Paul Goble
Staunton, April 4 – Ninety percent of people in the North Caucasus who go into the forests to fight the Russian regime and its representatives are doing so because they or their families are seeking revenge for injustice rather than because they are motivated by any of the precepts of Islam, according to a close observer of that area.
“If [what is taking place]were only religious terrorism,” Aliy Totorkulov, the leader of the Russian Congress of Peoples of the Caucasus, says, Moscow “would be able to cope with it.” But “in the Caucasus, ethnic and religious terrorism constitute at most 10 percent” of the total. “Ninety percent is social.” (www.izvestia.ru/politic/article3153508/).
Sometimes this protest against arbitrariness and injustice on the part of officials is masked by Islamic slogans, Totorkulov acknowledges in an interview with Moscow’s “Izvestiya.” But in fact, in almost all cases, it reflects a deeper set of cultural attitudes among the peoples of that region, attitudes that Russian officials have violated.
It is important to understand that such protests are not driven by poverty but by a sense that officials are violating the proper organization of society, Totorkulov continues. “Caucasians are prepared to live in poverty,” but they are not willing to stand for injustice. And they have a tradition that tells them how to behave when they are confronted by that.
“In the Caucasus there were always abreks, people who took revenge” for violations of what most people there consider just. Now, most of those going into the mountains are abreks rather than terrorists. And that explains a major part of the support they receive: When a man goes into the forests to fight injustice, “his relatives always support him.”
Unlike residents of other parts of the Russian Federation, he continues, people in the North Caucasus do not feel they can seek redress for injustice any other way. “The North Caucasus republics are ruled by little princes who are given power from above.” As a result, they show little concern about those below.
Moreover, Totorkulov continues, there is “the Caucasus mentality.” While 86 percent of Russians say that “slavery still lives in [their] sub-consciousness” 150 years after the end of serfdom, the peoples in the Caucasus never knew serfdom and consequently in that region “live free people,” something Moscow has not yet been prepared to take into account.
Mixed among these abreks, he says, are “an insignificant minority” of fanatics and mercenaries, but Moscow will never succeed in overcoming the resistance until it understands that most of those who are engaged in this form of protest are doing so because of the injustice of the powers that be.
A major reason why some of the abreks misuse Islamic slogans, Totorkulov continues, is that they are fundamentally ignorant of the tenets of their religion, a situation which itself is a product of the complicated Soviet and Russian periods of North Caucasus history and the current “problem of fathers and sons” among religious leaders there.
“The religious leaders who now are in power [there] are elderly people. Their education, they received already in Soviet times having studied only the ABCs of Islam. The young religious leaders are a new generation,” products of Islamic universities abroad and offended by much that they see among the followers of the faith in the North Caucasus.
When the young leaders criticize their elders, the latter view them as a threat to their power, “as dangerous elements and [they] hand over this information to the force structures.” The center supports them because they are “the moderates” with whom Moscow has become “comfortable.”
But in fact, it is the younger Muslim leaders who could ultimately be part of the solution to the problems of the North Caucasus. Indeed, they could be its “salvation” because their knowledge of Islam will help their followers make progress toward a just and more democratic society.
Unfortunately, Moscow officials often do not understand this. They are sent reports by local officials who try to portray themselves in the best possible light and use language that makes their opponents, however justified, look like “Martians” with whom there is no basis for cooperation.
As a result, many at the center think they can “pacify the Caucasus” like General Yermolov did 150 years ago through force alone. That won’t work, Totorkulov argues, nor will the clumsy approach of Moscow which often changes leaderships in relatively peaceful republics and leaves in place the heads of more violent ones.
Moreover, the efforts of some Russian officials to rely on elders’ councils are misplaced. While such institutions were traditionally important, Soviet policies undermined their influence. Now, even if Moscow wants to revive them, many of the local officials don’t because such councils would naturally oppose them.
Totorkulov concludes that because “force will hardly solve all problems,” Moscow should seek to “disarm” the North Caucasus with friendship because the North Caucasian “will never behave badly toward someone who respects him.” And thatcan best be achieved by creating a genuine “civil society” which will eliminate excesses by the powers and the militants.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Ever-Expanding ‘Super-Presidency’ Degrading Other Institutions, Moscow Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Fairfax, April 1 — The 1993 Constitution made Russia a presidential republic, but the addition of 469 new powers to that office in the 17 years since has transformed it into a “super-presidential” with negative consequences for all other political institutions in the country, according to a senior specialist on constitutional law at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.
Mikhail Krasnov conclusions on this point add weight to the arguments of politicians like KPRF head Gennady Zyuganov who has repeatedly said that the Russian president has more power than “did the tsar, the general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and Chingiz Khan taken together” (www.nr2.ru/rus/325959.html and www.kommersant.ru/doc-y/1610440).
According to Krasnov’s calculations, the Russian president has been given 469 new powers as a result of the adoption of 115 laws concerning that office. But what is important, the constitutional law scholar suggests, “is not the quantity but the character of the powers thathave been thus acquired.”
The Russian constitution, the scholar argues, specifies that “the president can act but he cannot define the rules.” But subsequent legislation has changed that by handing over to the president the power to do just that, thus opening the way to almost unlimited power in many spheres and undermining the authority of all other government centers and bodies.
This expansion of presidential powers, Krasnov finds, has occurredunder all three Russian presidents. “Boris Yeltsin received 168 such authorities between 1993 and 1999.” Vladimir Putin got 234 between 2000 and 2008, and Dmitry Medvedev has obtained “only 67” between 2008 and 2010.
