Johnson's Russia List #5425 - September 4, 2001

First I have items on various topics on which interesting research has recently been published, organized under the headings: economy, society, ethnic relations, Russia and its neighbors, history, ideology.

Then there is a collection of items around the specific theme of prospects of democracy in Russia. More items on this theme, with an emphasis on the regional level, will appear in future issues.

A final section headed "Document" presents information from an important document that has not been widely circulated.

This structure is not fixed. I am sure that it will evolve.

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ECONOMY

1. FINANCING THE ZATO ARCHIPELAGO

Everyone has heard of the GULAG Archipelago. Fewer are aware of the ZATO Archipelago. ZATO is the Russian acronym for "closed administrative-territorial formations" -- the closed cities in which secret work of military significance is carried on. In most ZATOs this includes work with nuclear materials. In all, at least a million people live in a ZATO, separated from the outside world by a concrete wall.

Gregory Brock of Georgia Southern University examines the public finances of the ZATO archipelago in the September 1998 and November 2000 issues of "Europe-Asia Studies" [http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/09668136.html]. He examines 13 ZATOs, including one that is not in Russia but in Kazakhstan -- the city of Leninsk that serves the Baikonur space center, still on lease to Russia. There are other even more secret ZATOs, but these are the only ones on which any information is available.

In administrative and fiscal terms, ZATOs do not form part of the regions in which they are geographically located. Except for small sums of money from local taxes, they have always depended for revenue on various central funds and grants.

But between 1996 and 1998, and especially in the wake of the financial crisis of August 1998, federal support for ZATOs fell drastically, in some cases by over half. For the first time ZATOs have begun to depend in part on the budgets of surrounding regions: in particular, on the regional road funds for the upkeep of their roads. Housing, education, and social services are badly underfunded. From materially privileged enclaves, ZATOs have turned into zones with living condition worse than the Russian average.

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ECONOMY

2. GDP STATISTICS AND "BLACK CASH" TAX EVASION

Analyses of economic developments in Russia generally rely on official economic statistics. But how usable are these statistics? Our understanding of this problem is advanced by a study of "black cash" tax evasion by Andrei Yakovlev, director of the Institute for Industrial and Market Studies at the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, (in the January 2001 issue of "Europe-Asia Studies" [http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/09668136.html]).

It is widely known that much economic activity is concealed from view, e.g. by use of barter, for the purpose of tax evasion. "Black cash" serves the same purpose in the opposite way: cash payment is made, but no corresponding economic activity occurs.

Here is how it works. A fly-by-night firm specializing in black-cash operations pretends to offer construction, repair or other services to client companies. In fact, it produces nothing but documents enabling clients to claim non-existent expenses and thereby reduce their profit tax liability, and secretly returns the money "paid" -- minus a commission that represents payment for the real service, i.e. facilitation of tax evasion. There are also more complex schemes with more than two players.

Yakovlev's study is based on interviews, conducted in 1997-98, of 10 entrepreneurs (in industry, construction, trade, and transportation) and 3 other experts. The respondents' use of black cash varied from "low" to "very high." He concludes that new small and medium- sized firms tend to avoid taxes through black cash schemes, while large state and privatized enterprises avoid taxes by using monetary surrogates and accumulating tax arrears.

What are the implications for economic statistics? As the author points out, official statisticians do make an adjustment (adequate or not) for unreported activity, but make no such adjustment for reported fictitious activity. While it is impossible to be sure, it does therefore seem more likely that -- contrary to common assumption -- official estimates of GDP are biased upward rather than downward. It follows also that official statistics probably exaggerate the weight of the new private business sector in the economy.

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SOCIETY

3. INEQUALITY AND MORTALITY

V. Shkol'nikov, Ye. Andreev, and T. Maleva, eds. Neravenstvo i smertnost' v Rossii [Inequality and Mortality in Russia]. Moscow: Signal, 2000.

Since 1984, Russian mortality rates have undergone some remarkable fluctuations. They improved markedly in 1985-87, then sharply deteriorated in 1991-94, and recovered somewhat in 1995-98.

The impact of the changes was especially great on men, whose life expectancy in the mid-1990s fell short of women's by 13 years. Male life expectancy rose from 61 years in 1984 to 64 years in 1987, fell to 57 years in 1994, and was back at 61 years in 1998.

In this monograph, prepared under the auspices of the Moscow Carnegie Center, eight demographers from various Russian institutes and one from Harvard University's Davis Center of Russian Studies, try to work out why. They use data from censuses and surveys, including a long-term longitudinal study of 7,815 men in Moscow and Leningrad (St. Petersburg) between 1975 and 1997.

The authors show how mortality varies with social, economic, behavioral, and physiological indicators: sex, urban/rural, educational level, nature of occupation, employment status, marital status, ethnic group, generation, smoking, drinking, and body weight. But these variables interact with one another in complex ways, making it hard to identify basic causes. Deficiencies in the data make the task even more difficult.

The analysis suggests that socio-economic and behavioral factors make roughly comparable contributions to male mortality. This also makes sense in terms of the time sequence. It is reasonable to attribute the improvement in 1985-87 to Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign, as no big socio-economic shifts occurred at this time. But the deterioration that follows in the early 1990s is much greater than what can be attributed to the abandonment of the anti-alcohol campaign. The explanation must involve declining socio-economic conditions.

