The quake that's still shaking the Eastern world

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Zdravstvuyte, moi tovarischi greetings, my comrades! Do you know what date it is today? December 8, 1991. Does it speak anything to you? No? Well... Look at this map.

You recognize that, right? The Enemy. The Bad Guys. Those monsters at the Other Side, behind the Iron Curtain. The blood-sucking, superhuman, evil, sons of Big Ivan the evil Bear who were always out there, ready to destroy our world as we know it at any given time, along with everything we hold dear. And to put an end to "our way of life". Yep, I'm talking of the Soviet Union. On this very day, exactly 20 years ago, it ceased to exist. The Evil Empire was no more.

Anyone remember how it happened? Probably most of us would be able to recall Gorbachev, Yeltsin and the rest.

*Puts the Russian Red Army Choir on his mp3 player, just for inspiration*

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Actually I'd argue that the catastrophic collapse of the Soviet Union, this empire which used to unite 15 republics across Europe and Asia for more than 7 decades, plus all their satellites on almost all continents for almost half a century, had commenced long before the actual official act of disintegration. There were many reasons for that, I'm sure we're all aware of most of them. But I'd like to look somewhat closer at the processes that followed after that date, 20 years ago. The event led to a series of violent and not so violent conflicts throughout the whole Eurasian region, and social collapse, instability and misery. Things that are visible even today, perhaps more than ever.

So how it happened. After a year of protests and economic suffering, some rough ride through the Perestroika process, and mounting external pressure from the satellites in the Eastern bloc, the leaders of the three leading Soviet republics eventually agreed to disband the USSR. The decision took place on December 8, 1991. By the end of the year the red flag with the hammer and sickle was brought down from the Kremlin towers, the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev issued his resignation, and democracy was ready to be born.

That was the end of one of the most extraordinary, astounding and peculiar empires the world history has ever known. The empire which defeated the mighty Nazi Germany paying for that victory with oceans of blood, the one that sent the first human in space; and meanwhile the one which exterminated millions of its own people, and which saw a string of inept and/or tyrannical leaders taking the reins one after another. Sometimes several of them per year. Or sometimes one stood for decades. Strange empire it was, indeed! And strange friends it had:

The Soviet collapse was the moment when some of those republics were getting their independence for the first time in their history. In result, most of them encountered some very hard obstacles, and enormous challenges. First of all they had the task to form a national identity and a stable economy, and that - at times of deep economic crisis and disbanding and re-drawing of all social structures. Some of them are struggling with this task to this very day, bearing the consequences from wild-wild-west style capitalism, misunderstood democracy, and economic meltdown.

Russia itself, now deprived of its 14 satellite republics, and most of its former "sphere of influence", was trying to adapt to the new situation where it was a giant separate country with more internal problems than anyone could account for. And a deeply scarred society that was still craving for the not-so-long-past times of greatness, and longing for its lost status of a superpower. You can imagine how painful it is to see this go just overnight. Just imagine it happening to the US, okay? Not pretty. All that said, the last 20 years turned into a very heavy burden for many of the former Soviet republics, including Russia. Or maybe especially Russia.

On December 8, 20 years ago, the then president of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, agreed with his Ukrainian and Belarussian counterparts that the USSR would turn into a non-state union. Later it was renamed to the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose and vague formation with no actual jurisdiction.

Naturally, Gorbachev wasn't happy with this agreement, but eventually he was compelled to accept the disbanding of the Union, and respectively the removal of his post. He stepped down without a fight. And how wouldn't he? He had become irrelevant, ever since the unsuccessful attempt for putsch by the military earlier the same year, which the people of Moscow had met with stark resistance. Back then Yeltsin had saved the day, and became the country's hero. Remember this picture? It's truly legendary. At a time when Russia badly needed a national hero, they got their Bogatyr. He was the right guy at the right moment.

So, by December 1991 Yeltsin was already calling the shots. And Gorbachev was quietly forced to step out of the way, and from the leader of one of the two world superpowers, he became a book-writer and a lecturer around the Western universities. Oh, and a Nobel peace prize laureate. Kudos, Gorbie!

The December 8 decision actually took effect on December 31 the same year. Later, in his memoirs Yeltsin explained this decision with the argument that the idea of super-centralization had discredited itself so much that the 15 republics had no other option but to choose their separate path of development.

Having in mind the huge scope of the event, we could say the end of the Soviets itself passed rather peacefully. But the real trouble began a bit later, in the years after the consequences really sank in. Numerous conflicts broke out, hundreds of thousands were killed, and these new republics had to deal with separatist movements, or fight over new borders.

In Tajikistan there's still a civil war going on with varying intensity. Armenia and Azerbaijan went through a horrific conflict for the Nagorno-Karabakh exclave. Russia itself was sucked into two bloody military campaigns against the separatists in Chechnya. And Georgia tried to crush the separatists in Abkhazia. The social and economic problems were part of the picture too, but also the arbitrary border drawing from the time of Stalin which left a mess of a legacy behind, mostly ethnically.