But if the per year numbers have been relatively similar, the areas in which the Russian president has been given additional powers have changed over time, Krasnov says. Yeltsin’s expanded powers dealt with the areas of his constitutional competence, although such expansion began “the degradation” of “all remaining institutions.”
Under Putin, in contrast, the president was given and in fact seized powers which “directly violate the meaning of the constitution,” such as the appointment of governors, the naming of the chairman of the highest courts, and of the accounting chamber. As a result, Putin and his successor have “the chance to influence all branches of power.”
Fairfax, April 1 — The 1993 Constitution made Russia a presidential republic, but the addition of 469 new powers to that office in the 17 years since has transformed it into a “super-presidential” with negative consequences for all other political institutions in the country, according to a senior specialist on constitutional law at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.
Mikhail Krasnov conclusions on this point add weight to the arguments of politicians like KPRF head Gennady Zyuganov who has repeatedly said that the Russian president has more power than “did the tsar, the general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and Chingiz Khan taken together” (www.nr2.ru/rus/325959.html and www.kommersant.ru/doc-y/1610440).
According to Krasnov’s calculations, the Russian president has been given 469 new powers as a result of the adoption of 115 laws concerning that office. But what is important, the constitutional law scholar suggests, “is not the quantity but the character of the powers thathave been thus acquired.”
The Russian constitution, the scholar argues, specifies that “the president can act but he cannot define the rules.” But subsequent legislation has changed that by handing over to the president the power to do just that, thus opening the way to almost unlimited power in many spheres and undermining the authority of all other government centers and bodies.
This expansion of presidential powers, Krasnov finds, has occurredunder all three Russian presidents. “Boris Yeltsin received 168 such authorities between 1993 and 1999.” Vladimir Putin got 234 between 2000 and 2008, and Dmitry Medvedev has obtained “only 67” between 2008 and 2010.
But if the per year numbers have been relatively similar, the areas in which the Russian president has been given additional powers have changed over time, Krasnov says. Yeltsin’s expanded powers dealt with the areas of his constitutional competence, although such expansion began “the degradation” of “all remaining institutions.”
Under Putin, in contrast, the president was given and in fact seized powers which “directly violate the meaning of the constitution,” such as the appointment of governors, the naming of the chairman of the highest courts, and of the accounting chamber. As a result, Putin and his successor have “the chance to influence all branches of power.”
Window on Eurasia: Moscow to Take Siberian Identity into Account in Nationality Policy, United Russia Deputy Says
Paul Goble
Fairfax, April 1 – In what many Siberians see as a recognition of their status as a separate nationality and in a move with potentially far reaching consequences for other groups in the Russian Federation, a United Russia Duma deputy says that Moscow “will consider the Siberians” when it is developing and carrying out nationality-related policies.
Valery Draganov, the first deputy chairman of the Duma industrial committee, noted that “according to the results of the last census, the word ‘Siberian’ in the nationality line has broken all records,” with significant numbers of residents in Tyumen, Omsk, and other cities east of the Urals identifying themselves that way (globalsib.com/10029/; www.pnp.ru/extnews/1494.html).
“Under conditions when the sense of being cut off is growting among residents of the regions, when they do not feel themselves as part of the large country,” Draganov said in words posted on the United Russia Party website, “the question of nationality policy acquires an unprecedented sharpness.”
Rosstat has not yet released nationality figures from the 2010 census, but clearly the number of people in Siberia who identified as Siberians was large – and would have been larger still had it not been the widely reported actions of census takers who illegally refused to enter such declarations on the census forms.
Draganov noted that there are currently “many challenges on the path of strengthening the multi-national unity of Russia,” including differences in religion, culture and way of life of people living in various parts of the country. “Under communism, this question was regulated by political-administrative methods,” but now “such an approach is unacceptable.”
“What is necessary,” the United Russia deputy said, “is a consensus, one when on the one hand is formed a tolerant milieu, with all conditions established for the preservation of the national traditions of peoples of Russia, and on the other, is developed in citizens a spirit of unity and a feeling of belonging to one great country.”
“A wise nationality policy can assist in the adoption of balanced decisions directed at the economic development of the regions … the stimulation of a favorable investment climate in the regions, and the formation of conditions for the development of business,” Draganov continued, focusing on the specific areas of his responsibility.
“In particular,” Draganov said, in all such programs” must be considered not only economic and social indicators but also their cultural and national peculiarities.” Doing so, he added, “will more correctly direct resources, assess risks, and create conditions for the strengthening of the institutions of democracy.”
And he said that in his view, “decisions in the area of nationality policy mustbe taken not only on the basis of the opinion of the international expert community but also on that of administrative-political structures,” something that would open the way to various subgroups within existing nations.
For Siberians, both regionalists and nationalists, this represents an important victory in their drive for recognition as a self-standing community. But for other subgroups of ethnic Russians and other nationalities, it may be even more important, opening the way for an unpacking of the definitions of nationality the Russian Federation inherited from Soviet times.
And that shift from an objective to a subjective definition of nationality, one that the 1993 Constitution promised but that Russian Federation officials have often ignored or resisted, could dramatically change how the citizens of that country define themselves and hence what kind of political units are likely to emerge in that part of Eurasia.
Fairfax, April 1 – In what many Siberians see as a recognition of their status as a separate nationality and in a move with potentially far reaching consequences for other groups in the Russian Federation, a United Russia Duma deputy says that Moscow “will consider the Siberians” when it is developing and carrying out nationality-related policies.
Valery Draganov, the first deputy chairman of the Duma industrial committee, noted that “according to the results of the last census, the word ‘Siberian’ in the nationality line has broken all records,” with significant numbers of residents in Tyumen, Omsk, and other cities east of the Urals identifying themselves that way (globalsib.com/10029/; www.pnp.ru/extnews/1494.html).