Educational level is a powerful predictor of mortality, despite the fact that it is less tightly correlated with income than in the West. (In Russia many highly educated professionals, such as teachers and physicians, have low incomes.) Cultural factors play a part: educated people tend to drink and smoke less, and in general to take better care of their health. Moreover, even adjusting for income, manual labor entails higher mortality than non-manual work, due both to greater physical stress and to more frequent occupational accidents and disease.

Differences in average educational level also seem to account for ethnic differences in mortality. Jews and Armenians, large proportions of whom are highly educated, have longer life expectancy than other ethnic groups.

Rural residents have rather higher mortality than urban residents, and inhabitants of small towns have higher mortality than inhabitants of large towns. This may be related to the availability of health-care facilities. However, it may be largely a result of the selectivity of rural-to-urban migration: that is, those who choose to migrate to the towns may be healthier on average than those who stay in the countryside.

The effect of marital status is similar to that found in Western studies. Single and divorced men have considerably higher mortality than married men, but no such pattern is evident for women.

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SOCIETY

4. A RELIGIOUS REVIVAL WITHOUT BELIEVERS?

Kimmo Kaariainen and Dmitry Furman, eds. Starye tserkvi, novye veruiushchie. Religiia v massovom soznanii postsovetskoi Rossii [Old Churches, New Believers. Religion in the Mass Consciousness of Post-Soviet Russia]. Moscow and St. Petersburg: Letnii Sad, 2000.

In 1991-99 a group of Russian and Finnish scholars studied the evolution of religious belief among Russians on the basis of a series of all-Russian surveys (in 1991, 1993, 1996, and 1999). The project, titled "Religion and Values After the Fall of Communism," was funded by the Academy of Sciences of Finland.

The researchers found a dramatic increase in the course of the 1990s in the proportion of Russians identifying themselves as Christian Orthodox -- from 27 per cent in 1991 to 82 per cent in 1999. The proportion stating that they had a favorable attitude to Orthodoxy reached an even higher level -- 94 per cent.

They also found, however, that real religious belief remained much less widespread than these figures would suggest. The proportion saying they believed in God grew only from 34 per cent to 61 per cent. Thus over a fifth of Russians take the stance expressed by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko in the statement: "I am an Orthodox atheist." For these people Orthodoxy is not a religious faith but purely a marker of cultural or ethnic identity.

But belief in God does not in itself make you a Christian, let alone specifically an Orthodox Christian. What kind of God? Offered a choice among various ideas of God, the majority of self-professed believers in God saw God as "something like a spirit or life force." Only 18 per cent (in 1999) believed in "a God with whom Man can establish personal relations." Specific Orthodox dogmas were accepted by even fewer (e.g. 10 per cent for the doctrine of resurrection of the dead). At the same time, belief in the occult is much more widespread -- e.g. 47 per cent said they believed in sorcery (not generally considered a Christian belief).

Only a small minority engaged in regular religious practice: 7 per cent went to church at least once a month; 4 per cent had taken communion in the preceding month; and a mere 1 per cent were in frequent contact with a priest.

The researchers conclude that "traditional believers" -- i.e. those meeting certain minimal standards of doctrinal belief and religious observance -- are a statistically insignificant part of the population. Moreover, as this group consists mainly of elderly people, it may disappear altogether! Then we would see the remarkable phenomenon of a religious revival without genuine believers, relying solely on a consensus that religion is a "good thing" (for others?) and the Russians an "Orthodox people."

Why not? After all, in the later Soviet decades people who really believed in communism were also a statistically insignificant minority.

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ETHNIC RELATIONS

5. VALUE SYSTEM OF CHECHENS IN THE 1990s

Zalpa Bersanova, Sistema tsennostei sovremennykh Chechentsev [Value System of Contemporary Chechens], pp. 223-49 in D. Ye. Furman, ed. Chechnia i Rossiia: obshchestva i gosudarstva [Chechnya and Russia: Societies and States]. A publication of the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Center. Moscow: Polinform-Talburi, 1999.

Arguments about Chechen affairs (including some in JRL) often hang on the extent to which contemporary Chechens remain under the influence of traditional Chechen values and customs. For example, is the failure to create an effective modern state in Chechnya to be attributed to the continuing centrality of clan [teip] ties, or are the objective conditions of an isolated and war-devastated society sufficient explanation? The debate tends to take the form of a clash between the divergent impressions of different observers, but pertinent sociological data are in fact available.

Zalpa Bersanova and the Sociological Laboratory of the Chechen-Ingush Humanitarian Research Institute surveyed the values of 840 Chechens in 1990, 1992, and 1995. The sample was broken down by sex, by age-group -- comparing the younger generation (17-30 years) with the elderly (60-80 years) -- and by type of settlement, comparing villagers of the Shatoi district in mountainous southern Chechnya, villagers in three northern plains districts, and residents of Grozny (now Jokhar).

Unsurprisingly, it was found that traditional values remain more widely held among the elderly than among the younger generation, and in the mountain villages than in Grozny or on the plains. There does not seem to be any consistent pattern relating values to sex.

