdurakhmanov equally shameless asserted that “at the present time, there is no corruption in Chechnya. It exists in Moscow and in St. Petersburg but in Chechnya there is simply no one to bribe.” In the future, that will change, he said, once we have reestablished “industry, business and the banking system.”
And the Chechen speaker made his own contribution to the rapidly expanding cult of personality around Ramzan Kadyrov. That Chechen leader, Abdurakhmanov said, is “an outstanding official in the strengthening of Russian statehood” and “the most irreconcilable fighter against terrorism.”
Unless more senior Russian officials denounce Abdurakhmanov’s remarks or even insist on his and his immediate superior’s dismissal, they too will be contributing to rising public cynicism among Russians about elections and indeed all numbers, including those from the just completed census, that the powers that be issue.
Indeed, in many ways, the Chechen parliament speaker’s words represent even more of a challenge to President Dmitry Medvedev’s oft-stated commitment to the rule of law than did Ramzan Kadyrov’s recent panegyric to Putin. And thus whether he intended it or not, Abdurakhmanov by his very shamelessness has posed a challenge to the incumbent president
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Window on Eurasia: North Caucasus Militants Getting Most of Their Arms from the Siloviki, Senior Russian Prosecutor Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 26 – Ivan Sydoruk, the deputy Procurator General of the Russian Federation, told the Federation Council’s Committee on Legal and Judicial Questions yesterday that “the basic part of weapons used by militants in the North Caucasus come from the stores of [Russian] military units.”
Over the last 18 months, he continued, “all attacks on the militia and officials have been committed with the use of contemporary weapons and explosives,” and the number of these attacks has increased dramatically as well, just two of many statements that call into question the optimistic assessments of many Russian and Western officials and experts.
And instead of being degraded as Moscow claims, the militants have become more sophisticated, carefully preparing their attacks and feints and even taking steps to ensure that when they use suicide bombers, as they increasingly do, the latter are destroyed in such a way that their remains cannot be identified (www.interfax.ru/politics/txt.asp?id=161926).
Sydoruk, who oversees the Southern and North Caucasian Federal Districts, said that in 2010, “the number of extremist crimes had increased by more than four times, and that 70 percent of these 352 acts had taken place in Chechnya, belying the upbeat claims of Ramzan Kadyrov, Vladimir Putin and others (www.ng.ru/regions/2010-10-27/6_sydoruk.html).
The Russian force structures have had some successes, he noted, pointing to the destruction of 400 militants over the last nine months, the prevention of “more than 50 terrorist acts,” the seizure of 240 kilograms of explosives, 500 units of fire arms and more than 100 grenades (www.interfax-russia.ru/South/main.asp?id=184636).
But as impressive as these numbers are, Sydoruk suggested, they highlight the extent of the problem, especially since the militants seem quite able to recruit replacements, find money and arms, and enjoy at least some support in the population. And these factors taken together are reflected in the number of losses Russian forces continue to take.
In that regard, historian Vladimir Popov told “Nezavisimaya” that Sydoruk’s figures showed that the militants in the North Caucasus were killing 19 militiamen and soldiers every week last year, but now, this figure has risen to 23. “For peace time,” he continued, “these are very large losses, which can be compared with the losses of the US and NATO in Afghanistan.”
Sydoruk made some even more sweeping conclusions. He said that Russia is losing “the information and especially the ideological” struggle and that in order to regain the initiative, the Russian side must work in close relationship with the Muslim religious leaders in the North Caucasus (actualcomment.ru/news/16595).
He also pointed to the disastrous economic situation. As of July 1, he said, there were 449,000 unemployed in the North Caucasus Federal District, some 40 percent of the population. That situation is a breeding ground for militants and extremists, he said, adding “Give some one of them a 100 dollars and he will do whatever you want.”
And he was equally critical of the militia and its activities. “In the majority of subjects of the district, issues of protecting educational institutions and other socially important objects have not been resolved.” Moreover, militia units often fail to take the most obvious steps to prevent attacks and ensure security.
Sydoruk said that the situation was so bad in MVD units in the North Caucasus that there needed to be a complete “re-attestation” of all its employees in order to “free [the police] from cowards and traitors because we are in possession of factors and criminal cases which confirm the direct betrayal by some employees” (www.interfax.ru/politics/txt.asp?id=161926).
At another level, the prosecutor continued, “one of the chief tasks” Russia must address is “intercepting the money flows of the militants.” They are currently getting money both from domestic sources, often engaging in “open rackets” and also by a tightly controlled system of financing from abroad, one that is very difficult to break into.
Sydoruk’s comments are so much at variance from those of Putin, Kadyrov, and other senior Russian officials that it will be worth watching what happens now, either to his career or to Moscow’s policies in a region that remains far more unstable and violent than is generally believed.
Staunton, October 26 – Ivan Sydoruk, the deputy Procurator General of the Russian Federation, told the Federation Council’s Committee on Legal and Judicial Questions yesterday that “the basic part of weapons used by militants in the North Caucasus come from the stores of [Russian] military units.”
Over the last 18 months, he continued, “all attacks on the militia and officials have been committed with the use of contemporary weapons and explosives,” and the number of these attacks has increased dramatically as well, just two of many statements that call into question the optimistic assessments of many Russian and Western officials and experts.
And instead of being degraded as Moscow claims, the militants have become more sophisticated, carefully preparing their attacks and feints and even taking steps to ensure that when they use suicide bombers, as they increasingly do, the latter are destroyed in such a way that their remains cannot be identified (www.interfax.ru/politics/txt.asp?id=161926).
Sydoruk, who oversees the Southern and North Caucasian Federal Districts, said that in 2010, “the number of extremist crimes had increased by more than four times, and that 70 percent of these 352 acts had taken place in Chechnya, belying the upbeat claims of Ramzan Kadyrov, Vladimir Putin and others (www.ng.ru/regions/2010-10-27/6_sydoruk.html).
The Russian force structures have had some successes, he noted, pointing to the destruction of 400 militants over the last nine months, the prevention of “more than 50 terrorist acts,” the seizure of 240 kilograms of explosives, 500 units of fire arms and more than 100 grenades (www.interfax-russia.ru/South/main.asp?id=184636).
But as impressive as these numbers are, Sydoruk suggested, they highlight the extent of the problem, especially since the militants seem quite able to recruit replacements, find money and arms, and enjoy at least some support in the population. And these factors taken together are reflected in the number of losses Russian forces continue to take.