“Under conditions when the sense of being cut off is growting among residents of the regions, when they do not feel themselves as part of the large country,” Draganov said in words posted on the United Russia Party website, “the question of nationality policy acquires an unprecedented sharpness.”
Rosstat has not yet released nationality figures from the 2010 census, but clearly the number of people in Siberia who identified as Siberians was large – and would have been larger still had it not been the widely reported actions of census takers who illegally refused to enter such declarations on the census forms.
Draganov noted that there are currently “many challenges on the path of strengthening the multi-national unity of Russia,” including differences in religion, culture and way of life of people living in various parts of the country. “Under communism, this question was regulated by political-administrative methods,” but now “such an approach is unacceptable.”
“What is necessary,” the United Russia deputy said, “is a consensus, one when on the one hand is formed a tolerant milieu, with all conditions established for the preservation of the national traditions of peoples of Russia, and on the other, is developed in citizens a spirit of unity and a feeling of belonging to one great country.”
“A wise nationality policy can assist in the adoption of balanced decisions directed at the economic development of the regions … the stimulation of a favorable investment climate in the regions, and the formation of conditions for the development of business,” Draganov continued, focusing on the specific areas of his responsibility.
“In particular,” Draganov said, in all such programs” must be considered not only economic and social indicators but also their cultural and national peculiarities.” Doing so, he added, “will more correctly direct resources, assess risks, and create conditions for the strengthening of the institutions of democracy.”
And he said that in his view, “decisions in the area of nationality policy mustbe taken not only on the basis of the opinion of the international expert community but also on that of administrative-political structures,” something that would open the way to various subgroups within existing nations.
For Siberians, both regionalists and nationalists, this represents an important victory in their drive for recognition as a self-standing community. But for other subgroups of ethnic Russians and other nationalities, it may be even more important, opening the way for an unpacking of the definitions of nationality the Russian Federation inherited from Soviet times.
And that shift from an objective to a subjective definition of nationality, one that the 1993 Constitution promised but that Russian Federation officials have often ignored or resisted, could dramatically change how the citizens of that country define themselves and hence what kind of political units are likely to emerge in that part of Eurasia.
Window on Eurasia: Young Russians Often ‘Nostalgic’ for a Country They Never Knew
Paul Goble
Fairfax, April 1 – While most of the 59 percent of the Russian population which says that it regrets the disintegration of the Soviet Union is made up of people old enough to have lived in that country, many Russians too young to do so are nonetheless showing a nostalgia for a country they are too young to have known.
The reasons for this, Moscow commentator Yuliya Yakusheva argues, are not far to seek because they reflect both the problems that many young people now face in the Russian Federation and the images both justified and otherwise that the young generation has of the Soviet past (www.ia-centr.ru/expert/10137/).
Few of the polls concerning Russian attitudes about the Soviet past present age-specific data, Yakusheva says, it is “obvious that the majority of those calling for a return to the Soviet past are representatives of that generation who experienced both the flowering and the collapse of the last empire of the 20th century.”
For many of these older generations, there are both political and psychological explanations for this phenomenon, the Moscow commentator says. On the one hand, many of them see some of the values of Soviet times as better than those now on offer. And on the other, such people cannot recall their youth without a certain nostalgia.
But “ever more often,” she points out, “the Soviet system is becoming popular among young people of the post-Soviet countries,” a trend that needs to be examined to determine whether it is simply a matter of “passing fashion” or whether such attitudes reflect some deeper reworking and revival of Soviet ideology.
Given the importance of Internet-based social networks among this cohort, Yakusheva says, they represent a useful way in to this issue. She points out that “if one searches for ‘USSR’ on ‘In Contact,’ one of the more popular of these networks in the post-Soviet states, then one is given as a result of 19,000 groups around this theme.”
These consist of several types but “the most popular” based on the number of participants are those one can call “nostalgia groups on the USSR” which unite people who are interested in Soviet values, worldview, and way of life “ranging from Pioneer scarves to Vostok refrigerators.”
One group describes itself as a place which “gives the opportunity” to everyone who “wants to see how those born in the USSR lifed, what surrounded them in their childhood and youth.” Yakusheva notes that “it is interesting” but not surprising that among the subjects attracting attention are the numerous music groups of the last years of Soviet power.
Closely related to these nostalgia groups are what can be called “patriotic” ones, “which are devoted to the most prominent achievements of the USSR, events and phenomenon with which are associated the success of the Soviet Union in the world,” including the 1980 Olympics, the space program, and the like.
Yakusheva says that “judging from them commentaries of the creators and participants of such groups, their main goal is not the blind celebration of the Soviet past but in a greater degree a search for guideposts and stimuli of development for contemporary Russia.”
And finally, she says, there are the groups which are openly political and reflect leftist youth movements and organizations, groups whose values range from “the rebirth of greatpower status” to “social justice,” but who are seldom directed toward “the destruction of the existing system” in the name of the past.
The “most active” of these “In Contact” groups is one organized by the Union of Communist Youth of the Russian Federation.” But according to Yakusheva, the posts on it are not very sophisticated and seldom go beyond the principle that “if you were nota communist, then you weren’t ever young.”
That group and others like it include the most varied membership: “from radically inclined young people for whom the struggle with the existing regime is a goal in itself to young men and girls who do not have any particular principles and goals,” groups that should not be lumped together analytically.
In short, this interest in the Soviet past is less about a desire to return to it in toto and more part of a discussion of which parts of that inheritance should be supported and which parts should be jettisoned, Yakusheva concludes, in order to make Russia once again “an attractive model and a cultural and educational center.”