But the most striking results concern change over time. If one had only the 1990 data to consider, one might conclude that the appeal of traditional values, even of such a classic Caucasian value as hospitality, is not very strong and could be expected to decline further. But between 1990 and 1995 there was a dramatic revival of traditional values.

The author attributes this revival mainly to deteriorating conditions of life, first under the Dudayev regime and then as a result of war. War demonstrated the futility of material possessions, and people compensated by attaching greater importance to spirituality.

The custom of blood revenge is another case in point. In 1990 a majority even of elderly mountaineers, the most conservative part of the population, rejected the custom, but by 1995 even young city-dwellers favored it by a large margin. With the complete collapse of law and order, blood revenge had become the only means of defense against crime.

One hopeful sign is that the value attached by the young to education, much lower in 1992 than in 1990, was again at a high level in 1995, as the idea took root that "all our woes stem from ignorance."

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ETHNIC RELATIONS

6. WHAT WAS THE "TATARSTAN MODEL"?

In 1992-94, special relations were negotiated between Russia's federal government and the government of the Republic of Tatarstan. The negotiations culminated in the signing on February 15, 1994 by Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Mintimer Shaimiev of a treaty on the delimitation of powers between the sides, supplemented by a series of sectoral agreements.

The relations that took shape on the basis of these documents constitute the "Tatarstan model," which has been widely acclaimed as a means of peacefully resolving conflicts that might otherwise escalate to wars of secession like those in Chechnya and Abkhazia.

President Putin has been unwilling to continue these special relations with Tatarstan. The Tatarstan model no longer applies to Tatarstan itself. But it will probably live on as an ideal in many minds, especially in the post-Soviet region. So it is not superfluous to consider what exactly the Tatarstan model was.

It helps to distinguish three "Tatarstan models":

(A) the model that Tatarstan leaders and intellectuals wanted, and tried to pretend they had got

(B) the model embodied in the text of the treaty and the agreements

What the Tatarstan leadership wanted is summed up in the wording of the question they addressed to the electorate of their republic on March 21, 1992: "Do you agree that the Republic of Tatarstan is a sovereign state, a subject of international law, that builds its relations with the Russian Federation and other republics and states on the basis of equal treaties?"

As Shaimiev and his colleagues were quick to assure the confused politicians in Moscow, this did not amount to a bid for independence -- a word not used -- from Russia. It was a proposal to form a confederation, or union of states, between Tatarstan and Russia. A confederation is a long-term association of states in which ultimate sovereignty (unlike in a federation) remains with the constituent states. The concept is familiar to people in the former USSR because the Soviet Union was formally -- and in its final days to some extent in reality -- just such a confederation or union of sovereign republics.

Russian ruling circles were divided in their response to this challenge. Some were determined to preserve Russia as a federation, albeit an asymmetric federation that gave the ethnic republics special rights not shared by the ethnic-Russian provinces. Others were prepared at least to move in the direction of a confederation.

Thus after the referendum passed, negotiations opened in Moscow with a view to concluding a treaty between Russia and Tatarstan. State Secretary Gennady Burbulis, who led the Russian delegation, told the leaders of the Tatarstan delegation at the outset that the Russian side was now prepared to accept "asymmetrical federation with elements of confederation." Indeed, the treaty would itself be an "element of confederation": federations do not normally conclude treaties with their constituent units (the USA with Florida, say).

By August 1992 a draft treaty, incorporating many confederal concepts and arrangements, was ready. But it turned out to be too much for most members of the Russian government to stomach. Negotiations were resumed in September, with the Russian team now led by Sergei Shakhrai. Shakhrai took a harder line, insisting that all "elements of confederation" be eliminated. The Tatarstan negotiators resisted until the winter of 1993-4, when Shaimiev -- worried that in the increasingly nationalistic climate of Russian politics further delay would jeopardize all prospect of a treaty -- intervened to ensure that the necessary concessions were made.

The result is an ambiguous treaty text that can be, and has been, interpreted in either a federal or in a confederal sense. Nowhere is Tatarstan referred to as "sovereign," but it is described as "a state united with the Russian Federation," which implies a confederal and not a federal union. The treaty guarantees "the preservation of territorial integrity" -- but of what is not explained. Of Russia? Of Russia and Tatarstan? Or of the union of Russia and Tatarstan?

Tatarstan is not, as it was in earlier drafts, a "subject" of international law or of international relations. It may not conclude treaties with foreign states, but only agreements with the approval of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There is no mention of Tatarstan having any diplomatic representation abroad. Tatarstan is to have its own citizenship, but questions of citizenship are to be regulated jointly with the center.

Certain provisions of the treaty and agreements preserve an appearance of sovereignty, but with little substantive content. For instance, Tatarstan is allowed a "National Bank," but one defined as a component part of Russia's National Bank, which determines its monetary emission and the average interest rate on the credits it gives. Tatarstan's customs service is similarly a branch of the Russian customs service, and quotas for Tatarstan's oil exports are set by the Ministry of Fuel and Energy in Moscow.

The powers granted Tatarstan are in some respects quite limited even for a unit of a federation. In the final treaty text the number of areas in which Tatarstan has the right to legislate is reduced from 18 to 4 (family, residential, environmental, and administrative law).

