Paul Goble
Staunton, May 10 – There is “no confirmed evidence” that Al Qaeda has played a role in the militant movement in the North Caucasus, and Moscow’s claims to the contrary are yet another effort by the Russian government to avoid facing the real basis for the anti-Moscow movement in the region, a Makhachkala journalist says.
In an article the current issue of “Nastoyashcheye vremya,” Ruslan Gereyev says that “representatives of Al Qaeda of course were in the North Caucasus” at various times “but they did not play a major role,” and “the general movement” there did “not depend on them, a sharp contrast to the situation in Bosnia or Somalia (gazeta-nv.ru/content/view/5988/109/).
Gereyev acknowledges that Al Qaeda operatives have visited the North Caucasus and that the organization has provided some funding for militants there, but “the Arabs have never achieved control of the administration of the resistance movement in the North Caucasus.” Instead, Gereyev says, “local Islamists have used” the Arabs rather than the other way around.
“Many who act in the North Caucasus,” he continues, “do not have direct ties to Al Qaeda,” and it is even more the case that “Al Qaeda itself has never had great influence in the North Caucasus,” despite all the claims that have been made by the Russian special forces to the contrary.
The Russian security services have tried to link the North Caucasus militants ot the Arabs by ascribing membership in Al Qaeda to Khattab and all Arabs who have appeared in the region, but the numbers of such people have been relatively small. And they do not snow that bin Laden ever realized control over what is taking place” in the region.
Under contemporary conditions, “there is no need” for Arabs to turn to Al Qaeda as the only possible source for support. “People coming from North Africa, the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have for a long time already their own channels of financing. They do not need Al Qaeda in order to carry out a jihad, including in the North Caucasus.”
As Gereyev notes, “experts have more than once declared that the information of the [Russian] sp[ecial services about the activities of Al Qaeda in the North Caucasus is not shown, although according to the data of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee, the terrorist network of Al Qaeda continuously finances the leaders of the armed Caucasus Emirate.”
But as the Daghestani journalist points out, “up to now, the causes which are giving birth to terrorism, including social, political, economic, and inter-ethnic conflicts,” especially in the North Caucasus, have not been eliminated by Russian government policies. Instead, Moscow hopes to win the sympathy of the West by suggesting Al Qaeda is behind Russia’s problems.
As a result, despite “the liquidation of bin Laden,” the level of terrorism throughout the world, including in the North Caucasus, will not change. Instead, his death at the hand of the Americans is likely to open “a Pandora’s box” of problems. Indeed, the Taliban of Afghanistan have already declared that they will take revenge.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Russians Caught Between Post-Imperial and Russian Identities, Orthodox Editor Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 10 – Russians today find themselves between a very real post-imperial identity and an ethnic Russian one, a situation in which they find it difficult if not impossible to define themselves or to consider their country or their nation in a positive way, according to the editor of the leading Russian Orthodox journal.
In an article posted on polit.ru based on a presentation he made to the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy in April, Sergey Chapnin, the editor of the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate,” argues that these difficulties show that Russians routinely use the wrong terms to describe the reality surrounding them (www.polit.ru/country/2011/05/05/culture.html).
On the one hand, the editor says, Russians very much want to describe the world in which they live as Russian. But on the other, they continue to live in a post-Soviet one, a world that is “not a ‘frozen’ post-Soviet one, but rather an actively developing one,” even 20 years after the collapse of the USSR.
The values of post-Soviet culture, he continues, are “extremely contradictory and do not form a single picture.” Instead, they are so contradictory that “we have lost the ability to speak about ourselves, our ancestors and one another in a positive fashion and to create convincing and attractive models.”
As a result, “neither in high culture, nor in its mass variant is there any positive model of contemporary Russia. We do not like ourselves and we do not respect one another. An integral model of the present is lacking. The image of the past is mythologized … [and] there is no clear model of our future.”
As a result, “at the center of the new national mythology is only one event – the Great Victory in the Great Fatherland War,” a victory “conceived as the single ‘holy’ event of our history of the 20th century” and one whose celebration is “constructed as a religious action in which participate or at least sympathize the majority of Russians.”
And from this, Chapnin says, a kind of “civic religion with its own rules and rituals. The theme of victory is so ‘holy’ that to speak about it is possible only in the framework” established by “mass post-Soviet consciousness,” a situation that distorts both history and the consciousness of it.
“At the basis of this civic religion lie pagan values, meanings and symbols which were only partially modernized by communist propaganda,” including the eternal flame before which all bow but whose meaning within the traditions of Christianity is contradictory or even profoundly negative.
The cult of the Great Fatherland War entails a number of “extremely dangerous aspects,” the Orthodox editor says, including “the preservation and cultivation of ‘the image of the enemy,’” “the total heroization of war,” a sense of loss since victory, and “a primitive (pagan) understanding of patriotism.”
But perhaps the most serious of these is “the justification by virtue of the victory of all that happened in Russia in the10th century and above all with the totalitarian regime and Stalin personally.” And not surprisingly, in recent years, this “post-Soviet civic religion” has come into conflict with Russian culture as “inspired by the evangelical ideal.”
Because the Russian Orthodox Church is “a big Church,” it does not, indeed cannot provide “a common position” on all issues which are not directly part of Church doctrine. Instead, there have emerged what Chapnin calls three “church subcultures,” each with its own views on the Soviet past.
The first of these is “prepared to incorporate elements of Soviet culture” on the basis of a claim that “Soviet culture was more Christian by its content than is contemporary mass culture.” This is the largest of the three and includes almost all those who joined the priesthood in the last decade or so.
This group strives toward “social and cultural self-isolation,” shows “extreme lack of faith to any forms of ‘Western’ values,” and thus opposes ecumenism, changes in the Church itself, and any steps by the state which appear to threaten the Church including electronic numbering systems.
In reality, Chapnin argues, one can say that “this is Orthodoxy without tradition,” and “its representatives continue to struggle with the church problems of the past Soviet epoch – ecumenism and agents of the KGB within the Church,” even though “today these are already not real problems but phantoms.”