Each of these conflicts remains unsolved to this very day, more or less. The Islamists are still a threat for the stability of Tajikistan. The status of Nagorno-Karabakh remains unclear. And Russian Caucasus is plagued by constant armed conflict, and has become a den of Islamic terrorism. The most recent post-Soviet conflict was the 6-day war in 2008 when Russia squashed the Georgian military, forcing them to retreat from the runaway South Ossetia region, and effectively keeping it under Russian control. There's a unstable truce there now, and the situation remains like an ulcer on Georgia.

Surely, Russia has always been the core of the USSR since its inception, and the Russians were most stricken by the collapse of their empire. The attempts for liberal reform by a Western model in the Yeltsin era turned hugely unpopular. The people were still looking back at their recent past, drowning their sorrow and desperation in rivers of vodka. And at that very moment, an unknown, obscure, little man came from the bowels of KGB, and was hand-picked by the big Yeltsin as his successor. That was Vladimir Putin.

Putin has changed a lot since then. Now he's self-confident, cocky, arrogant, even insolent. He's rubbing his power into your face, and he's gonna twist your arms if you say a word of disrespect. And if you persist, you'd probably disappear. Or end up with an ounce of polonium in your blood before you know it. But more importantly, his attitude to the Soviet legacy speaks more than anything else. He doesn't hide his reverence for the Soviet era. He brought back the tune of the old Soviet anthem and it's now again the Russian national anthem. And a few years ago, he called the collapse of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century".

Although the Russian economy remains dangerously dependent on the export of energy resources and the military sector (which of course largely uses old Soviet-time technology), the Russian leaders keep insisting that their country should remain a global superpower. The Russian megalomania has always pervaded the Russian mentality, and now it's resurging. "We are a nation who is used to thinking big and acting with great scope. It is in our character, in our blood", the anonymous puppet president Dmitry Medvedev said in his "remarkable" speech last month, where his focus was the "historic mission of Russia in the world".

Since only the three Baltic republics have joined the EU so far, and are clearly connecting their future with that of the West, all the remaining ex USSR republics could still actually be brought back into the Russian orbit.

It was the Ukrainians who did the final nudge that prompted the collapse of the Soviets. In 1990 they started a series of mass protests insisting for independence and after the December 1991 events they voted in a referendum and 90% of them approved the disbanding of the USSR. But today the country is divided in two parts by a linguistic, ethnic and cultural divide that passes right through its middle. The western, more rural, and ethnically Ukrainian half hates Russia in their guts, and feels closer to Poland and Central Europe. The eastern part looks favorably at the Soviet era, speaks Russian and holds most of the industrial tools (plus the strategic ports on the Black Sea, where the Russian military navy is hosted through a lease on the Crimea peninsula, which was recently renewed).

Ukraine is now standing at the historic choice between a European path (possible EU and NATO membership, closer integration with the West), and its loyalty to Moscow. The old-new ruler Yanukovich is clearly Putin's guy. After the failure of the post-Orange-revolution government of Yushchenko, people in Ukraine were disgusted with the corruption and ineptitude of the "democrats" and turned back to the more familiar, if more tyrannical option. And that's a clear sign about the future course of the country. Some people in their high offices at the major oil and gas companies in Moscow must be rubbing their hands with delight - the way of their pipelines looks secure now.

Other parts of the former USSR are having it rather rough, though. Poverty and misery are still part of everyday life in Moldova and Tajikistan, both located at the two opposite corners of the "Russian world". The GDP per capita is $ 1,800 in the former and just $ 800 in the latter. Many people from Central Asia and the peripheries are flocking into Moscow, St. Petersburg and several other big cities in seach of a better life. Moscow is now one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe, it's full of Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Armenians, Georgians, Chechens, even Mongolians and various Siberian folks.

Meanwhile, authoritarian leaders reign supreme throughout Central Asia, some of them have been there ever since 1991, and they wouldn't hesitate to take the most drastic measures to curb the rise of both democratic movements and Islamic tendencies in their predominantly Muslim, but staunchly secularist states. Among all those countries, Kazakhstan has risen as a new regional power, resting upon its enormous natural resources.

Kyrgyzstan is maybe the only exception from the authoritarian rule. It's probably the only parliamentary democracy in Central Asia with somewhat-working institutions. Medvedev called Kyrgyzstan an example for a concept that everyone would hardly have imagined working in the region. But it had to pay a steep price for that, achieving that status through two revolutions, multiple coups and political crises.