One area in which Tatarstan did get a good deal was that of property and finances. It has the right to levy and collect its own taxes, and keeps the proceeds of excise duties on oil, gas, and liquor. With specified exceptions such as military enterprises and railroads, it is recognized as the owner of productive assets and natural resources on its territory. This enabled Tatarstan to carry out privatization in its own way, to the benefit of local interests, and to keep out the oligarchs. (This is admittedly not a unique achievement: mayor Luzhkov managed to do the same in Moscow.) Tatarstan's relatively strong financial position allowed it to implement extensive road-building and other programs (although its finances have deteriorated over time).

In short, "Tatarstan model" aspired to by Tatarstan leaders and intellectuals is a confederal one, while the "Tatarstan model" embodied in the treaty and agreements stays well within the bounds of asymmetric federalism, with a few symbolic face-saving gestures in the direction of sovereignty (but not including use of the word itself).

In practice, relations between Kazan and Moscow have had stronger confederal elements that the treaty text would suggest. Although no provision was made for the kind of public joint political institutions possessed by explicit confederations such as the Russia-Belarus Union or the European Union, joint consultative working groups, operating on the basis of consensus, did function at the administrative level. Heads of Tatarstan branches of federal agencies were appointed only with the consent of the Tatarstan government (although this is the de facto practice in all Russia's regions, even now). And Tatarstan has been allowed its own representatives within some of Russia's embassies abroad.

The fragility of this sub-rosa confederalism, functioning at the discretion of the center, was exposed by its collapse as soon as the Russian leader who patronized it left office. Even the treaty itself was always of doubtful juridical status, having never been ratified by the Russian and Tatarstan parliaments. Could a real inter-state treaty be so unceremoniously jettisoned by one of its signatories? And is this a model that suspicious separatist regimes in other post-Soviet states might reasonably be expected to adopt?

[This article is based on research by Stephen D. Shenfield and P. Terrence Hopmann of Brown University, including interviews conducted in Kazan and Moscow, in the context of the project "Preventing Ethnic Violence," funded by the Carnegie Corporation.]

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RUSSIA AND ITS NEIGHBORS

7. WHAT IS "THE RUSSIAN-SPEAKING POPULATION"?

A current scholarly debate concerns the political significance of the category "the Russian-speaking population" -- a term widely used to refer to all the inhabitants of one of the newly independent post-Soviet republics whose primary language is Russian, irrespective of ethnic origin. Many of these "Russian-speakers" are not ethnic Russians. In fact, many belong to the titular group of the republic concerned (Russian-speaking Ukrainians and Kazakhs etc.).

Is "the Russian-speaking population" simply a statistical construct -- the set of those people who happen to live in a particular republic and to speak Russian? Or is it, actually or potentially, a focus of political loyalty that might serve as the basis for movements in favor of autonomy or secession?

In his book "Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad" (Cornell University Press, 1998), David Laitin of Stanford University argued that "the Russian-speaking population" may indeed be emerging as such a focus of political loyalty. Similarly, the primacy of the linguistic factor in the politics of Ukraine stands out in the work of Dominique Arel of Brown University. However, in the April-June 2001 issue of "Post-Soviet Affairs" [http://www.bellpub.com/psa/index.htm], Lowell Barrington of Marquette University presents evidence, based on surveys and focus groups conducted in Ukraine and Kazakhstan in 1998-99, suggesting that language is less important as a political factor than claimed by Laitin and Arel.

Barrington's respondents were aware of the concept of "the Russian-speaking population" and felt some attachment to it, but they chose it as the best definition of "who they were" less often than they chose citizenship, ethnic affiliation, or -- in the case of Ukraine -- region. "The Russian-speaking population" was a more popular concept among ethnic Russians than it was among Russian-speaking members of other ethnic groups.

Moreover, those Russian-speakers who did give "Russian-speaker" as their preferred identity were neither more nor less likely than other Russian-speakers to support the independence of their republic of residence. In contrast, those who identified primarily as ethnic Russians were less likely to support independence. It appears therefore that ethnic rather than linguistic identity remains the main source of anti-independence sentiment, at least in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

Barrington leaves out of account one form of identity that may still matter to many Russian-speakers. He gives his respondents the option of identifying themselves as citizens of their republic of residence or as citizens of Russia, but not as Soviet citizens. In their survey of ethnic Russians in five republics, conducted in 1995-96, Louk Hagendoorn and Edwin Poppe of Utrecht University (Netherlands) found 23 per cent of respondents who considered themselves Soviet citizens. In Kazakhstan this was the single most popular form of identification, chosen by 30 per cent of respondents ["Europe-Asia Studies," January 2001]. The interaction of "Soviet" and "Russian-speaking" identities is a research question of some interest.

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RUSSIA AND ITS NEIGHBORS

8. CHINESE MIGRANTS IN THE RUSSIAN FAR EAST

Alarmist perceptions of massive Chinese migration into the Russian Far East are assessed by Mikhail A. Alexseev (San Diego State University) on the basis of statistical data, a review of the regional press, interviews, on-site observation, and an opinion survey of 1,010 local residents conducted in September 2000 (March 2001 issue of "Post-Soviet Geography and Economics" [http://www.bellpub.com/psge/index.htm]).