According to Yakusheva, this involves taking steps to stop the decline in the space occupied by Russian speakers in the post-Soviet space” and to present “the invisible borders” between Russia and the former Soviet republics from “deepening and broadening,” thereby leaving Russia alone.
.
Fairfax, April 1 – While most of the 59 percent of the Russian population which says that it regrets the disintegration of the Soviet Union is made up of people old enough to have lived in that country, many Russians too young to do so are nonetheless showing a nostalgia for a country they are too young to have known.
The reasons for this, Moscow commentator Yuliya Yakusheva argues, are not far to seek because they reflect both the problems that many young people now face in the Russian Federation and the images both justified and otherwise that the young generation has of the Soviet past (www.ia-centr.ru/expert/10137/).
Few of the polls concerning Russian attitudes about the Soviet past present age-specific data, Yakusheva says, it is “obvious that the majority of those calling for a return to the Soviet past are representatives of that generation who experienced both the flowering and the collapse of the last empire of the 20th century.”
For many of these older generations, there are both political and psychological explanations for this phenomenon, the Moscow commentator says. On the one hand, many of them see some of the values of Soviet times as better than those now on offer. And on the other, such people cannot recall their youth without a certain nostalgia.
But “ever more often,” she points out, “the Soviet system is becoming popular among young people of the post-Soviet countries,” a trend that needs to be examined to determine whether it is simply a matter of “passing fashion” or whether such attitudes reflect some deeper reworking and revival of Soviet ideology.
Given the importance of Internet-based social networks among this cohort, Yakusheva says, they represent a useful way in to this issue. She points out that “if one searches for ‘USSR’ on ‘In Contact,’ one of the more popular of these networks in the post-Soviet states, then one is given as a result of 19,000 groups around this theme.”
These consist of several types but “the most popular” based on the number of participants are those one can call “nostalgia groups on the USSR” which unite people who are interested in Soviet values, worldview, and way of life “ranging from Pioneer scarves to Vostok refrigerators.”
One group describes itself as a place which “gives the opportunity” to everyone who “wants to see how those born in the USSR lifed, what surrounded them in their childhood and youth.” Yakusheva notes that “it is interesting” but not surprising that among the subjects attracting attention are the numerous music groups of the last years of Soviet power.
Closely related to these nostalgia groups are what can be called “patriotic” ones, “which are devoted to the most prominent achievements of the USSR, events and phenomenon with which are associated the success of the Soviet Union in the world,” including the 1980 Olympics, the space program, and the like.
Yakusheva says that “judging from them commentaries of the creators and participants of such groups, their main goal is not the blind celebration of the Soviet past but in a greater degree a search for guideposts and stimuli of development for contemporary Russia.”
And finally, she says, there are the groups which are openly political and reflect leftist youth movements and organizations, groups whose values range from “the rebirth of greatpower status” to “social justice,” but who are seldom directed toward “the destruction of the existing system” in the name of the past.
The “most active” of these “In Contact” groups is one organized by the Union of Communist Youth of the Russian Federation.” But according to Yakusheva, the posts on it are not very sophisticated and seldom go beyond the principle that “if you were nota communist, then you weren’t ever young.”
That group and others like it include the most varied membership: “from radically inclined young people for whom the struggle with the existing regime is a goal in itself to young men and girls who do not have any particular principles and goals,” groups that should not be lumped together analytically.
In short, this interest in the Soviet past is less about a desire to return to it in toto and more part of a discussion of which parts of that inheritance should be supported and which parts should be jettisoned, Yakusheva concludes, in order to make Russia once again “an attractive model and a cultural and educational center.”
According to Yakusheva, this involves taking steps to stop the decline in the space occupied by Russian speakers in the post-Soviet space” and to present “the invisible borders” between Russia and the former Soviet republics from “deepening and broadening,” thereby leaving Russia alone.
.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Prosecutors Refuse to Ban ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ as Extremist
Paul Goble
Fairfax, March 30 – Moscow prosecutors have refused a call by Russian human rights activists to ban as extremist the notorious anti-Semitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a work that inspired Adolf Hitler and that now is attracting a large audience in Russia, a country that “is proud it defeated fascism.”
Responding to a call by the For Human Rights Movement for banning this openly anti-Semitic work, the prosecutors explained their decision not to do so by referring to a “psycho-linguistic” analysis conducted by the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (www.vestnikcivitas.ru/pbls/1354).
According to the prosecutors, the Institute’s analysis concluded that “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” “has critical historical-educaitonal and political-enlightenment importance. Information about calls to action against other nationalities and religious groups is lacking in the book.”
In reporting what he called “this shameful event for Russia,” Vadim Belotserkovsky said that the decision of the prosecutors not to find this forgery extremist “testifies to the success” of organized fascism in Russia and especially to the continuing impact on official thinking of the December 11 Manezh Square protests.
“For the first time in the history of [Russia],” he writes, “skinheads at the walls of the Kremlin and alongside the grave of the unknown soldier should ‘Zieg Heil,’ gave Nazi solutes and beat passersby who appeared to be ‘non-Russian types.’ From 5,000 to 10,000 young fascists assembled on that day in the Manezh Square.”
Belotserkovsky focuses his essay on when and why what he calls “organized fascism” emerged in Russia. He dates the emergence of this phenomenon to late 1981 when the Soviet authorities fearful that the ideas of cooperative socialism being put forward by the Polish Solidarity movement might spread to the Soviet Union and undermine their power.
On November 18th of that year, KGB head Yury Andropov who would soon succeed Leonid Brezhnev as CPSU leader gave an interview to the BBC in which he said thzat “deeply alien to us is this treatment of self-administration which draws toward anarcho-syndicalism, to the splitting apart of society into independent and competing corporations, toward democracy without discipline, to an understanding of rights without responsibilities.”