In that regard, historian Vladimir Popov told “Nezavisimaya” that Sydoruk’s figures showed that the militants in the North Caucasus were killing 19 militiamen and soldiers every week last year, but now, this figure has risen to 23. “For peace time,” he continued, “these are very large losses, which can be compared with the losses of the US and NATO in Afghanistan.”
Sydoruk made some even more sweeping conclusions. He said that Russia is losing “the information and especially the ideological” struggle and that in order to regain the initiative, the Russian side must work in close relationship with the Muslim religious leaders in the North Caucasus (actualcomment.ru/news/16595).
He also pointed to the disastrous economic situation. As of July 1, he said, there were 449,000 unemployed in the North Caucasus Federal District, some 40 percent of the population. That situation is a breeding ground for militants and extremists, he said, adding “Give some one of them a 100 dollars and he will do whatever you want.”
And he was equally critical of the militia and its activities. “In the majority of subjects of the district, issues of protecting educational institutions and other socially important objects have not been resolved.” Moreover, militia units often fail to take the most obvious steps to prevent attacks and ensure security.
Sydoruk said that the situation was so bad in MVD units in the North Caucasus that there needed to be a complete “re-attestation” of all its employees in order to “free [the police] from cowards and traitors because we are in possession of factors and criminal cases which confirm the direct betrayal by some employees” (www.interfax.ru/politics/txt.asp?id=161926).
At another level, the prosecutor continued, “one of the chief tasks” Russia must address is “intercepting the money flows of the militants.” They are currently getting money both from domestic sources, often engaging in “open rackets” and also by a tightly controlled system of financing from abroad, one that is very difficult to break into.
Sydoruk’s comments are so much at variance from those of Putin, Kadyrov, and other senior Russian officials that it will be worth watching what happens now, either to his career or to Moscow’s policies in a region that remains far more unstable and violent than is generally believed.
Window on Eurasia: Who’s Behind Stavropol Effort to Exit North Caucasus Federal District?
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 26 – Most Russian commentators have taken the declarations of Stavropol residents that they want to have their kray shifted from the North Caucasus Federal District to the Southern Federal District to avoid being lumped together with non-Russian groups there at face value.
But one Russian analyst, Andrey Samokhin, argues that there may be far more at work and suggests that three different groups, including Russian nationalists, kray officials and even officials in Moscow itself may be behind this effort which is attracting ever more attention in the Russian media (andrei-samokhin.livejournal.com/9768.html).
Samokhin points out that the number of people who have signed the Internet petition calling on Moscow to shift Stavropol from the North Caucasus to the Southern Federal District is now approaching 6,000 and concedes that the reasons the petition lists for the change, all linked to the problems of the North Caucasus, are at least plausible.
However, he argues that there is no indication as to how a shift of the kray from one federal district to another will do anything to address what the appeal says is the worsening “criminogenic situation, the level of crime, and the number of conflicts between local and migrant youths.”
“Just what guarantees of defense would Stavropol receive if it were transferred to the Southern Federal District?” Samokhin asks rhetorically. Would someone put up a wall between it and its neighbors to prevent the North Caucasians from coming in? Of course not, he says, given the Constitutional right of Russian Federation residents to move from one place to another.
And because that is so, one needs to enquire as to the real reasons or more precisely the particular forces that stand behind this effort, all the more so since many of the signatories come from far beyond the borders of Stavropol kray. According to Samokhin, there are three groups that may be involved.
The first group that may be behind this effort, the Russian analyst says, includes Russian nationalists. Such a conclusion, he suggests, arises from the call in the appeal to “conduct a number of measures directed at the reduction of migration pressure on the region and to create conditions under which the outmigration of the local population will be reduced.”
That is part of the Russian nationalist agenda not just for Stavropol but for the country as a whole, and the appeal is cleverly cast in language designed to appeal to the largest possible number of supporters of that idea, something that would not have been the case had its authors been more pointed in their remarks about North Caucasians as such.
Samokhin says that in his view, this is the most likely force, all the more so given that members of the “V kontakte” group and other Russian nationalist groups far from Stavropol have issued similar demands in the recent past, including specific calls for doing away with the North Caucasus Federal District.
The second group that may be involved, Samokhin says, involves the powers that be in Stavropol kray itself. They know that the image of the North Caucasus is such that as long as they are linked with it, the possibilities that any outside firm will invest in their kray are very, very limited.
Consequently, they have a vested interest in getting their region transferred so that investors will view it not as part of the turbulent North Caucasus but rather part of the more peaceful, even already prosperous Russian South, an image that the powers that be there are certainly interested in cultivating.
And finally, Samokhin argues, there is a third group that may be involved: the federal powers that be themselves. That might seem counter-intuitive given that Moscow created the North Caucasus Federal District, but there are good reasons to think that many in the Russian capital may now favor transferring Stavropol kray out of it.
Many in Moscow, he says, are tired of trying to pacify and develop the North Caucasus and are interested in “the isolation of that region” rather than in addressing its problems. Russia hasn’t been able to deal with extremism, officials feel, and perhaps, some think, “it is already time to give the Caucasus the official status of ‘a black hole’” about which nothing can be done.
Consequently, Samokhin suggests, some of them may want to move toward separating the North Caucasus out from the rest of the country more definitively. Many viewed the formation of the North Caucasus Federal District earlier this year as a step in that direction, and the current Internet campaign about Stavropol is another testing of public attitudes.
In that event, the appeal and its supporters are showing that Russian society “supports on the whole” isolating and separating out from the rest of the country the North Caucasus. What then remains, the Moscow analyst says, is to “await the realization of the next stage” of this political project.
Staunton, October 26 – Most Russian commentators have taken the declarations of Stavropol residents that they want to have their kray shifted from the North Caucasus Federal District to the Southern Federal District to avoid being lumped together with non-Russian groups there at face value.
But one Russian analyst, Andrey Samokhin, argues that there may be far more at work and suggests that three different groups, including Russian nationalists, kray officials and even officials in Moscow itself may be behind this effort which is attracting ever more attention in the Russian media (andrei-samokhin.livejournal.com/9768.html).
Samokhin points out that the number of people who have signed the Internet petition calling on Moscow to shift Stavropol from the North Caucasus to the Southern Federal District is now approaching 6,000 and concedes that the reasons the petition lists for the change, all linked to the problems of the North Caucasus, are at least plausible.
However, he argues that there is no indication as to how a shift of the kray from one federal district to another will do anything to address what the appeal says is the worsening “criminogenic situation, the level of crime, and the number of conflicts between local and migrant youths.”