The author demonstrates that the Russian Far East is not a very attractive destination for Chinese emigrants. Legal migration is on a modest scale (80,000 entering Primorye Territory in 2000), and illegal migration has been effectively controlled since 1994 by tight visa controls and spot checks. Chinese migrants are unlikely to constitute more than 1 per cent of the population. Most of them come from the neighboring provinces of China's North-East (Manchuria) to earn some money from trade or casual labor in construction and agriculture. Few want to settle permanently in Russia.

The attitudes of local residents toward Chinese migrants are mixed. The traders are appreciated for bringing in goods that would otherwise be unavailable, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, for bringing down prices, and for providing revenue for local government budgets. At the same time, there is hostility toward Chinese who make a lot of money by smuggling out rare plant and animal products like ginseng, ash-tree wood, and parts from poached tigers, deer, and bears. Many think that Chinese take jobs away from Russians, undermine local industry, and generate crime.

Above all, many Far East residents see the migrants as forerunners of a tidal wave that will swamp the region over coming decades, even though the present situation gives scant reason to expect this to happen. Similarly, while most respondents do not expect military clashes with China over border territories in the near future, they see such clashes as more likely to occur than not in the next 5-20 years. "Local residents," concludes the author, "have a reservoir of goodwill and cultural interest in China, but perceptions of political, demographic, and economic insecurity overwhelm positive feelings."

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HISTORY

9. RUSSIA AND THE CHECHENS: ETERNAL FOES?

Rossiia i severnyi Kavkaz: 400 let voiny? [Russia and the Northern Caucasus: 400 Years of War?] Moscow: Institut rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 1998.

This pamphlet was written by a group of five scholars at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences in order to demonstrate the falsity of the stereotyped idea according to which Russia has been continuously at war with the Chechens for 400 years. It is a pity, given the power of the myth of eternal Russo-Chechen enmity and the political importance of dispelling it, that the print run of the pamphlet was just 200.

The authors do not, of course, deny the reality of the devastating Russo-Chechen wars of the 19th and 20th centuries. But they point out that there have also been long periods of peaceful interaction between Russians and Chechens.

The first 300 years of co-existence between Chechens and Russian settlers in the Caucasus, from the 16th through the 18th centuries, involved episodic contacts, mainly for trade. War began only when Russia decided for geopolitical reasons to incorporate the Northern Caucasus directly into its empire. But even this did not "turn the Chechens into irreconcilable enemies of Russia." They could have been reconciled with the Soviet system on the basis of the autonomy permitted them in the 1920s, had it not given way to Stalin's repressions, culminating in the deportation of the Chechens in 1944.

"There was not, and is not, a single anti-Russian movement in the Northern Caucasus," conclude the authors, "let alone any kind of permanent war stretching over the centuries."

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IDEOLOGY

10. THE MYTH OF THE KHAZARS

Victor A. Shnirelman.
The Myth of the Khazars: Intellectual Antisemitism in Russia in the 1970s--90s.
Forthcoming from the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem [http://sicsa.huji.ac.il].

The history of state antisemitism in the USSR is well-known: the struggle against "rootless cosmopolitans" in the late 1940s, the "Doctors' Plot" of the early 1950s, and from the late 1960s the struggle against "World Zionism," accused of striving for world domination. What is less well known is how antisemitic propaganda has developed in late Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, the role it has played in the rebirth of the "Russian idea," and how this development has affected aspects of Russian historiography and belles-lettres. One fascinating aspect of this problem is the use of the euphemism "Khazars" for Jews and its relation to the image of the "Jewish Khazars" in the rhetoric and worldview of contemporary Russian nationalists. This is the focus of my book.

Like any other ethnocentric myth of the past, in order to be viable the Russian Idea required the discovery and publication of certain "truths." The first concerned the origin of the Russian people and stressed their original ownership of the whole territory of the former Russian Empire or USSR. The second focused on the evil agent who brutally distorted and thwarted Russia's development. The third emphasized that this malevolent agent continued to be a force throughout Russian history. Thus the struggle against this agent was and continues to be Russia¹s raison d¹etre. Russian history was seen to be both cosmic and messianic, with the Russian people serving as the savior of humanity.

In this context, the history of the Khazar Kaganate, which played an important yet not clearly understood role at the earliest period of Russia's state formation in the 9th-10th centuries, met quite well the demands of the Russian nationalist myth of the past, especially because the Khazar nobility converted to Judaism. This fact provided an appropriate pretext for arguing that Jewish intrigues and dominance were to be found from the very beginning of Russian history. This argument particularly affects Russian nationalists because the Russian state and culture were just emerging at that time and were especially vulnerable to external attacks and influences. For the Russian chauvinists this presents a good opportunity to accuse the Jews of encroaching on Russia from its very birth. This argument also conforms to the Jewish world-conspiracy "logic" of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and explains why the Khazar problem became a focus for antisemitic invective.

The following accusations about the Judeo-Khazars were and are made and elaborated by advocates of the Russian Idea: They brazenly occupied the southern steppes that were originally the homes of the Slavs. They engaged in financial exploitation and benefited from the trade in Slavic slaves. They hindered the formation of Kievan Rus, and then forced it to convert to the oppressive Christian religion. Hence the Khazars supposedly subjugated the Russian people and doomed Rus to 1,300 years of backwardness. At the end of this period, in order to destroy Russian culture, they organized the Bolshevik revolution and established a secret dictatorship that used Stalin as a puppet, with Lazar Kaganovich as the actual ruler (as if this "kagan" were a true heir of the Khazar ruler or "khaqan"). This myth was elaborated by some Russian nationalists in the 1970s and 1980s and disseminated widely in "patriotic" periodicals in the 1990s, when the Jews (Khazars) were blamed for breaking up the USSR.