The second Church subculture is the successor to the Church underground of Soviet period, when the Church was persecuted. “This group,” Chapnin says, “consciously and consistently accepts nothing that is Soviet,” but it does so “peacefully and non-aggressively” because it recognizes that overcoming the past will take a long time.
Representatives of the second group also “well understand the universal character of Eastern-Slavic culture, but they know, love and value those forms of the cultural tradition” which exist within Russian Orthodoxy. A small group, it is will become smaller because its supporters are those who became priests in Soviet times or who were part of the Orthodox Church Abroad.
Finally, the third subculture combines a claim of links to the catacomb church but “on the other hand completely accepts the Soviet cultural matrix. In essence, this group has preserved the stylistics of Soviet propaganda and only replaced a number of terms and definitions, dropping ‘Soviet Union’ in favor of ‘Holy Rus,’ and ‘communist’ for ‘Orthodox.’”
Each of these groups supports a different version of Russian nationalism and Russian national culture and is in turn supported by them. And consequently, because the Church does not speak as one on these questions, it is not in a position to lead Russians along a single path to overcome the divisions in society which now exist.
Staunton, May 10 – Russians today find themselves between a very real post-imperial identity and an ethnic Russian one, a situation in which they find it difficult if not impossible to define themselves or to consider their country or their nation in a positive way, according to the editor of the leading Russian Orthodox journal.
In an article posted on polit.ru based on a presentation he made to the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy in April, Sergey Chapnin, the editor of the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate,” argues that these difficulties show that Russians routinely use the wrong terms to describe the reality surrounding them (www.polit.ru/country/2011/05/05/culture.html).
On the one hand, the editor says, Russians very much want to describe the world in which they live as Russian. But on the other, they continue to live in a post-Soviet one, a world that is “not a ‘frozen’ post-Soviet one, but rather an actively developing one,” even 20 years after the collapse of the USSR.
The values of post-Soviet culture, he continues, are “extremely contradictory and do not form a single picture.” Instead, they are so contradictory that “we have lost the ability to speak about ourselves, our ancestors and one another in a positive fashion and to create convincing and attractive models.”
As a result, “neither in high culture, nor in its mass variant is there any positive model of contemporary Russia. We do not like ourselves and we do not respect one another. An integral model of the present is lacking. The image of the past is mythologized … [and] there is no clear model of our future.”
As a result, “at the center of the new national mythology is only one event – the Great Victory in the Great Fatherland War,” a victory “conceived as the single ‘holy’ event of our history of the 20th century” and one whose celebration is “constructed as a religious action in which participate or at least sympathize the majority of Russians.”
And from this, Chapnin says, a kind of “civic religion with its own rules and rituals. The theme of victory is so ‘holy’ that to speak about it is possible only in the framework” established by “mass post-Soviet consciousness,” a situation that distorts both history and the consciousness of it.
“At the basis of this civic religion lie pagan values, meanings and symbols which were only partially modernized by communist propaganda,” including the eternal flame before which all bow but whose meaning within the traditions of Christianity is contradictory or even profoundly negative.
The cult of the Great Fatherland War entails a number of “extremely dangerous aspects,” the Orthodox editor says, including “the preservation and cultivation of ‘the image of the enemy,’” “the total heroization of war,” a sense of loss since victory, and “a primitive (pagan) understanding of patriotism.”
But perhaps the most serious of these is “the justification by virtue of the victory of all that happened in Russia in the10th century and above all with the totalitarian regime and Stalin personally.” And not surprisingly, in recent years, this “post-Soviet civic religion” has come into conflict with Russian culture as “inspired by the evangelical ideal.”
Because the Russian Orthodox Church is “a big Church,” it does not, indeed cannot provide “a common position” on all issues which are not directly part of Church doctrine. Instead, there have emerged what Chapnin calls three “church subcultures,” each with its own views on the Soviet past.
The first of these is “prepared to incorporate elements of Soviet culture” on the basis of a claim that “Soviet culture was more Christian by its content than is contemporary mass culture.” This is the largest of the three and includes almost all those who joined the priesthood in the last decade or so.
This group strives toward “social and cultural self-isolation,” shows “extreme lack of faith to any forms of ‘Western’ values,” and thus opposes ecumenism, changes in the Church itself, and any steps by the state which appear to threaten the Church including electronic numbering systems.
In reality, Chapnin argues, one can say that “this is Orthodoxy without tradition,” and “its representatives continue to struggle with the church problems of the past Soviet epoch – ecumenism and agents of the KGB within the Church,” even though “today these are already not real problems but phantoms.”
The second Church subculture is the successor to the Church underground of Soviet period, when the Church was persecuted. “This group,” Chapnin says, “consciously and consistently accepts nothing that is Soviet,” but it does so “peacefully and non-aggressively” because it recognizes that overcoming the past will take a long time.
Representatives of the second group also “well understand the universal character of Eastern-Slavic culture, but they know, love and value those forms of the cultural tradition” which exist within Russian Orthodoxy. A small group, it is will become smaller because its supporters are those who became priests in Soviet times or who were part of the Orthodox Church Abroad.
Finally, the third subculture combines a claim of links to the catacomb church but “on the other hand completely accepts the Soviet cultural matrix. In essence, this group has preserved the stylistics of Soviet propaganda and only replaced a number of terms and definitions, dropping ‘Soviet Union’ in favor of ‘Holy Rus,’ and ‘communist’ for ‘Orthodox.’”
Each of these groups supports a different version of Russian nationalism and Russian national culture and is in turn supported by them. And consequently, because the Church does not speak as one on these questions, it is not in a position to lead Russians along a single path to overcome the divisions in society which now exist.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Russian First Lady Seen Actively Promoting Orthodox Church
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 9 – Svetlana Medvedeva, Russia’s first lady, currently plays an active role in promoting the spread of the values of the Russian Orthodox Church not only in Russian society at large but in the Russian elite in particular, according to members of the Orthodox clergy who have known her for nearly 20 years.