“Just what guarantees of defense would Stavropol receive if it were transferred to the Southern Federal District?” Samokhin asks rhetorically. Would someone put up a wall between it and its neighbors to prevent the North Caucasians from coming in? Of course not, he says, given the Constitutional right of Russian Federation residents to move from one place to another.
And because that is so, one needs to enquire as to the real reasons or more precisely the particular forces that stand behind this effort, all the more so since many of the signatories come from far beyond the borders of Stavropol kray. According to Samokhin, there are three groups that may be involved.
The first group that may be behind this effort, the Russian analyst says, includes Russian nationalists. Such a conclusion, he suggests, arises from the call in the appeal to “conduct a number of measures directed at the reduction of migration pressure on the region and to create conditions under which the outmigration of the local population will be reduced.”
That is part of the Russian nationalist agenda not just for Stavropol but for the country as a whole, and the appeal is cleverly cast in language designed to appeal to the largest possible number of supporters of that idea, something that would not have been the case had its authors been more pointed in their remarks about North Caucasians as such.
Samokhin says that in his view, this is the most likely force, all the more so given that members of the “V kontakte” group and other Russian nationalist groups far from Stavropol have issued similar demands in the recent past, including specific calls for doing away with the North Caucasus Federal District.
The second group that may be involved, Samokhin says, involves the powers that be in Stavropol kray itself. They know that the image of the North Caucasus is such that as long as they are linked with it, the possibilities that any outside firm will invest in their kray are very, very limited.
Consequently, they have a vested interest in getting their region transferred so that investors will view it not as part of the turbulent North Caucasus but rather part of the more peaceful, even already prosperous Russian South, an image that the powers that be there are certainly interested in cultivating.
And finally, Samokhin argues, there is a third group that may be involved: the federal powers that be themselves. That might seem counter-intuitive given that Moscow created the North Caucasus Federal District, but there are good reasons to think that many in the Russian capital may now favor transferring Stavropol kray out of it.
Many in Moscow, he says, are tired of trying to pacify and develop the North Caucasus and are interested in “the isolation of that region” rather than in addressing its problems. Russia hasn’t been able to deal with extremism, officials feel, and perhaps, some think, “it is already time to give the Caucasus the official status of ‘a black hole’” about which nothing can be done.
Consequently, Samokhin suggests, some of them may want to move toward separating the North Caucasus out from the rest of the country more definitively. Many viewed the formation of the North Caucasus Federal District earlier this year as a step in that direction, and the current Internet campaign about Stavropol is another testing of public attitudes.
In that event, the appeal and its supporters are showing that Russian society “supports on the whole” isolating and separating out from the rest of the country the North Caucasus. What then remains, the Moscow analyst says, is to “await the realization of the next stage” of this political project.
Window on Eurasia: Siberian Nationalists Seek Alliance with Ethnic Ukrainians in Far East
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 26 – A group of Siberian nationalists has called on ethnic Ukrainians living in the Far East, a community the Siberians note that currently has fewer opportunities to preserve its national culture than do the indigenous Siberian peoples, to join the Siberian nationalist movement.
In an indication of seriousness, the Siberian Popular Assembly, fresh from its effort to have people east of the Urals declare “Siberian” as their nationality in the just-completed Russian Federation census, has published an appeal to the Siberians of the Russian Far East and done so in the Siberian, Ukrainian and Russian languages (www.verkhoturov.info/content/view/1016/1/).
“Brother Ukrainians!” the appeal begins, “at this historic moment of the awakening of the Siberian nation, we Siberians extend to you the hand of friendship. There are scarcely any other peoples closer than we are by their historical fate,” one of colonization, persecution, and russification.
The appeal continues by saying that “we intend to build our future in peace and cooperation with all peoples, respecting the right of every nation to self-determination,” and that includes respecting the “many-thousand-strong” Ukrainian diaspora in the Far East, known historically as “Gray and Green Ukraine.”
At the present time, the appeal states, Ukrainians there are “deprived of the right even to education in their native language, not to speak of the use of their tongue in business and legal affairs.” That is because, the appeal says, “the Russian powers that be consider any citizen of the Russian Federation ‘a Russian.’” In this respect, Ukrainians and Siberians are in the same boat.
The self-proclaimed Council of the Siberian People, the appeal says, is “a political organization which seeks the establishment of a future flourishing Siberia and the happiness of all Siberian peoples, including the Ukrainians and the Siberians themselves,” and insists on the right of Siberian Ukrainians to have schools in their native language.
And the appeal concludes with an appeal to the Ukrainians of the Far East to disseminate further information about this cause and to join with the Siberian nationalists in this cause. To that end, it calls on the Far Eastern Ukrainians to get in contact with the Siberian nationalists via the email address, sibveche@gmail.com.
The Ukrainians of the Far East came into existence as a distinctive community at the end of the nineteenth century when the tsarist authorities provided free transportation and free land to Ukrainians suffering from famine. Several hundred thousand Ukrainians took advantage of that offer and called the land they settled in the “Zeleny klyn” or Green Triangle.
The population grew rapidly and by the time of the first Soviet census in 1926 ethnic Ukrainians formed almost half of the population in the area within the triangle formed by Vladivostok, Nakhodka and Khabarovsk, and in the years of the Russian Civil War, it played a key role.
Indeed, one of the causes of the defeat of the Russian White Movement in the Far East was the opposition of its leaders to any concessions to the non-Russians and especially to the Ukrainians, whom most of the White leaders refused to acknowledge were a separate and distinct nation.
The Bolsheviks exploited that and promised the Ukrainians in the Far East native language schools and broad cultural autonomy, but having defeated the Whites, the Soviet government reneged and promoted the thorough-going russianization and russification of the ethnic Ukrainians.
As a result, by the end of the Soviet period, the percentage of people in the Russian Far East who declared themselves to be Ukrainians as opposed to Russians had declined to the single digits in most places, but the share of the population in that region as a whole with Ukrainian roots is certainly more than half.
The Zeleny klyn Ukrainians, however, even at that time did claim one remarkable distinction. In the mid-1980s for a brief time, the United States broadcast to them in Ukrainian, the only time during the Cold War when the West broadcast to an area not defined by the Soviet system as being of that language community, at least formally.
In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, some Ukrainians in Kyiv attempted to reach out to the Zeleny klyn and some Ukrainians there organized, but little came of either effort, the victim of more pressing immediate problems and the enormous distance separating Ukraine proper from the Ukrainians in the Far East.