The "Khazar version" of Russian history provided the old myth of Jewish conspiracy with new, seemingly powerful arguments, as well as a justification for Russia¹s leading role in the struggle against this mortal threat. This view of the past was manifested in several ways. It was developed in the early 1950s by some patriotic archaeologists who tried to prove that the Khazar Empire was just a "parasite state."

The historian Lev Gumilyov made a special contribution to this development by depicting Khazaria as a "chimera" whose goal was to exploit mercilessly the subjugated Slavic population. The Khazars or their most active segment were indiscriminately identified with the Jews. Ironically the book of Arthur Koestler, who argued that the Khazars were direct ancestors of the East European Jews, played a role in this development. My book analyzes how and why the "Khazar issue" has been treated in Soviet and post-Soviet historiography, belles-lettres, mass media, and textbooks, and how this issue is related to antisemitic discourse. Science fiction and belles-lettres are especially important in this respect since neo-Nazi trends expressed in these types of literature have become prominent and have contributed to preparing the ground for "scientific antisemitism" in contemporary Russia.

Ethnocentric myth-building is considered in terms of its content and meaning, social and ethno-political context, its producers and their strategy. This book demonstrates how the "Khazar myth" is embedded into antisemitic discourse and related to the idea of a "Judeo-Mason plot." It also illuminates major differences between various factions within Russian nationalism in their attitude and interpretation of the "Khazar episode." Finally, I argue that the "Khazars" became a euphemism commonly used by those Russian antisemites who would like to avoid being accused of antisemitism.

[Note. Victor Shnirelman is a research associate of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Until November 1991 he is Visiting Professor at the National Museum of Ethnology, 10-1 Senri Expo Park, Suita, Osaka 565-8511, Japan. e-mail: <shnirv@idc.minpaku.ac.jp>]

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POLITICS

THEME: PROSPECTS OF DEMOCRACY IN RUSSIA

11. DO RUSSIANS BELIEVE IN DEMOCRACY?

James L. Gibson of Washington University in St. Louis reports in the April-June 2001 issue of "Post-Soviet Affairs" [http://www.bellpub.com/psa/index.htm] the results of an all-Russian panel survey of about 1,400 respondents conducted in 1996, 1998, and 2000 to assess public support for democratic institutions and for the principles of a market economy.

Findings concerning support for democracy were mixed. Support for many democratic freedoms was expressed by large majorities that remained quite stable over time. Thus 85-95 per cent supported equality before the law and the right to privacy, while 70-80 per cent supported freedom of speech, publication, and religion and the right to protest.

However, freedom of association had support from only 50-60 per cent. A competitive multi-party system was also not very popular. Only a third of the sample agreed that party competition strengthened the political system, with a similar proportion saying that Russia needed one-party rule. The idea of outlawing all political parties appealed to 50-55 per cent.

The results do nonetheless suggest wider support for democracy than do the data collected by some other researchers. For example, a recent survey by Richard Rose of the University of Strathclyde (Scotland) showed 71 per cent with a positive attitude toward "the political system we had before perestroika," as against 38 per cent with a positive attitude toward "the present political system."

The results of the two surveys need not be incompatible. I suggest that many people may be in favor of democratic freedoms other things being equal, but not consider them adequate compensation for all the other things that they have lost in the post-Soviet transition. The Brezhnev-era system may be preferred for reasons that have no necessary connection with democracy or the lack of it -- e.g., because it provided stability and security. In other words, the majority may support democracy, but without putting an extremely high value on it.

A very significant finding is that there is no close relationship between support for democracy and support for economic reform. People make a distinction between the political and economic aspects of the present system, and are much less favorably inclined to the latter than to the former. For example, only 15-20 per cent accepted the proposition that "income inequality is necessary to the country's development," and a mere 2-3 per cent disagreed with the statement that "the income gap is too wide." As the author points out, the lack of correlation between support for democracy and support for economic reform casts doubt on the common assumption that economic failure undermines public support for democracy. I would add that the data indicate the strength of ideological orientations toward democracy without market reform (democratic socialism) and perhaps also toward market reform without democracy (market authoritarianism).

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12. WORLDVIEW OF THE "DEMOCRATS"

Alexander Lukin. The Political Culture of the Russian "Democrats." Oxford University Press, 2000. [http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-829558-8]

This book is about the "democratic" activists of the perestroika period whose mobilization of popular protest played such a crucial role in the downfall of the Communist Party regime. A detailed account is given of the ideological and organizational development of the "democrats," and their worldview is subjected to critical analysis. The author, who is director of the Institute of Political and Legal Studies, Moscow, makes use of a wide range of primary sources, including 67 structured interviews with former "democratic" activists. He is also able to draw on his own experience, having been a "democratic" activist himself.