The Soviet media did not publish this interview or provide any reliable information on what Solidarity wanted. Instead, its outlets talked about Solidarity as a conspiracy of the CIA and the Zionists and sought to divide Solidarity by promoting the Grunwald Group which called for a truly Polish approach.
At approximately the same time, the Pamyat’ Patriotic Society was set up in Russia which spoke out against the role of Jews in the USSR. In all likelihood, Belotserkovsky says, both the Grunwald Group and Pamyat were the offspring of ideas hatched in the CPSU Central Committee apparatus.
After Solidarity was suppressed, Pamyat went into a period of quiescence but “in this way in 1981 in Soviet Russia was established the first fascist organization” in the USSR. And it continued to be kept as a possible ally of the powers in the event that a serious working class movement should emerge and spark a revolution in Russia.
“But alas,” Belotserkovsky says, “such a revolution did not take place in Russia.” Worse, the leader of post-Soviet Russia was a member of the old nomenklatura, Boris Yeltsin. And consequently, it is not surprising that “already being the head of Moscow, [Yeltsin] invided to the Moscow City Soviet the leaders of Pamyat.
As Yeltsin’s supporters note, the future president condemned the Pamyat people for their “anti-party slogans.” But Belotserkovsky says, Yeltsin did not say anything about their “anti-Semitic slogans.” He subsequently made use of Pamyat against his opponents and allowed or sponsored the emergence of the even more radical group, Russian National Unity (RNE).
Yeltsin’s war against Chechnya, Belotserkovsky continues, by its cruelty and viciousness trained an entire generation of young men who were willing to listen to fascist sloganeering and in some cases to engage in fascist-style racist violence and murder. And not surprisingly, Pamyat figured in these organizations and was on the Manezh Square.
Pamyat, Russia’s first fascist organization, Belotserkovsky says, was created to oppose Polish solidarist ideas. Now, it is being employed by the powers that be because of their fears that Russia is withering away because of falling population. But the powers will learn that “fascism will not help them” in this area.
Instead, its appearance reflects “the agony” that Russia has already entered into and intensifies that development, trends that themselves are the product of “the fear of the powers before progress,” just as the fear of social progress in Western Europe led to the rise of fascism 90 years ago. Europe has moved on, but “Russia is marching in the same place.”
Fairfax, March 30 – Moscow prosecutors have refused a call by Russian human rights activists to ban as extremist the notorious anti-Semitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a work that inspired Adolf Hitler and that now is attracting a large audience in Russia, a country that “is proud it defeated fascism.”
Responding to a call by the For Human Rights Movement for banning this openly anti-Semitic work, the prosecutors explained their decision not to do so by referring to a “psycho-linguistic” analysis conducted by the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (www.vestnikcivitas.ru/pbls/1354).
According to the prosecutors, the Institute’s analysis concluded that “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” “has critical historical-educaitonal and political-enlightenment importance. Information about calls to action against other nationalities and religious groups is lacking in the book.”
In reporting what he called “this shameful event for Russia,” Vadim Belotserkovsky said that the decision of the prosecutors not to find this forgery extremist “testifies to the success” of organized fascism in Russia and especially to the continuing impact on official thinking of the December 11 Manezh Square protests.
“For the first time in the history of [Russia],” he writes, “skinheads at the walls of the Kremlin and alongside the grave of the unknown soldier should ‘Zieg Heil,’ gave Nazi solutes and beat passersby who appeared to be ‘non-Russian types.’ From 5,000 to 10,000 young fascists assembled on that day in the Manezh Square.”
Belotserkovsky focuses his essay on when and why what he calls “organized fascism” emerged in Russia. He dates the emergence of this phenomenon to late 1981 when the Soviet authorities fearful that the ideas of cooperative socialism being put forward by the Polish Solidarity movement might spread to the Soviet Union and undermine their power.
On November 18th of that year, KGB head Yury Andropov who would soon succeed Leonid Brezhnev as CPSU leader gave an interview to the BBC in which he said thzat “deeply alien to us is this treatment of self-administration which draws toward anarcho-syndicalism, to the splitting apart of society into independent and competing corporations, toward democracy without discipline, to an understanding of rights without responsibilities.”
The Soviet media did not publish this interview or provide any reliable information on what Solidarity wanted. Instead, its outlets talked about Solidarity as a conspiracy of the CIA and the Zionists and sought to divide Solidarity by promoting the Grunwald Group which called for a truly Polish approach.
At approximately the same time, the Pamyat’ Patriotic Society was set up in Russia which spoke out against the role of Jews in the USSR. In all likelihood, Belotserkovsky says, both the Grunwald Group and Pamyat were the offspring of ideas hatched in the CPSU Central Committee apparatus.
After Solidarity was suppressed, Pamyat went into a period of quiescence but “in this way in 1981 in Soviet Russia was established the first fascist organization” in the USSR. And it continued to be kept as a possible ally of the powers in the event that a serious working class movement should emerge and spark a revolution in Russia.
“But alas,” Belotserkovsky says, “such a revolution did not take place in Russia.” Worse, the leader of post-Soviet Russia was a member of the old nomenklatura, Boris Yeltsin. And consequently, it is not surprising that “already being the head of Moscow, [Yeltsin] invided to the Moscow City Soviet the leaders of Pamyat.
As Yeltsin’s supporters note, the future president condemned the Pamyat people for their “anti-party slogans.” But Belotserkovsky says, Yeltsin did not say anything about their “anti-Semitic slogans.” He subsequently made use of Pamyat against his opponents and allowed or sponsored the emergence of the even more radical group, Russian National Unity (RNE).