The new Siberian nationalist appeal may not be crowned with immediate success, but this effort to form a supra-national Siberian identity represents a challenge to the way Moscow has been doing business for almost a century. As a result, it is likely that this move by the Siberians will provoke a greater response from the center than anything the Siberians have yet done.
(The most important study of the Ukrainians of the Zeleny klyn is Ivan Svit’s “Zelena Ukraina. Korotkyi istorchnyi narys ukrains’koho politiychnogo i hromads’kogo zhytiia” in Ukrainian, New York, 1949. For an English language introduction, see especially John J. Stephan’s “The Russian Far East,” Stanford, 1994.)
Staunton, October 26 – A group of Siberian nationalists has called on ethnic Ukrainians living in the Far East, a community the Siberians note that currently has fewer opportunities to preserve its national culture than do the indigenous Siberian peoples, to join the Siberian nationalist movement.
In an indication of seriousness, the Siberian Popular Assembly, fresh from its effort to have people east of the Urals declare “Siberian” as their nationality in the just-completed Russian Federation census, has published an appeal to the Siberians of the Russian Far East and done so in the Siberian, Ukrainian and Russian languages (www.verkhoturov.info/content/view/1016/1/).
“Brother Ukrainians!” the appeal begins, “at this historic moment of the awakening of the Siberian nation, we Siberians extend to you the hand of friendship. There are scarcely any other peoples closer than we are by their historical fate,” one of colonization, persecution, and russification.
The appeal continues by saying that “we intend to build our future in peace and cooperation with all peoples, respecting the right of every nation to self-determination,” and that includes respecting the “many-thousand-strong” Ukrainian diaspora in the Far East, known historically as “Gray and Green Ukraine.”
At the present time, the appeal states, Ukrainians there are “deprived of the right even to education in their native language, not to speak of the use of their tongue in business and legal affairs.” That is because, the appeal says, “the Russian powers that be consider any citizen of the Russian Federation ‘a Russian.’” In this respect, Ukrainians and Siberians are in the same boat.
The self-proclaimed Council of the Siberian People, the appeal says, is “a political organization which seeks the establishment of a future flourishing Siberia and the happiness of all Siberian peoples, including the Ukrainians and the Siberians themselves,” and insists on the right of Siberian Ukrainians to have schools in their native language.
And the appeal concludes with an appeal to the Ukrainians of the Far East to disseminate further information about this cause and to join with the Siberian nationalists in this cause. To that end, it calls on the Far Eastern Ukrainians to get in contact with the Siberian nationalists via the email address, sibveche@gmail.com.
The Ukrainians of the Far East came into existence as a distinctive community at the end of the nineteenth century when the tsarist authorities provided free transportation and free land to Ukrainians suffering from famine. Several hundred thousand Ukrainians took advantage of that offer and called the land they settled in the “Zeleny klyn” or Green Triangle.
The population grew rapidly and by the time of the first Soviet census in 1926 ethnic Ukrainians formed almost half of the population in the area within the triangle formed by Vladivostok, Nakhodka and Khabarovsk, and in the years of the Russian Civil War, it played a key role.
Indeed, one of the causes of the defeat of the Russian White Movement in the Far East was the opposition of its leaders to any concessions to the non-Russians and especially to the Ukrainians, whom most of the White leaders refused to acknowledge were a separate and distinct nation.
The Bolsheviks exploited that and promised the Ukrainians in the Far East native language schools and broad cultural autonomy, but having defeated the Whites, the Soviet government reneged and promoted the thorough-going russianization and russification of the ethnic Ukrainians.
As a result, by the end of the Soviet period, the percentage of people in the Russian Far East who declared themselves to be Ukrainians as opposed to Russians had declined to the single digits in most places, but the share of the population in that region as a whole with Ukrainian roots is certainly more than half.
The Zeleny klyn Ukrainians, however, even at that time did claim one remarkable distinction. In the mid-1980s for a brief time, the United States broadcast to them in Ukrainian, the only time during the Cold War when the West broadcast to an area not defined by the Soviet system as being of that language community, at least formally.
In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, some Ukrainians in Kyiv attempted to reach out to the Zeleny klyn and some Ukrainians there organized, but little came of either effort, the victim of more pressing immediate problems and the enormous distance separating Ukraine proper from the Ukrainians in the Far East.
The new Siberian nationalist appeal may not be crowned with immediate success, but this effort to form a supra-national Siberian identity represents a challenge to the way Moscow has been doing business for almost a century. As a result, it is likely that this move by the Siberians will provoke a greater response from the center than anything the Siberians have yet done.
(The most important study of the Ukrainians of the Zeleny klyn is Ivan Svit’s “Zelena Ukraina. Korotkyi istorchnyi narys ukrains’koho politiychnogo i hromads’kogo zhytiia” in Ukrainian, New York, 1949. For an English language introduction, see especially John J. Stephan’s “The Russian Far East,” Stanford, 1994.)
Window on Eurasia: Yet Another ‘Far from Ideal’ Russian Census, Moscow Analysts Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 25 – The just completed 2010 Russian census was “far from ideal,” according to most Moscow commentators, with many census takers again as in 2002 falsifying reports to minimize the size of the decline of the country’s population and to maximize the share of ethnic Russians in the country as a whole and of non-Russians in particular republics.
Today, Anton Razmakhnin of “Svobodnaya pressa” surveys the shortcomings of the just-completed enumeration (svpressa.ru/society/article/32562/), while Russian experts describe similar problems in 2002 (versia.ru/articles/2010/oct/25/vserossiyskaya_perepis_naseleniya-2010).
In addition to failing to include all residents of the country, many of whom appear to have refused to take part, the 2010 census was “far from ideal” with regard to declarations about nationality, Razmakhnin says, noting that many non-Russians feared Russification and many Russians feared both overall decline and declarations of regional identities.
Reports from various parts of the Russian Federation suggest that many census takers recorded what they wanted to or were ordered to rather than what individuals declared. Thus, some enumerators refused to list Cossack or Siberian as a nationality even though that is what people said they were.
In addition to such direct distortions, others were created by language issues. Ramay Yuldash, a Tatar activist, said that individuals declared themselves to be this or that nationality in the language of that nationality but census takers decide that some other nationality is correct. And such changes will only be magnified as the census is processed, he argued
Konstantin Krylov, the head of the Russian Social Movement, told Razmakhnin that he had information that “in the last days of the census,” officials were so concerned about the fall-off in the population they had found and the share of ethnic Russians that orders had come down to “list everyone as a Russian.”