In the current issue of “Sovershenno sekretno,” Aleksey Chelnokov surveys their opinions about what he calls “the phenomenon of the First Lady,” a woman whose role in the life of the Russian Federation is far larger than any of her immediate predecessors and far more important than most suspect (www.sovsekretno.ru/magazines/article/2786).
While much of his article is devoted to the Russian first lady’s childhood, first encounters with her husband, and his role in “glamorous” events like fashion shows and the promotion of particular Russian artists, Chelnokov devotes particular attention to her role in the Church not only in the 1990s but more recently.
It is said, Chelnokov notes, that Svetlana Medvedeva entered the church thanks to her “religious older sister already in the 1990s” when “fate, more precisely God, put her in touch with the pastor” of a church across the Moscow River from the Kremlin, Father Vladimir Volgin, a remarkable figure in his own right.
Not only is he the pastor of four different congregations but he is the son of the actress Yekaterina Vasilyeva and has been responsible for bringing into the church “Irina Abramovich, the mother of five children of the oligarch Roman Abramovich” and for making a pilgrimage with Svetlana Medvedeva.
The First Lady, he told “Sovershenno-Seketrno,” is “an individual of high morality and strong, I would even say, strategic mind,” adding that he was sure that her “experience of contact with holy things” has had an impact on her work in the program for the spiritual and moral training of young people.
Father Volgin said that he accompanied Russian First Family to Mount Athos in Greece and that “sometimes” he is invited to visit the couple “at the government dacha of the Administration of the Affairs of the President.” When that first happened, officials often looked at him askance, but now that has changed.
And he added that some of the senior officials he had met there now visit Mount Athos or other Orthodox pilgrimage sits “several times a year,” another indication of a change of attitude at the top. Father Volgin added that the Medvedevs are not shy about expressing their faith to those whom they know.
Another Orthodox priest with whom Chelnokov spoke was Father Kiprian who heads the Church’s Institute for Expertise on Educational Programs and Governmetn-Confession Relations. Born in 1953 into a family of atheists, he nonetheless became a monk in 1994 and since 1997, a member of the Academic Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church.
He has worked closely with Svetlana Medvedeva since 2007 when she was given the Church’s Olga Order and became a member of the advisory committee of the Spiritual-Moral culture Program for the Rising Generation of Russia, that was created at the behest of then-Patriarch Aleksii II.
At present, Kiprian, who serves as the secretary of this Church project said, “Svetlana vladimirovna is involved in the formation of a new membership” for that council and in the development of a program for its activities over the next decade. “The conception has not changed, but the extent of its activity has been significantly increased,” he added.
Under her influence, the group is promoting the Orthodox holiday of Sts. Peter and Fevronia as a counter to “the challenges of the Catholic Saint Valentine.” And the First Lady is involved in various projects including supporting religious communities and a home for mentally handicapped children.
And in a final comment, Father Kiprian made a remark about Vladimir Putin that may say even more about relations between the Medvedev’s and the prime minister than he intended. He called that Putin had suggested after the Manezh clashes that “Orthodoxy in many ways is even closer to Islam than let us say to the Catholics.”
“Perhaps,” Father Kiprian said laughing, “it is closer to Vladimir Vladimirovich personally. Islam is an Old Testament branch, a single religion which aspires to exclusiveness, by calling all others unbelievers.” Insisting on its similarities with Orthodoxy, the Orthodox churchman said, “is conditioned by some personal preferences” of Putin himself.”
Staunton, May 9 – Svetlana Medvedeva, Russia’s first lady, currently plays an active role in promoting the spread of the values of the Russian Orthodox Church not only in Russian society at large but in the Russian elite in particular, according to members of the Orthodox clergy who have known her for nearly 20 years.
In the current issue of “Sovershenno sekretno,” Aleksey Chelnokov surveys their opinions about what he calls “the phenomenon of the First Lady,” a woman whose role in the life of the Russian Federation is far larger than any of her immediate predecessors and far more important than most suspect (www.sovsekretno.ru/magazines/article/2786).
While much of his article is devoted to the Russian first lady’s childhood, first encounters with her husband, and his role in “glamorous” events like fashion shows and the promotion of particular Russian artists, Chelnokov devotes particular attention to her role in the Church not only in the 1990s but more recently.
It is said, Chelnokov notes, that Svetlana Medvedeva entered the church thanks to her “religious older sister already in the 1990s” when “fate, more precisely God, put her in touch with the pastor” of a church across the Moscow River from the Kremlin, Father Vladimir Volgin, a remarkable figure in his own right.
Not only is he the pastor of four different congregations but he is the son of the actress Yekaterina Vasilyeva and has been responsible for bringing into the church “Irina Abramovich, the mother of five children of the oligarch Roman Abramovich” and for making a pilgrimage with Svetlana Medvedeva.
The First Lady, he told “Sovershenno-Seketrno,” is “an individual of high morality and strong, I would even say, strategic mind,” adding that he was sure that her “experience of contact with holy things” has had an impact on her work in the program for the spiritual and moral training of young people.
Father Volgin said that he accompanied Russian First Family to Mount Athos in Greece and that “sometimes” he is invited to visit the couple “at the government dacha of the Administration of the Affairs of the President.” When that first happened, officials often looked at him askance, but now that has changed.
And he added that some of the senior officials he had met there now visit Mount Athos or other Orthodox pilgrimage sits “several times a year,” another indication of a change of attitude at the top. Father Volgin added that the Medvedevs are not shy about expressing their faith to those whom they know.
Another Orthodox priest with whom Chelnokov spoke was Father Kiprian who heads the Church’s Institute for Expertise on Educational Programs and Governmetn-Confession Relations. Born in 1953 into a family of atheists, he nonetheless became a monk in 1994 and since 1997, a member of the Academic Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church.
He has worked closely with Svetlana Medvedeva since 2007 when she was given the Church’s Olga Order and became a member of the advisory committee of the Spiritual-Moral culture Program for the Rising Generation of Russia, that was created at the behest of then-Patriarch Aleksii II.