Yeltsin’s war against Chechnya, Belotserkovsky continues, by its cruelty and viciousness trained an entire generation of young men who were willing to listen to fascist sloganeering and in some cases to engage in fascist-style racist violence and murder. And not surprisingly, Pamyat figured in these organizations and was on the Manezh Square.
Pamyat, Russia’s first fascist organization, Belotserkovsky says, was created to oppose Polish solidarist ideas. Now, it is being employed by the powers that be because of their fears that Russia is withering away because of falling population. But the powers will learn that “fascism will not help them” in this area.
Instead, its appearance reflects “the agony” that Russia has already entered into and intensifies that development, trends that themselves are the product of “the fear of the powers before progress,” just as the fear of social progress in Western Europe led to the rise of fascism 90 years ago. Europe has moved on, but “Russia is marching in the same place.”
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Puts Kozak in Charge of Nationality Policy While Keeping Him as Overseer of Sochi Olympics
Paul Goble
Fairfax, March 30 – The Russian government has put Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak in charge of the conduct of nationality policy in addition to his responsibilities for overseeing the preparation of the 2014 Sochi Olympics, a combination that highlights Moscow’s growing concerns about Circassian criticism of this venue.
In a commentary on Politcom.ru yesterday, Roksana Burntaseva argues that Kozak is well-qualified to oversee nationality policy through a state commission but that he may be most useful to Moscow in the context of what many are now calling “the Circassian question” regarding the Olympiad in Sochi (www.politcom.ru/11672.html).
“Several Circassian organizations have accused the federal powers that be and the organizers of the Olympiad of ignoring the historic possession of the lands of Greater Sochi by Circassian tribes,” populations who were expelled from the Russian Empire in 1864 with so much many lives lost that some have labeled that event a genocide.
With Kozak’s new position, he can “if this will be necessary” serve as “a counter-argument for the International Olympic Committee and other interested sides” should it prove to be the case that “the conflict around the Circassian question will receive further development.” Indeed, Kozak’s new post will thus have “positive” results “from a political point of view.”
That is all the more likely to be the most important reason behind his appointment given that “it is obvious that the appointment of a single individual even someone with experience of working with national minorities will hardly be able to help resolve ‘the nationality question’ in Russia to a significant degree.”
Such an appointment became a near certainty, Moscow media outlets say, after President Dmitry Medvedev at a recent State Council meeting rejected calls for restoring a Ministry for Nationality Affairs such as existed between 1994 and 2001 but agreed that there was a need to have someone coordinate policy in this area (vz.ru/politics/2011/3/28/479327.html).
Kozak has great experience in this area not only as a result of his earlier work in the Presidential Administration on local and regional affairs but also because of his service between 2004 and 2007 as Presidential plenipotentiary for the Southern Federal District which at that time included all of the troubled North Caucasus republics.
Valery Tishkov, who served as nationalities minister in the 1990s before Vladimir Putin disbanded the ministry and transferred its functions to the interior ministry, the foreign ministry, and the ministry of economic development, told “Vzglyad” that Kozak’s success will “depend” on who will serve on the nationalities commission he will oversee.
That is all the more so, Tishkov continued, because Kozak, like other vice premiers, is overwhelmed with work and thus will have to rely heavily on the commission and its staff if he is to be effective. If the commission consists of serious people, Tishkov suggested, the prospects for real progress exist. If not, then it is likely that little will be accomplished.
Fairfax, March 30 – The Russian government has put Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak in charge of the conduct of nationality policy in addition to his responsibilities for overseeing the preparation of the 2014 Sochi Olympics, a combination that highlights Moscow’s growing concerns about Circassian criticism of this venue.
In a commentary on Politcom.ru yesterday, Roksana Burntaseva argues that Kozak is well-qualified to oversee nationality policy through a state commission but that he may be most useful to Moscow in the context of what many are now calling “the Circassian question” regarding the Olympiad in Sochi (www.politcom.ru/11672.html).
“Several Circassian organizations have accused the federal powers that be and the organizers of the Olympiad of ignoring the historic possession of the lands of Greater Sochi by Circassian tribes,” populations who were expelled from the Russian Empire in 1864 with so much many lives lost that some have labeled that event a genocide.
With Kozak’s new position, he can “if this will be necessary” serve as “a counter-argument for the International Olympic Committee and other interested sides” should it prove to be the case that “the conflict around the Circassian question will receive further development.” Indeed, Kozak’s new post will thus have “positive” results “from a political point of view.”
That is all the more likely to be the most important reason behind his appointment given that “it is obvious that the appointment of a single individual even someone with experience of working with national minorities will hardly be able to help resolve ‘the nationality question’ in Russia to a significant degree.”
Such an appointment became a near certainty, Moscow media outlets say, after President Dmitry Medvedev at a recent State Council meeting rejected calls for restoring a Ministry for Nationality Affairs such as existed between 1994 and 2001 but agreed that there was a need to have someone coordinate policy in this area (vz.ru/politics/2011/3/28/479327.html).
Kozak has great experience in this area not only as a result of his earlier work in the Presidential Administration on local and regional affairs but also because of his service between 2004 and 2007 as Presidential plenipotentiary for the Southern Federal District which at that time included all of the troubled North Caucasus republics.
Valery Tishkov, who served as nationalities minister in the 1990s before Vladimir Putin disbanded the ministry and transferred its functions to the interior ministry, the foreign ministry, and the ministry of economic development, told “Vzglyad” that Kozak’s success will “depend” on who will serve on the nationalities commission he will oversee.