He suggested that one of the reasons the powers that be had decided to take such a step is that “the entire mythology of the state is based on the idea that Russians are despite everything a majority. If it suddenly turned out [otherwise], then the Russians could demand for themselves the right of a minority.”
At the same time, Razmakhnin notes, non-Russian republic leaders have sought to boost the share of their titular nationalities, mayors and regional heads have tried to increase total populations, and central officials have sought to reduce the number of migrants counted, each group for its own purposes.
Reporting from across the Russian Federation is already confirming that pattern, and more such stories are certain to emerge in the coming days and weeks, a trend that will lead many to become even more skeptical about this latest Moscow statistical effort and some to dispute its specific findings.
Meanwhile, “Versiya” provides a selection of expert opinion about the census and its problems. Vladimir Sokolin, who supervised the 2002 enumeration, says that the current census is focusing on migrants because Russia needs to know “where migrants live and work, what they are doing,” and how long they are staying in Russia.
But as he and other experts concede, counting migrants is among the most difficult tasks. Many of them want to avoid being counted at all, numbers are problematic because many of them come and go, and all these figures are highly political with both opponents of migration and supporters having a major stake in the numbers reported.
Problems in the non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation continue. In 2002, Nikita Mkrtchyan of the Moscow Institute of Demography says that republic elites often manipulated the numbers in order to get more money from Moscow. And Aleksandr Khloponin, Presidential Plenipotentiary for the North Caucasus, expects that to continue.
But it is not only the non-Russians who are playing games with the figures. The mayor of Volgograd, for example, openly said that the city must demonstrate that it has a million people in it – even if that is not the case – because its economic and political well-being depends on that number.
Anatoly Vishnevsky, director of the Moscow Institute of Demography, agreed. “This kind of falsification is connected,” he said, “with chances for budget financing. If the population is greater, one can ask for more subsidies for the region, the republic or the oblast.” He suggested that this time around, Moscow and North Caucasus republics will all falsify their numbers.
Given what happened in 2002, however, many people will be watching Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, where regional elites appear to have done everything they could to boost the numbers of the titular nationalities even at the cost of undercounting subgroups like the Kryashens in Tatarstan or other groups, such as the Tatars in Bashkortostan.
And ethnic Russians are concerned about falsifications of their numbers in the North Caucasus. Some Slavic groups in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, for example, think they will be undercounted because the republic’s head, Boris Ebzeyev, a Karachay, supposedly has given an order to “boost the share of the Karachay population up to 51 percent.”
While some results from the 2010 enumeration will be released within months, the final figures are not scheduled to be published until 2013 – that is, after the presidential elections – and as happened in 2002, officials will again have yet another opportunity to falsify this already “far from ideal” count.
Staunton, October 25 – The just completed 2010 Russian census was “far from ideal,” according to most Moscow commentators, with many census takers again as in 2002 falsifying reports to minimize the size of the decline of the country’s population and to maximize the share of ethnic Russians in the country as a whole and of non-Russians in particular republics.
Today, Anton Razmakhnin of “Svobodnaya pressa” surveys the shortcomings of the just-completed enumeration (svpressa.ru/society/article/32562/), while Russian experts describe similar problems in 2002 (versia.ru/articles/2010/oct/25/vserossiyskaya_perepis_naseleniya-2010).
In addition to failing to include all residents of the country, many of whom appear to have refused to take part, the 2010 census was “far from ideal” with regard to declarations about nationality, Razmakhnin says, noting that many non-Russians feared Russification and many Russians feared both overall decline and declarations of regional identities.
Reports from various parts of the Russian Federation suggest that many census takers recorded what they wanted to or were ordered to rather than what individuals declared. Thus, some enumerators refused to list Cossack or Siberian as a nationality even though that is what people said they were.
In addition to such direct distortions, others were created by language issues. Ramay Yuldash, a Tatar activist, said that individuals declared themselves to be this or that nationality in the language of that nationality but census takers decide that some other nationality is correct. And such changes will only be magnified as the census is processed, he argued
Konstantin Krylov, the head of the Russian Social Movement, told Razmakhnin that he had information that “in the last days of the census,” officials were so concerned about the fall-off in the population they had found and the share of ethnic Russians that orders had come down to “list everyone as a Russian.”
He suggested that one of the reasons the powers that be had decided to take such a step is that “the entire mythology of the state is based on the idea that Russians are despite everything a majority. If it suddenly turned out [otherwise], then the Russians could demand for themselves the right of a minority.”
At the same time, Razmakhnin notes, non-Russian republic leaders have sought to boost the share of their titular nationalities, mayors and regional heads have tried to increase total populations, and central officials have sought to reduce the number of migrants counted, each group for its own purposes.
Reporting from across the Russian Federation is already confirming that pattern, and more such stories are certain to emerge in the coming days and weeks, a trend that will lead many to become even more skeptical about this latest Moscow statistical effort and some to dispute its specific findings.
Meanwhile, “Versiya” provides a selection of expert opinion about the census and its problems. Vladimir Sokolin, who supervised the 2002 enumeration, says that the current census is focusing on migrants because Russia needs to know “where migrants live and work, what they are doing,” and how long they are staying in Russia.
But as he and other experts concede, counting migrants is among the most difficult tasks. Many of them want to avoid being counted at all, numbers are problematic because many of them come and go, and all these figures are highly political with both opponents of migration and supporters having a major stake in the numbers reported.
Problems in the non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation continue. In 2002, Nikita Mkrtchyan of the Moscow Institute of Demography says that republic elites often manipulated the numbers in order to get more money from Moscow. And Aleksandr Khloponin, Presidential Plenipotentiary for the North Caucasus, expects that to continue.
But it is not only the non-Russians who are playing games with the figures. The mayor of Volgograd, for example, openly said that the city must demonstrate that it has a million people in it – even if that is not the case – because its economic and political well-being depends on that number.
Anatoly Vishnevsky, director of the Moscow Institute of Demography, agreed. “This kind of falsification is connected,” he said, “with chances for budget financing. If the population is greater, one can ask for more subsidies for the region, the republic or the oblast.” He suggested that this time around, Moscow and North Caucasus republics will all falsify their numbers.
Given what happened in 2002, however, many people will be watching Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, where regional elites appear to have done everything they could to boost the numbers of the titular nationalities even at the cost of undercounting subgroups like the Kryashens in Tatarstan or other groups, such as the Tatars in Bashkortostan.