At present, Kiprian, who serves as the secretary of this Church project said, “Svetlana vladimirovna is involved in the formation of a new membership” for that council and in the development of a program for its activities over the next decade. “The conception has not changed, but the extent of its activity has been significantly increased,” he added.
Under her influence, the group is promoting the Orthodox holiday of Sts. Peter and Fevronia as a counter to “the challenges of the Catholic Saint Valentine.” And the First Lady is involved in various projects including supporting religious communities and a home for mentally handicapped children.
And in a final comment, Father Kiprian made a remark about Vladimir Putin that may say even more about relations between the Medvedev’s and the prime minister than he intended. He called that Putin had suggested after the Manezh clashes that “Orthodoxy in many ways is even closer to Islam than let us say to the Catholics.”
“Perhaps,” Father Kiprian said laughing, “it is closer to Vladimir Vladimirovich personally. Islam is an Old Testament branch, a single religion which aspires to exclusiveness, by calling all others unbelievers.” Insisting on its similarities with Orthodoxy, the Orthodox churchman said, “is conditioned by some personal preferences” of Putin himself.”
Window on Eurasia: Central Asia on Brink of ‘Inter-Ethnic Explosion,’ Moscow Scholar Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 9 – An” inter-ethnic explosion” in Central Asia and Kazakhstan is increasingly likely given both the impact of gastarbeiters flowing from the southern part of that region to the north and the increasingly widespread idea of a ‘Greater Uzbekistan,” according to a Moscow ethnographer.
Georgy Sitnyansky, a researcher on Central Asia at the Center of Asian and Pacific Research at the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, argues in addition that Russia is interested in particular in stability in Kazakhstan and Northern Kyrgyzstan, the only “potential subjects of Eurasian integration” (www.regnum.ru/news/1402208.html).
The author of a new monograph, “Ethnic Conflicts in Central Asia and the National Interests of Russia,” told Regnum in an interview posted online on Friday that while Kazakhstan stands somewhat apart from the problems of the other Central Asian countries because of the ethnic composition of its population, that may change.
At present, Sityansky noted, only about 40 percent of the population of Kazakhstan is ethnically Kazakh, something that makes the slogan “Kazakhstan for the Kazakhs” relatively unimportant. But 20 years from now, that could change, both because of the outflow of European nationalities and because of the influx of migrants from the south.
For the time being, he continued, Kazakhstan has been able to “block the influx of Uzbeks by inviting Kazakhs from Mongolia, the Oralmans.” But the question arises, “for how long will this work? For how long will Kazakhstan be able to avoid the problems that gastarbeiters from the south have already caused in the Russian Federation and Kyrgyzstan?
But the region may not have to wait that long for inter-ethnic explosions in other places, Sityansky argued. Kyrgyzstan was “the first bell” in that regard. But “as far as the activity of Uzbekistan is concerned,” the notion of a “Greater Uzbekistan” could trigger conflicts in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan as well.
Events like those which shook Osh last year could push Uzbekistan to take more dramatic action. That is all the more likely because it would have the effect of allowing Tashkent to displace Astana as the regional leader. But at the same time, “in Uzbekistan itself, the situation for economic regions is not as stable as it appears.”
Thus, these domestic Uzbek problems might drive Tashkent to behave aggressively toward its neighbors, but such actions in turn could “end badly for itself.” It is of course possible that “namely the dislike of Uzbeks living in Kyrgyzstan for the Karimov regime [in Uzbekistan] may restrain this process.”
“But,” Sityansky continued, “that regime can be changed – the last events in the Arab countries show that any dictatorship may be overthrown, and then a different attitude of the Osh Uzbeks toward Tashkent would be possible.”
Moscow has an interest in stability in Central Asia in general and “in the first instance on the territories of Kazakhstan and Northern Kyrgyzstan,” two places which have potential for “Eurasian integration.” But a change in Tashkent could bring to power an Islamist regime and that would threaten Russian interests immediately.
Asked whether NATO’s military campaign in Libya is a precedent for a possible Russian response in Central Asia, the Moscow scholar says that such a precedent could be invokved only in the most extreme cases. “For the time being, [Moscow will use] all possible levers of pressure on Karimov” to prompt him to liberalize.
Sityansky concluded his article by saying that “if ‘the flow [of gastarbeiters] from south to north] is not stopped, then in the mid to long term, one cannot exclude even the fall of Kazakhstan into the orbit of radical Islamization.” That seemed improbable to many in Kyrgyzstan a decade ago, but now, the ethnologist says, it is happening.
Staunton, May 9 – An” inter-ethnic explosion” in Central Asia and Kazakhstan is increasingly likely given both the impact of gastarbeiters flowing from the southern part of that region to the north and the increasingly widespread idea of a ‘Greater Uzbekistan,” according to a Moscow ethnographer.
Georgy Sitnyansky, a researcher on Central Asia at the Center of Asian and Pacific Research at the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, argues in addition that Russia is interested in particular in stability in Kazakhstan and Northern Kyrgyzstan, the only “potential subjects of Eurasian integration” (www.regnum.ru/news/1402208.html).
The author of a new monograph, “Ethnic Conflicts in Central Asia and the National Interests of Russia,” told Regnum in an interview posted online on Friday that while Kazakhstan stands somewhat apart from the problems of the other Central Asian countries because of the ethnic composition of its population, that may change.
At present, Sityansky noted, only about 40 percent of the population of Kazakhstan is ethnically Kazakh, something that makes the slogan “Kazakhstan for the Kazakhs” relatively unimportant. But 20 years from now, that could change, both because of the outflow of European nationalities and because of the influx of migrants from the south.
For the time being, he continued, Kazakhstan has been able to “block the influx of Uzbeks by inviting Kazakhs from Mongolia, the Oralmans.” But the question arises, “for how long will this work? For how long will Kazakhstan be able to avoid the problems that gastarbeiters from the south have already caused in the Russian Federation and Kyrgyzstan?
