This "go-it-alone" attitude is a common feature of the Russian leadership's dealings with the other republics, above and beyond the internal Russian discussions on policy towards the Near Abroad. One example is the taking over by Russia of most former Union institutions and its claim to be the sole successor to the Soviet Union in the international arena - for example in the United Nations Security Council.4
Russia's natural resources
This approach to the other republics is obviously based on the very great geopolitical and economic potential of Russia, which disposes of 61% of the Gross 1. For a more detailed discussion of this see Poul Funder Larsen: "From shock to slump" in International Viewpoint no. 235, September 28, 1992. 2. Izvestiya, August 24, 1992. 3. The agreements of December 8 and 21, 1991, are reproduced in Labour Focus on Eastern Europe 1/1992. For further considerations on the formation of the CIS see "What future for the new Commonwealth?" by David Seppo in /V, no. 220. 4. One of the major exceptions to this was, until recently, the USSR's foreign debt. Russia was in no hurry to press its claim to this part of the inheritance. However in recent months, Russia has entered into bilateral agreements with several other CIS states who have taken on a share of the foreign debt in exchange for USSR assets abroad, such as embassies. 5. Narodnoe Khozyaistvo SSR v 1990 godu, Moscow, 1991.
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CIS the others
National Product (GNP), 75% of the territory, 90% of the oil and 75% of the natural gas of the former USSR. In principle, furthermore, Russia is the least dependent on maintaining the economic links. In 1989 its trade with other Soviet republics amounted to 13% of GNP compared to 27% for Ukraine, 29% for Kazakhstan and 34-50% for the other republics.
Most calculations confirm that Russia would profit by a comprehensive shift within the CIS to trading at world market prices. Nonetheless, the breaking of inter-republican enterprise links is wreaking havoc in all the republics - so far Russian trade with the other CIS states has fallen by 48% in 1992.6
Andrei Kozyrev, the Yeltsin-Gaidar government's foreign minister, has become a symbol of the pro-Western orientation of foreign policy, prioritizing close ties (meaning obedience) to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other Western institutions. Indeed the lack of principled positions and the readiness to do the utmost to appease the major imperialist powers in exchange for economic support seems to be the leitmotif of Russian foreign policy.
The attitude to the Yugoslav crisis is a case in point. At first, Russia was reluctant to support sanctions against Serbia, but in the end they gave in. One conservative weekly reproduced a memo from the Russian ambassador to the UN which stated, "It is very important not to oppose on this point the Western contries and the United States, where public opinion is strongly against Milosevic... Our country must not be associated personally with Milosevic, especially not on the eve of the summit in the United States. "7
Russia's place in the world
However, as Gaidar's government meets increasing resistance, pressure on Kozyrev to alter Russian foreign policy is also mounting. In an important article in the liberal Nezavisimaya Gazeta this spring, Sergei Stankevich, a Yeltsin advisor, challenges Kozyrev.
Stankevich outlines two main attitudes in governing circles to the question of "Russia's place in the world": the Atlanticists, who want to give priority to relations with the West and situate Russia firmly within the institutions of the so-called "civilized world community" versus the Eurasians, who want a stronger defence of Russian interests within the ex-Soviet Union and an orientation that puts as much emphasis on Asia and the Middle East as on the Western powers and the institutions they control.
The Atlanticist perspective is in reality a continuation of the Gorbachev/Shevardnadze line, whereas the Eurasians want at least a partial break with the line prevailing in Soviet foreign policy after 1985. These two lines roughly correspond to the two different notions of economic reform - Gaidar's hardline monetarism and the policies supported by the industrialist alliance around Vols-
This conflict has come to the surface in a discussion around the idea of a separate ministry of CIS affairs, independent of Kozyrev's foreign ministry. Stankevich is a likely candidate for the head of such a new ministry, the creation of which would herald a more interventionist approach by Russia to the affairs of the Near Abroad.
Stankevich has been calling for sanctions against Estonia and Latvia over their treatment of Russian minorities and in the early summer he accused Moldova of "the systematic killing of the Rus-
71898 sian-speaking peoples"?