And ethnic Russians are concerned about falsifications of their numbers in the North Caucasus. Some Slavic groups in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, for example, think they will be undercounted because the republic’s head, Boris Ebzeyev, a Karachay, supposedly has given an order to “boost the share of the Karachay population up to 51 percent.”
While some results from the 2010 enumeration will be released within months, the final figures are not scheduled to be published until 2013 – that is, after the presidential elections – and as happened in 2002, officials will again have yet another opportunity to falsify this already “far from ideal” count.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Another Trial Balloon on Regional Amalgamation in Russia?
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 25 – Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party has introduced a draft bill that would allow the Duma and Federation Council to amalgamate federal subjects without a referendum in the territories involved, a measure that some believe is a trial balloon for the restarting of Vladimir Putin’s stalled effort to reduce the number of federal subjects.
Vitaly Sotnik, a journalist for the independent URA.ru news agency, offers the fullest discussion so far of this initiative, its sources, its supporters and opponents, its prospects for passage, and the implications of a new push in this direction for politics in Moscow and the regions affected (www.ura.ru/content/urfo/25-10-2010/articles/1036255726.html).
According to the URA.ru journalist, Zhirinovsky’s party believes that the Federal Assembly should be able to decide on unifying federation subjects without a referendum in those affected, even though the existing federation subjects are listed in the Russian Constitution and referenda are required for any such step according to established Russian law.
“Some analysts,” Sotnik continues, “call the draft LDPR legislation an attempt of the Kremlin to sound out public opinion” about this step, but whether that is the case or not, the LDPR already has compiled a list of the federal subjects that it believes should be combined in order to reduce the number of such units.
These include Moscow and Moscow oblast, Tyumen oblast and Yugra and Yamal, and also Kurgan, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk. Many have suggested the new Moscow mayor wants to absorb surrounding oblast (versia.ru/articles/2010/oct/25/obedinenie_moskvy_i_oblasti), and there is some interest in doing the same with St. Petersburg city and Leningrad oblast (buildingarticles.ru/Stroitelnye-novosti/V-Gosdumu-vnesen-zakonoproekt-kotoryiy-pozvolit-ob%D1%8Aedinit-Peterburg-i-Lenoblast-486).
“Other experts,” the journalist says, “are certain that a fiasco awaits the project of the Liberal Democrats.” And sources in the Presidential Administration suggest that the Kremlin is far more focused on the upcoming Duma and presidential elections than on changing the size and number of federal subjects with all the political problems that would entail.
The LDPR, however, thinks it has a good chance to succeed with this bill. Vladimir Taskayev, the party’s chief for the Urals Federal District, said that “the practice of conducing referenda has compromised itself,” not only because of the enormous administrative pressure brought to bear in each case but also because of the high cost of holding such votes.
He added that “our bill is not in any way directed at the reduction of the democratic rights of citizens” because “decisions [about amalgamating subjects] will be taken in the State Duma, the deputies of which are chosen by the population.” Taskayev indicated that the method LDPR could be used first with Moscow city and Moscow oblast.
Officials in the Presidential Administration noted that “the idea of expanding certain regions has been discussed for a long time.” And a specialist at one of the analytic centers working with the Kremlin added that Moscow had focused on the folding in of the matryoshka subjects of Yugra and Yamal into Tyumen oblast.
But perhaps most intriguingly, this expert said that the powers that be in Moscow were also interested in combing Kurgan, Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk oblasts, the first time that Putin’s program of regional amalgamation would have involved only predominantly ethnic Russian regions.
Duma deputies with whom the URA.ru journalists spoke, Sotnik said, generally indicated that they were “not against discussing the idea” of giving the Federal Assembly the exclusive power to decide on the borders of federation subjects but that they were unwilling to declare their support for the LDPR measure until they had time to become acquainted with it.
The expert community had a similar reaction, with most saying the idea is fine but the details are critical. At the same time, some of them noted that the LDPR had rarely been able to get one of its ideas passed and therefore suggested that people in Moscow and in the provinces ought not to be so worried.
Meanwhile, in a comment to Regnum.ru, Natalya Zubarevich, the director of regional programs of the Independent Institute of Social Policy, expressed the fears of many. If the Duma approved the LDPR measure, it would represent an excessive level of vertical power in Russia and further weaken the regions (www.regnum.ru/news/1338206.html).
Zubarevich is certainly correct. After all, Putin’s efforts between 2003 and 2008 to reduce the number of federal subjects from 89 to 83 by amalgamating the matryoshka subjects was part and parcel of his effort to re-centralize power. If his program gets a new lease on life thanks to Zhirinovsky’s proposal, that trend will almost certainly intensify.
But precisely because of that threat to their own powers, the elites and populations of many regions will certainly resist, possibly adding their voices to the regionalist movements within the Russian Federation and thus creating a situation exactly the reverse to the one Putin and Zhirinovsky clearly want.
Staunton, October 25 – Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party has introduced a draft bill that would allow the Duma and Federation Council to amalgamate federal subjects without a referendum in the territories involved, a measure that some believe is a trial balloon for the restarting of Vladimir Putin’s stalled effort to reduce the number of federal subjects.
Vitaly Sotnik, a journalist for the independent URA.ru news agency, offers the fullest discussion so far of this initiative, its sources, its supporters and opponents, its prospects for passage, and the implications of a new push in this direction for politics in Moscow and the regions affected (www.ura.ru/content/urfo/25-10-2010/articles/1036255726.html).
According to the URA.ru journalist, Zhirinovsky’s party believes that the Federal Assembly should be able to decide on unifying federation subjects without a referendum in those affected, even though the existing federation subjects are listed in the Russian Constitution and referenda are required for any such step according to established Russian law.
“Some analysts,” Sotnik continues, “call the draft LDPR legislation an attempt of the Kremlin to sound out public opinion” about this step, but whether that is the case or not, the LDPR already has compiled a list of the federal subjects that it believes should be combined in order to reduce the number of such units.
These include Moscow and Moscow oblast, Tyumen oblast and Yugra and Yamal, and also Kurgan, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk. Many have suggested the new Moscow mayor wants to absorb surrounding oblast (versia.ru/articles/2010/oct/25/obedinenie_moskvy_i_oblasti), and there is some interest in doing the same with St. Petersburg city and Leningrad oblast (buildingarticles.ru/Stroitelnye-novosti/V-Gosdumu-vnesen-zakonoproekt-kotoryiy-pozvolit-ob%D1%8Aedinit-Peterburg-i-Lenoblast-486).