But the region may not have to wait that long for inter-ethnic explosions in other places, Sityansky argued. Kyrgyzstan was “the first bell” in that regard. But “as far as the activity of Uzbekistan is concerned,” the notion of a “Greater Uzbekistan” could trigger conflicts in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan as well.
Events like those which shook Osh last year could push Uzbekistan to take more dramatic action. That is all the more likely because it would have the effect of allowing Tashkent to displace Astana as the regional leader. But at the same time, “in Uzbekistan itself, the situation for economic regions is not as stable as it appears.”
Thus, these domestic Uzbek problems might drive Tashkent to behave aggressively toward its neighbors, but such actions in turn could “end badly for itself.” It is of course possible that “namely the dislike of Uzbeks living in Kyrgyzstan for the Karimov regime [in Uzbekistan] may restrain this process.”
“But,” Sityansky continued, “that regime can be changed – the last events in the Arab countries show that any dictatorship may be overthrown, and then a different attitude of the Osh Uzbeks toward Tashkent would be possible.”
Moscow has an interest in stability in Central Asia in general and “in the first instance on the territories of Kazakhstan and Northern Kyrgyzstan,” two places which have potential for “Eurasian integration.” But a change in Tashkent could bring to power an Islamist regime and that would threaten Russian interests immediately.
Asked whether NATO’s military campaign in Libya is a precedent for a possible Russian response in Central Asia, the Moscow scholar says that such a precedent could be invokved only in the most extreme cases. “For the time being, [Moscow will use] all possible levers of pressure on Karimov” to prompt him to liberalize.
Sityansky concluded his article by saying that “if ‘the flow [of gastarbeiters] from south to north] is not stopped, then in the mid to long term, one cannot exclude even the fall of Kazakhstan into the orbit of radical Islamization.” That seemed improbable to many in Kyrgyzstan a decade ago, but now, the ethnologist says, it is happening.
Window on Eurasia: Soviet People Fought Against Hitler Rather than For Stalin, St. Petersburg Scholar Argues
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 9 – The viciousness of the Nazis against both Jews and Russians explains why the Soviet population shifted from indifference or even hostility to the Stalinist regime at the start of the war to the kind of passionate commitment its defense that led to the defeat of Hitler’s Germany and the salvation of the Soviet Union, according to a St. Petersburg scholar.
Many Western historians and some Russians ones have made this argument before,but its appearance now is worth noting because it challenges the image of the Soviet regime and especially its Stalinist variant now being presented by Vladimir Putin and many Russian nationalist writers.
In an article in the current issue of “Znamya,” Sergey Tsirel, a professor of the St. Petersburg branch of the Higher School of Economics, argues that Russians today need to more clearly understand what their ancestors were thinking when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and why they changed their minds a year later (magazines.russ.ru/znamia/2011/5/ci8.html).
Tsirel outlines the “strong sides” of the pre-war Soviet Union before discussing what he sees as the potentially fatal weaknesses of that regime. Among the former were industrialization, a “logical ideology,” well-organized propaganda, the lack of alternative leaders, fanatic devotion to Stalin by the Communist Party and urban youth, and “a powerful repressive apparatus.”
But despite these strengths, he points out, the Soviet Union had an extraordinarily difficult time in defeating Finland, a much smaller and less well-armed opponent. And it almost completely failed to defend itself during the first year of the German invasion of the USSR in 1941.
“Military theoreticians and defenders of the Stalinist regime have been able to explain the causes of this shameful defeat,” Tsirel points out, by talking about the importance of the blitzkrieg. But their explanations fail to explain why after these losses, “the army nevertheless not only stood up to the onslaught of the occupiers but achieved significant victories.
The real reason first for the defeats and then for the victories, however, is seldom mentioned: “If soldiers do not want to fight and commanders cannot or are afraid to command, then automatic weapons and machineguns will not save” an army or a people from defeat from a much less well-armed opponent.
There are many examples of this, Tsirel continues. “Pacifist, internally divided France [for example,] could not show a worthy resistance to Hitler [in 1940] when the forces of the two sides were approximately equal.” And the Soviet Union in an even better position in terms of arms could not do so either in the first months of the war.
Again, apologists for Stalin provide numerous explanations for this, but Tsirel argues that these miss the fundamental point: “the widespread hunger in the collective farms just five to seven years after the terrible famine of 1933” caused by the pursuit of military strength “made a significant farm of the population indifferent to the defense of the country.
To be sure, Tsirel continues, “there was not real mass hunger, but the short period of easing in 1936-38 in that regard, which was used by Stalin for reprisals against the elite had ended, and mass hunger in the countryside began again,” as did broader repression “against simple people … which thus touched broad strata of the population.”
He cites statistics to show that “by the winter of 1939 the majority of Soviet people were encountering difficulties with getting enough food.” There was hunger in some areas, rationing in most, and “tens of thousands of peasants who were trying to save themselves from hunder fled into the cities.”
All this led to increased disease and morality, “especially among the young,” and a reduction in the birthrate. Indeed, “the general social-economic crisis” brought on by Stalin’s armament programs and industrialization had led to the near collapse of “the demographic subsystem of Soviet society.”
Such problems, which defenders of the system are accustomed to dismissing as “temporary difficulties,” nonetheless left the population indifferent at best to the fate of the regime and in many cases hostile to its survival, and those attitudes rather than the supremacy of the German war machine explain the near collapse of Soviet power in 1941.
But instead of exploiting these attitudes, Tsirel continues, the Germans transformed them into the attitudes of an enemy they could not defeat. At first, the German forces attacked primarily Jews and Roma, but soon by their attacks on Russians and other Slavs, they made it obvious that they had come not as liberators but as new and even worse masters.
Indeed, Tsirel argues, “the fear of people concerning what would happen to them ‘under the Germans’” not only became a theme of Soviet propaganda but also played a fundamental role in changing people from indifferent defenders of the USSR into passionate opponents of the German invaders.