Quotation marks have to be put round the word "democratic" because the author questions the depth and adequacy of the activists' understanding of democracy. He shows that the activists had very little contact with, or real knowledge of, Western societies. They developed their "democratic" convictions in the course of their own struggles as "truth-seekers" against the hypocrisy of Soviet reality. It was because the Soviet system maintained a formal pretence of being democratic that such personalities were able to emerge.

Thus the typical worldview of the "democrats" was a deviant offshoot of the official Soviet ideology, still bearing many of its characteristics. A common pattern was a simple reversal of signs: whatever official ideology deemed "good" became "bad" and vice versa. There was also a strong tendency for "democracy" to replace "communism" as an imaginary ideal society that would ensure absolute justice and happiness, in contrast to the pragmatic Western conception of democracy as "the worst possible system except for all the others" (Winston Churchill). Unrealistic expectations were bound to give way to cynicism and disillusionment.

Like most rebels, the "democrats" understood what they were against much better than they understood what they were for. Perhaps a better word for them would be "anti-totalitarians." As perestroika progressed, the "democrats" adopted increasingly radical variants of the anti-totalitarian ideology. The "democrats" were still held together by the existence of a common enemy, but with the approach of the post-communist era differences among them became more salient. One minority clearly articulated the goal of a free market economy on the Western model; another minority explicitly rejected the Western model in favor of democratic socialism; and in the broad middle between them confusion and ambiguity reigned supreme.

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13. RISE AND FALL OF "WOMEN OF RUSSIA"

Ye. F. Lakhova. Zhenskoe dvizhenie v gody reform: problemy i perspektivy [The Women's Movement in the Years of Reform: Problems and Prospects]. Moscow, 1998.

The strong showing of Zhirinovsky's Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia in the Duma elections of December 1993 came as a shock to many observers. But these elections brought another surprise, one with more hopeful implications for the future of Russian democracy. A new political movement called "Women of Russia" won 8.13 per cent of the vote and formed a Duma fraction of 21 deputies. In six regions they won 15-20 per cent -- i.e., about a third of the female electorate (82 per cent of their total vote coming from women). Hardly compatible with the common view that apart from a tiny Westernized minority Russian women find feminist causes irrelevant.

The story of Women of Russia is told by Yekaterina Lakhova, who was its chair. The movement was created by an alliance of women's organizations, the largest being the Union of Women of Russia, which was established in 1991 as a successor to the Committee of Soviet Women, whose resources and connections it inherited. Despite this pedigree, Women of Russia saw itself as part of the "democratic" camp, with the mission of giving the economic transformation a social orientation. It acted, in effect, as a social-democratic party. Through its presence on several Duma committees, it was able to exert some influence on legislation -- for instance, blocking privatization of the public education system.

The failure to break through the 5 per cent barrier a second time in the Duma elections of 1995 came as a big disappointment. Lakhova attributes the movement's defeat to a number of factors: Women of Russia was unjustly accused of supporting the war in Chechnya; other parties "played the women's card" by putting more women on their own lists; and activists of the broader women's movement were unwilling to commit their energies to building up a disciplined electoral machine in support of "their" politicians. In 1996 an attempt was made to turn Women of Russia into a "normal" hierarchically structured political party. But women's organizations, like environmentalist, anti-war, and other grassroots groups (and not only in Russia) tend to be too democratic in spirit to succeed in the world of "serious" politics.

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14. RUSSIAN FASCISM: A MARGINAL PHENOMENON?

Stephen D. Shenfield. Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2001. [http://www.mesharpe.com/srh_main.htm]

The task I set myself in writing this book was to assess the prospects of fascism in post-Soviet Russia. Is fascism if not an inevitable then at least a plausible outcome of the prolonged socio-economic crisis, as the popular analogy with Weimar Germany implies? Or is Russian fascism, as others have argued, a marginal phenomenon, and bound to remain marginal for deep structural reasons?

First I needed a workable concept of "fascism." My studies led me to understand fascism -- to use the expressions of the Italian fascist philosopher Julius Evola -- as "a rebellion against the modern world," an attempt to return to "the sacral and virile values" of the times before the Enlightenment and the popular upheavals of recent centuries. But unlike ordinary reactionaries, who want simply to return to a bygone age, fascists aim to harness mass discontent to build a "revolutionary" new order -- as do bolsheviks, the difference being that the fascists' new order is dedicated to the revival of old pre-modern values.

The next question I posed was: Does Russia have a fascist cultural or political tradition? I concluded that if Russia can be said to have a fascist tradition at all it is -- by comparison with Germany , Italy or even France -- a very weak one. Among the numerous writers and philosophers produced by 19th century Russia there were plenty of reactionaries, but only one who really prefigured fascism -- namely, Konstantin Leontiev, the "Russian Nietzsche." The Black Hundreds of the late tsarist period have been characterized as "proto-fascist," but any further development into full-blown fascism was cut short by 1917.

Assessing fascism in contemporary Russia is in part a quantitative problem. How strong are fascist organizations in Russia? The answer hinges, of course, on which organizations are to be counted as "fascist." If we regard, as many do, the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) as fascist, then we can hardly call the phenomenon marginal.