“Other experts,” the journalist says, “are certain that a fiasco awaits the project of the Liberal Democrats.” And sources in the Presidential Administration suggest that the Kremlin is far more focused on the upcoming Duma and presidential elections than on changing the size and number of federal subjects with all the political problems that would entail.
The LDPR, however, thinks it has a good chance to succeed with this bill. Vladimir Taskayev, the party’s chief for the Urals Federal District, said that “the practice of conducing referenda has compromised itself,” not only because of the enormous administrative pressure brought to bear in each case but also because of the high cost of holding such votes.
He added that “our bill is not in any way directed at the reduction of the democratic rights of citizens” because “decisions [about amalgamating subjects] will be taken in the State Duma, the deputies of which are chosen by the population.” Taskayev indicated that the method LDPR could be used first with Moscow city and Moscow oblast.
Officials in the Presidential Administration noted that “the idea of expanding certain regions has been discussed for a long time.” And a specialist at one of the analytic centers working with the Kremlin added that Moscow had focused on the folding in of the matryoshka subjects of Yugra and Yamal into Tyumen oblast.
But perhaps most intriguingly, this expert said that the powers that be in Moscow were also interested in combing Kurgan, Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk oblasts, the first time that Putin’s program of regional amalgamation would have involved only predominantly ethnic Russian regions.
Duma deputies with whom the URA.ru journalists spoke, Sotnik said, generally indicated that they were “not against discussing the idea” of giving the Federal Assembly the exclusive power to decide on the borders of federation subjects but that they were unwilling to declare their support for the LDPR measure until they had time to become acquainted with it.
The expert community had a similar reaction, with most saying the idea is fine but the details are critical. At the same time, some of them noted that the LDPR had rarely been able to get one of its ideas passed and therefore suggested that people in Moscow and in the provinces ought not to be so worried.
Meanwhile, in a comment to Regnum.ru, Natalya Zubarevich, the director of regional programs of the Independent Institute of Social Policy, expressed the fears of many. If the Duma approved the LDPR measure, it would represent an excessive level of vertical power in Russia and further weaken the regions (www.regnum.ru/news/1338206.html).
Zubarevich is certainly correct. After all, Putin’s efforts between 2003 and 2008 to reduce the number of federal subjects from 89 to 83 by amalgamating the matryoshka subjects was part and parcel of his effort to re-centralize power. If his program gets a new lease on life thanks to Zhirinovsky’s proposal, that trend will almost certainly intensify.
But precisely because of that threat to their own powers, the elites and populations of many regions will certainly resist, possibly adding their voices to the regionalist movements within the Russian Federation and thus creating a situation exactly the reverse to the one Putin and Zhirinovsky clearly want.
Window on Eurasia: Moscow’s Unwillingness to Support Russian Nation Reflects Its Own Imperial Agenda, Kazan Scholar Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 25 – Like their Soviet predecessors, the current powers that be in the Russian Federation are quite prepared to sacrifice the national interests of the ethnic Russian people in the pursuit of an imperialist agenda, but this sacrifice will not serve either Russian national interests or Moscow’s imperial goals, according to a Kazan sociologist.
Aleksandr Salagayev further argues that “the legal vacuum which characterizes the situation of ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation and the position of the powers that be who are ignoring this contradiction is the source of inter-ethnic conflicts with migrants, the extremism of Russian organizations in Russia and the weakness of Russian diasporas abroad.
In a 3200-word essay posted on the Regnum.ru news agency, Salagayev, a specialist on social and political conflicts at the Kazan State Technological University, traces the long and complicated history of the relations between the ethnic Russian nation and the states within which it has existed (www.regnum.ru/news/1337042.html).
Prior to 1917, he notes, “Russians were an imperial nation.” The state’s slogan, “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality,” applied only to them, but the Russian nation included the Great Russians, the Little Russians (Ukrainians), and the Belarusians, as one might expect an imperial people, as opposed to a nation, to do.
The country’s nationality policy changed dramatically with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks. Their ideas about “proletarian internationalism,” Salagayev argues, instituted “a double standard” with the rights of the non-Russians being protected and the rights of the ethnic Russians as a community being ignored or at least slighted.
While that balance shifted over time, the Kazan scholar says, many now believe that “the main cause of the destruction of the USSR was the weakening of the Russian ethnos and the loss of its role in economic and state-political life which took place after the October 1917 coup” that brought the Bolsheviks to power.
In the first years of Soviet power, the communist tilt toward the non-Russians was most pronounced, with the non-Russians being given republics and the ethnic Russians, routinely denounced for “great power chauvinism,” being denied one repeatedly. Salagayev notes that efforts to form a Russian republic were blocked by Soviet leaders in 1922, 1923, 1925, and 1926.
After Stalin declared “the final solution of the nationality question in the USSR” in 1934, the Russian nation was redefined. No longer was it “the former oppressor nation” with a historic “debt” to the others, but rather the Russian nation became the elder brother – or as “Leningradskaya Pravda” put it in 1937, “the eldest among equals.”
But despite the rhetorical change, Russians were still expected to provide funding for the non-Russians to help them catch up with modernity, a policy that continued throughout the rest of the Soviet period and one that by “ignoring the interests of the Russian people [was] inevitably accompanied by Russophobia” on the part of the regime.
That is because this attitude “was expressed not so much in the denial of the ‘positive features of the Russian nation and its positive contribution to world history’ as in a fear of the Russian national factor … and the possible resistance from the side of the most numerous people of the communist reconstruction of the country and the world.”
Indeed, KGB and then CPSU leader Yuri Andropov famously observed, Salagayev recalls, that “the chief concern for us is Russian nationalism; as to the dissidents, we would take them all in one night.”
In short, “self-determination of the Russian people was assessed as chauvinism but the self-determination of other peoples was considered as a necessary condition of their national development,” Salagayev says. And as a result, “the national interests and the interests of Russians in autonomous formations were simply ignored.”
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, this policy continued. “Ethnic mobilization” seized “all the ethnic groups” of the country except the ethnic Russians “who despite the actual loss of their imperial status preserve the illusions about their imperial destiny, responsibility for the fate of Russia and other such myths.”
Ethnic mobilization among ethnic Russians thus has been dominated by marginal groups like the RNE and Primorsky partisans and by “the spontaneous ethnic mobilization of Russians” in relatively small cities such as Kondopoga. In his article, Salagayev lists 22 such cases of the latter since 1999.
None of these efforts can be called successful, he says, largely because Moscow opposed all of them. The 1996 law on national-cultural autonomy did not apply to Russians and efforts beginning in 2001 to adopt “a law on the Russian people” were blocked by the powers that be and have come to nothing.