As a result, “the rotting colossus began to develop real legs.” Consequently, one must conclude that it was not the cruelty of Stalin which won out but rather – “thank God!” – the racist policies of Hitler which turned those who could have become his allies into his most committed opponents and ultimately the people who defeated him and his system.
Moreover, the enormous losses that the Soviet people suffered in their fight helped most but not all of the world forget the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Finnish war and the Katyn executions. But what really saved Stalin’s regime was Hitler’s decision not to allow the USSR to join the Nazi-led Tripartite Alliance.
Had Hitler acted differently at that time, had he not been struck by the weakness the Soviet Union displayed in the Finnish war, “only a change of regime, for example, the killing of Stalin and Molotov like the killing of Mussolini could have allowed the USSR to count itself among the anti-fascist block of victors.”
In short, Tsirel says, “the surprising ability of Russia to lose small and unjust wars and to win in great and just ones in combination with the bloody anti-Semitism of Hitler and his hatred fo rhte Slavs saved Russia from dishonor and destruction, and converted the terrible dictatorship of Stalin and the tyrant himself into ‘saviors of humanity.’”
Staunton, May 9 – The viciousness of the Nazis against both Jews and Russians explains why the Soviet population shifted from indifference or even hostility to the Stalinist regime at the start of the war to the kind of passionate commitment its defense that led to the defeat of Hitler’s Germany and the salvation of the Soviet Union, according to a St. Petersburg scholar.
Many Western historians and some Russians ones have made this argument before,but its appearance now is worth noting because it challenges the image of the Soviet regime and especially its Stalinist variant now being presented by Vladimir Putin and many Russian nationalist writers.
In an article in the current issue of “Znamya,” Sergey Tsirel, a professor of the St. Petersburg branch of the Higher School of Economics, argues that Russians today need to more clearly understand what their ancestors were thinking when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and why they changed their minds a year later (magazines.russ.ru/znamia/2011/5/ci8.html).
Tsirel outlines the “strong sides” of the pre-war Soviet Union before discussing what he sees as the potentially fatal weaknesses of that regime. Among the former were industrialization, a “logical ideology,” well-organized propaganda, the lack of alternative leaders, fanatic devotion to Stalin by the Communist Party and urban youth, and “a powerful repressive apparatus.”
But despite these strengths, he points out, the Soviet Union had an extraordinarily difficult time in defeating Finland, a much smaller and less well-armed opponent. And it almost completely failed to defend itself during the first year of the German invasion of the USSR in 1941.
“Military theoreticians and defenders of the Stalinist regime have been able to explain the causes of this shameful defeat,” Tsirel points out, by talking about the importance of the blitzkrieg. But their explanations fail to explain why after these losses, “the army nevertheless not only stood up to the onslaught of the occupiers but achieved significant victories.
The real reason first for the defeats and then for the victories, however, is seldom mentioned: “If soldiers do not want to fight and commanders cannot or are afraid to command, then automatic weapons and machineguns will not save” an army or a people from defeat from a much less well-armed opponent.
There are many examples of this, Tsirel continues. “Pacifist, internally divided France [for example,] could not show a worthy resistance to Hitler [in 1940] when the forces of the two sides were approximately equal.” And the Soviet Union in an even better position in terms of arms could not do so either in the first months of the war.
Again, apologists for Stalin provide numerous explanations for this, but Tsirel argues that these miss the fundamental point: “the widespread hunger in the collective farms just five to seven years after the terrible famine of 1933” caused by the pursuit of military strength “made a significant farm of the population indifferent to the defense of the country.
To be sure, Tsirel continues, “there was not real mass hunger, but the short period of easing in 1936-38 in that regard, which was used by Stalin for reprisals against the elite had ended, and mass hunger in the countryside began again,” as did broader repression “against simple people … which thus touched broad strata of the population.”
He cites statistics to show that “by the winter of 1939 the majority of Soviet people were encountering difficulties with getting enough food.” There was hunger in some areas, rationing in most, and “tens of thousands of peasants who were trying to save themselves from hunder fled into the cities.”
All this led to increased disease and morality, “especially among the young,” and a reduction in the birthrate. Indeed, “the general social-economic crisis” brought on by Stalin’s armament programs and industrialization had led to the near collapse of “the demographic subsystem of Soviet society.”
Such problems, which defenders of the system are accustomed to dismissing as “temporary difficulties,” nonetheless left the population indifferent at best to the fate of the regime and in many cases hostile to its survival, and those attitudes rather than the supremacy of the German war machine explain the near collapse of Soviet power in 1941.
But instead of exploiting these attitudes, Tsirel continues, the Germans transformed them into the attitudes of an enemy they could not defeat. At first, the German forces attacked primarily Jews and Roma, but soon by their attacks on Russians and other Slavs, they made it obvious that they had come not as liberators but as new and even worse masters.
Indeed, Tsirel argues, “the fear of people concerning what would happen to them ‘under the Germans’” not only became a theme of Soviet propaganda but also played a fundamental role in changing people from indifferent defenders of the USSR into passionate opponents of the German invaders.
As a result, “the rotting colossus began to develop real legs.” Consequently, one must conclude that it was not the cruelty of Stalin which won out but rather – “thank God!” – the racist policies of Hitler which turned those who could have become his allies into his most committed opponents and ultimately the people who defeated him and his system.
Moreover, the enormous losses that the Soviet people suffered in their fight helped most but not all of the world forget the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Finnish war and the Katyn executions. But what really saved Stalin’s regime was Hitler’s decision not to allow the USSR to join the Nazi-led Tripartite Alliance.
Had Hitler acted differently at that time, had he not been struck by the weakness the Soviet Union displayed in the Finnish war, “only a change of regime, for example, the killing of Stalin and Molotov like the killing of Mussolini could have allowed the USSR to count itself among the anti-fascist block of victors.”