Throughout the spring and summer Moldova and the question of its eastern Transdniestr region was a testing ground for the new interventionist approach which is gaining currency in much of the Russian leadership. 10 The case of the "moderate" Kozyrev is telling: in April in a Russian radio broadcast he made the sober point that, "We must not provoke Russophobic feelings in Moldova, because 75% of all the Russians and Russian speakers in Moldova are beyond the Dniester, on the right bank" — implicitly acknowledging thereby that Russians are in a minority even on the
But two months later his tune had changed. In an interview with Izvestiya under the headline "Andrei Kozyrev does not rule out the possibility of a revision of borders within the CIS" the foreign minister made ominous noises: "Concerning the Transdniestr region, it is important that Moldova gives up its
"I don't understand why Moldova should at any price be a unitary state,
CIS when it includes such regions as the Transdniestr and the one where the Gagauz live... It is necessary to give Transdniestr a special political and legal status — for the time being within Moldova - now there is no other way out. Later on there may be different solu-
Kozyrev remained within the bounds of diplomatic discourse but others were less woolly. The new commander of the Russian 14th Army in the Transdniestr region, Alexander Lebed, who replaced a less bellicose general in late June, made it plain that the conflict with the "fascist" Moldovan government could, in his opinion, only be solved through the secession of Transdniestr and its likely incorporation into Russia.
This is not only a question of chauvinist outbursts, as the 14th army and other Russian institutions have actively been aiding the Slav insurgents. "Aid is being given behind the
ВАЗІМ ТИБАВЬ Employees of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs are serving in the Dniestr battalion, the equivalent of the OMON (Interior Ministry special troops) in the
"The Russian government pretends not to see when Russian factories sell Tiraspol [the capital of Transdniestr] firearms and military vehicles written off as part of economic conversion... Volunteers from Russia (and not only Cossacks) are fighting in various armed formations without the Russian Prosecutor's Office charging them with crimes. "12 6. Izvestiya, September 18, 1992. The Kazakh president Nazarbayev recently claimed that 85% of the drop in production in the CIS states could be ascribed to the breaking of inter-republican ties. 7. Den, June 7-13, 1992. 8. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 28, 1992. This distinction has a pedigree —for instance in the traditional distinction between Slavophiles and Westernizers ("Zapadniks") in Russian thinking. 9. Trud, June 12 and Izvestiya, July 8, 1992. 10. For the background to the Transdniestr conflict see Colin Meade: "Yeltsin and the generals" in /V, no. 233. 11. Izvestiya, June 9, 1992. The Gagauz are a Turki- 19 sh-speaking minority in Moldova. 12. Sobesednik, no. 30, July 1992.
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For the time being open warfare has been halted through a Moldovan-Russian ceasefire, but meanwhile Russia has managed to win important concessions using the "Dniestr Republic" - which continues to develop its internal structures — as a battering ram.
### Interference in Georgia
While the case of Moldova is probably the most clearcut instance of Russian interference other examples can be cited. In Georgia there is little reason to doubt that Russia played a key role in the ouster of president Gamsakhurdia — a putsch which led to the instalment of the supposedly Moscow-loyal Shevardnadze. But Russian-Georgian relations have continued to be less than cordial. Demands for the incorporation of the refractory Southern Ossetia into Russia have been voiced in, for example, the Russian Supreme Soviet — and at a meeting with Cossacks in southern Russia, Yeltsin stated that the question of border revisions with Georgia is not settled once and for all. 13
The very recent developments in the Abkhaz region of Georgia, where Yeltsin is threatening to intervene directly, and Tajikistan in Central Asia, where more Russian forces are being deployed, underlines the shift towards increasingly direct intervention from the Russian side.
### Imperial ambitions
There have also been unmistakable signs of the imperial ambitions of the Yeltsin leadership in relations with Ukraine, notably on the Crimean question. In August Yeltsin's vice-president Alexander Rutskoy put things in his usual blunt manner addressing the council of Cossack Atamans (chieftains): "The Crimea was Russian — it's covered with Russian blood and it must be Russian". 14 20 It is an indication of the instability and International Viewpoint # 237 protracted faction struggles within the Russian leadership that this type of statement was made two months after the Russian-Ukrainian summit at Dagomys had seemed to have injected a certain stability into relations between the two
The evolution of Russia's attitude to the other CIS states coincides with an important shift within the Russian defence establishment. In May, Yeltsin, in a surprising move, appointed the conservative general and former Afghan war veteran Pavel Grachev as Russian defence minister. Following this several conservative hawks, most of them with a past in the Afghan campaign, were promoted to leading positions in the Russian army.