Now 20 years after the collapse of the USSR, Russia is probably making its boldest move in attempt to restore its connections that were severed with the collapse. The Putin-Medvedev hydra has announced their new plan for an Eurasian Union, modeled after the EU, and designed for the former Soviet republics. "The Eurasian Union is Russia's way to retain its place among the global leaders". That's what we keep hearing everywhere around the government-friendly Russian media. Whether it's just some big talk for domestic consumption, or it rests on some real intentions, is yet to be seen. Most of the former Soviet republics are looking understandably reluctant to get back under the shade of the umbrella of Big Ivan, but they might not really have too much of a choice at this point.

Comments

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Well the background music helped, but it was too short to finish the read. Interesting read. Thanks for taking time.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

You could use this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_A7Hu0uKNw&feature=BFa&list=PL23E2275467DE0013&lf=results_main
The songs are loading one after another. :-)

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Gorby came out and said he thinks there should be a new vote; and international monitors have said there was significant fraud too. Putin for his part? Blames Hillary Clinton for everything. Ha.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Maybe Wikileaks knows something about Hillary's (non-)involvement.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, authoritarian leaders reign supreme throughout Central Asia, some of them have been there ever since 1991, and they wouldn't hesitate to take the most drastic measures to curb the rise of both democratic movements and Islamic tendencies in their predominantly Muslim, but staunchly secularist states.

I wonder when is the Central Asian spring going to come. And what will be needed for that to happen. Apparently these peoples are able to endure all sorts of hardships but at some point you just cannot take it any more and snap...

Yet another amazing article, thank you for this.

[malakh-abaddon.livejournal.com]

Just wait, its coming in so many places.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

The Russian people deserve much better than what they have had for the last 1 (2?) centuries, let alone those other peoples around them.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Maybe about ten centuries. The common theme of Russian history seems to be tears.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, they wound up taking over a full sixth of the planet and unlike the Germans wound up under totalitarianism with something other than an unmitigated disaster, going from Great Power to superpower. Russia as a rule has a mixture of both horror and unequaled and unrivaled success at imperialism and endurance. It IMHO was the only European superpower bar Britain for a damn good reason, and it's more than able to be a match for the entire EU from an economic standpoint. Even after all this.

In 1922 von Mises told the world this would eventually happen.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Few people believed him. Even those who supposedly hated Communism for "moral reasons" had no faith in freedom.

Re: In 1922 von Mises told the world this would eventually happen.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I appreciate your knee-jerk trademark citation of Mises, but communism didn't collapse because of its ideological flaws or moral depravity. It was the huge economic and cultural internal discrepancies that eventually sank the USSR.

Re: In 1922 von Mises told the world this would eventually happen.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

In 1922 the USSR was a newborn, agrarian state that inherited much of a former empire gutted by warfare. 40 years later it was a nuclear superpower in control of half a continent and the global leader of an ideological bloc that encompassed the great bulk of human global population. There was a reason people didn't believe him.

Re: In 1922 von Mises told the world this would eventually happen.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Dmitri Orlov has a different interpretation (http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2007/11/reinventing-collapse.html). It is happily dogma-free.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

One thing I've noticed through all my interactions with Russians, especially when experienced at their own turf rather than abroad: to use such a generalisation, they're deeply spiritual and immensely intelligent, but very traumatised people. I know it's not nice, but one can't help but feel pity. And probably a little awe at their resilience.

Also they've got one of the most beautiful languages ever. Their culture is a treasure really, and probably one of the things that will keep their head above water until they reach better shores. Which they will, sooner or later.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I admire your faith in people. Separate people probably deserve more faith in them, separately. But taken as a crowd, well... There are some other factors sneaking in.

That's not to say the Russians are doomed. It's to say the road for them will be as painful as it has always been.

"Wild-wild-west style capitalism"

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

You're invoking a mythology that never happened, certainly not the way dimestore novels and Hollywood imagined it.

Re: "Wild-wild-west style capitalism"

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I've actually lived in this system, still am. I know exactly what I'm talking about when I'm using that term.

Re: "Wild-wild-west style capitalism"

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually it did happen. The Gilded Age was an era of unrestrained magnates who preferred to use the Army as strikebreakers and the glory days of the most radical wings of American politics.

Just imagine it happening to the US, okay?

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

The thing is, it IS happening to the U.S. People are just as blind to it now as they were when it happened to the Soviet Union.

Re: Just imagine it happening to the US, okay?

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm so glad this write-up has provoked so many thoughts in you! :-D

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Let's not miss Belarus. Lukashenko may seem eternal there, but he's just Putin's puppy. He could go with a single snap of Putin's fingers and he knows it. But so far they both see more benefits from this symbiotic relationship than disadvantages. But Lukashenko should be aware by now that no-one is irreplaceable. Including Putin, by the way. A nice walk down memory lane, comrade.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

An awesome post. *two thumbs up.*

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

You don't wanna play... *sniff*
I was expecting you to blow all historical points to smithereens!

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

That song brings chills to my spine every time - love it! I wish I came from a culture with a rich tradition and haunting music, instead I have this:
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*pops another beer cap*

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Come ooon this is a brilliant piece! =)