“In thus preserving the imperial ambitions of Russians,” Salagayev continues, “the powers that be are not showing any interest in the fate of the Russian people and in fact are struggling against those who recognize the real situation, calling such people Russian extremists or Russian fascists.”
Moscow continues to subsidize the non-Russian republics at far greater rates than the predominantly Russian areas, but its failure to support the Russian nation is undercutting its own imperial strategy because it is leading ever more ethnic Russians to flee non-Russian areas back to the center of the country.
In Salagayev’s opinion, “the situation is very similar to the policy of support of the national borderlands of the Soviet Union at the expense of the central oblasts which are populated primarily by Russians, a policy which in the final analysis led to the collapse of the USSR. It is obvious that such a policy will preserve the territorial integrity of Russia.”
The Kazan scholar suggests that there are two possible solutions to this situation, a “radical” one in which ethnic Russian oblasts would be formed and non-Russian republics liquidated, and a “moderate” one in which ethnic Russians would gain the same right to form national cultural autonomies that other nations now have.
Salagayev adds that some combination is likely, and he concludes by suggesting that Moscow must address the Russian question at home if it is to have any hope of protecting compatriots abroad, many of whom have been reduced to the status of “second class citizens” there in a way paralleling that of ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation itself.
Staunton, October 25 – Like their Soviet predecessors, the current powers that be in the Russian Federation are quite prepared to sacrifice the national interests of the ethnic Russian people in the pursuit of an imperialist agenda, but this sacrifice will not serve either Russian national interests or Moscow’s imperial goals, according to a Kazan sociologist.
Aleksandr Salagayev further argues that “the legal vacuum which characterizes the situation of ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation and the position of the powers that be who are ignoring this contradiction is the source of inter-ethnic conflicts with migrants, the extremism of Russian organizations in Russia and the weakness of Russian diasporas abroad.
In a 3200-word essay posted on the Regnum.ru news agency, Salagayev, a specialist on social and political conflicts at the Kazan State Technological University, traces the long and complicated history of the relations between the ethnic Russian nation and the states within which it has existed (www.regnum.ru/news/1337042.html).
Prior to 1917, he notes, “Russians were an imperial nation.” The state’s slogan, “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality,” applied only to them, but the Russian nation included the Great Russians, the Little Russians (Ukrainians), and the Belarusians, as one might expect an imperial people, as opposed to a nation, to do.
The country’s nationality policy changed dramatically with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks. Their ideas about “proletarian internationalism,” Salagayev argues, instituted “a double standard” with the rights of the non-Russians being protected and the rights of the ethnic Russians as a community being ignored or at least slighted.
While that balance shifted over time, the Kazan scholar says, many now believe that “the main cause of the destruction of the USSR was the weakening of the Russian ethnos and the loss of its role in economic and state-political life which took place after the October 1917 coup” that brought the Bolsheviks to power.
In the first years of Soviet power, the communist tilt toward the non-Russians was most pronounced, with the non-Russians being given republics and the ethnic Russians, routinely denounced for “great power chauvinism,” being denied one repeatedly. Salagayev notes that efforts to form a Russian republic were blocked by Soviet leaders in 1922, 1923, 1925, and 1926.
After Stalin declared “the final solution of the nationality question in the USSR” in 1934, the Russian nation was redefined. No longer was it “the former oppressor nation” with a historic “debt” to the others, but rather the Russian nation became the elder brother – or as “Leningradskaya Pravda” put it in 1937, “the eldest among equals.”
But despite the rhetorical change, Russians were still expected to provide funding for the non-Russians to help them catch up with modernity, a policy that continued throughout the rest of the Soviet period and one that by “ignoring the interests of the Russian people [was] inevitably accompanied by Russophobia” on the part of the regime.
That is because this attitude “was expressed not so much in the denial of the ‘positive features of the Russian nation and its positive contribution to world history’ as in a fear of the Russian national factor … and the possible resistance from the side of the most numerous people of the communist reconstruction of the country and the world.”
Indeed, KGB and then CPSU leader Yuri Andropov famously observed, Salagayev recalls, that “the chief concern for us is Russian nationalism; as to the dissidents, we would take them all in one night.”
In short, “self-determination of the Russian people was assessed as chauvinism but the self-determination of other peoples was considered as a necessary condition of their national development,” Salagayev says. And as a result, “the national interests and the interests of Russians in autonomous formations were simply ignored.”
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, this policy continued. “Ethnic mobilization” seized “all the ethnic groups” of the country except the ethnic Russians “who despite the actual loss of their imperial status preserve the illusions about their imperial destiny, responsibility for the fate of Russia and other such myths.”
Ethnic mobilization among ethnic Russians thus has been dominated by marginal groups like the RNE and Primorsky partisans and by “the spontaneous ethnic mobilization of Russians” in relatively small cities such as Kondopoga. In his article, Salagayev lists 22 such cases of the latter since 1999.
None of these efforts can be called successful, he says, largely because Moscow opposed all of them. The 1996 law on national-cultural autonomy did not apply to Russians and efforts beginning in 2001 to adopt “a law on the Russian people” were blocked by the powers that be and have come to nothing.
“In thus preserving the imperial ambitions of Russians,” Salagayev continues, “the powers that be are not showing any interest in the fate of the Russian people and in fact are struggling against those who recognize the real situation, calling such people Russian extremists or Russian fascists.”
Moscow continues to subsidize the non-Russian republics at far greater rates than the predominantly Russian areas, but its failure to support the Russian nation is undercutting its own imperial strategy because it is leading ever more ethnic Russians to flee non-Russian areas back to the center of the country.
In Salagayev’s opinion, “the situation is very similar to the policy of support of the national borderlands of the Soviet Union at the expense of the central oblasts which are populated primarily by Russians, a policy which in the final analysis led to the collapse of the USSR. It is obvious that such a policy will preserve the territorial integrity of Russia.”
The Kazan scholar suggests that there are two possible solutions to this situation, a “radical” one in which ethnic Russian oblasts would be formed and non-Russian republics liquidated, and a “moderate” one in which ethnic Russians would gain the same right to form national cultural autonomies that other nations now have.
Salagayev adds that some combination is likely, and he concludes by suggesting that Moscow must address the Russian question at home if it is to have any hope of protecting compatriots abroad, many of whom have been reduced to the status of “second class citizens” there in a way paralleling that of ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation itself.
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