The promotion to deputy defence
1991 minister of the arch-reactionary Boris Gromov, former right hand man of Boris Pugo, the interior minister who committed suicide after the failed coup, was perhaps the most significant change. But other conservative army figures such as the former commander of Soviet troops in Poland, Dubynin, and Lebed (see above) have also been given top posts.
While the conservatives are playing an increasingly prominent role, the CIS high command led by Evgenii Shaposhnikov is apparently losing ground. But even Shaposhnikov has voiced criticism of the line prevailing in Russian foreign policy. At the end of June he came out openly against any Russian concessions to Japan on the Kuril Islands issue: "Russia has not become so weak and puny that it should start trading land for some kind of temporary success".
The question of the Kurils became a key issue for the different factions trying to influence Russian foreign policy. Throughout the summer military leaders, including Grachev, were calling for a clear rejection of Japanese claims, publicly contradicting the cautious official line of Yeltsin and Kozyrev.
Furthermore the circles rejecting concessions to the Japanese could count on considerable support among the population. An opinion poll on the eve of Yeltsin's planned departure for Japan showed that 76% of respondents were opposed to ceding the islands with only 13% in favour. 15
The forces opposed to Kozyrev's pro-Western orientation have had a considerable impact on public opinion with populist slogans about the territorial integrity of Russia and the need to defend the 25 million Russians living abroad (that is in other republics of the former Soviet Union).
The bogey of an exodus of Russians from the non-Russian republics has been evoked - the actual number of Russians returning in 1991 was around 500,000 with another 600,000 expected this year. 16 In any case, the thrust of this rhetoric — adopted by a large part of the Russian elite - is clear: it pushes the issue of "Russian statehood to the fore, at a time of unprecedented socio-economic crisis, to pave the way for chauvinist and authoritarian solutions".17
In official statements, the West has expressed concern about mounting national tension in the former USSR, but there are signs that it is not in reality opposed to granting Russia a certain freedom to act as the "gendarme" of the CIS. It was striking that Yeltsin sharpened his verbal attacks on Moldova after his return from his summit with the US leadership in June.
Moscow's Monroe doctrine
This has acted as grist to the mill of the "interventionist" faction in the Russian leadership, prompting some of its supporters to formulate a new "Monroe Doctrine" for the Near Abroad. The chairman of the Supreme Soviet's foreign relations committee, Evgenii Ambartsumov, put this point blank: "As the internationally recognized legal succes13. ITAR-TASS, July 22, 1992. The Georgian government has repeatedly claimed that Russian troops are involved in the conflict in South Ossetia — see for example, Izvestiya, June 20, 1992. 14. Cited from RFE/RL Research Bulletin no. 33/1992. Crimea was transferred to the Ukraine in 1954. Around two thirds of its population are Russian; nonetheless, 54.1% of the inhabitants voted for Ukrainian independence in the December 1991 referendum. 15. Izvestiya, September 7, 1992. The popular resistance to Japanese claims was in part fuelled by the Japanese government's undisguised blackmail, refusing any substantial economic aid to Russia until the territorial issue was solved. 16. Reuters, June 29, 1992. 17.Obviously this does not in any way imply a whitewash for the leaderships of the non-Russian republics. Many of these "new" regimes - which are more often than not solidly anchored in the old nomenklatura — have climbed to power on the backs of national democratic movements; but their record on both internal democracy and respect for national minority rights is in most cases flawed. 18. Izvestiya, August 7, 1992.
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October 26, 1992 • # 237 International Viewpoint sor to the USSR, the Russian Federation's foreign policy must be based on a doctrine that proclaims the entire geopolitical space of the former Union a sphere of vital interests (following the example of the US' Monroe Doctrine in Latin America)". This has to be done with understanding from the Western powers: "Russia must secure from the international community the role of political and military guarantor of stability on all the territory of the former USSR". 18
In spite of their own increasingly interventionist approach the Yeltsinites are maintaining over and over again that the threat of Russian chauvinism comes solely from the so-called "red-brown alliance" of Stalinists and Russian nationalists. Through the Trudovaya Rossiya ("Working Russia") front this alliance organized a series of demonstrations last winter and spring drawing crowds of advocates a Greater Russia within the borders of the ex-USSR and is also pushing the idea of so-called "proportional representation" in public life — a proposal meant to exacerbate prejudice in particular against Jews, alleged to be "over-represented" in political and cul-
On the fringes of the nationalist mainstream, press reports speak of a growing number of extremist groups and parties which openly adhere to fascist positions. 19 Another sign of chauvinist militancy in Russia is the revival of the Cossacks, who were formally rehabilitated by Yeltsin through a decree in June. Groups of Cossacks have been operating with growing self-confidence especially in southern Russia, organizing physical assaults on people
But while pro-centralist and Great Russian tendencies have been gaining
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CIS the Far East was also cited as an argument against concessions over the Kuril Islands which could provoke anger throughout the region.