That is all the more so, Tishkov continued, because Kozak, like other vice premiers, is overwhelmed with work and thus will have to rely heavily on the commission and its staff if he is to be effective. If the commission consists of serious people, Tishkov suggested, the prospects for real progress exist. If not, then it is likely that little will be accomplished.
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Planning to Abolish Non-Russian Republics, Pavlova Says
Paul Goble
Fairfax, March 30 – Under the cover of the international effort against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, the leaders of the ruling United Russia Party are planning to abolish the non-Russian republics within the Russian Federation and to create a unitary state far more severe in its constraints than even the one Stalin established in the USSR, according to Irina Pavlova.
But this effort which is explicitly intended to prevent the disintegration of the Russian Federation, the Grani.ru commentator continues, will put in place a delayed action political “mine” even more powerful and dangerous than the one that Stalin put in place and that led to the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 (www.grani.ru/opinion/m.187367.html).
And consequently, unless the security services maintain their current all-powerful position, she argues, the country is likely not only to disintegrate at some point in the future but to do so not in a peaceful manner as was the case with the USSR but rather accompanied by a violent “civil war.”
That risk will undoubtedly be invoked by the security agencies and their political supporters as yet another reason why the regime cannot afford to loosen up or liberalize in any way, but the policies that will flow from that argument will have negative political and economic consequences for the Russian population even before the entire system ultimately collapses.
“It is now already clear,” Pavlova begins, “that the military operation of the Western coalition forces against Libyan dictator Qaddafi will have tragic consequences for Russian liberalism and democracy” and that Moscow will now seek “further centralization and popular subordination in the name of the greatness of power and defense against a foreign enemy.”
And “all this is taking place,” the Grani-ru commentator suggests, “under noise about differences in the tandem, about the reformation of the Right Task Party, and about expert reports concerning the democratization of the Russian political system. And under the sound of public approval.,
At the beginning of March, she points out, Abudl-Khakim Sultygov, United Russia’s coordinator for nationality policy, said in an interview (svpressa.ru/society/article/39660) what he and other United Russia people had three years earlier outlined in a document posted on the Kreml.org portal (http://www.kreml.org/opinions/164932766).
According to Sultygov, Russia needs to be “a unitary state,” a notion that politicians like Vladimir Zhirinovsky have long promoted. But “in this case, this idea is being offered by “a functionary of the party of power, responsible in its leadership for nationality policy,” and thus carried far more weight.
Sultygov suggested, Pavlova recalls, that the non-Russian republics within the Russian Federation should “thinkabout giving up their republic status,’since “any discussion about doing away with national republics fromabove” would be viewed as “provocative” or worse. The only way it could work, Sultygov argued, is thus “from below.”
An even last August points the way. On August 12, 2010, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov declared that “in a single state there must be only one president, and in the subjects, the first persons could be called the heads of the republics” or something else, an idea that has now become a Russian law.
“The ideological predecessor of Mr.Sultygov,” Pavlova continues, “is Comrade Stalin who is respected by the [current] Russian elite. “Stalin’s project of unifying the Soviet republics” had them becoming autonomies within the Russian Federation rather than a union of republics, “as Lenin had insisted.”
“As a result of the political and personal clashes of 1922-1923, Stalin formally agreed with Lenin’s criticizes and replaced the Russian Federation with the Soviet Union, but the essence [of Stalin’s ideas] remained unchanged.” As a result, the Soviet Union “was not a federation … but a unitary state formation, albeit with the formal right of republics to separate.”
“Hoping to prevent the scenario of the disintegration of the Soviet Union fromcoming true in contemporary Russia,” Pavlova argues, “Sultygov [in fact] goes further than Stalin. He proposes that he republics refuse even formal autonomous status and be considered only as territorial units of a single state, the Russian Federation.”
To that end and fearful of a repetition of the Manezh Square events, Sultygov also copies Stalin in the way he proceeds by offering extraordinary praise to the [ethnic] Russian people. He says that “Russia is the Russian Republic and the Constitution of the country is the [ethnic] Russian Constitution.”
(On the APN.ru site this week, there is a remarkable survey of Stalin’s and the Soviet elite’s development of the idea of ethnic Russian supremacy in a nominally multi-ethnic class-based state. See www.apn.ru/publications/article23929.htm.)
In sum, Pavlova writes, “if Stalin proclaimed the [ethnic] Russian people the synonym of the Soviet … then today the [ethnic] Russian people is proclaimed the synonym of the [non-ethnic] Russian people.”
Sultygov, the Grani commentator continues, “has presented to society a model of Russia of the not distance future, a unitary state more severe than the Soviet Union.” Creation of such a state “in order to prevent its disintegration will inevitably require fromt eh current power elite still more centralization.”
One of the consequences of this, Pavlova says, is that “real inter-ethnic problems which exist in the country will be driven into the underground.” And in response to that, Moscow will make even more sweeping the terms of the anti-extremist article in the Russian legal code and play up the role of the [ethnic] Russian nation still further.
Clearly, Sultygov’s beau ideal of state construction is what Ramzan Kadyrov has achieved in Chechnya. “He is certain,” Pavlova writes, “that abroad, present-day Chechnya is seen as ‘a Russian miracle,” thus repeating some of the arguments commentator Yulia Latynina has made in this regard.
Pavlova concludes by recalling that at the dawn of the Soviet period, with a powerful party apparatus already in place, “Stalin laid a delayed action mine [under his system,] a mine which exploded in 1991” when the Soviet Union “fell apart into 15 independent countries” in what was a “relatively peaceful” way and “strictly according to their [Soviet] borders.”