In short, Tsirel says, “the surprising ability of Russia to lose small and unjust wars and to win in great and just ones in combination with the bloody anti-Semitism of Hitler and his hatred fo rhte Slavs saved Russia from dishonor and destruction, and converted the terrible dictatorship of Stalin and the tyrant himself into ‘saviors of humanity.’”
Friday, May 6, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Russians ‘Categorically Against’ De-Stalinization and De-Sovietization, Poll Shows
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 6 – The population of the Russian Federation is “categorically against” the de-Stalinization and de-Sovietization that the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights says are preconditions for the modernization of the country, according to the results of a massive poll.
On the Rosbalt.ru portal today, sociologist Yuliya Krizhanskaya syas that the poll makes clear that “despite all ‘the dark places’ of the Soviet past, [residents of the Russian Federation] do not want to disown it” at least in part because “everyone understands that the Soviet past is what unites us” now (www.rosbalt.ru/main/2011/05/06/846408.html).
Krizhanskaya says the poll was taken because the Presidential Council’s call for “de-Stalinization” and “de-Sovietization” includes numerous controversial ideas such as equating the USSR with Hitler’s Germany, accusing the Soviet government of genocide against Russians, and declaring “the entire Soviet period” a criminal one.
The Council, she continues, declared that such steps are needed because it is view, “the modernization of the country” would be “impossible without ‘the modernization of the consciousness of its citizens’ in a ‘de-Sovietized direction and also because of the necessity of uniting society” in the process.
Such an assertion, Krizhanskaya says, means that “they want to modernize the consciousness of the citizens of Russia, that is, all of us, supposedly in our own interests but without asking us” if that is something Russians in fact want.
The Essence of Time Public Movement, she says, decided “to find out” what the public thinks about this idea. Some 1500 of its activists during April queried more than 36,000 adults, in some 1700 population centers in 77 “oblasts, krays, and republics.” The “main” finding, she says is that “Russia said a decisive ‘No’ to the program of ‘de-sovietization.”
Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed said they would vote against any referendum on the conducting of a program “which would presuppose the recognition of the Soviet Union as a criminal state, which conducted genocide against its own people, and was guilty of unleashing World War II.
As far as backing for a program of de-Stalinization, “only ten percent” backed that as “correct and useful,” while 20 percent said they were “indifferent,” and “70 percent” were completely opposed. “But even among those who reacted ‘positively,’ 40 percent ‘voted’ against its realization in the country.”
This pattern held for all social, regional, ethnic and age groups, Krizhanskaya continues, and that permits only one conclusion: “Everyone understands that the Soviet past is what unifies us. And correspondingly, everything that is directed against it divides us” and won’t be supported, if people in fact have a choice, as Krizhanskaya says, they should.
Staunton, May 6 – The population of the Russian Federation is “categorically against” the de-Stalinization and de-Sovietization that the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights says are preconditions for the modernization of the country, according to the results of a massive poll.
On the Rosbalt.ru portal today, sociologist Yuliya Krizhanskaya syas that the poll makes clear that “despite all ‘the dark places’ of the Soviet past, [residents of the Russian Federation] do not want to disown it” at least in part because “everyone understands that the Soviet past is what unites us” now (www.rosbalt.ru/main/2011/05/06/846408.html).
Krizhanskaya says the poll was taken because the Presidential Council’s call for “de-Stalinization” and “de-Sovietization” includes numerous controversial ideas such as equating the USSR with Hitler’s Germany, accusing the Soviet government of genocide against Russians, and declaring “the entire Soviet period” a criminal one.
The Council, she continues, declared that such steps are needed because it is view, “the modernization of the country” would be “impossible without ‘the modernization of the consciousness of its citizens’ in a ‘de-Sovietized direction and also because of the necessity of uniting society” in the process.
Such an assertion, Krizhanskaya says, means that “they want to modernize the consciousness of the citizens of Russia, that is, all of us, supposedly in our own interests but without asking us” if that is something Russians in fact want.
The Essence of Time Public Movement, she says, decided “to find out” what the public thinks about this idea. Some 1500 of its activists during April queried more than 36,000 adults, in some 1700 population centers in 77 “oblasts, krays, and republics.” The “main” finding, she says is that “Russia said a decisive ‘No’ to the program of ‘de-sovietization.”
Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed said they would vote against any referendum on the conducting of a program “which would presuppose the recognition of the Soviet Union as a criminal state, which conducted genocide against its own people, and was guilty of unleashing World War II.
As far as backing for a program of de-Stalinization, “only ten percent” backed that as “correct and useful,” while 20 percent said they were “indifferent,” and “70 percent” were completely opposed. “But even among those who reacted ‘positively,’ 40 percent ‘voted’ against its realization in the country.”
This pattern held for all social, regional, ethnic and age groups, Krizhanskaya continues, and that permits only one conclusion: “Everyone understands that the Soviet past is what unifies us. And correspondingly, everything that is directed against it divides us” and won’t be supported, if people in fact have a choice, as Krizhanskaya says, they should.
Window on Eurasia: Daghestanis Seek to Overcome Muslim Divisions to Oppose Militants
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 6 – Daghestan banned Wahhabism more than a decade ago both to defend traditional Islam and counter militant groups, but officials and Muslim leaders in that North Caucasus republic have now concluded that this step was counterproductive and have opened a process to bridge the divide between these two trends – and for exactly the same reasons.
The Daghestani law banning extremism, the traditional Muslim leaders of Daghestan have concluded, has had the effect of dividing the umma, not only creating a situation in which entireliy innocent people are attacked for their faith but also allowing the militants to pose as the defenders of what is a widely respected trend in Islam and thus gain support from that alone.
As Islamnews.ru pointed out yesterday, “one o fht emost discusses themes of recent times in Daghestan has been the issue connected with the start of dialogue between representative es of the two conflicting religious tendencies of Islam,” between “so-called official Islam” which is based on Sufism and Salafites, including Wahhabis (www.islamnews.ru/news-53521.html).
The news service points out that “all negative events in the republic are being connected with the presence of a certain destructive force by the name of ‘Wahhabism,” thus automatically equating all the followers of this trend to the militants who in turn cover their illegal activity with islam or more precisely with one of its trends.”