The main stumbling block in relations between centre and regions remains money, and notably the division of tax income. At the end of June the large Chelyabinsk region warned the centre that in future it will keep a far higher percentage of tax income for its own budget rather than transferring it to the centre, which, it claimed, did not allocate enough to the region's own industry.
Meanwhile the republics of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Yakutia - all within Russia — announced that they will add all local tax income to their budget regardless of decisions of the Russian Supreme Soviet.
Such developments, which could eventually undermine the centre's ability to govern the Federation, may be spreading. At least there seems to be a stalemate between the regional leaderships loyal to the centre and those that are not. Yeltsin recently had to admit the extent of the problem of regions that are more or less ungovernable: "The president stated that the ratio of regions where there is agreement between the [regional] legislature and the [regional] executive and those where this is not the case is about 50:50".22
It is not surprising given the turmoil in all the republics that the CIS has not
НАЦІОНАЛЬНий БАНК УКРАЇНЫ between 30,000 and 60,000. But the front's traditionalist profile and its nostalgia for Brezhnev and Stalin limits its appeal and prevents it from reaching broad layers of workers.
Trudovaya Rossiya has in fact become a convenient bogey used by the liberals to stigmatize any kind of opposition, alleging the threat of an imminent "redputsch. The main danger, however, are not the scattered "pro-Communist" groups calling for the resurrection of the Soviet Union but the fact that chauvinist rhetoric and open support for chauvinist practices are gaining ground even in the supposedly respectable part Russian National Assembly
The formation of the Russian National Assembly in mid-June was a sign of this. This organization unites nationalists and Stalinists, but has also drawn in some prominent off-shoots from the liberal wing of Russian politics such as the governor of Sakhalin Island in the Far East Valentin Fedorov, as well as moderate conservatives. The Assembly
1991 ground there are also strong centrifugal forces within Russia itself which may in the medium term represent a serious challenge to the pro-capitalist reforms. The pressure for federalization, far-reaching sovereignty or outright independence from national minorities is at work in all the former Soviet republics, but nowhere on the scale of Russia with its more than 100 nationalities.20
The March 21 independence referendum in Tatarstan - formerly an Autonomous Soviet Republic within the Russian Federation - showed how potentially explosive this issue is.21 Even though Yeltsin managed to get together a Federative Treaty earlier this year the basic issues have not been resolved.
On the contrary: the liberal reforms aggravate inequalities and contradictions between the regions, which then try to defend their interests in the face of pressure from other regions and, particularly, the centre. One foretaste of this was the congress of Siberian regions which early this spring stopped short of threatening to form Siberian republics. The danger of secessionist tendencies in Siberia and developed into an efficiently working organism. This spring the CIS seemed on the verge of a breakdown. The liberal Nezavisimaya Gazeta concluded in April: "The reality of the first four months of the formal existence of the CIS is that during this period the construction of a viable Commonwealth didn't succeed - and the process of disintegration went so far that even the very concept of a Commonwealth is experiencing a profound crisis". 23
This judgement remains valid today insofar as the Commonwealth has not managed to adopt even a charter or set up effective inter-state institutions with the power to implement joint decisions. 19. Izvestiya, September 18, 1992, gives a disquieting account of collaboration between circles in the St. Petersburg police and various fascist groups. It . shoud however be added that fascism is still not a mass phenomenon. 20. It is calculated that as many as 65 million people on the territory of the former USSR are living outside of "their own" national republic. 21. If there are areas and republics presently within Russia that want outright independence — as may be the case in Tatarstan and some regions in the Caucasus -this could lead to open, even armed, conflict; this was shown by Yeltsin's threat to use military force against breakaway Chechen-Ingushia last autumn. 21 22. Izvestiya, September 14, 1992. 23. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 22, 1992.