My analysis of these two parties did not allow me to classify either of them unequivocally as fascist. I was surprised to discover considerable ideological diversity within the LDPR. A "national liberal" or "imperial liberal" wing on one side (exemplified by the former LDPR governor of Pskov Yevgeny Mikhailov) counterposes a clearly fascist wing on the other, with Zhirinovsky keeping his options open. Thus the LDPR is not outright fascist, but it does contain a reservoir of fascist activists who would be released into the broader political environment in the likely event of the party's collapse.

Concerning the CPRF, we have to assess the new ideology introduced by Zyuganov and its status within the party. Zyuganovism is in a strong position but is far from fully permeating the CPRF. It is a form of great-power nationalism based on Eurasianist ideas, which means that it is not fascist, though it may have some potential to develop in a fascist direction.

The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) is portrayed by some as another hotbed of fascist tendencies. There is indeed a large fundamentalist wing within the ROC, but on the whole its ideology is not fascist but rather reactionary of the Black Hundreds variety, characterized by nostalgia for the "Holy Russia" of pre-Petrine times, an obsession with Satanic forces, and antisemitic paranoia. Patriarch Alexy has constrained the politicization of the fundamentalist wing, but there is no guarantee that future patriarchs will do likewise.

What then of the more extreme organizations, the fascist credentials of which are beyond doubt? Available information on them is fragmentary and contradictory. Estimates of the number of "fighters" in Russian National Unity (RNU), until its recent split by far Russia's largest fascist movement, ranged in the late 1990s between 6,000 and 300,000. Eventually I settled on a figure in the range 20-25,000. Plus 5-10,000 members of the National-Bolshevik Party and 15,000 or so Nazi skinheads, with a few thousand more divided among a multitude of smaller fascist organizations.

But figures for Russia as a whole conceal enormous regional variations. In many parts of the country there are hardly any active fascists, while in other places fascist organizations are very visible. The east and south-east of Moscow Province, Voronezh Province, and in the south the Stavropol and Krasnodar Territories were strongholds of RNU and now of its successors. Even in regions where the fascists are weak overall, there are often certain small and medium-sized towns where they have a strong presence.

Arguably none of this is incompatible with the thesis of the marginality of Russian fascism. However, marginality is not merely a matter of size. There is also the question of the relationship between fascist organizations and mainstream political forces. RNU forged close ties with many local and regional authorities -- and not only in areas under CPRF control (as the idea of the "red-brown" alliance would lead you to expect), but also in quite a few areas governed by Yeltsin loyalists or non-aligned figures. Such deals between RNU and local power-holders were based less on ideological sympathies than on an exchange of favors, with RNU making itself useful by providing strong-arm services as police auxiliaries and undertaking the pre-draft training of youth.

I conclude that there are indeed structural factors that block the path of fascist movements to central state power. Such factors are the general weakness of Russia's party system, now institutionalized by the new law on political parties, and the connected phenomenon of regional fragmentation of power, likely to remain considerable even under Putin. Under these conditions all ideological movements become increasingly dependent on "non-party" regional and central governing elites. The weakness of the fascist tradition in Russian culture also impedes the emergence of a coherent and united fascist movement.

What this does not exclude is a creeping penetration and co-optation of fascist elements into the existing power structures. Fascist paramilitary groups are evidently perceived by many powerful people as serving useful purposes -- above all, as insurance against the contingency of social destabilization. Even if this trend never does culminate in any political order that it would be correct to call fascist, its further development will put paid to any remaining hopes for democracy and civil freedom in Russia.

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DOCUMENT

15. THE CONDITION OF RUSSIA'S ELECTRICITY NETWORK

RAO "YeES Rossii." Svodnyi tekhnicheskii otchet po itogam otraslevykh meropriiatii po sboru informatsii, analizu i obobshcheniiu sostoianiia elektrotekhnicheskogo oborudovaniia energosistem Rossii [Summary Technical Report on the Results of Branch Measures to Collect Information and Analyze the Condition of the Electro-Technical Equipment of Russia's Energy Systems]. Moscow, 1999.

This report on the condition of equipment in Russia's electricity network, printed in a run of 300 copies, was prepared for a Unified Energy Systems (UES) conference on the subject in June 1999 on the basis of data provided by 95 local electrical facilities.

Thermal power supplies 64 per cent of Russia¹s electricity. Although the service life of the turbo-generators used at thermal power stations is 25 years, generators older than 25 years account for about half of total thermoelectric capacity. Many of the smaller generators are 40-50 years old, and some are even of pre-war vintage. Of the high-voltage electrical motors at the thermal power stations, only 10-15 per cent belong to contemporary models. In some parts of the country, motors produced in the late 1950s and early 1960s (and a few dating back to the 1930s) remain in use.

Hydroelectric power is the source of 19 per cent of Russia¹s electricity. Of the 256 generators of capacity 50 MW and above at hydroelectric power stations, about 60 per cent are at least 25 years old and have not undergone substantial reconstruction. Some generators date back to the late 1950s. The oldest were produced in 1940-41. Between 1990 and 1995, there were 23 accidents sufficiently serious to halt operations.

The immediate source of electricity to consumers is the local electric power substations. Much of the equipment at these substations is also badly worn out. Overall depreciation is estimated at 61 per cent. About 30 per cent of transformers and 43 per cent of high-voltage switches (in the range 110-500 kW) have gone beyond their service life of 25 years. A sharp decline in the reliability of the switches is expected over the next few years.

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