Government officials, both Daghestani and federal, have made the situation worse, the portal suggests, by their insistence of the need to “struggle ideologically with the radicalization of young people” even as they acknowledge without doing anything that the reasons most young people are going into the forests is because of “social problems and corruption.”
Neither the officials nor the Muslim establishment were inclined to make any change, however, until Daghestani society “began to raise the alarm” about the growing departure of young people “‘into the forest’” and to insist that “by force alone, problems will not be solved: force will give rise only to force.”
The first effort to have the leaders of the various trends of Islam within Daghestan’s umma to talk with one another was a Makhachkala roundtable organized at the end of April Sulayman Uladiyev, the vice president of the public organization, “A Land of Peace and Accord” (www.chernovik.net/news/438/MONOTHEOS/2011/04/29/11917).
The primary goal of the roundtable was “to put a stop” to the charges and countercharges that the two trends have been exchanging for more than a deacde. Among those taking part were representatives of the traditional jamaat, the imam of the Makhachkala central mosque, the head of the Daghestani institute of theology, and all the deputies of the republic’s mufti.
During the discussion, “it was noted,” Islamnews.ru reports, “that representatives of the force or ‘the third provocative side’ about whose presence experts and observers have spoken are seeking to use religious principles in order to justify and even more to support the carrying out of criminal actions.”
One representative of traditional Sufi Islam, Kayakent Imam Kamil Sultanakhmedov suggested that “if today we are not prepared to be united then we ought to at least stop that which divides us,” a step that if taken should allow for others to follow. His position was supported by several other speakers.
Another participant, Mukhammadrasul Saaduyev, the imam of Makhchakala’s central mosque, argued that officials must allow more Islamic activities in civil structures in order to counter the arguments of those who say that the regimes in the republic and the Federation are not just secular but hostile to Islam.
One participant, the poet Adalo Aliyev, went further. He suggested that “certain bureaucrats” are promoting the conflict within the umma and urged that the Daghestani law banning Wahhabism be repealed, not ony because it isn’t working but because it “does not any any analogues” elsewhere in the world.
The rountable declared that “the single possible form for the restoration on Daghestani land of a peaceful life and the well-being of the population is the strengthening of the unity of the Daghestani peoples, the development of dialogue among constructive forces of civil society, an end to inter-religious arguments, the strick observation of law and the defense of rights and interests of citizens, independent of their nationality and faith.”
Staunton, May 6 – Daghestan banned Wahhabism more than a decade ago both to defend traditional Islam and counter militant groups, but officials and Muslim leaders in that North Caucasus republic have now concluded that this step was counterproductive and have opened a process to bridge the divide between these two trends – and for exactly the same reasons.
The Daghestani law banning extremism, the traditional Muslim leaders of Daghestan have concluded, has had the effect of dividing the umma, not only creating a situation in which entireliy innocent people are attacked for their faith but also allowing the militants to pose as the defenders of what is a widely respected trend in Islam and thus gain support from that alone.
As Islamnews.ru pointed out yesterday, “one o fht emost discusses themes of recent times in Daghestan has been the issue connected with the start of dialogue between representative es of the two conflicting religious tendencies of Islam,” between “so-called official Islam” which is based on Sufism and Salafites, including Wahhabis (www.islamnews.ru/news-53521.html).
The news service points out that “all negative events in the republic are being connected with the presence of a certain destructive force by the name of ‘Wahhabism,” thus automatically equating all the followers of this trend to the militants who in turn cover their illegal activity with islam or more precisely with one of its trends.”
Government officials, both Daghestani and federal, have made the situation worse, the portal suggests, by their insistence of the need to “struggle ideologically with the radicalization of young people” even as they acknowledge without doing anything that the reasons most young people are going into the forests is because of “social problems and corruption.”
Neither the officials nor the Muslim establishment were inclined to make any change, however, until Daghestani society “began to raise the alarm” about the growing departure of young people “‘into the forest’” and to insist that “by force alone, problems will not be solved: force will give rise only to force.”
The first effort to have the leaders of the various trends of Islam within Daghestan’s umma to talk with one another was a Makhachkala roundtable organized at the end of April Sulayman Uladiyev, the vice president of the public organization, “A Land of Peace and Accord” (www.chernovik.net/news/438/MONOTHEOS/2011/04/29/11917).
The primary goal of the roundtable was “to put a stop” to the charges and countercharges that the two trends have been exchanging for more than a deacde. Among those taking part were representatives of the traditional jamaat, the imam of the Makhachkala central mosque, the head of the Daghestani institute of theology, and all the deputies of the republic’s mufti.
During the discussion, “it was noted,” Islamnews.ru reports, “that representatives of the force or ‘the third provocative side’ about whose presence experts and observers have spoken are seeking to use religious principles in order to justify and even more to support the carrying out of criminal actions.”
One representative of traditional Sufi Islam, Kayakent Imam Kamil Sultanakhmedov suggested that “if today we are not prepared to be united then we ought to at least stop that which divides us,” a step that if taken should allow for others to follow. His position was supported by several other speakers.
Another participant, Mukhammadrasul Saaduyev, the imam of Makhchakala’s central mosque, argued that officials must allow more Islamic activities in civil structures in order to counter the arguments of those who say that the regimes in the republic and the Federation are not just secular but hostile to Islam.
One participant, the poet Adalo Aliyev, went further. He suggested that “certain bureaucrats” are promoting the conflict within the umma and urged that the Daghestani law banning Wahhabism be repealed, not ony because it isn’t working but because it “does not any any analogues” elsewhere in the world.
The rountable declared that “the single possible form for the restoration on Daghestani land of a peaceful life and the well-being of the population is the strengthening of the unity of the Daghestani peoples, the development of dialogue among constructive forces of civil society, an end to inter-religious arguments, the strick observation of law and the defense of rights and interests of citizens, independent of their nationality and faith.”
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