The current leadership in Moscow with this policy is burying “an even more powerful mine” under the political system. “If the power vertical of the security services disappears ... the consequence will be a large-scale civil war.” And consequently, those who are taking these steps clearly believe that they will be in power “forever.”
Fairfax, March 30 – Under the cover of the international effort against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, the leaders of the ruling United Russia Party are planning to abolish the non-Russian republics within the Russian Federation and to create a unitary state far more severe in its constraints than even the one Stalin established in the USSR, according to Irina Pavlova.
But this effort which is explicitly intended to prevent the disintegration of the Russian Federation, the Grani.ru commentator continues, will put in place a delayed action political “mine” even more powerful and dangerous than the one that Stalin put in place and that led to the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 (www.grani.ru/opinion/m.187367.html).
And consequently, unless the security services maintain their current all-powerful position, she argues, the country is likely not only to disintegrate at some point in the future but to do so not in a peaceful manner as was the case with the USSR but rather accompanied by a violent “civil war.”
That risk will undoubtedly be invoked by the security agencies and their political supporters as yet another reason why the regime cannot afford to loosen up or liberalize in any way, but the policies that will flow from that argument will have negative political and economic consequences for the Russian population even before the entire system ultimately collapses.
“It is now already clear,” Pavlova begins, “that the military operation of the Western coalition forces against Libyan dictator Qaddafi will have tragic consequences for Russian liberalism and democracy” and that Moscow will now seek “further centralization and popular subordination in the name of the greatness of power and defense against a foreign enemy.”
And “all this is taking place,” the Grani-ru commentator suggests, “under noise about differences in the tandem, about the reformation of the Right Task Party, and about expert reports concerning the democratization of the Russian political system. And under the sound of public approval.,
At the beginning of March, she points out, Abudl-Khakim Sultygov, United Russia’s coordinator for nationality policy, said in an interview (svpressa.ru/society/article/39660) what he and other United Russia people had three years earlier outlined in a document posted on the Kreml.org portal (http://www.kreml.org/opinions/164932766).
According to Sultygov, Russia needs to be “a unitary state,” a notion that politicians like Vladimir Zhirinovsky have long promoted. But “in this case, this idea is being offered by “a functionary of the party of power, responsible in its leadership for nationality policy,” and thus carried far more weight.
Sultygov suggested, Pavlova recalls, that the non-Russian republics within the Russian Federation should “thinkabout giving up their republic status,’since “any discussion about doing away with national republics fromabove” would be viewed as “provocative” or worse. The only way it could work, Sultygov argued, is thus “from below.”
An even last August points the way. On August 12, 2010, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov declared that “in a single state there must be only one president, and in the subjects, the first persons could be called the heads of the republics” or something else, an idea that has now become a Russian law.
“The ideological predecessor of Mr.Sultygov,” Pavlova continues, “is Comrade Stalin who is respected by the [current] Russian elite. “Stalin’s project of unifying the Soviet republics” had them becoming autonomies within the Russian Federation rather than a union of republics, “as Lenin had insisted.”
“As a result of the political and personal clashes of 1922-1923, Stalin formally agreed with Lenin’s criticizes and replaced the Russian Federation with the Soviet Union, but the essence [of Stalin’s ideas] remained unchanged.” As a result, the Soviet Union “was not a federation … but a unitary state formation, albeit with the formal right of republics to separate.”
“Hoping to prevent the scenario of the disintegration of the Soviet Union fromcoming true in contemporary Russia,” Pavlova argues, “Sultygov [in fact] goes further than Stalin. He proposes that he republics refuse even formal autonomous status and be considered only as territorial units of a single state, the Russian Federation.”
To that end and fearful of a repetition of the Manezh Square events, Sultygov also copies Stalin in the way he proceeds by offering extraordinary praise to the [ethnic] Russian people. He says that “Russia is the Russian Republic and the Constitution of the country is the [ethnic] Russian Constitution.”
(On the APN.ru site this week, there is a remarkable survey of Stalin’s and the Soviet elite’s development of the idea of ethnic Russian supremacy in a nominally multi-ethnic class-based state. See www.apn.ru/publications/article23929.htm.)
In sum, Pavlova writes, “if Stalin proclaimed the [ethnic] Russian people the synonym of the Soviet … then today the [ethnic] Russian people is proclaimed the synonym of the [non-ethnic] Russian people.”
Sultygov, the Grani commentator continues, “has presented to society a model of Russia of the not distance future, a unitary state more severe than the Soviet Union.” Creation of such a state “in order to prevent its disintegration will inevitably require fromt eh current power elite still more centralization.”
One of the consequences of this, Pavlova says, is that “real inter-ethnic problems which exist in the country will be driven into the underground.” And in response to that, Moscow will make even more sweeping the terms of the anti-extremist article in the Russian legal code and play up the role of the [ethnic] Russian nation still further.
Clearly, Sultygov’s beau ideal of state construction is what Ramzan Kadyrov has achieved in Chechnya. “He is certain,” Pavlova writes, “that abroad, present-day Chechnya is seen as ‘a Russian miracle,” thus repeating some of the arguments commentator Yulia Latynina has made in this regard.
Pavlova concludes by recalling that at the dawn of the Soviet period, with a powerful party apparatus already in place, “Stalin laid a delayed action mine [under his system,] a mine which exploded in 1991” when the Soviet Union “fell apart into 15 independent countries” in what was a “relatively peaceful” way and “strictly according to their [Soviet] borders.”
The current leadership in Moscow with this policy is burying “an even more powerful mine” under the political system. “If the power vertical of the security services disappears ... the consequence will be a large-scale civil war.” And consequently, those who are taking these steps clearly believe that they will be in power “forever.”
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