Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 21 – Non-Russians
complain about discrimination against them all the time and Vladimir Putin says
he is taking steps to defend ethnic Russians in the republics, but in fact,
Oleg Kildyushov says, the Kremlin leader is continuing the nationality policy
of Lenin and Stalin, one in which Russians as a group are the most victimized.
The Higher School of Economics
sociologist says Putin’s failure to agree to constitutional amendments declaring
that the ethnic Russians are the state-forming people of the country and that
non-Russian republics must be disbanded with all federal subjects becoming
gubernia highlight this problem (apn.ru/index.php?newsid=38366).
As a result, Kildyushov says, “the
ethnic majority is subject to systematic discrimination both within non-Russian
ethnocracies and also in a number of enclaves in what are ethnic Russian
oblasts.” And any complaints by Russians about this situation continue to be
denounced as a threat to inter-ethnic concord.
According to him, the situation in
the non-Russian republics has become worse since 1991 because leaders of these federal
subjects have far more opportunities to engage in ethnic entrepreneurialism,
using ethnic identity of the local majority as a basis for their personal power
and thus inevitably harming ethnic Russians.
What this means,he says, is that “Putin’s
Russian Federation with its set of non-Russian nation state formations really
is a continuation of Soviet ideology and
the practice of inequality of
citizens on the basis of their origin.” Lenin openly discriminated against ethnic
Russians; now, Putin’s system is doing the same thing, albeit less openly.
If Russia is to become a genuine
democracy, Kildyushov says, this must change. All current non-Russian republics
and predominantly Russian regions and krays must be replaced by gubernias with
absolutely equal rights and in which people regardless of nationality enjoy
equal rights.
Often, the Moscow scholar says,
people speak about “the lack of success of the Soviet project” and blame it on
the existence of the union republics.
But “the entire Soviet ethno-political machinery was extremely effective”
in maintaining and promoting non-Russian identities and republics – but with ethnic
Russians paying in resources and discrimination.
Russian nationalists, Kildyushov
sayd, often argue that the Russian Federation should be called the USSRF because
it follows the same logic as the Soviet government, promoting non-Russians at
the expense of the Russian nation. Whether one should go that far or not is
uncertain, but the country does need to recognize how little has changed.
In this year and the next, ever more
non-Russian republics will be celebrating their centenaries and using them to
promote non-Russian interests at the expense of ethnic Russian ones. To counter
that, the Higher School of Economics sociologist says, Moscow must send the
following messages:
“The
present national political design of the Russian Federation arose as a result
of the systemic crisis of historical Russia at the start of the 20th
century;
“In
its current form, it officially strengthens the inequality of ethnic Russians and
non-Russian citizens and regions;
“The
growing democratization of the country will inevitablby raise the issue about
the restoration of the constitutional principle of equality;
“The
existing construction of non-Russian multi-nationalism represent a threat to
the political unity and territorial integrity of that part of historic Russia
which remains within the borders of the Russian Federation;
“It
isn’t necessary to be a political seer to predict that attempts at secession at
the time of a serious weakening of the central power occurs are practically inevitable;
“The
alternative can be only the liquidation of the political-administrative market
of non-Russian identities now supported by the powers that be; and
“Only
a common identity of political Russians [russkiye] (independent of ethnic
origin) could be a firm basis for the cultural unity and territorial integrity
of democratic Russia.”
As horrific and outrageous as some
of Kildyushov’s remarks are, they are important to take note of for three
reasons: First, they reflect the feelings of many Russians who are liberal on
other issue but whose liberalism ends not with Ukraine but rather whenever
non-Russians are involved.
Second, they call attention to the
kind of Russian backlash that has been growing in recent years, a backlash that
has always been the most dangerous threat to the regime. (On that see, I.A.
Kurganov’s classic work The Nations of the USSR and the Russian Question
(in Russian, Munich 1961).
And third, and most immediately,
they show that there is a real constituency in Moscow far broader than the usual
Russian nationalist suspects for doing away with the non-Russian republics, a
constituency that may very well take the kind of actions that will lead to what
they most fear: the further disintegration of the Russian state.
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